By Michael Bohm, Staff Writer
Last spring, Governor Strickland set forth a dramatic plan to reform Ohio’s educational system; proposed ideas included extending the school year by adding two additional days per year until 2020, replacing the
OGT with the ACT, and for teachers, requiring four more years of teaching experience before they qualify for tenure.

In response to Strickland’s outlined plans, the Ohio Congress encapsulated educational reform in a bill dubbed “House Bill One,” which passed over the summer. Although some of the more controversial reforms that Strickland put out were not formally included, this bill set the precedent for educational reform. The plans outlined in House Bill One range from offering all-day kindergarten to the creation of Ohio School Funding Advisory Council to establish new performance indicators for students in high school.

According to Amanda Wurst, Governor Strickland’s spokeswoman, the Governor’s goal for House Bill
One is to “create a constitutional system of education in Ohio that will prepare Ohio students for a 21st
Century economy.”

Beachwood teacher Greg Deegan is coordinator of the Legislative Education Group for the Beachwood

Federation of Teachers. It’s his job to make sense of such plans as these and interpret them for teachers. “Some make some sense, but some don’t seem to have much in the way of any real research behind them,” said Deegan, regarding the new plans. Specifically, he is skeptical that the change in the tenure law and the increase in school days are supported by research. This raises the question:
is a full implementation of these policies achievable?

Instituting more state aid means that Ohio would be enforcing what some would call “Robin Hood funding,” which takes money from wealthier districts and gives it to poorer ones. As Deegan put it, “Richer districts like Beachwood have long opposed the sort of Robin Hood effect: taking from the rich to give to the poor.
Beachwood is doing well. People move here, pay their taxes and spend money on houses for a reason and so if there’s a way you can figure out to not harm school districts that are succeeding and you can still do it,
then it would make sense but it’s hard to do, I’m sure.”

Dr. Markwardt believes that it could be nearly impossible to convince certain areas to assume these costs.
“Would districts that don’t pass levies, ever, assume the costs? What if they didn’t? How would the governor’s plan be implemented?”

According to Amanda Wurst, the costs may not be as bad as they appear initially. She explains the
advantages of The Evidence-Based Funding Model, which, for the first time in Ohio’s history, “identifies the characteristics of a quality education, identifies the costs of those characteristics, and then provides
state resources to implement them.”

Wurst continued, “The Evidence-Based Funding Model will provide school districts with the necessary
resources, above the legal local share, to implement the governor’s reforms,” meaning there will be plenty of state aid. But, she leaves out the inclusion of local taxes for schools. HB1 calls for increased use in utilities with the extra days, along with hiring “veteran” teachers to watch over those who are
relatively new to teaching.

For students, it’s never fun to have extra days of school. “It will drain the students even more. It’s blasphemy,” said Beachwood junior Matt Boonyodate. And it could even cause problems in summer break.
“Who’s going to help out at camps and rec. programs? Who’d work at the pool?” Asked Hardis. Adding these extra 20 days is something Deegan believes will not lead to much of an improvement. “I’m not convinced that an extra 20 days a year is going to do much for students. I’ve never seen any evidence to suggest that [it will have a positive effect].”

And for teachers, instead of three years of teaching before they receive tenure, it will increase to seven years. “This makes it so that you’re going to get a lot more stress and hard work out of teachers for seven years trying to prove that they’re team players,” said Deegan. Although it sounds positive, “The reason the
tenure exists is so that you have a little bit of freedom of speech, so if someone says something they don’t
like, that you don’t get fired for that immediately.”

Dr. Markwardt said that Governor Strickland’s wife, Francis Strickland, Ohio’s first lady, called Beachwood a “model school district,” which begs the question, should certain exceptions be made for districts like Beachwood? Does Beachwood need to hire these “veteran” teachers to watch over younger ones? Is an increase in years before tenure necessary? These are just some of the issues that arise.

In the end, “the governor’s plan is now Ohio law, so school districts will be required to implement these
reforms,” said Wurst, “The Ohio Department of Education will be working closely with local school districts to ensure students, teachers and administrators are successful in this transition.” However,
perhaps not all of the plans of HB1 are coming to Beachwood. Wurst explained, “School districts with an
excellent rating or excellent with distinction rating are not required to implement the specific components
of the Evidence-Based Model.” Either way, HB1 is expected to take full effect no later than January of 2011, although Wurst pointed out that some of the policies are already being implemented, and some schools
“are impressed with the commitment that Governor Strickland has made to invest state resources in primary and secondary education.”