Got Child-Centered Funding?
Monday, May 18th, 2009
The Columbus Dispatch editorialized last week about the Strickland plan for public schools:
Strickland’s plan and his proposed budget would lock Ohio’s schools into business as usual, only with more money. It invests huge amounts of money in simply hiring more teachers, counselors, nurses and other employees — hence the enthusiastic union support — as if simple hiring ratios can fix what’s wrong with public schools.
Meaningful change would come from bypassing this inertia-prone system and, instead, allocating state dollars to individual students, taking into consideration any special needs such as disabilities and lack of English-language proficiency, and allowing families to apply those dollars to the schools they think are the best fit for their child’s unique needs.
What would an Ohio education finance system that allocates dollars to individual students look like? See our report “A Child-Centered Solution to School Finance in Ohio” for a detailed road map on how to move from our current status quo-centered finance system to one that is truly family friendly and quality oriented.
