Tag: Ohio Senate

  The Ohio Senate Finance Subcommittee on Primary and Secondary Education was asked to reconsider spending an additional $550 million on public education in the state’s biennial budget, House Bill 166. Testifying before the committee Wednesday, Greg Lawson, a senior research fellow at The Buckeye Institute, pointed out that “Ohio’s spending on K-12 public education has grown faster than inflation even as Ohio’s achievement gap between African American and white students remains stubbornly high.” “Spending more state money on education has not proven a viable solution to this persistent problem,” Lawson argued. However, as Lawson reveals, House Bill 166 does just that. Over the course of Fiscal Year 2020 and Fiscal Year 2021, the budget proposes spending an additional $550 million on primary and secondary education. “Even though Ohio ranks among the top 10 states with the largest projected enrollment declines over the rest of the decade according to the National Center for Education Statistics,” he added. “More concerning still is that more state funds will be spent just as Ohio considers watering down state report cards, reducing accountability by eliminating academic distress commissions, and weakening graduation requirements,” he continued. While the controversial academic distress commissions have flaws, Lawson does…