I don't think I have ever seen a school district Superintendent as angry as I saw in this epic letter from Franklin City Superintendent Arnol Elam, which was sent to every resident of the Franklin City School District. I've embedded it here, but I've also linked to it here.
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Franklin City
Schools
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150 East Sixth Street l Franklin,
OH 45005
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Telephone 937-746-1699
Fax: 937-743-8620
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Arnol Elam, Superintendent
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Governor Misleads Ohio Residents
February 2013
To the parents, staff,
and friends of Franklin City Schools:
School funding has
been in the news this past week. I'd like to share my perspective and what it
means to our district.
Governor
John Kasich was untruthful last week, and in doing so, finally clarified
that kids in poor school districts don't count.
Ohio's school
funding model has been declared unconstitutional four times. The Kasich
administration promised since his inauguration to develop a
new funding system. On Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013, the governor told Ohio's
school superintendents,
"This is not hard to figure out: If you're poor, you're going to get more.
If you are rich, you're going to get less. If you have gifted students, you're
going to get more. If you have disabled students, you're going to get
more." In his remarks, he promoted $1.2 B in additional education
funding.
The Kasich administration's
school funding proposal released this week outlines a distribution nearly
opposite to what's stated above, and actually includes only
$564 M in additional funding.
60% of Ohio's school
districts are scheduled to receive NO additional funds including the
poorest districts in Ohio's Appalachian counties. Neither do the poorest
districts in Warren County. Our district, already reeling under an 8.75%
reduction in state and federal funding, will receive no additional monies
under Kasich's plan.
By every measure, we
are the poorest district in Warren County. 44.66% of our students are in
poverty. In contrast, Mason's figure is 6.25%. Our district's median household
income is $29,900. The county's highest is Springboro at $61,271. Franklin
has the highest percentage of students with a disability -- 16.1%. Despite
this, Kasich's plan gives ADDITIONAL monies to Mason, Springboro and
Kings.
In my five years at
Franklin, I've seen firsthand how the state's educational policies discriminate against
low wealth districts like ours -- from funding to district report cards to
everything in between. This is the kind of disparity
that exists among Ohio districts, and which the state has repeatedly
refused to address.
The governor's funding
plan, has taken from the children that attend the Franklin City Schools and gives
to the rich, continues that discrimination. Three Warren County districts --
Mason, Springboro, and Kings -- are targeted for funding increases between
2.1 to 25.6%. Frankly, this is both unfair and unbelievable.
The state defends the
"fairness" of their funding plan, saying that the money follows
students. I spoke to our new
State Rep. Ron Maag to see if he could help secure release
of the funding proposal's calculations. Conveniently, the
details are unavailable.
Unfortunately, the
initial positive buzz based on the governor's Jan. 31 statement has created the
impression that our unconstitutional school funding model has been
"fixed." The state's untruthfulness has
done irreparable damage to districts who have May ballot issues;
those districts will now have a difficult time convincing voters that they
still need additional funds.
On Jan. 28, State
Rep Maag attended the Franklin Area Chamber of Commerce meeting.
He said the Kasich administration's number one focus is job creation.
Next week, I have to determine how to cut jobs to in order to meet the
reductions in state funding. I don't know how to reconcile the cuts we must
make with the administration's stated goals of creating jobs.
As parents and
friends of our district, I hope you will do two things: First, please join me
in an active campaign to ensure that Gov. Kasich and any
legislator who supports him are not re-elected. Second, I hope you will contact
our state officials and urge them to ask Gov. Kasich to return
to the drawing board on his school funding proposal. This is their contact
information:
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State Rep. Ron
Maag, 77 S. High St, 13th Floor, Columbus, OH 43215
(614) 644-6023
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State Senator Shannon
Jones, Senate Building, 1 Capitol Square, 1st Floor, Columbus,
OH 43215, (614) 466-9737
As always, I welcome your input,
comments, and suggestions. Please contact me at aelam@franklincityschools.com or (937) 746-1699.
Arnol Elam
Superintendent,
Franklin City Schools
The letter I think speaks volumes toward the betrayal poorer school districts felt after seeing district-by-district projections from Gov. John Kasich's office after the introduction of his new school funding plan. I somehow don't think sending Education Czar Dick Ross and Education Funding Czar Barbara Mattei-Smith to Arnol Elam's office to explain to him how he doesn't understand that he's really a wealthy district will fly, do you?
Because that's apparently what they've been doing in other districts. At least, that's what they testified yesterday they were doing.
I have never seen superintendents so steamed about an education plan. This is starting to feel a lot like DeRolph Redux, where buses of kids show up on the statehouse lawn and force lawmakers' hands.
Can't say that's a bad thing.
Long and short is this isn't getting fixed with a couple technical tweaks in the plan. This is sounding like it will require a complete overhaul of Kasich's complete overhaul.
