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Thursday, 05 February 2009 |
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 Staff photo/Angela Weaver
Gov. Ted Strickland, left, talks with Lima Superintendent Karel Oxley during a tour of Lima Senior High School Wednesday afternoon. Strickland visited a handful of Ohio cities to tout his education plan.
By ANGELA WEAVER
Staff Writer
LIMA — The governor visited a Lima school Wednesday afternoon and answered questions from area superintendents, media and a few students about the plan he recently proposed.
Gov. Ted Strickland told those gathered in Lima Senior High School’s media center about his recently announced proposed education plan and answered questions area school officials had about it. Strickland began his speech thanking those in attendance, especially the students.
“The students are the future of our state,” he said. “Ohio will never reach its full potential without our providing a quality education for our students.”
In addition to consolidating childhood development and early learning programs into the department of education, Strickland also has a few plans for other parts of Ohio’s education process, with the emphasis on getting students a college education.
“We’re doing some things with higher education that are making it more likely and more possible for students in Ohio to afford a college education,” he said.
Strickland noted that Ohio has increased in-state tuition for the past 10 years, so the state is currently under a two-year tuition freeze. In the 2010 fiscal year, Strickland said the tuition freeze will continue for all major campuses. Following the freeze, major campuses will then be able to increase tuition by approximately 3 percent.
“We think it’s critically important to have access to an affordable college education,” Strickland said. “The goal for every Ohio young person who has a desire to go to college to do so.”
Strickland’s plan proposed a few changes that would take place during the course of 10 years.
“We’re laying out the major challenges or reforms that we are pushing,” he said. “They are big and they are relative to what needs to be done to provide a 21st century opportunity for the students.”
Strickland’s plan includes lengthening the number of school days from 120 to 200, as well as longer school days. He said he hoped the longer school day would give students an opportunity have more programs like community service and health and wellness available to them.
He also brought up the declining student population in a few schools.
“What we are finding is there are districts where the student population has declined significantly,” Strickland said. “We have the opportunity to ask the district to make the adjustments and right size their overhead.”
Other changes will affect high school seniors — what Strickland referred to as the ACT plus three. The plan proposes replacing the Ohio Graduation Test with the students taking the ACT at no charge to Ohio students and their families.
“They are more likely to see themselves as college bound,” Strickland said of his plan, which also would require seniors to complete a service project, end-of-course exam and a senior project. “We think these assessments taken together will give us a better idea of a more complete picture of a student’s abilities.”
As those gathered anticipated, Strickland also discussed President Obama’s stimulus plan, which he supports and for which he has been trying to garner support from those in Congress.
“The schools will gain some significant new resources that will be provided by the state,” he said. “Part of the money will come from the stimulus.”
Strickland added he would have introduced the education plan regardless of the stimulus package.
“We think we have made very conservative adjustments based on the bailout,” he said. “We believe that it’s reasonable that by 2014 we will be seeing an uptake in the economy.”
Strickland was questioned as to why he wanted to propose the plan now — in light of the economy.
“There’s always going to be a reason why we shouldn’t do it now,” he said, adding that he believed the only hope for economic recovery is educating the young people. I think it’s absolutely necessary that we not postpone it any longer, even in the midst of an economic recession.”
He was also questioned as to why he didn’t prose the plan when he was elected.
“I wasn’t ready two years ago, and I don’t think we were ready two years ago,” Strickland said.
He said his plan would be a big change for the schools that needed cooperation.
“In order for us to do this, it is going to take all of us,” Strickland said. “This is a major change and it affects fundamentally how we fund our schools. The world has changed and we must be open to change.”
As an example of change in the schools, Strickland gave the process of the three schools of Lima Senior — Performance Based School, Progressive Academy and School of Multiple Intelligences.
“That was only possible because some leader said ‘We need to do this,’” he said. “I would suspect there was some push-back, but they overcame those objections and a good thing happened.” |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 10 February 2009 )
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