On October 14, the Buckeye Institute filed a state RICO action against the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) on behalf of two Warren County voters.
By Matthew Carr and Beth Lear, posted November 17, 2008
The
current public relations war against charter schools led by Ohio's
traditional public school district officials, teacher unions, and some
of their allies at the statehouse, has generated a number of myths.
It's time to set the record straight about how public charter schools
are...
The Ohio State Board of Education has just released a report with its recommendations for reforming school funding. The bottom line, according to the Columbus Dispatch:
The plan would establish a per-student base cost of providing an education, with additional money to meet the needs of poor youngsters, those with special needs, gifted students and those with limited English proficiency. It also calls for expanding all-day kindergarten statewide and providing special-education services for preschoolers.
Had the proposal been in place last school year, it would have boosted state aid to primary and secondary schools by nearly $1 billion.
Public charter schools have been under attack in Ohio since their creation in the ’90s. People and organizations who benefit from the status quo have worked overtime to either regulate or intimidate charters out of business. With the new anti-freedom, big government candidates that voters swept into office in Ohio and nationwide, expect the attacks against charter schools to increase with fervor.
In light of this expected negative climate for school choice, a new and timely report from the Buckeye Institute was unveiled last Friday. Matthew Carr and I have researched the numbers from the Ohio Department of Education’s own documents and found that, contrary to opponents’ claims, charters are INCREASING per pupil funding in each of the Big 8 schools. Additionally, if anti-school choicers succeed at their ultimate goal, eliminating charters altogether, property owners can expect substantial tax increases in Ohio’s urban districts.
The report includes data showing:
Local property tax dollars do NOT fund charter schools;
Each of the big 8 districts gain in per pupil funding for each child who leaves for a charter because while the state dollars go to the charters, the local dollars that remain are higher than the state dollars they lose, resulting in net per pupil gains;
Property owners in the Big 8 districts can expect to see attempts to raise their taxes in order to maintain current per pupil funding levels if charters fail and kids return to the public schools; and
Tax increases just to maintain funding would range from $300 to over $3,000 a year for a $100,000 home.
The Buckeye Institute’s Education Policy Director, Matthew Carr, spoke with 610WTVN’s Bob Connors this morning about education issues. They discussed Matthew’s new report on Public Charter Schools, the Governor’s education agenda, the State School Board’s new funding plan and teachers’ unions. Listen for yourself.
George Will continues to call the GOP on its hypocrisy, this time in his Sunday column explaining the hypocrisy of the McCain/Palin cry of “socialism”:
America can’t have that, exclaimed the Republican ticket while Republicans — whose prescription drug entitlement is the largest expansion of the welfare state since President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society gave birth to Medicare in 1965; and a majority of whom in Congress supported a lavish farm bill at a time of record profits for the less than 2 percent of the American people-cum-corporations who farm — and their administration were partially nationalizing the banking system, putting Detroit on the dole and looking around to see if some bit of what is smilingly called “the private sector” has been inadvertently left off the ever-expanding list of entities eligible for a bailout from the $1 trillion or so that is to be “spread around.”
Will goes on to note:
McCain and Palin, plucky foes of spreading the wealth, must have known that such spreading is most of what Washington does. Here, the Constitution is an afterthought; the supreme law of the land is the principle of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs. Sugar import quotas cost the American people approximately $2 billion a year, but that sum is siphoned from 300 million consumers in small, hidden increments that are not noticed. The few thousand sugar producers on whom billions are thereby conferred do notice and are grateful to the government that bilks the many for the enrichment of the few.
Read the whole thing here and let your anger boil at both parties, which each rush to embrace the chance to give away your tax dollars to a variety of special interest groups.
As the editors of the Cleveland Plain Dealer point out here, Medicaid’s burden on Ohio’s taxpayers is growing:
Medicaid enrollment by Ohioans has risen by 27,488 people since July 1, with roughly 16 percent of the new patients in the most expensive category (elderly, blind or disabled).
Thus, overall Medicaid spending is up sharply. From July 1 through Oct. 31, Ohio spent $3.97 billion on Medicaid. For the 2007 period, the tab was $3.62 billion. That’s a 9.7 percent increase — and a cold welcome for spenders’ letters to Santa Claus, care of Strickland’s Statehouse workshop.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. I predicted as much here:
Expanding Medicaid can lead to large increases in Medicaid spending when states can least afford it – during recessions. Ohio saw this earlier this decade when Medicaid spending increased dramatically during the recent recession. Spending grew at 11 percent annually during 2001 and 2004, squeezing other budget priorities at a time when the state was seeing reduced revenue. Expanding Medicaid now will only repeat this cycle during the next recession.
That “next recession” is now. Of course, the expansion pushed by the governor and approved by the General Assembly last year has been stalled by the federal government. Imagine what Medicaid would be costing if it actually took effect. We may not have to imagine, as Governor Strickland is pushing the feds to approve the expansion. When Senator Obama assumes the Presidency, it’s likely that Strickland will get his wish. That means even higher Medicaid spending next year.
Yesterday, WLWT in Cincinnati ran a story questioning the use of traditional public school buses to provide transportation for private school students. The opening paragraph of the piece sums up the issue: “Every day across the Tri-State, public school buses are used to take kids to private schools. It’s costing taxpayers millions of dollars every year and in this financial crisis some wonder if it’s time to stop.”
One of the many enduring quotes of Milton Friedman is that “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” Perhaps someone should have reminded the folks at WLWT that there are also no free bus rides.
In the next few months Ohioans will hear and read about many recommended changes to our K-12 education system.Governor Ted Strickland intends to unveil his plans for change early in the year, while the State School Board is going to be considering a plan to revamp education funding.
While it is certainly premature to judge the plans without having seen them–it would be wonderful if the recommended changes provided much needed help for children and taxpayers–I am choosing not to hold my breath.Why the cynicism?As our own David W. Kirkpatrick reports at www.freedomfoundation.us:
Kirkpatrick’s First Law of Reform: major change rarely lives up to the hopes of its supporters or the fears of its opponents.
David and I are not the only cynics. Consider these quotes:
It looks like the fallout from the passage of Issue 5 has begun. At least one payday lender is closing some of its operations, putting 150 people out of work. Of course, those who were supporting Issue 5 claimed payday lenders would stay in business and that jobs wouldn’t be lost. Maybe those who are losing their jobs can go ask Bill Faith if he has a place for them in his organization.
Change will undoubtedly bring new ideas and proposals to the forefront. As elected officials continue their work in Columbus and elsewhere, the Buckeye Institute will continue to provide insight and analysis on Ohio’s public policy developments.
