The Ohio Green Party on fixing funding of public education

[Towntalk]

What about a fair distribution of state education funding so that wealthy communities don't get more money than the less wealthy.

Likewise more local control over curriculum. There is material being foisted on local schools by the U.S. Department of Education that has absolutely no business being there.

[irishbobcat]

The State of Ohio must ensure that its citizens receive appropriate education opportunities in order to eradicate poverty, reduce crime, and assure proper medical care. We call for a comprehensive and holistic approach to insuring the equitable, quality education programs in Ohio. Ohio needs to the educate all of Ohio's children to sustain the well being of the entire state. The Ohio state constitution article 6 says we " will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state" The Ohio Green Party stands behind this article of the Ohio Constitution.

The Ohio Green Party supports equitable funding of all Ohio school districts, and we support the following three goals of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding:
Goal 1: Develop a comprehensive needs assessment of current facilities.
Goal 2: Develop standards that clearly define high quality education for Ohioans; establish a "per-pupil funding level" required to meet these standards; create a new system of funding which will assure each district adequate funds to meet these "per-pupil" standards and which will diverge from "excessive reliance on property tax as a funding source."
Goal 3: Provide immediate relief to districts operating without the funds necessary to meet the new standards, based on need as opposed to the budget-based emergency assistance of the "School Solvency Assistance Program" or further reliance on property taxes.

Meaningful civic education should be mandatory for Ohio's secondary school curriculum. Students should be involved in programs that teach them the power of democracy and the responsibility of citizenship at an early age. Programs such as student government, peer mediation and peer counseling should be used to address the ever-growing trend of emotional and psychological abuse among students that has shown in recent years to lead to violence. In this way, students should be encouraged to be part of the solution.

The GPO recognizes that 20% of the adults in Ohio function at the lowest levels of literacy and that only 85% of the adults over 25 have a high school or equivalency diploma and calls for the end of the marginalization of adult literacy programs. We support funding of programs that offer adult literacy education, vocational training, and family literacy as a means to break the cycle of illiteracy and poverty.
Current Governor Ted Strickland and the Democrats and Republicans have put education funding reform on the backburner. It's time to make funding education a number one priority in Ohio.