Dive Brief:
- Ohio Gov. John Kasich told the Columbus Dispatch that he’d like to see legislation passed that would overhaul the state Board of Education.
- Currently, the governor appoints 8 of the board’s 19 members, with the rest elected by voters.
- Kasich says that the current breakdown and the fact that the board gets to hire the state schools chief promotes infighting and encourages political agendas.
Dive Insight:
Kasich’s remarks come after seven state board members called for an independent investigation into the state’s charter school evaluation controversy and the state superintendent’s involvement with grade fudging on charter school operators.
The board’s power over the state schools chief position has deep roots. According to the Dispatch, voters passed a constitutional amendment more than 50 years ago creating the then-all-elected Board of Education and placing hiring and firing power in its hands. The move was intended to dampen the effect of politics on the state’s schools.
But in Ohio and many other states, boards of education have had the opposite effect, often dividing along partisan lines. They can become battlegrounds for rural-urban divides in education needs and often struggle to make coherent policy recommendations. In Colorado, partisan divides and board dysfunction led one member to resign earlier this summer.
“Two of my campaign promises were to get politics out of education and reducing the amount of change (for schools), but I feel like I’ve failed miserably,” Ron Rudduck, an Ohio state board member told the Dispatch. Others blamed overactive legislative involvement in education policy and activist board members.
Prior Ohio governors have tried to eliminate elected members on the board or counterbalance them with governor appointees, as has happened in other states. Kasich’s critics have called for a move in the opposite direction, returning to an all-elected board.
