Joel Malin and Kathleen Knight-Abowitz of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, write here about the forces determining education policy in Ohio.
Ohio education policy is a train wreck. It is not benefiting students or teachers or society. So who is it benefiting?
In our view, it pays to start asking larger questions about EdChoice to understand how education policy is made in Ohio. Why, for instance, did this dramatic increase in voucher eligibility occur? Why would lawmakers experiment with such an expensive initiative, when studies of such voucher programs – including a rigorous study of EdChoice – have most often revealed large, negative impacts on student learning? And, in what universe does it make sense that schools would be judged, and voucher eligibility triggered, by students’ scores in 2013 and 2014 (but not 2015-2017)?
The great uproar around EdChoice should have us asking about how policy is made: specifically, whose voices are being elevated, and whose are being diminished, when Ohio education policy is being created?
Taking a step back, we can see that the policies adopted in Ohio are part of a broader pattern of favoring business and for-profit interests over those of community members, including parents, students, and teachers. In fact, community members’ perspectives are regularly ignored in favor of business lobbyists, charter school operators, and national influencers like U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos or companies like Pearson Education.
Ohio Excels, for instance, is a recently formed, powerful business interest group that’s “quickly emerged as a heavyweight lobbying force in education policy” in Ohio, as described recently by Aaron Marshall in Columbus CEO magazine…
Many of the assumptions and methods of the business world do not neatly transfer into education. In addition, parents and communities want students to be good citizens and well-rounded thinkers, as well as good workers, when they graduate from schools.
When private sector interests dominate education policy discussions, other perspectives are routinely ignored.
Most important are the views of professional educators, who have firsthand knowledge and expertise that can shape our policy decisions in realistic and positive directions. Their participation would also serve to prevent lawmakers from making disastrous, foreseeable errors.
Education policy in Ohio and a few other states, including Indiana and Florida, has been powerfully shaped by the interests of for-profit, pro-business, and private education providers in the past decade.
In a broad and general sense, they are right, of course. The voices of educators have been silenced. Control has shifted to for-profit, pro-business, and private providers.
But what they are missing are the two most important links in this chain of influence: the D.C.-based Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which lobbies constantly for pro-business policies, and ALEC, which writes model legislation that promotes vouchers and charters.
Before Lisa Gray “founded” Ohio Excels she identified herself to me as the representative in Ohio for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. That was back in 2016. She had been listed as a free-lance consultant for Ohio Philanthropy and was actively trying to intervene in a faux “stakeholder” survey and rounds of “feedback” sessions for a new Ohio educational plan.
Two board members for Ohio Excels are well-known Cincinnati business tycoons whose public reputations are polished by donations to arts, cultural, and social service institutions. That practice is supposed to give them immunity from criticism.
Ohio Excels is all in for privatizing education while seeking public subsidies for that. In many Ohio communities, including Cincinnati, the current voucher scam (EdChoice) is a political and financial gift to “approved” private schools run by religious groups.They choose their students and no EdChoice voucher is sufficient for tuition. SCAM is the only word for this mess.
State Senator Peggy Lehner introduced Lisa Gray to a group of OH Bats as her “Go to education expert” — Ick! I knew then we were in big trouble. That was probably in June of 2017. Shame on OH legislators for listening to sham “educators” like Lisa Gray. As far as records show she has never taught in Ohio. She earned her education degree, I think, in Indiana in the late 80s or early 90s then moved to Ohio and started her family but didn’t teach (which is fine). BUT, to label herself as an education “expert” is disgusting. Her only expertise is in being a mom of children in a wealthy suburban OH district. She has NOTHING to offer the discussion of how to teach children in different circumstances than her own. Gross.
What else is new?
Most government policies these days are written by lobbyists and corporate CEOs.
Obamacare was.
The governor finally steps in to the voucher mess the ed reform lobbyists made:
“Gov. Mike DeWine will meet this week with Ohio Senate President Larry Obhof and House Speaker Larry Householder in an effort to resolve differences on Ohio’s private school voucher system.
Obhof spokesman John Fortney said late Tuesday that the three will talk about policy options moving forward.
That news came after a five-day period in which the voucher debate went from loud, long and public to eerily quiet.”
Still nothing accomplished on the PUBLIC schools 90% of the kids in the state attend- once again public school students are the dead-last priority in Columbus.
They spent last year expanding private school subsidies and they’ll spend this year fixing the mess they made. No work at all accomplished that benefits public school students.
https://www.limaohio.com/uncategorized/399395/dewine-calls-meeting-on-vouchers