Public education supporters rally at the U.S. Capitol in early February, speaking out against proposed cuts to the federal education budget, and the possible elimination of the U.S. Department of Education. Members of the Ohio Education Association attended the rally.
(Photo by Jati Lindsey, courtesy of the National Education Association.)
With state and federal funding up in the air, Ohio teachers are speaking out about what budget cuts would mean to their districts, about the importance of public schools to families and communities, and about how schools need to be strengthened to prioritize students’ futures.
In her 31 years as a teacher in Cleveland Public Schools, Tracy Radich has never felt the need to fight for public school funding as much as she has this year, with state and federal budgets both giving public schools uncertain futures.
“Having everything be so up in the air and … how we prepare and think about what might happen next school year, it makes me very fearful and very worried for the future of my school, my students,” said Radich, who has spent her career at Joseph M. Gallagher School, where she currently teaches third grade.
Radich joins many public school advocates in questioning the funding of private school voucher programs in Ohio at a rate of more than $1 billion last year, while public schools who educate 90% of the state’s student population sit on pins and needles awaiting the fate of their funding.
The state budget is currently being developed by the state legislature, but debates have been raging about whether or not funding for a model that’s been in place for years, called the Fair School Funding Plan by supporters, will stay in place for it’s last round of phase-in funding.
Members of the Republican supermajority have questioned whether or not the plan is sustainable, and while Gov. Mike DeWine’s executive budget included the final phase-in of funding, public education advocates criticized the governor’s lack of inflation inputs as part of the final round of funding.
Even one of the authors of the funding model, former state Rep. John Patterson, spoke out at a League of Women Voters of Ohio event to say leaving out inflation inputs would “create disruption” in the formula, increasing the costs for taxpayers.
Dan Fray, a middle school English-Language Arts teacher and educational technology instructor with Toledo Public Schools, sees rallies and days of action as ways to raise awareness of what public school teachers do for the vast majority of students in the state.
“We didn’t become teachers to get rich or to do anything but help students learn,” Fray said. “In this day and age, we didn’t become teachers to get cussed at or told what we’re doing is wrong.”
To bring more attention to their cause, Radich and Fray will be part of a “day of action” on March 4, when teachers who are members of the their local teachers unions, along with the Ohio Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers as a whole, will promote education as the spending priority they think it should be.
The action will start first thing in the morning at Radich’s school, with a celebration line of teachers welcoming students at the start of the day, and passing out information to parents about the impacts of funding changes on their child’s education.
Some teachers will head outside in Toledo, where Fray said signs will inform passersby of their aims, and blue shirts worn by teachers show educators’ desire to “preserve public education.”
“We’re not protesting to say we hate the governor or we hate the budget or anything like that, it’s more what education is about and where we are in it,” Fray said.
The view of the role of educators, particularly within the legislature, has “taken a hit” over the years, Fray said. He and Radich agree that despite the varying needs of school districts across the state, standardized testing has become king.
“These high-stakes tests, by the time any data comes back from that, my students have already moved on to the next grade, so those tests don’t really help,” Radich said. “They inform the state, they punish schools, but they don’t really help the students.”
In Fray’s view, state testing has impacted education decisions to such a degree that “the world is definitely a teach-to-the-test kind of world,” to the detriment of teaching and education in general.
Focusing legislation and budgetary decisions on test scores that don’t give a full view of education, and the expansion of private school vouchers not only misses the point of education, the teachers say, but flies in the face of multiple state supreme court decisions ordering the state to bring back a thorough and equal system of learning in the state.
“From a classroom teacher standpoint, it just seems like that continues to get ignored, and at this point, not only does it seem like it’s ignored, but they’re thumbing their nose at it,” Fray said.
Disruptions to the federal contribution to the state’s education budget could add even more problems to the system, as Ohio’s school districts receive an average of about 10% of their revenue from the feds.
“I don’t think people realize how cuts made in Washington, D.C., are going to directly impact thousands of children in Cleveland, Ohio, in rural communities and urban communities, everywhere,” Radich said.
For some Ohio educators, that meant traveling to D.C. and standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol earlier this month, to engage with members of Congress and urge rejection of changes or possible elimination of the U.S. Department of Education.
Those who went to D.C. hoped to sway leaders against proposed cuts to programs within the education department, especially those benefitting lower-income students through Title I funding, and students who qualify for federal career training and college grants and loans.
According to the Ohio Education Association, more than 800,000 students in the state receive Title I funding, and special education programs in Ohio would lose more than $550 million in proposed federal cuts.
“Ohio educators and parents expect elected officials to prioritize our students’ futures and strengthen our public schools, so they remain a cornerstone of opportunity and equality,” the Ohio Education Association said in a statement following the D.C. rally.
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