Online school attendance, funding issue presents unique opportunity for change

 A lawsuit filed by the Electronic Classroom
of Tomorrow raises bigger questions about
howOhio should fund schools - or students -
in the future.

There's a school attendance debate raging in Ohio and the outcome impacts more than just students and parties in a lawsuit.

The debate raises a bigger question of double standards when it comes to attendance and whether or not funding based upon attendance is the right way to allocate state monies.

It also presents Ohioans with an opportunity to truly think "outside the box" when it comes to providing kids with an education.

But in order to understand that bigger question and the opportunities, some background is necessary.

At issue in a lawsuit filed earlier this year is whether or not ECOT, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, has to provide student log-in data to the Ohio Department of Education and whether or not such log-in data can be used to determine ECOT's funding.

Several things brought us to this point:

• In 2014, Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) issued a report showing that Ohio's community schools - also known as charters - were not doing well.
• House Bill 2 - an overhaul of the state's rules regarding charter schools - was passed
• A preliminary audit of ECOT was conducted in March

The CREDO report highlighted several issues in the way Ohio's charters are structured and recommended more accountability and transparency, especially for charters that contract with outside management firms to be their operators.

The report also raised concerns about how online, or e-schools, are measured in terms of the performance of the students.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute followed up with 10 policy recommendations to address the problems revealed in the report,

The result was House Bill 2, passed in 2015 and effective Feb 1, 2016.

Included in that measure was a requirement for each e-school to keep an accurate record of each individual student's participation in learning opportunities each day.

But the bill was effective half-way through the year and when the state conducted a preliminary attendance audit of ECOT in March, it found students were only spending about an hour a day logged in to the computer, meaning they couldn't achieve the required 920 hours of online learning in the school year.

ECOT is paid based upon the number of students enrolled. Without proof of the required 920 hours, the state could require ECOT to return the funds it received for each student.

According to numerous media reports, the amount could be as high as $80 million out of the $106 million total ECOT received.

ECOT sued to prevent the state from using the on-line attendance data as the criteria for funding.

There's no innocent party in this mess, except the student.

HB 2 took effect mid-year and most of the on-line schools had their software up and running back in September for the start of the school year.

Changing the software to monitor log-in times isn't just a matter of coding; students and parents would have to be trained on the proper way to do the log-in and mid-year implementation presents a logistical issue for e-schools because their students are spread across the state.

The state says their manual for conducting reviews of attendance has always given them the ability to examine log-in data, regardless of HB 2, but ECOT says that if that's the case, then the requirement is an agency rule and should have gone through the official rule-making process, including a public comment period, before being implemented. It did not.

Compounding all this is the fact that ECOT has a contract with the state that they say governs the information they must provide - except the contract has no expiration date and has been in effect since 2003.

Clearly everyone agrees that students should be logged-in and participating in learning more than one hour a day, otherwise, the discussion would be about the minimum requirement of 920 hours - and it's not.

But if the state is going to base funding for an e-school on how many hours students are actually participating on line throughout an entire year, shouldn't that same criteria apply to other, traditional schools as well?

Currently, traditional district schools in Ohio take attendance in what is known as "October Count Week." It's one week, usually with a lot of hype and incentives, where attendance is taken and reported to the state. That attendance number determines how much state funding will go to the district.

Ohio law addresses issues of truancy, non-attendance and switching schools, so there is follow-up for when a student stops attending.

But the state doesn't come back in June and deduct funding when a school's students haven't attended the full amount of required hours.

So why should it do so for e-schools?

In 2012, it was discovered that several districts across the state were scrubbing attendance/test data in order to remove poorly-performing students from the test scores reported to the state. As a result of the scandal, the state auditor conducted reviews of various districts and made a series of recommendations.

In the final report, the auditor recommended "basing state funding upon year-long attendance numbers, i.e., that money follow the student in approximate real time. Doing so would create an environment in which school districts that currently use attendance incentives for October Count Week—often with great success—would themselves have incentives to encourage attendance throughout a student’s entire year. Importantly, schools that break enrollment under such a system would suffer a loss of funding as a result." 

In a recent appearance at the Columbus Metropolitan Club, Auditor Dave Yost said the "nature of online learning makes it impossible to base funding on attendance."

He has a point. A student could log in, go outside or watch TV or even sleep, and come back five hours later and log-off. There is no way the e-school can really know what a student is doing when they log in.

Yost said the state should transition e-school funding to "a system based on information learned." He made a similar suggestion at the Ohio Charter School Summit.

"At the end of the day, we’re trying to buy a process that produces a numerate, literate citizen,” Yost said. “Why not pay for learning instead of hours in a seat or hours in front of a screen?"

Good question.

If we're going to pay for learning for e-schools, why not pay for learning for all schools, traditional district schools and charters?

What is the purpose of two different measures when it comes to funding?

And if we're going to change the criteria for funding, why not entertain a complete revamping and let the funding the follow the child?

Let's think outside the box:

Ohio could allocate the state's funding to the parent and child and let all schools compete to provide the education. Based upon the family's choice, the school gets the child's allocation. Parents would then be able to choose the school that best fits the individual needs of each child and the school's performance (test scores, state report card, etc...) will be a criteria parents can use to make the decision.

Such a process would result in schools getting funding based upon performance, as Yost suggests, except it will be the parents making the decision rather than the state or the district.

And states already utilize a similar method with SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, where funds are allocated to individuals who choose certain authorized items at any of a number of locations. The approach for education funding could work in a similar way.

The problem is that too many districts and unions would object to such a complete overhaul of funding.

But times are changing. We have Millennials, the parents of the future, who are used to online activities. They prefer a sharing economy (think Airbnb) and take for granted instant access to information on everything from the healthiest foods to reviews about attractions.

They're also used to relying on user ratings to help them make decisions about where to eat, what events to attend, where to stay or which Uber driver to use. As they have children, they will employ the same processes for evaluating schools and they'll wonder why, unlike everything else in their lives, they are limited in choice by their zip code.

With all the things going on in Ohio, now would be a good time to completely rethink how we provide a quality education that meets the needs of each individual student.

The biggest question is this:  do we have the will to do what it takes?

Ohio school choice programs good, but could be better

Ohio ranks well when it comes to providing students with educational choices, but there is still room for improvement, a new report says.

The American Federation for Children (AFC) and the American Federation for Children Growth Fund recently reviewed 50 private school choice programs and ranked them according to their ideal program in terms of student eligibility, scholarship amount and program size, and transparency and accountability.

Ohio's Income-Based Scholarship Program, also known as the EdChoice Expansion, ranked 7th overall. The EdChoice Scholarship ranked 16th and the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program came in at 22nd.

In the Voucher category, the Income-Based Scholarship was 3rd, the EdChoice Scholarship was 9th and the Cleveland program was 10th.

Ohio's three programs in the rankings are all voucher programs. The other categories in the rankings are those that allow students to select a private, including religious, schools through tax credits or Education Savings Accounts (ESAs).

Vouchers were graded according to:

• how many students were eligible to participate in the program,
• the average scholarship amount as a percent of the state's public school per pupil spending, 
• accountability in terms of testing, annual financial reporting, proof of financial viability.

Despite the good rankings, all Ohio programs lost points in the grading system because participating schools are not required to provide annual financial reports or proof of financial viability. They also lost points due to limits on participation.

The Cleveland Scholarship Program is only available to students in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. The EdChoice Scholarship Program is only available to students who would otherwise attend a low-performing school. The Income-Based Scholarship Program is only available to students just above the income limit to qualify for free or reduced lunches.

While Ohio's scholarships are good, AFC has recommendations for policymakers wanting to improve the programs.

It recommends increasing the cap on scholarship amounts in the Cleveland program. The average scholarship amount is $4,437 - only 43% of the state's public per pupil spending average.

"These caps should be raised so students have additional quality choices and scholarships cover more of high school private school tuition costs," the report says. "Funding should be available for robust scholarships for all eligible students who want one."

Whitney Marcavage, the report's author, says that ideally, scholarship amounts should equal the total amount of the state and local share in the state's average public per pupil spending.

"But most states don't do that," she explained. "It's not just Ohio."

She also said that in some areas, the quality of private school choices is an issue.

"Additional funding would increase the options for parents," she said. "Additional funding also spurs the demand for new schools to open or for existing schools to expand to accommodate more scholarship students."

Marcavage also said that states should look at the total amount of tuition needed for grades 9-12 and provide scholarship amounts that match 100% of the tuition.

"Most scholarships do a good job of covering elementary school tuition, but fall short when it comes to high school," she said. "Children should be able to continue their private education and not have to leave a school of choice because the scholarship isn't enough to cover the costs."

AFC also recommends eliminating the low-performing school requirement from the EdChoice program.

"Failing school programs are hard to implement and they limit choice for students whose schools may be failing them but are not officially designated as failing by the state," the report notes.

Complicating this criteria is the fact that Ohio recently changed its school grading system making it more difficult to identify which schools qualify as "low-performing" over time.

As with the Cleveland scholarships, AFC recommends increasing the EdChoice scholarship amounts which average $4,139 or 41% of the state's public school per pupil spending.

The Income-Based Scholarship Program was enacted in 2013 and had 5,594 participants in the 2015-16 school year. AFC recommends increasing the income limits so more children are eligible, but advises that low-income families should be prioritized if the limits are raised.

It suggests that partial scholarships should be eliminated and that students be allowed to stay in the program once enrolled, regardless of changes in the family income.

Since this is a new program and only covers grades K-2, the average scholarship amount is $3,567 which is 35% of the state's public per pupil spending. The average should increase as new grade levels are added each year, but scholarships are capped at $4,650 which AFC says should be raised.

When it comes to accountability, AFC says private school choice programs should be transparent and accountable to both parents and taxpayers. But what form the financial accountability should take, considering the private nature of the schools, is not identified.

Marcavage said that very few states include financial reporting as a requirement.

For example, a report showing that for each scholarship received the student attended the full year, or that refunds were issued if the student left the school would be a good start, she explained.

She also said it was important for states to verify that a school is viable, especially if it's a new school.

"The last thing you want is for a school to start up and then close half-way through the school year because it couldn't make it," she added.

Marcavage said ideally financial reports would comply with standard accounting procedures, be audited to ensure the report is free of misstatements and accurately represents the costs to educate the student, and include proof that the school is able to repay any funds that might be due to the state.

She added that the reports would be limited only to the records relating to scholarship recipients.

Ohio has two other scholarship programs but because one is for special needs students and the other is for students with autism, they were not included in the report's rankings.

Ohio budgets billions more than it needs to

www.themediabriefing.com

As the Ohio General Assembly debates the state’s biennial budget, a new report says the state is spending too much.

Gov. John Kasich’s proposed budget increases spending by $5.4 billion, “representing a trend of unsustainable public-spending growth” the 2015 Piglet Book says.

And taxpayers will end up paying nearly $1.8 billion of that increase.

The House-passed budget isn’t much better, with taxpayers footing the bill for $1.7 billion in increased spending.

Greg Lawson, a policy analyst with the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions and a co-author of the report, said now is good time to look at historical spending growth, especially with tax reforms included in the budget proposals.

“The governor wants to get rid of the income tax – and we agree with that,” Lawson said. “Our difference with him is how we get there. The solution to eliminating the income tax is to reduce spending in a strategic way over a period of time so we don’t have to look at increasing taxes elsewhere to offset that reduction, like the governor’s budget does.”

Lawson and co-author Tom Lampman say policy recommendations in the report could save taxpayers $2.6 billion in the 2016-17 budget.

One recommendation is to limit spending growth to not more than 3 percent, taking into account inflation and population.

“Some people question if it should grow even that much,” Lawson said. “But I’m a realist. Before you can run you have to be able to walk and we have yet to walk in terms of keeping spending at that 3 percent level.”

Ohio’s spending over the past 20 years was 17 percent over the rates of inflation and population, the report says.

But if the state loses population, should the spending decrease accordingly?

“A very cogent case can be made that that should happen,” Lawson said.

Overall, Ohio hasn’t lost population, “but in theory, if we do, we absolutely should reduce spending,” he said.
The second recommendation is to end corporate welfare, saving taxpayers $212.9 million.

The Piglet Book specifically names the Horseracing Development Fund, Agriculture Market Development fund and TourismOhio as examples of corporate welfare.

“You’re using a government entity to impose and collect taxes within an industry and then the government is paying to produce ads to promote the industry,” Lawson explained. “You don’t need the government to do that for you. If you want to spend that money, you can hire an advertising firm and pay them out of pooled resources from within the industry.”

Lawson said this type of “user tax” is better than using General Revenue Funds directly, but still is not something government should be doing.

“Why does it need to be funneled through a government entity? Just keep the government hands out of it and hire someone to do it for you,” he said.

It’s also duplicative.

“Attractions and areas have their own advertising budgets. Look at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or the Hocking Hills area. There are numerous entities and chambers of commerce that do advertising all the time,” Lawson said. “Let thousands of marketing ideas bloom. It doesn’t need to be cycled through and have the government spend money on it.”

The third recommendation is to end government advocacy and philanthropy, saving nearly $55.7 million.

The Ohio Arts Council, the report states, receives $20.9 million in income and sales tax revenue to distribute to artists and galleries, making the state the “arbiter of taste and culture.” It says Ohioans are “more than capable” of choosing what artists to support “without the government’s guidance.”
Lawson said there were a lot of examples they could have highlighted but they tried to be pragmatic.

“We understand that changing minds on this is not something that is likely to occur overnight,” he explained. “It comes down to the core functions of government and if you decide something really is a core function, then how are you going to sustain the growth in funding that it will require?”

He says it really is about jobs and the quality of living in Ohio.

“The expanding scope of government makes cutting spending harder,” Lawson said. “As long as we keep spending like we are, when the next recession hits we’ll end up cutting a lot more of government in order to meet the budget, or we’re going to have to raise taxes and eliminate all the reforms we’ve made to date.”

Lawson said the recommendations are intended to put Ohio’s budget in the best position to weather future recessions so that the current economic growth can continue.

“We’re still not where we should be in terms of job growth,” he said. “We have some systemic problems we have yet to address and we cannot address those if we simply keep spending.”

Lawson also had a recommendation for Ohioans.

“Keep your eyes on government,” he said. “This book is just a snapshot of what is going on. We’re spending more than we need to – at all levels of government.”

But, Lawson warned, it will be a tough road to follow.

“There are a lot of people on both sides of the aisle who get it, even if they don’t always agree on the specifics,” he said. “At least there will be a dialogue and an effort at making the big-picture reforms so we can be freer and have a more prosperous Ohio.”

Gov. John Kasich’s office did not respond to a request to comment on the report and the recommendations.

Ohio should adopt education savings accounts

Photo Credit: Independent Institute

Let's face it, the demographics are not on our side.

Based upon 2030 census projections, there will be a large increase in the number of K-12 students in the United States.  The under-18 population is projected to increase 11.3 million by 2030, while Ohio's youth population is projected to decrease by about 100,000.

But that doesn't mean Ohio won't have issues with education because the over-65 population is going to continue it's current trend in the state and increase.

And what happens when the Baby Boomers (born between 1944 and 1964) reach 65? They become eligible for property tax breaks, homestead exemptions and, because they are on "fixed" incomes, less likely to support increased school funding via levies.

The bottom line is that school districts will have less funding while many in the state see an increase in the number of students.

The same old - same old, won't work ... which is why Ohio should follow Arizona and Florida in establishing an educational savings account (ESA) for all K-12 children.

Ohio is already known for the number of school choice options it has available, but an ESA could replace them all and give all parents (not just certain ones) a choice for their child's education.

ESAs work very much like a 529 college savings account, except it's the state, not the parent, adding funds to the account.

It works like this:

The state sets an amount of funding for each school-aged child.  Sometimes it's the exact amount the state would give a local school on a per-pupil basis; sometimes it's a little bit less.

The money is deposited into an ESA account and the parent can draw upon those funds for certain approved items - everything from private school tuition to tutoring to transportation to special enrichment classes that aren't offered at the local school. They can even use it for college classes while still in high school.

Anything not spent in a year rolls over and accumulates in the child's name.

The states already operate a similar system with food stamps, giving out debit-like cards to be used only for approved purchases, so this concept shouldn't be too hard to implement.

Yes, there are a lot of stories about waste, fraud and abuse in the food stamp EBT card system, but the lessons states have learned about preventing those should help them devise a similar robust system for ESAs.

Plus, having Arizona and Florida to turn to, there will be even more good advice on how to design and implement such a system in Ohio.

The future educational options should be more than just government-funded coupons that allow parents to choose between public and private schools.

We need to think about education as more than just an assembly line that we run kids through based upon their physical age.  ESAs would work well to allow parents to tailor the education to the needs of the child.

Of course there will be a lot of opposition to such a massive change - primarily from public school districts who have had a monopoly on education for so long.

But if those public school districts - teachers and administrators - really want what's best "for the children," they should allow every child to have a choice and then compete with the other options for the students.

It's certainly doable and it would allow children to have the education that best suits them - but it would take considerable political will and personal strength to make such a massive change in the structure of K-12 education.

Does Ohio have such a champion?  Probably not now. But, as the demographics show, we're going to have to do something soon or the children will be the ones who suffer the most.

Ohio looks to overhaul charter school laws

Some of the issues raised in a lawsuit
against White Hat Management are
addressed in a bill to overhaul Ohio's
charter school law.

A series of events, including a lawsuit, has led the Ohio General Assembly to propose updating the laws on charter schools.

Saying they wanted to address issues of transparency and accountability, Rep. Mike Dovilla and Rep. Kristina Roegner, both Republicans, introduced House Bill 2 which would significantly alter the relationships charter schools have with their sponsors and management companies.

Much of the language was the result of an existing lawsuit pending before the Ohio Supreme Court which deals with ownership of the equipment in a charter school.

The case is Hope Academy Broadway Campus, et al. versus White Hat Management Company et al.

The main question is whether White Hat, which Hope Academy hired to perform day-to-day management of the charter school, owns the equipment purchased for the school, or whether White Hat was merely acting as the agent for the school which would then have ownership of all goods purchased on its behalf.

And since charter schools - also called community schools - are public, there is another issue of whether or not management companies can be audited for how the public dollars are spent.

It's an intriguing case and it has implications far beyond the 10 charter schools that are part of the lawsuit. The Ohio Supreme Court ruling can have implications for any company receiving public dollars to perform a public service.

But the General Assembly didn't want to wait and thought it best to address this - and other - issues in an overhaul of the law regarding charter schools, their management companies and their sponsors.

Just to clarify, there are three entities in a public charter school. A sponsor is a local school district, an educational service center, a university or a non-profit entity. Each charter school has a governing authority which is usually a board, like traditional public schools have elected school boards.

Then there is the operator. An operator can be an individual or company that performs day-to-day management services via a contract with the sponsor; or it can be a non-profit organization that provides programming oversight, again through a contract with the sponsor, though it retains the ability to end the contract if the school fails to meet its quality standards.

Under H.B. 2, a low-performing charter school would not be allowed to change sponsors without the prior approval of the Ohio Department of Education.

It also addresses various contractual issues:

• Contracts between sponsors and the boards must contain performance standards, including the applicable state report card measurements.
• Contracts between sponsors and the boards must include an addendum with a detailed description of each facility and mortgage data (principle, interest and name of lender).
• The financial plan in the contract between sponsor and board is subject to review and approval by the Ohio Department of Education and must include the most recent financial statements for the school.
• All new and renewed contracts between the board and the operator must include provisions that address early termination of the contract, the notification procedures and a listing of facilities and property ownership.
• Sponsors must provide a yearly report of the amount and type of expenditures made to provide oversight and technical assistance to each school.
• Requires copies of financial and enrollment records be sent monthly to the sponsor, the board members and the fiscal officer.

There are also a number of provisions that address conflict of interest:

• Employees of a school district, an educational center or a vendor who has a contract with a district or service center cannot serve on the board of a charter school for which the district or educational center is a sponsor.
• Charter school board members will have to file a yearly disclosure statement that identifies any potential conflicts of interest.
• Requires that the designated fiscal officer of a charter school be employed or under a contract with the board of the school.

The bill mandates that the state Department of Education develop, maintain and publish an annual performance report for all operators of schools in the state. It also requires the DOE, by the end of the year, to make recommendations regarding performance standards for charter schools for which a majority of their population is students with disabilities, and determine the feasibility of removing such schools' exemption from permanent closure.

Not all the provisions in the bill will make it through committees in the House and Senate.  In fact, during sponsor testimony in the House Education Committee, Dovilla called the bill a "starting point" for discussion about the overhaul of charter schools.

And there are a number of ideas which the House Education Committee members asked about, including whether or not the law to close charter schools that score a D or F three years running should apply to traditional district schools; whether there should be a residency requirement for the charter school board members, and whether charter school board members who are volunteers can be subjected to the same disclosure and conflict-of-interest rules as traditional school board members.

While the bill has generally been well-received, with the understanding that some provisions may be added and subtracted, one group thinks it doesn't go far enough in spelling out ownership of the assets used in a charter school.

Sandy Theis, executive director of ProgressOhio, a left-leaning policy group, said that requiring contracts "to delineate which gets what assets after the contracts expire...misses the point: Neither should own the assets. They belong to the taxpayers who paid for them."

Ohio Education Association President Becky Higgins also called the bill a starting point. Her organization and Innovation Ohio spelled out three principles they have for overhauling charter schools:

• the accelerated closing of failing charter schools
• making charter schools subject to the same public records laws as traditional public schools
• funding public charters in a way that does not penalized district schools

Rep. Bill Hayes, who chairs the House Education Committee, said he'd support faster closings if the state could identify a school that was actually failing. He also said he'd be interested in applying those same standards to traditional public schools.

But Higgins said No Child Left Behind already has standards for closing district schools that are failing and that any state law would have to align with the federal one.

But even with NCLB, there are still public schools that are failing:  Pickett Academy in Toledo is one example.

The Ohio Association of Charter School Authorizers supports the bill, but with a few reservations. Peggy Young, president of OACSA, urged members to judge sponsors on their outcomes, not just on how they spend money.

The bill is still pending in the House Education Committee.

National School Choice Week 2015

It's National School Choice Week - a week dedicated to celebrating options students have for an education.

Lest you think this is all about charters, private schools or home-schooling, please remember that charter schools in Ohio are public schools and that choosing to send a child to a traditional public school is still a choice that many parents make.

There's nothing wrong with any of the choice options available to parents these days and since it's supposed to be "for the children," what would make more sense than to allow each child to have the education that best suits them?

That's what school choice is all about:  finding the best fit for a child, regardless of what that fit might be.

Maybe some day we can let actually let the public dollars spent on a child for their education follow the child.

Imagine if K-12 school funding worked more like public funding of higher education - where a grant amount was determined based on a family's financial information and then the children could use that designated amount at any college or university that accepted them.

Under such a scenario, elementary and high schools would compete for students, offering a variety of tracks mirroring the interest of the kids while still ensuring that state minimum requirements were achieved.

Arizona did something like this with their Education Empowerment Scholarship Accounts and it's working well enough that other states could easily learn from them how to duplicate their success.

The state deposits educational funds directly into an account controlled by the parent. The parents can choose how to spend the funds using a type of debit card that is coded to allow its usage only for pre-approved expenses.

Parents can use it for tuition at any school, to pay for college or university courses while their child is still in high school, for online education, certified tutors, testing preparation like for SATs, or even a la carte public school courses (foreign languages, for example). They also have the choice to not spend it and put it toward a future college education. Anything not used in a year is allowed to accumulate.

Think about how food stamp EBT cards work and you'll have a good understanding about how the Arizona system works, except it's education items that are being purchased rather than food.

This is just one example of the many innovative ways parents, politicians and policy-makers are looking at providing a variety of educational opportunities for children today.

So celebrate your school choice options and special congrats to our state of Ohio which leads the nation in education scholarship options!

Who is responsible for your health?

This ad is from the CDC which is no longer
just the Centers for Disease Control,but is
now the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.

Forgive me for getting this wrong, but I always thought I - and I alone - was responsible for my health.

Sure, genetics play a role, but whether I was overweight or underweight , ate junk food or fruits and vegetables, exercised or not ... all that was on me.

Apparently I'm wrong.  Well, at least according to today's lead editorial in The Blade.

Yes, they do say our individual health is partially on us and the decisions we make, but they also say:

"The report notes that Ohio ranks near the top in the percentage of its adults who smoke, and of children exposed to secondhand smoke in their homes. Such things are as much a matter of individual responsibility, or its absence, as of inadequate public policy.

Really?  Inadequate public policy is to blame if you or I smoke?

Who DOESN'T know that smoking is bad for you?

In fact, people who do smoke, do so in spite of the fact that they know it's bad for them and for anyone who lives in their smoke-filled house.

How can inadequate public policy be to blame for that?

They even write:

"But it isn't just the responsibility of government to make Ohioans healthier and more productive."

Hmm... I guess I missed that responsibility in the U.S. Constitution as well as the state constitution.

For the record, I don't smoke - never have.  Neither has my husband. My sister does, but she doesn't smoke in my house and has never asked to do so.  Most smokers are considerate in that respect.

But no amount of government spending is going to make her stop. In fact, I doubt that anyone has decided to stop smoking because government spent money on an advertisement bemoaning the ill effects of the practice.

People stop smoking when THEY want to. They are the ones who must make the choice, which means it is entirely an individual responsibility and action.

The primary reason for the editorial is to call for "greater public investment" - that means spending - arguing that the more government spends on preventive care, the less it should end up spending on actual, more expensive, care as a result of bad habits.

You see, the 'logic' is that if government spends more money up front telling people how to be healthy, they'll have to spend less treating these people when they end up with costly diseases like cancer, heart disease, etc...

But first the people have to actually head the direction from the government to lead healthier lives - and that certainly isn't the case, at least, not for the majority of people.

There's an easy solution to the state spending so much money on actual care of illnesses that are preventable:  Don't.

What if the government warned people ahead of time that if they get cancer from smoking none of their health bills will be covered?  In fact, what if the government said that the cost of any illness or disease that was the result of self-inflicted activity wouldn't be covered?

Would people make better decisions knowing they'd be responsible for all the costs associated with bad habits, or that they might have to go without treatment if they couldn't afford it?

It's an interesting question and one that too few stop to consider.

But the government is all too happy to pay because, in doing so, they develop justification for telling you how to live. It is the 'logic' they use for controlling your life:  We're going to end of paying for your health care so we have the authority to tell you how to keep yourself healthy so we don't have to pay so much.

Oh, they might not say so in so many words, the bottom line is control - of your eating habits, exercise regimen and decisions.

Just look at Michele Obama's Healthy Hunger-Free Act which, as of a year ago, had 1 million kids leaving the school lunch line.

It doesn't stop.

And sadly, too many editorials are all to happy to jump on the bandwagon and advocate for even more government involvement in our daily lives, because (clearly) they know what is best and its for our own good.

Grading state voucher programs - how does your state rank?

By Maggie Thurber | Franklin Center School Choice Fellow

Want to know how state voucher programs stack up? The Center for Education Reform has the answer.

In their new report, School Choice Today:  Voucher Laws Across the States Ranking and Scorecard 2014, CER takes a look at the 15 voucher programs currently in existence and gives them a grade. 

There are three As, three Bs, seven Cs and two Ds.

It’s the first analysis of its kind, providing a state-to-state comparison of the various voucher laws and builds on the work CER has done to rank charter school laws and tax credit-funded scholarship programs.

“Having a voucher law on the books is a good start, but not enough to make sure students are actually benefitting from school choice programs,” Kara Kerwin, CER president said in a press release. 

“Policy design is critical, but the true strength of school choice voucher programs depends heavily on implementation.”

The state voucher programs were evaluated in four areas:

• Student eligibility requirements
• Program Design
• Preservation of private school autonomy
• Student participation

“From the types of students eligible to the number of regulations imposed on private schools, each element of a voucher program’s design impacts how effectively the voucher truly empowers parents with the ability to choose the best school for their child,” Brian Backstrom, CER senior policy advisor and author of the report, said.

Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin earned an A grade for their programs.

With 31 out of 50 total points, Indiana offers a universal voucher program available to all students and imposes no limits on the number of vouchers awarded. But it ranked second worst in the nation when it comes to infringing upon the private schools’ autonomy because it mandates course content and allows government observation of classes.

Ohio earned 30 points for what the report called a “piecemeal” approach to vouchers with five different programs. But its top ranking for student participation was praised as a “worthy achievement.”

Wisconsin, home of the oldest voucher program in the county, also earned 30 points, with its strong Milwaukee/Racine programs offering choice to 12 percent of the state’s school-aged population.

Washington, D.C., Arizona and North Carolina tied for fourth place with 27 points, earning them a B grade.

The D.C. program has a high percentage of children receiving vouchers, but its strict income eligibility threshold is the lowest in the country which limits the program’s reach, the report said.

For the 2014-15 school year, North Carolina’s program got twice as many applications as there were vouchers available. The state is currently defending a lawsuit against the voucher program which is on hold due to an injunction halting the distribution of the funds.

Arizona’s personal education accounts worked so well it was expanded in 2013. The state deposits educational funds directly into an account controlled by the parents who can choose how to spend the funds using a type of debit card that is coded to allow its usage only for pre-approved expenses. The accounts can be used for tuition at any school, to pay for college or university courses while their child is still in high school, for online education, certified tutors, testing preparation like for SATs, or even a la carte public school courses (foreign languages, for example). They also have the choice to not spend it and put it toward a future college education. Anything not used in a year is allowed to accumulate.

It’s a popular idea. Florida just implemented a similar one and Delaware just proposed their own program based on the concept.

Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah and Mississippi all earned a C grade with scores of between 19 and 23 points.

Louisiana imposes “such significant regulatory intrusion” that it ends up with a C. Their regulations are such that new private schools are prohibited from participating.

The ranking for Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Utah and Mississippi are due primarily to the fact that their programs are only for special needs students.

Colorado’s program is tied up in legal wrangling, but even if it were implemented, it only offers 500 vouchers for the more than 62,000 eligible children.

Vermont and Maine both earned D grades because they don’t offer a modern-day voucher program, but merely a method by which students in areas and towns without any district school systems can get an education.

The report states that legislators considering vouchers or modifying their existing programs “would be well-served by examining the design elements that have led to the success of several state 

programs, and the components of state voucher program laws that are holding some states back.”

With “reliable policy blueprints and visible implementation of strong voucher programs, more state leaders need to step up to the plate in order to grow and expand school choice opportunities across the U.S. so more children have access to options that best meet their individual learning needs,” Kerwin said.

Ohio needs more high-quality education seats in urban areas

By Maggie Thurber | Franklin Center School Choice Fellow

Ohio recently changed the way it rates schools, going to an A-F grading system that is supposed to make it easier for parents, taxpayers and the community to understand how well each school performs.

There are two key measurements which quickly communicate the overall school quality: the performance index and the value-added rating.

Performance is easier to understand, since it’s similar to a grade-point average.  It’s a snapshot of student achievement within a school at a particular point in time.

Value-added ratings are a bit more complicated. They are an estimate of the school’s impact on achievement tracked over a period of time. It’s supposed to show if students are improving their performance (actually learning) year after year.

The 2013-14 report cards for the schools with these new ratings were released earlier in October – and the political spinning began:

•          District schools do better than charter schools.
•          Charter schools do better than district ones.
•          Kids are leaving good district schools to go to bad charter schools.
•          Vouchers are evil.
•          We need more money.

You name it and someone probably said it about what the new report cards really mean.

Then along came The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an Ohio-based think tank that promotes educational excellence for every child.

They decided to objectively compare the educational options in the eight largest Ohio cities – Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown – and what they found is disappointing.

High quality urban schools of any variety – district or charter – are not the norm, their report says. And the number of high-quality seats (the proportion of Ohio students who attend high-quality schools) are nowhere near as prevalent as low-quality ones.

Percentage of high- and low-quality seats in public schools, district and charter,
across the Ohio Big Eight urban areas for 2013-14. (Note: does not equal 100% because
medium-quality tier is not displayed.)

“In Ohio’s urban areas,” the report states, “it is safe to say that far more students languish in a low-quality public school than thrive in a high-quality one.”

And what about the public charter schools in those cities?

"In Columbus, 32 percent of its charter students attended a high-quality school in 2013-14. In Cleveland, the figure is 28 percent. The charter-school sectors of Youngstown, Dayton and Cincinnati offer a more-modest percentage of high-quality seats: Respectively, 22, 20, and 18 percent of their charter students attended a solid charter in those cities. Meanwhile, the charter schools in Akron, Toledo, and Canton provide few good charter-school options.”

While all the areas were “plagued” with low-quality charter schools, Cincinnati had the highest amount with 52 percent of low-quality charter school seats, the report shows

But that doesn’t mean that district schools were any better.

In Cleveland, 51 percent of the traditional public school seats were low quality. Cincinnati had 36 percent while Columbus and Toledo had 33 percent low-quality seats.

Overall, the analysis found that charter had a higher proportion of high quality seats (22 percent) than traditional district schools (13 percent). Charters also had a lower proportion of low-quality seats (32 percent) than the 38 percent of low-quality seats found in the district schools.

Why are high- and low-quality seats important?

“…so that state and city leaders can grasp how many good schools must be created, or present ones expanded, to give every student the academic opportunities she needs,” the report explains.

As rigorous new standards and assessment testing take effect, the report predicts that proficiency ratings will fall, but that they’ll provide a more honest view of student progress.

It will be a sobering picture and will only serve to emphasize the need to “dramatically grow the number of high-quality seats in urban communities through whatever means possible – charter, district, or private school choice.”

Who owns the equipment in charter schools? Ohio Supreme Court will decide

By Maggie Thurber | Franklin Center School Choice Fellow

Photo by Derek Bruff
via Flickr Creative Commons

Who owns the equipment in charter schools?

We’re talking the computers, desks, supplies – all the things that go into the structure of a charter school. It seems like the common sense answer would be the school.

But most charter schools in Ohio are public, which means they’re funded with public dollars much the same way as traditional public schools.

In which case, your answer to the question would probably be “the taxpayer, ultimately.”

And again, that makes sense.

But there’s an odd twist to this question and it’s playing out in the Ohio Supreme Court.

You see, there are management companies who are contracted to run the day-to-day operations of charter schools, and when you add these private companies into the mix, things get a bit muddled.

The case is Hope Academy Broadway Campus et al. v. White Hat Management, LLC, et al. and oral arguments were heard Tuesday.

The case pits 10 charter schools against White Hat Management.

According to the schools, White Hat refused to allow their financials to be inspected by the schools who wanted to see how the money paid by the state was used. The schools sued, asking to recover roughly $100 million that was spent on property and equipment.

White Hat maintains that it owns the equipment, but offered to let the schools keep the desks, computers and other items if they paid the current value for them.

The trial court and the 10^th District Court of Appeals agreed with White Hat, saying that the public money paid by the state on a per-pupil basis became private funds as soon as White Hat, the private company, received them.

Just like when the state pays a private contractor to pave a road, the public funds are no longer public, though there is an obligation for the contractor to actually complete the project according to the terms of the contract. But how the contractor spends those specific dollars is not public.

The relationship with the charters is the same, White Hat attorneys argue. They say White Hat is a private entity performing a service for the public entity.

But the charters say White Hat is acting like the “functional equivalent” of a public entity because it is accepting and using public dollars to perform the function of a public school. They maintain that White Hat was supposed to act as the purchasing agent for the schools and since the company is just the agent, the money remains public and the purchased items are owned by the school.

The charters also say that because it is public money, it can at least be audited. And there is some case law in Ohio that says when a private entity receives a substantial amount of public funds, it can be audited, but only when they are serving as the functional equivalent of a public office.

"Would you agree that White Hat is the functional equivalent of a public office?" Chief Justice Maureen O’Conner asked during the oral arguments.

"If you're doing a public function with public funds, aren't you the functional equivalent of that public official?” Justice BillO’Neill asked.

No, White Hat attorneys argued. They were a private company providing a service to the charter schools which are the public entity.

The Supreme Court will decide – and the decision will have implications for more than just the 10 charter schools in the suit.

Ohio extends EdChoice Scholarship deadline

By Maggie Thurber | Franklin Center School Choice Fellow

It’s good news for Ohio parents. The Ohio Department of Education extended the deadline for the EdChoice Scholarship Program until Sept. 5, so there’s still time to apply.

The extension is so the state can recalculate report cards for districts that manipulated student data.

Schools in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Toledo and several other districts throughout the state incorrectly removed some students with absences and low test scores from their required report card calculations. This resulted in better grades for the school’s academic standing.

Following the two-year investigation, the state decided to add back the deleted students and recalculate the report cards for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 school year.

This means that some schools that appeared to be performing well might have grades that would allow students to qualify for EdChoice Scholarships. The program provides vouchers to students from underperforming public schools so they can attend participating private schools.

To be eligible, students must meet one of the following conditions:

• Currently attend an underperforming public school in the district where they reside
• Currently attend a public school in the district where they reside and be assigned to an underperforming school for the upcoming year
• Currently attend a charter or community school in lieu of attending the underperforming school where they would normally be assigned
• Be 5 years old by January 1, 2015 and eligible to enter kindergarten at an underperforming school
• Be a first-time Ohio school student who would be assigned to one of the underperforming schools.

Additionally, some children may be eligible for the EdChoice expansion scholarship if they are going to enter kindergarten or first grant in Fall 2014 and has a family household income that is at or below 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines. Children in the Cleveland Municipal School District are not eligible.

The state expects to issue 60,000 scholarships for the 2014-15 school year, not counting the approximately 4,000 expansion scholarships.

As of the end of May, 3,209 students had applied under the voucher expansion and 18,228 had applied for the EdChoice Scholarship.

The first application period was February 1 through May 9, 2014. The vouchers are $4,250 for grades K-8 and $5,000 for high school and they cover tuition only. Students must first apply at the participating private school.

People will abuse powdered alcohol, Ohio lawmakers say

My latest at Ohio Watchdog...


By Maggie Thurber | for Ohio Watchdog

PALCOHOL: In a YouTube video,
Palcohol inventor Mark Phillips
 shows how the product works
and addresses what he calls
the “completely false” claims
about his product.

We have powdered coffees, powdered juices, powdered soups, powdered eggs, powdered milk.

Why not powdered alcohol? After all, it’s light, portable and convenient.

But we’ll abuse it, two Ohio lawmakers say.

Reps. Ron Gerberry, D-Austintown, and Jim Buchy, R-Greenville, introduced House Bill 594 to prohibit the sale of powdered or crystalline alcohol in Ohio.

Alaska and South Carolina have already banned the substance while New York, Vermont and Minnesota have pending legislation to do the same.

“The potential for abuse of this product far outweighs any value it may have in the marketplace,” Gerberry said in a news release.

“The public health risk of powdered alcohol is too great for our state to ignore,” Buchy said in the same release. “We have to do our part in putting forth reasonable laws that protect our children and prevent the availability of drug forms that have a higher potential for abuse.”

Their concerns mirror those of U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, who asked the Food and Drug Administration to ban it.

In April, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which regulates taxing and labeling of alcohol products, approved seven flavors of Palcohol. They then temporarily rescinded those approvals due to a technical issue with the package fill levels. Palcohol made some changes and resubmitted the labels for approval.

According to Schumer, the FDA supersedes the TTB approval in the presence of significant health concerns.

He said “experts” should “step in before this mind-boggling product, surely to become the Kool-Aid of teen binge drinking, sees the light of day” and “stop this potentially deadly product in its tracks” to avoid the “hospitalizations and death that are likely to follow.”

Nonsense, says its inventor.

Read more

Cleveland makes list for site visits for RNC Convention

Yep, Cleveland made the finalist list for the Republican National Committee Convention and will receive a site visit to evaluate the city and facilities. They are one of four finalists, in the running with Dalls, Denver and Kansas City.

Here is the press release from the RNC:

RNC Selects Cities for 2016 Official Site Visits

WASHINGTON – Today, the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) Site Selection Committee for the 2016 Republican National Convention, met via conference call, selecting Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, and Kansas City to receive official site visits from the RNC’s 2016 site selection delegation. The official site visits represent the next phase in the site selection process and will allow key RNC officials and the full Site Selection Committee to tour cities and venues vying to host the 2016 Republican National Convention. The committee’s decision was based on an extensive review of bids, presentations, and reports compiled from technical visits to each city.

Prior to the site selection committee vote, Cincinnati respectfully withdrew their bid from the process based upon the criteria set forth by the RNC for the main arena. Las Vegas also respectfully withdrew their 2016 bid based on the RNC’s criteria for a traditional arena facility and enough on-site preparatory time to accommodate the 2016 convention.

After receiving notification from Cincinnati and Las Vegas, the committee conducted votes on the remaining cities and determined each would receive a visit.

Timing and dates for official visits will be coordinated with Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, and Kansas City and an announcement will be forthcoming with more details for each visit.

Following today’s meeting of the Site Selection Committee, Chairwoman Enid Mickelsen issued the following statement:

“Today the committee determined that Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, and Kansas City will receive official visits from the full RNC site selection delegation. All cities excelled in nearly every aspect of their bids and presentation this year, but these four cities stood out from the field from the start of this process and deserve a deeper look by the full committee.

“Prior to the committee’s vote, Cincinnati and Las Vegas notified the RNC that they would no longer pursue their bid to host the 2016 convention. While the committee understands their decision, both cities made a compelling case for 2016 and would make excellent hosts should they pursue efforts to host a future RNC convention.

“I applaud the effort and commitment shown by all cities involved, and I thank all parties for their dedication to this endeavor. The 2016 convention will provide a unique opportunity to showcase our Party as well as the host city itself, and I’m confident we will choose the best possible setting to nominate our next Republican president.”

###

Ohio AG certifies petition for Freedom to Marry and Religious Freedom Amendment

The Ohio AG has approved the petition
filed by Freedom to Marry Ohio. The
next step is the Ohio Ballot Board.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has certified the petition for the Freedom to Marry and Religious Freedom Amendment.

This means that it will be sent to the Ohio Ballot Board to ensure the amendment contains a single issue and, if so, petitioners can begin to gather the signatures necessary to put the measure on the ballot.

Interestingly, today a federal judge is expected to issue a ruling on whether or not Ohio must recognize the marriages of gay couples who marry in other states.

Ohio voters approved a state-wide gay marriage ban in 2004.

According to the summary, the amendment would repeal and replace Section 11 to Article XV of the Ohio Constitution to:

• Allow two consenting adults not nearer of kin than second cousin, and not having a husband or wife living, the freedom to enter into a marriage regardless of gender.
• Define religious house of worship as one where the primary activity is religious worship and provides that no house of worship or its clergy shall be required to perform a marriage.
• Provide that all legally valid marriages shall be treated equally under the law.

Here is the press release with a link to the petition:

(COLUMBUS, Ohio)—Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine today determined that the proposed Freedom to Marry and Religious Freedom Amendment seeking to amend Article XV, Section 11 of the Ohio Constitution submitted the required 1000 valid signatures of Ohio electors and a summary of the amendment that is a "fair and truthful "statement of the proposed law.

Attorney General DeWine has sent letters to both the committee that represents the petitioners and Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted.

"Without passing on the advisability of the approval or rejection of the measure to be referred but pursuant to the duties imposed on the Attorney General's Office under Section 3519.01(A) of the Ohio Revised Code, I hereby certify that the summary is a fair and truthful statement of the proposed constitutional amendment," Attorney General DeWine stated in a letter to the petitioners.

Once the summary language and initial signatures are certified, the Ohio Ballot Board must determine if the amendment contains a single or multiple issues. The petitioners must then collect signatures in 44 of Ohio's 88 counties, equal to 5 percent of the total vote cast in the county for the office of governor at the last gubernatorial election. Total signatures collected statewide must also equal 10 percent of the vote cast for the office of governor in the last gubernatorial election

The full text of today's letter and of the amendment petition may be found at www.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov/BallotInitiatives.

Ohio legislature agrees to four extra snow days

Gongwer is reporting that a conference committee dealing with the House and Senate version of calamity days has agreed to four extra snow days and no teacher in-service requirements.

According to the report, House language was that would have required teachers to go to work for extra professional development as a condition of the extra days was eliminated.

The committee also increased the number of days from the three in the Senate version to four. Schools are still allowed to make up missed days in 30-minute increments added onto regular days.

Final votes in both bodies are expected Wednesday.

Salt companies fail to bid on Ohio state contract

This is not good news for drivers on Ohio roads....

The Ohio Department of Transportation put out a request for bids on 10,000 ton increments of salt. They hoped to get at least 150,000 tons of road salt that they planned give to local communities that are running low. The expectation was that the localities would return the salt to the state once their own supplies were replenished.

But no salt companies responded to the bid, ODOT announced today.

They said they would continue to explore alternative ways to get salt into Ohio and onto Ohio roads.

They also provided the following statistics:

* since the beginning of winter, ODOT alone, has used more than 880,000 tons on Ohio roadways.
* they've treated 11 million miles of roads
* this is one of the most active seasons in history.

Monroe car dealership sued by Ohio AG

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has sued Monroe Dodge Chrysler Jeep Superstore in Monroe, MI, accusing it of using deceptive advertising.

Essentially, the lawsuit says that advertising to Ohio residents did not follow Ohio laws - and numerous attempts to get the dealership to comply have failed. In fact, it says previous agreements with the firm regarding Ohio laws were not honored.

Here is a copy of the lawsuit.

Here is the press release:

TOLEDO, Ohio)—Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine today announced a lawsuit against Monroe Dodge-Chrysler, Inc., which does business as Monroe Dodge Chrysler Jeep Superstore, of Monroe, Michigan. The Attorney General’s lawsuit accuses the dealership of using deceptive advertisements.

“Businesses that advertise to Ohio consumers must follow Ohio’s rules,” Attorney General DeWine said. “Otherwise, it’s not fair to consumers or to businesses that do follow the rules. The office has worked with this dealership on many occasions to address advertising violations, but the problems continue to resurface.”

Monroe Dodge Chrysler Jeep Superstore is located at 15160 S. Monroe St. in Monroe, Michigan. The dealership sells new and used vehicles and advertises online and in print to consumers in Michigan and Ohio.

According to the Attorney General’s lawsuit, the dealership violated Ohio’s Consumer Sales Practices Act by advertising prices for which not all consumers qualified, failing to disclose all required terms, and failing to clearly disclose important exclusions or conditions of a sale. The Attorney General seeks an injunction to stop further violations, reimbursement for any affected consumers, and civil penalties.

The Ohio Attorney General’s Office had entered into past agreements with the dealership to address similar advertising violations, but the Attorney General’s Office found that violations continued.

To assist dealerships in complying with Ohio law, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office offers a publication called “Guidelines for Motor Vehicle Advertising,” which is available on the Attorney General’s website, and works cooperatively with dealer associations to provide advertising compliance presentations.

Consumers who suspect unfair or deceptive advertising or other violations should contact the Ohio Attorney General’s Office at 800-282-0515 or www.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov.

A copy of the lawsuit is available on the Attorney General's website.

–30–

Waniewski 1 of 4 recommended to fill PUCO seat

Toledo city councilman Tom Waniewski, R-District 5, is one of four individuals recommended to fill a seat on the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO).

The others, all Republicans, are former Rep. Thomas Johnson, Stacey Polk and Patrick Donlon.

Gov. John Kasich has 30 days to select one of the nominees to replace Todd Snitchler, or he can request a new list of recommendations from the Nominating Council.

The open position is a five-year term beginning in April. The governor's nominee will have to be confirmed by the Senate.

Johnson, who was a state rep from 1977 to 1999, also served as director of the Office of Budget and Management.

Polk is an attorney based in Cleveland who works as a sustainability consultant helping businesses implement green and advanced energy measures. She previously served as an assistant director in the City of Cleveland's of the Department of Economic Development.

Donlon currently works for the PUCO as a utility rates and tariff administrator. He previously worked for American Electric Power and for Time Warner Cable.

Waniewski, who is also a member of the Ohio Public Works Commission, chairs the Environmental Services Committee.

How Ohio parents defeated the ‘worst-ever’ home schooling bill

UPDATE: I have confirmed that Sen. Cafaro did withdraw the bill Wednesday, Jan. 22nd.

It all started with a press conference Sen. Capri Cafaro, D-Hubbard, held announcing her bill to introduce Teddy’s law.

Theodore “Teddy” Foltz-Tedesco was brought to Akron Children’s Hospital Mahoning Valley with head trauma Jan. 21, 2013. His injuries, the result of a beating, were so severe he was immediately transferred to St. Elizabeth Health Center. Teddy died in the hospital on Jan. 26. He was 14.

Teddy was tortured and killed by his mother’s boyfriend. Despite suspicions and reports to child protective services, Teddy’s case was not investigated. When teachers reported the suspected abuse, his mother withdrew him from school – either to home-school him or move him to a charter school – it’s not clear which.

Teddy’s mother, Shain Widdersheim, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for child endangerment and obstructing justice. Zaryl Bush, her boyfriend at the time who was not living with Widdersheim or Teddy, was sentenced to life in prison for Teddy’s murder and for child endangerment, intimidation of witnesses and tampering with evidence.

Teddy’s grandmother tried to intervene. Friends and neighbors contacted social services. Police were told and Teddy’s teachers noticed and initiated a complaint with the county children services agency.

Teddy is a tragic example of a system that failed.

Perhaps there is a need for a new law, but the one Cafaro came up would not have helped Teddy if it had been in place – and it was as misguided as it was wrong.

Cafaro’s solution to a myriad of system failures in the reporting and investigation of child abuse was not to fix the gaps or address how Teddy’s case seemed to fall through the cracks. Her solution was to require all home schooling parents to go through a background check by local children services social workers to determine if they were ‘qualified’ to home school their kids.

The law would “require a public children services agency to recommend whether a child should be admitted to an Internet or computer-based community school or excused by a school district superintendent from attendance at school for home education.”

The Home School Legal Defense Association was more specific in their analysis:

“It requires all parents who home school to undergo a social services investigation which would ultimately determine if homeschooling would be permitted. Social workers would have to interview parents and children separately, conduct background checks and determine whether homeschooling is recommended or not. If it is not recommended, parents would have to submit to an ‘intervention’ before further consideration of their request to home school.”

Mark Stevenson, director of Ohioans for Educational Freedom, a state-wide political action committee, saw the press conference through a link on Facebook. Even though it was the week before Christmas, he sprang into action.

“We looked at the press conference and analyzed the text (of the bill),” he said. “We sent Facebook posts to regional home school groups late Monday (Dec. 16, 2013) and by Tuesday it was all over Facebook. By Tuesday mid-afternoon, it started hitting Ohio home-schoolers email lists.”

“It caught everyone’s attention,” he explained, “and by the time they read it, they understood how important it was.”

But sharing the news of what they began calling the “worst-ever homeschooling bill” was not enough.

“With watching the press conference, you could deduce that personally reaching out to (the Senator) was not going to be to our benefit,” Stevenson said, “so we constructed a message urging people to call her office and ask her politely but firmly to withdraw the bill.”

Withdrawing the bill was the only option, as there wasn’t much in the text Stevenson thought they could agree upon.

“It would have had such far-reaching consequences,” he said.

He explained that home-schoolers just want to be left alone to do what they need to do to teach their kids. “If you want to maintain freedom,” he explained, “you have to get politicians to understand they can’t do something like this just because of one bad apple.”

Stevenson said they spoke to people in the Senator’s office to ask that the bill be withdrawn. They didn’t make much headway until Wednesday.

“By then,” Stevenson said, “she was starting to show signs of backing away from the bill due the number of phone calls she was getting.”

He said that by Wednesday, the sponsors of the bill were getting phone calls all day long. But it wasn’t just the sponsors. Home schooling parents called their own senators to object to the bill. Stevenson said their website registered 305,589 hits over two days. They put hourly updates on the web page to keep parents and other school choice groups informed of the progress they were making.

Stevenson knows it was the combination of calls, groups coming out against the bill and the concerns expressed by other senators that caused her to reconsider.

“And remember,” he said. “this was the week before Christmas.”

The plan was to start an educational effort via Twitter on Thursday, but Cafaro announced that she was going to withdraw the bill.
Three days of mobilized opposition and the worst-ever home schooling bill was going away.

“Home-schoolers are used to jumping on such issues very quickly,” Stevenson said. “We have to be on top of infringements upon our freedom. Home-schoolers are pretty well connected within the state and across the country in terms of our network. We are concerned, just like everyone else, with how our freedoms are eroding.”

But the fight isn’t over.

The Senate was not in session when Cafaro announced she was withdrawing the bill. The formal action to do so had to wait until the after the holidays. She was scheduled to formally request the withdrawal on Jan. 14, 2014, but was not present that day in order to do so, according to the Senate President’s office. It is now scheduled for formal action on Wednesday, Jan. 22.

Stevenson and homes-choolers across the state will continue to monitor it to ensure the bill is actually withdrawn, as promised, but they are still cautious.

“There’s been some chatter with Teddy’s law people who say they support the bill,” Stevenson said. “Home-schoolers are sympathetic to the situation, but you can’t just write legislation that attacks law-abiding citizens and regulates people who are obeying the law.

“Teddy’s law people have made it clear that they’re not done with this,” he explained. “Since the initial legislation had such bad language, we can’t be anything but cautious and will be monitoring this for some time.”

But, Stevenson said, this is not a fight just for home schooling parents. It’s something charter schools, private schools, online schools and those who believe in school choice need to pay attention to.

“Everyone needs to be involved or one day, your rights are going to be gone,” he warned.


***UPDATE: Mark Stevenson will be Fred LeFevbre's guest on Monday, January 27th at 7:05 a.m. You can listen to 1370 WSPD live at www.wspd.com.

Federal judge issues preliminary injunction against new Ohio law limiting minor parties

Writing for Ohio Watchdog, I've previously covered the so-called Gov. John Kasich reelection protection act, also known as Senate Bill 193 which would impose stricter requirements on minor political parties in the state.

The Ohio Libertarian Party opposed the law and filed suit in federal court to stop it from taking effect for the 2014 elections.

Today, Judge Michael Watson of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio issued a preliminary injunction against the law.

Here is the press release from the Ohio Libertarian Party:

COLUMBUS—An Ohio law known as the “John Kasich Re-election Protection Act” will not be able to ban the Libertarian Party and other so-called “minor” parties from the 2014 ballot, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

The preliminary injunction in Libertarian Party of Ohio v. Husted blocks the state of Ohio “from retroactively applying SB 193 to Ohio’s 2014 primary and general elections.”

Political analysts from Ohio and across the nation have speculated that SB 193 was designed to protect Kasich’s 2014 re-election chances against a challenge from Libertarian Charile Earl, a former state legislator who is very popular with liberty-oriented and Tea Party groups in Ohio angered by Kasich’s support for Obamacare, his crony capitalism, and lack of fiscal responsibility.

The ruling from Judge Michael H. Watson of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio means that challenger parties in Ohio will be allowed to continue to participate in the 2014 election cycle without being forced to comply with the several onerous “party formation” requirements mandated by SB 193.

“Once again, the courts stand with us and with the First Amendment rights of all Ohioans to political freedom and suffrage in Ohio,” said Kevin Knedler, chair of the LPO executive committee. “The foundation of a democratic society is the right to vote and to have real choices on the ballot. A lot of voters—especially young voters—refuse to be put in either the Republican or Democrat boxes, and the Libertarian Party offers a true alternative for voters who want individual freedom in every area of life.”

Tuesday’s victory is the fourth in federal court for the LPO since 2006, when LPO v. Blackwell struck down a ballot law concerning "minor" political parties. The LPO won two more federal court fights over ballot access before SB 193 was passed, while consistently, but unsuccessfully, lobbying the state legislature for a fair election law.

State attorneys may appeal Tuesday’s ruling, Knedler said, but “they would have almost no chance of winning” less than a month before the February 5 deadline by which petitions are due for candidates running in the May 5 primary.

Kasich signed SB 193 in November after it was rushed through both houses of the Ohio legislature with all but a handful of GOP legislators voting for it. In the several hearings on the bill in both houses, no one testified in favor of SB 193, save the bill’s sponsor, Republican Senator Bill Seitz.

“Kasich and the Republican party thought they were silencing the growing liberty movement in Ohio, but now they have one hell of a fight on their hands,” said Aaron Keith Harris, LPO central committee chairman and candidate for secretary of state. “Voters no longer trust them when they pretend to oppose Democrats on issues like health care freedom and the runaway growth of government power over their everyday lives.”

One Libertarian statewide candidate—attorney general hopeful Steven Linnabary—has already submitted his petition, as have several Libertarian state legislature and state central committee candidates.

Libertarian governor candidate Charlie Earl, along with a full slate of statewide candidates and up to 50 other Libertarian candidates across the state will file by February 5, Knedler said.