The editorial, "Just tossing more money at schools won't solve problems," is misleading and paints an incomplete picture about Ohio's recent school funding history. For the record, the Rutgers/Education Law Center report from the story praised school funding in Ohio as fair and adequate, using 2009 data. In 2009, funding reforms in House Bill 1, signed by then-Gov. Ted Strickland, added to fairness. More recently, schools took $2.9 billion in cuts from our current governor, who threw out the old funding formula without establishing a new one. This year's data will surely tell a more dismal school funding story.
This report could have avoided a false sense of progress on school funding. Next week, in public meetings all over Ohio, legislators and corporate-led education policy groups should listen to a different story of struggle and lost opportunities for students. Now is the time to focus on investments in classrooms priorities that build the foundation for public schools that 90 percent of Ohio students attend.
There is a growing surplus in state tax revenue that the current administration refuses to use to address the growing crisis in school funding across Ohio resulting in more and more reliance on local property taxes and school levies due to state cutbacks. What we need is a constitutional education funding formula that puts students at the center of the reform and invests in classroom priorities that build the foundation for student learning.
Dion Prunty
Lowell
