In 2010, Ohio was riding high, from an education policy perspective. The state had just tightened its charter school closure standards and created a new funding formula that promised to make the system constitutional as part of a national award winning education reform overhaul.
And the culmination of this was a national ranking of 5th best education system in the country, as judged by Education Week's national Quality Counts report.
But things started changing when Gov. John Kasich took office. Most of those award-winning changes were wiped out. His own funding formula was trashed and dropped by his own party. Ohio's charter schools are now a national joke. And his efforts at local, urban reform are off to a dubious beginning.
The culmination of Kasich's work? The state is now ranked 18th in the country.
This is not the kind of education record I would want while running for President.
