Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (left) and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton (right). (Photos: Morgan Trau, WEWS.)
The future of public education in Ohio looks different depending on who wins the governor’s race. While Democratic candidate Dr. Amy Acton wants to fully fund public education so districts can thrive, Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said schools must first achieve results.
On May 5, schools asked voters for more money. Although many existing fees have been renewed, generally speaking most tax-increasing bills failed. These districts face complex decisions.
“Children have access to a really high-quality education that meets their needs – that’s where we need to spend taxpayers’ money,” Acton said.
Schools will be underfunded by nearly $3 billion over the next two years, according to the nonpartisan research group Policy Matters Ohio. Current school budgets currently include cuts to jobs, activities and sports.
Some Republicans say schools must prove they deserve more money.
“We need to see improvement in academic performance,” Ramaswamy said.
Ramaswamy proposed adding literacy requirements, but did not answer our direct questions about school districts’ concerns about funding.
“How will the funding situation be fixed?” Ramaswamy was asked.
“Well, I want to talk about the results, and then what we need to get those results, we’ll talk about financing,” Ramaswamy said. “But this is a school debate, a school policy debate – (it) should not be a debate about accounting.”
Schools argue that this is a Rule 22 – when districts receive less funding, they will perform worse and have less to offer. Underperforming schools say they cannot improve without funding.
Ramaswamy then presented an alternative.
“No one should be trapped in a failing downtown Cleveland school district if there is a better option,” he said.
Ramaswamy welcomed the private school voucher program, known as EdChoice, which allows families to employ taxpayer dollars to send their children to private and religious schools. In the last state budget, lawmakers allocated $2.5 billion for vouchers.
“Almost all of the vouchers went to children already attending private schools,” Acton said.
Our research has shown for yearsthat the enormous majority of families using vouchers have always sent their children to these schools and have never used public schools.
Ohio law allows any family, regardless of income level, to receive the money.
We asked each candidate the same question – and had to ask it multiple times – to get answers.
“Should millionaires be able to get a private school voucher?” we asked Acton.
“We need to figure out what is happening with these vouchers,” she said, noting that transparency and accountability need to be increased. “We would certainly look at what would be a reasonable income to get additional support.”
Ramaswamy also dodged this question.
“I think that the choice of educational path is important and I will not answer slapstick questions that are one-time mistakes,” he said.
Right now, hundreds of schools are in a legal battle with the state, claiming EdChoice is unconstitutional and charging them money.
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This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and are published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication on other news outlets because it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.
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