The state school board should not be taking votes about a bill that would change the entire state education bureaucracy, Rep. Bill Reineke, the bill’s sponsor, said Wednesday.
Reineke, a Tiffin Republican, blasted Tuesday’s vote by the board to oppose the bill as a “self-serving” attempt to ” interfere in the internal deliberations of the Legislature.”
He also questioned the board’s motives in opposing the bill.
“The board is concerned that its duties would be taken away,” he wrote in a response to the board’s vote, adding, “The state board is aiming to thwart an initiative that has the potential to help fix our broken education system.”
House Bill 512 would merge the state education, higher education and workforce departments into one, with the stated goal of streamlining efforts to better prepare students for jobs. The bill would also shift 80 percent of the power of the partially-elected state school board to an appointee of the governor.
Reineke and other supporters have pointed to Ohio’s growing mismatch in the skills of Ohio high school graduates to what employers seek as a call to overhaul education in the state. They have also pointed to large numbers of graduates needing remedial classes once they go to college as further evidence of a system that needs to be changed.
In a conversation with The Plain Dealer, he questioned why the state should protect this system instead of moving to another structure.
The bill picked up support of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday.
But state board members and others have opposed the plan. The board on Tuesday voted 11-4 against the bill, saying the new “mega-agency” would be less open to public input and scrutiny and would violate the spirit of the 1953 state constitutional amendment creating the board.
Board members have also told the House committee that the bill would remove the board from setting detailed rules for carrying out broader laws the legislature passes. The public hearings the board has now would vanish, they said.
Board member Lisa Woods of Medina told House committee Wednesday that the board is needed as a check and balance. An appointee could declare policies the political right hates – like transgender bathrooms, providing needles in the name of safer drug use, and giving Planned parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union a strong voice – all without any debate.
Policies the political left would hate – like abstinence-only sex education, creation studies or the NRA leading school safety discussions – would never have hearings either.
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