Why our church cares about public school funding, and what we can do now "Solving the School Funding Crisis," a public forum at Archwood on the opening night of the annual steeple vigil, surfaced a number of reasons why we -- as Christians concerned about God's world and God's people -- should care about public education. There are things we can do in the coming weeks to change a funding system that is inadequate, unfair and unstable throughout Ohio. The 40 participants in the June 3 forum included Archwood members, Ward 15 City Council Member Emily Holan, a representative of the mayor's office, neighborhood residents, folks from other churches, and a knowledgeable three-member panel who shared helpful details on how state and local funding works. Archwood members who work, volunteer, or have children or grandchildren in the Cleveland Municipal School District told how they are personally affected by decreased bus routes, increased class sizes, custodial staff cuts, rest rooms with missing door stalls, and an arts school with an unusable stage. Panelists (named below) noted that problems in Cleveland's schools are a magnification of what is happening all over Ohio. They described a statewide school funding that is unstable, inequitable, and inadequate (not to mention unconstitutional, as the Ohio Supreme Court has declared it four times!). Everywhere, school boards spend inordinate time on budget cutting; innovative ideas are immediately questioned out of budget fears. At the core of the problem is the reliance on property tax, which creates rich and poor school districts and is an outmoded way of paying for schools, since wealth is now held in so many other forms. We need a rational funding system that must start with deciding what education we want to provide all Ohio students. Discussions at the state level rarely address that fundamental question. Meantime, funding discussions are vulnerable to parochialism -- trying to fix the system so that "my" district (and Ohio has 613 school districts!) will thrive at the expense of someone else's. What to do? One action had immediate agreement among the panelists and, apparently, all at the forum: oppose the so-called "Taxpayer's Bill of Rights" ("TABOR"), also known as "tax expenditure legislation" ("TEL"). The Archwood committee working on public-school issues urges all of us not to sign petitions that would put this bill on the ballot and to vote "no" if it does get on the ballot. It would be disastrous for public schools and many essential public services. More on this and other matters -- including the August Cleveland schools levy and the proposed statewide "Flannery Amendment" -- in the next "Archway." Thanks to our June 3 panelists: Wendy Leatherberry, a fellow at the Center for Community Solutions and a member of the Cleveland Heights-University Heights school board; Debbie Phillips of Athens, Ohio, executive director of the Ohio Fair Schools Campaign; and Archwood's own Dale
Miller, a member of the Ohio House of Representatives
and the ranking Democrat on its Finance Committee.
Interested in the Archwood group on public schools?
 

Peace and Justice Group Contact, Dale Lindsey
 

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