Recently, there has been a trend in states with a supermajority of Republicans in the Legislature to seize the reins of power in every realm. First, they gerrymander the state to assure that the other party has no chance to win control. Then they strip power where Democrats exercise any authority. In North Carolina, the Republican Legislature removed power from the Democratic governor. In Wisconsin, the Republican Legislature followed suit. In Ohio, with a Republican Legislature and Governor, the Governor took control of education away from the mostly elected State Board of Education.
The Ohio State Board resisted. It even sued. But a judge ruled that the governor had the authority to take control of education policy away from the State Board, even though voters gave those powers to the State Board in 1953.
Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy provided the context:
Judge rules that state level governance of education can return to the Governor’s office, notwithstanding that Ohioans, in 1953, transferred education governance from the Governor’s office to the State Board ofEducation via a constitutional amendment.
Article VI, section 4 was added to the Constitution in 1953 by the citizens of Ohio. At that time, the governance of education was embedded in the governor’s office. Ohioans passed a constitutional amendment to have education governed with the same model as used at the local level—citizens elected on a non-partisan basis to govern school districts. Local districts were not and are not now governed by other governmental jurisdictions—mayors, city councils, county commissions, township trustees.
In Ohio’s current political climate, the will of the people is summarily disregarded, even though the Ohio Constitution states that “all political power is inherent in the people.” (Article I, section 2) Notwithstanding this powerful constitutional safeguard for the folks, a Senate leader in Ohio recently said publicly, “We kinda do what we want…”
The Court, in other words, overturned the will of the voters and the state constitution.
Jan Resseger, who lives in Ohio, describes the evisceration of the State Board of Education.
She writes:
Education Week‘s Libby Sanford recently covered the education governance battle in Ohio, where the legislature just seized control of public education standards and curriculum by eviscerating the power of the Ohio State Board of Education and moving control of the state’s public schools under the political control of the governor and his appointees.
Sanford explains how the leaders of Ohio’s gerrymandered, supermajority Republican legislature folded the school governance takeover into the state budget after the legislature had failed on its own to enact the the plan to gut the power of the State Board of Education: “(T)he Republican-led Ohio state legislature passed a two-year budget that included a provision converting the Ohio Department of Education, led by a superintendent chosen by the State Board of Education, into the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, led by a director appointed by the governor. The budget also… includes a requirement that schools adopt a state-approved reading program by the next school year and a ban on the use of the three-cueing method in literacy instruction. The move changing how education is overseen in The Buckeye State strips the 19-member State Board of Education—of which 11 members are elected and eight are appointed by the governor—of its powers to… set academic standards and set frameworks for school curricula, limiting the board to decisions on teacher disciplinary and licensure cases and disputes over school boundaries.”
According to the provisions of a 1953 state constitutional amendment, Ohio’s state board of education will continue to exist but will lack any power to control significant policy. Its members will continue to appoint a state superintendent of public instruction, but that individual will serve as a mere advisor to the governor’s appointee who will control the state’s primary public education governance and operations.
In Ohio, two members of the State Board and another parent, on behalf of their children enrolled in public schools, along with the Toledo Board of Education filed a lawsuit to block the governor’s seizure of the powers of the state board. A judge has allowed the takeover to move forward, however, while the case makes its way through the courts. On November 3, 2023, plaintiffs’ attorneys submitted a brief in support of the plaintiff’s objections to the magistrate’s decision.
Sanford examines the political takeover of Ohio’s public schools in the context of a broader national trend among legislatures and governors to introduce partisan bias into governance of an institution that has historically been protected: “(T)he state (Ohio) isn’t the first to make a move of this kind… (E)specially over the past few years, lawmakers and state leaders have taken more aggressive action on state education policy, enacting laws that limit what teachers can talk about in the classroom, greatly expanding school choice, and requiring that schools notify parents when their children seek to use pronouns or names that don’t align with their sex assigned at birth.”
Sanford interviews Jeffrey Henig, a professor of education and political science at Teachers College, Columbia University, who identifies Ohio’s insertion of politics into the governance of the state’s public schools as part of a growing trend across the states. He calls the move, nonetheless, “a high-risk proposition.” Henig explains: “(A)t the start of the 20th century, around two-thirds of states elected their chief school officers. By 2010 that number had dropped to less than 30 percent. Many states, like Ohio, gave the power to choose a state school officer to state boards, while others gave that power to the governor. ‘The general story is there’s been this long, slow shift in formal authority… but more recently governors getting more directly involved.”
Citing examples like Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida and Governor Kim Reynolds in Iowa, Henig hopes that perhaps the new trend will run its course: “Public education can be a hot potato issue… You can get your hands burned by being too closely involved… General-purpose politicians will realize that education isn’t a sure winner for them and succumb to the pressures, many of which are legitimate, to make their mark in other areas of domestic policy rather than stick their noses right in the middle of these swirling waters of culture wars.”
As a citizen in Ohio who values public schooling, I hope Henig is correct. The danger for our children of inserting politics and ideology into the public schools has become clearer not only through the insertion of culture war bias into state legislation, but also as lobbyists pressure politicians to adopt ideology-driven education theories and even specific curricula from think tanks with known political biases. Ohio is an example. Dee Bagwell Haslam, whose family owns the Cleveland Browns, is a major contributor to the campaigns of Ohio’s Republican politicians. She also serves on the board of Jeb Bush’s ExcelinEd. Dee Haslam has lobbied Governor Mike DeWine and the Ohio Legislature to promote one of ExcelinEd’s priorities: the Science of Reading. In this year’s state budget, the Ohio Legislature mandated that all Ohio public schools will adopt the Science of Reading as their sole reading curriculum.
In Schoolhouse Burning, his excellent exploration of the history of public education, Derek Black, an attorney and professor of constitutional law, describes the reasons why, in the period immediately following the Civil War, the authors of many of the state constitutions created state boards of education that would be independent and resistant to political meddling in public schools’ standards and curriculum:
“States… guarded against the politicization of education by vesting constitutional authority in the hands of education professionals (or at least people solely focused on education)… Following the Civil War, state constitutions increasingly established a state superintendent and/or state board of education. Doing so ensured that the individuals entrusted with administering education and setting various education policies would not be wedded to any geographic or political constituency. They were to act on behalf of all the state’s children and exercise their best judgment, hopefully devoid of the normal politics of the state house. And unlike the heads of transportation, agriculture, commerce, and police, for instance, these education officials would not serve at the pleasure of the governor or legislature.” (Schoolhouse Burning, pp. 220-221)
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Gov. DeWine tapped Steve Dackin as head of Ohio K-12 education.
Despite Dackin’s previous ethics investigations.
Dackin signed a settlement with the Ohio Ethics Commission.
To avoid CRIMINAL prosecution in October 2022.
Dackin did not take any compensation for the 11 days he was in charge of the Ohio Department of Education.
The conservative think tank Fordham Institute’s Vice President for Ohio Policy and Advocacy Chad Aldis praised DeWine’s appointment of Dackin.
https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2023/11/10/gov-dewine-taps-steve-dackin-as-head-of-ohio-k-12-education-despite-previous-ethics-investigation/
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!!!!
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Kathy, why was Dackin under an ethics investigation?
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COLUMBUS, Ohio – Steve Dackin, who spent 11 days as Ohio’s superintendent of public instruction before resigning amid an ethics investigation, signed a settlement with the Ohio Ethics Commission.
Under the terms of the settlement, the Ohio Ethics Commission will not refer its investigation to any public prosecutor. Dackin will be required to attend three hours of ethics training and agreed to not apply for the state superintendent job again until Feb. 26, 2023.
Dackin had access to the applications for the job as the committee conducted its search to replace DeMaria. Days before the application period ended, Dackin resigned from the Ohio State Board of Education and submitted his own application for the job.
The settlement agreement said it’s a “potential violation” of state law that Dackin discussed the employment opportunity with an Ohio Department of Education official and others. The official was likely Stephanie Siddens, the interim state superintendent at the time who Dackin met with before he applied, according to the settlement agreement.
State law prohibits officials from soliciting or accepting anything of value that could be construed as having an improper influence upon public employees or officials with respect to the official’s duties.
“Employment or the promise of future employment is a thing of value,” the settlement states.
https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/10/steve-dackin-one-time-ohio-schools-superintendent-signs-settlement-agreement-for-ethics-violations-avoids-criminal-prosecution.html
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Former state superintendent Steve Dackin, who served for 11 days in 2022 and resigned due to an ethics violation, has now been appointed as Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s director of the GOPee Newly-Created Department of Education and Workforce.
The new position is similar to what Dackin previously occupied as the state superintendent, but in a newly created department. This summer, the state budget created & appointed a new Department of Education and Workforce, which TOOK OVER most of the duties of the Department of Education.
The OLD Ohio Department of Education still exists, but its duties have recently been limited to teacher licensure, school territory changes and other such matters. The curriculum development and testing parts of the department have moved to the Department of Education and Workforce.
This is how the Governor of Ohio simply created his own private/parallel DOE. With a hand-selected Dackin Director to do his bidding.
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A vote for the GOP is a vote for authoritarian rule that will undermine the rule of law and the democratic will of the people.
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Thanks for this article. It’s of course a terrible idea to turn education over to a politically chosen governor. But it’s an idea that is discussed in every Ohio governor’s administration, partly because governor’s feel they get blamed whenever citizens get concerned about the condition of their states’ schools. And, of course, that concern has been fed and overfed by critics of public education. I was active in the Celeste administration, 1983-91, where Democratic Governor Celeste felt the unfairness of such criticism, and advisors discussed somehow giving him more authority over the schools. As a Celeste supporter and sometime advisor, I shared his concern and sense of unfairness about the situation. But, as an educator, I advised against any effort to “take over” the public schools’ direction or management. For whatever reason–I believe because Dick Celeste thought public education more important than his political career–no major action was taken toward getting control of the State Board or any other of the levers of power over education. Celeste instead signed a collective bargaining bill which gave teachers and other employees the right to bargain with local school boards, and provided resolution mechanisms–including the right to strike. The current dilemma with the current governor is a difficult one. The only answer I know is to elect governors and parties who believe in democracy and free–in all senses of the term–public education. That quality is hard to find in today’s Republican Party.
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Jack, thanks for the Ohio context.
In NYC, Mayor Bloomberg took control of the schools, turned them into a city department. He made grandiose promises. Big schols were broken into small schools. Hundreds of charter schools. Constant disruption. It’s hard to discern what, if anything, is improved.
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Those running Ohio demonstrate daily their contempt for democracy. On Tuesday, votes were in favor of enshrining abortion rights in the state’s Constitution via a ballot measure, so now the GOP is scheming to manuever to dismantle that vote. They want to take enforcement from the courts and hand it to the gerrymandered legislature.
Back in August, voters turned out to reject a measure designed to keep the abortion issue off the ballot by raising the bar for passage from a simple majority to 60%. That failed. Next, the GOP was allowed to place very confusing language about the abortion amendement on the ballot, including incendiary lies that the amendment “would always allow an unborn child to be aborted at any stage of pregnancy, regardless of viability.” As if women go through thirty-eight weeks of pregnancy and say, oops, no, changed my mind. As if it were not just 1% of abortions that occur after 24 weeks, all of them tragic for one reason or another.
When you seek to impose minority rule, that is autocracy.
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The contempt for democracy in the GOP OF Ohio, North Carolina, and Wisconsin is shocking.
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Jessica Valenti shows how abortion is waking folks up to this very contempt for what we the people actually want in governance; when you deprive half the population of the most personal of all decisions, there is a reckoning:
And while it’s the popularity of abortion rights drawing attention to Republicans’ attacks on democracy, voters don’t like to be tricked, or lied to, no matter what the issue.
The very public post-Roe battles have been shining a light on everything from gerrymandering to state Supreme Court elections—and have given voters an up close look at all the different ways politicians try to stop them from having a say in their own lives and futures. The fact that it’s abortion driving that debate just makes the consequences more urgent—and voters’ anger more palpable.
https://jessica.substack.com/p/can-abortion-save-democracy?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=11153&post_id=138845235&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=1cllq&utm_medium=email
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“The danger for our children of inserting politics and ideology into the public schools has become clearer not only through the insertion of culture war bias into state legislation, but also as lobbyists pressure politicians to adopt ideology-driven education theories and even specific curricula from think tanks with known political biases.”
There have always been “politics and ideology in the public schools.” Nothing wrong with that per se as that is how our governance of “public” concerns should be.
Where the problem lies is with the injection of regressive christian theology (and yes, that aspect has been there historically) to such a broad realm of governance. . . all the while those theofascists disguising their religious beliefs and desires as “freedom of thought/choice.”
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