Ted Strickland seems to have lost touch....

When I woke up Sunday morning, March 1, 2009 and went online to read the Dispatch, I read the article “Strickland plan would slash online-school funding” by Catherine Candisky. As a lifelong Democrat and staunch supporter and campaign volunteer for Ted Strickland, this article saddened me deeply. It seems as though lines have been drawn and I have been left questioning everything I have ever stood for as a Democrat. I have always been a person willing to put myself out there to help out those in need and those less fortunate. I am a strong supporter in social programs that assist our disenfranchised youth and adult populations. I have made a career out of public service in Ohio public charter schools, the schools that take in the students that just couldn’t make it in “traditional” schools or that the traditional schools just don’t “want”. I thought that Governor Strickland was a public servant also, caring for those that struggle or haven’t been handed the easiest cards in life.

The more I read and thought about the ramifications of such a budgetary plan, the angrier I became. I did not become angry because of the prospect of being unemployed due to being an employee at an Ohio charter school. I became angry for the tens of thousands of students that would be affected by this. Of course, the loss of the career at which I have spent seven years working would be a horrible loss, as would the thousands of other jobs lost. The unemployment of these school employees would be another negative factor in our already struggling economy here in Ohio. However, I do not want to lose focus on what is truly at stake here, the lives and futures of students here in Ohio. In the Dispatch article, Amanda Wurst, Governor Strickland’s spokeswoman, while referring to online charter schools, states, “They have a different business model. We are, through the evidenced-based education model, funding them with the resources to provide an adequate education to their students”. Adequate? Adequate is defined as either sufficient to satisfy a requirement or meet a need or barely satisfactory or sufficient. Do either of those definitions sound like they are enough to make the students of Ohio prepared for college or competitive in today’s global economy?

I am fortunate to live in one of the best school districts in Central Ohio and know that if you told them that they would receive funds to give their students an “adequate” education, they would not stand for it. What makes Governor Strickland believe that somehow charter schools should accept it? This is just another example of how the disparities between the “haves” and the “have nots” are perpetuated by underlying political agendas and bureaucracy in our education systems. I urge Governor Strickland to put aside his political agenda and see the bigger picture. Slashing funding and shutting down public charter schools can only result in more students becoming involved in our court systems and prisons or even ending up dead. For many of the students I see on a daily basis, we are it. We are their last hope, their only advocates and as their advocate, I vow to not stop fighting this proposal until Governor Strickland can take his blinders off and see that these students need these schools and are succeeding. To see that these students receive an “adequate” education is most certainly not enough. To see that these students deserve to be afforded the same opportunities to a quality and excellent education as their “traditional” school counterparts is only fair. I hope that Governor Strickland can realize this as well.