Gov. John Kasich wants a major overhaul of Ohio school funding that focuses on bridging the wide gaps in income and property values among districts, while also giving charter schools the same level of state money that traditional districts get. While he announced his plan Thursday, how exactly the dollars will change for individual districts and charter schools under the plan will not be available until next week.
The Republican governor told a gathering of a few hundred superintendents and advocates of charter schools and voucher programs that the plan will make Ohio’s school funding constitutional by boosting poor districts’ revenues up to what richer districts can raise through taxes.
He also stressed that no district will lose money under the proposed aid formula over the next two years. That earned him immediate, though cautious, support from superintendents, many of whom had been bracing for cuts.
“I know a lot of you were very worried there would be significant cuts,” Kasich told the gathering organized through the Buckeye Association of School Administrators. “There are not. There are mostly increases.”
Dick Ross and Barbara Mattei-Smith, two of Kasich’s main education advisers, said the long-promised plan calls for $6.2 billion in basic state aid for the 2013-14 school year, a 6 percent increase over this year, and $6.4 billion for 2014-15, an extra 3.4 percent.
Additional items, including $300 million for grants to encourage innovation in districts, bump the total cost of the plan to $7.4 billion for 2013-14 and $7.7 billion for 2014-15.
The plan does not make any further changes to reimbursements schools receive for the phase-out of business taxes.
Superintendents left the 90-minute session wanting to see the spreadsheets detailing exactly what their districts will receive. Even those from richer districts who don’t stand to gain much, if any, new money from the plan had praise for it.
Many school districts in Ohio stand to gain from a new school funding plan proposed Thursday, with an emphasis toward helping poorer districts. However, districts with higher personal incomes and property values will get the same amount as they do now from the state.
Under the plan, charter schools will receive differing amounts of state money, depending on each student’s home district. Today, they get about $5,700 per student from the state, plus money to address student poverty and disabilities, regardless of where they live. The plan calls for charters to receive a base of $5,000 per student, with additional money keyed to what the state gives the student’s home district.
Charter schools will also receive an additional $100 per student to help pay for their buildings, something charter school advocates have been pushing for.
Stephanie Klupinki, a vice president with the Ohio Association of Public Charter Schools, called the facilities funding “a huge step forward” on a major issue for her group. She said she expects charter schools to be pleased with the overall plan for aid, but she wanted more details before passing judgment.
However, Ohio House Democratic Leader Armond Budish of Beachwood said the charter proposal “simply pads the pockets of unaccountable for-profit charters while short-changing Ohio’s public school children.”
More vouchers for private-school tuition also would be available through Kasich’s plan.
Now, eligibility is mostly limited to students who would otherwise attend low-performing schools. But that would be expanded next school year to any kindergartner whose family earns below 200 percent of the poverty line. First-graders and kindergartners would be covered the second year.
Vouchers also would be given to K-3 students in districts that consistently fail to meet the third-grade reading guarantee.
The extra cost would be about $8.5 million in the first year of the new budget and $17 million the second year.
Matt Cox, executive director of School Choice Ohio, applauded the voucher proposals, saying they will give low-income parents choices that are available now only to more affluent families. But State Sen. Eric Kearney, a Cincinnati Democrat who serves as minority leader, said he thinks the expansion would be “destructive to the quality of life in the state” by weakening neighborhood schools.
Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern also slammed the proposal, saying the increases won’t make up for education cuts Kasich made in his current budget. Because of those cuts, more than $1 billion in new tax levies have been on the ballot since May 2011, Redfern said in a statement.
For his part, Kasich said Ohio now has more jobs, which means more revenue for the state to provide resources for schools.
The school-funding plan will be part of the two-year budget Kasich plans to unveil next week. The proposal then will be taken up by state lawmakers.
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