By Miesha Headen, DFER Ohio State Director
“This wasn’t about any one person. And we are holding every state accountable and will follow their progress. If any state does not implement well, we will simply stop funding them.”
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, August 24, 2010
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While Ohio was one of 12 states that won Race to the Top Grants in 2010, the state must keep the promises it made in its application in order to actually receive all of its $400 million in Race to the Top funding. Ohio is being watched closely because it is one of several states that changed governors between the 2010 competition and the 2011 implementation deadline. Because Governor Kasich has already signaled that he wants to change key education policies undertaken by Governor Ted Strickland (see here and here), many of which are woven into the state’s Race to the Top plan, it is among the top two or three states that likely will most test the Obama Administration’s resolve to hold states to their education reform promises.
In early December, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education said that Ohio’s eligibility to receive $400 million in funding from the Race to the Top (RttT) program will be contingent upon the number of substantive revisions to the application submitted by Governor Kasich. Secretary Duncan’s office made it clear that nothing will be known until Governor Kasich’s changes are made and evaluated.
The biggest fight seems to be shaping up over the “Evidence Based Model (EBM) for funding schools that was one of Strickland’s signature initiatives and was passed into law in 2009. The model was an effort to address inequality in public school funding and improve student academic performance by directing public education dollars to area and activities most closely associated with improving student achievement and closing achievement gaps. Broadly, the EBM is full of things that hard to argue against- increasing funds available for school construction, spearheading learning in math and science, implementing universal all-day kindergarten, and making the educational levels of Ohio students comparable with students from the countries with the high achieving students. EBM also has a powerful political ally the Ohio Education Association, which lobbied heavily for and greatly influenced the EBM legislation.