Policy Update: Ohio: Out of Time

Vital Statistics
611	Public school districts
3,725	Public schools
1.8 million	K-12 enrollment
18%	Minority students
19%	Children in poverty
3.7%	Students with disabilities
$11.1 billion	Annual K-12 expenditures (all revenue sources)

But even as the justices on that same high court gear up to weigh whether the legislators' fix met the guidelines for the "complete systematic overhaul" they outlined in a March 1997 ruling, some legislators admit that the plan has weaknesses.

Under the new law, legislators determined that the baseline cost of a good education in Ohio was $4,063 per student, but they set up a phase-in period of funding that some say was intended to avoid raising taxes in 1998, an election year. As a result, the base this year was set at $3,851 per pupil, with scheduled increases to reach an inflation-adjusted $4,414 by fiscal 2002.

While many districts, even some that are considered low-income, will see only a nominal increase this year, the Children's Defense Fund of Ohio estimates that 74 percent of Ohio students live in districts that will receive an increase in state aid of at least 6 percent.

"I think the overall effect is real positive," says Mark Real, the executive director of the CDF of Ohio. "There's no dispute that there's more money going into schools."

But some education leaders complain that when the state's school finance structure needed to be razed and rebuilt, lawmakers provided only a new coat of paint.

State lawmakers last spring employed a school finance consultant to determine the per-pupil cost of a good education in the state. But by ultimately choosing to adopt a base much lower than the consultant's recommended $4,269, legislators showed that they are still calculating school funding by "budget residual," or what's left after paying for other items, says William L. Phillis, the executive director of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding. His group filed the 1991 lawsuit that spurred the supreme court's judgment two years ago.

The legislature decided on a per-pupil expenditure of $3,851 by "determining arbitrarily that they're going to spend X-dollars and backing into it," Phillis contends. "And then these people have the gall to go to the court and say they've solved the problem. ... It would be funny, except that it's a serious situation."

And after the overwhelming failure last May of a ballot measure that would have raised both $500 million in property-tax relief and $500 million in state aid for education through a 1-cent sales-tax hike, the new plan does little to change the funding system's reliance on property taxes as a source of revenue.

Legislators have said they will correct the system's major shortcomings in years to come, but point out that they had to produce a plan by March 26, 1998, one year after the high court declared the earlier funding method unconstitutional.

"They ran out of time," says Warren G. Russell, the director of legislative services for the Ohio School Boards Association. "The [legislators'] rhetoric on it was, 'We know it's not what we needed, but it was the best we could do.' "

The case went to the Perry County Common Pleas Court last year, but both sides say it will ultimately be appealed to the state supreme court this spring.

In November, the coalition challenging the plan asked Judge Linton D. Lewis of the Common Pleas Court to order the legislature to undertake a 10-part interim remedy until the supreme court issues its final decision.

State officials call the plan cost-prohibitive, and contend that the legislature would have to double the $5.7 billion state appropriation they made for school funding in fiscal 1999. Judge Linton is expected to issue a ruling on the interim plan in February.

Meanwhile, Ohio districts and the state education department are continuing to phase in the fiscal- and academic-accountability measures that legislators called for in 1997.

This spring, the department will distribute the second trial round of district and school report cards that tell how schools performed on state proficiency tests and include attendance and graduation information. In November, state board members voted to extend the pilot distribution of report cards to parents in each of the state's 611 school districts, from a sample mailing in only 109 districts last year.

Following a spate of complaints from superintendents and principals, legislators voted last summer to bar state education officials from including test results broken down by race and gender, as they did last year.

The report cards will be official in the next school year, and will include information on how well students meet state standards.

State officials have already begun working with districts they anticipate will receive low ratings next year. Districts could qualify for state intervention as early as the 2000-01 school year.