“The Ohio House took an important step to transform the voucher program in a way that moves away from the blame game and toward meeting the needs of ALL students,” said OEA President Scott DiMauro. “I’m hopeful that the broad, bi-partisan support in the House is indicative of a new course in education policy -one that addresses the needs of the 90% of Ohio students who attend our public schools.”
OEA very much welcomes the strong bi-partisan recognition that the grading system Ohio uses to determined performance-based vouchers doesn’t accurately reflect how well a school is educating its students, and that the state report cards and the over-reliance on standardized tests to measure student achievement need to be fixed.
OEA also strongly supports the amendment added to the bill that would end Academic Distress Commissions that are part of the failed state takeover law and restore local control to Lorain, Youngstown and East Cleveland.
OEA urges the Senate to pass SB 89 immediately to give families and educators in both public and voucher schools ample time to plan for 2020-2021.
The Ohio Education Association represents 122,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities.
