Ohio Politics Today | School funding bill getting new look under new speaker

By Susan Tebben

A school funding bill originally sponsored by new Ohio House Speaker Bob Cupp is getting a fresh look and hopefully time in front of legislative committees before year’s end, according the legislator now heading up the bill.

State Rep. John Patterson, D-Jefferson

The other original sponsor of the proposed legislation, state Rep. John Patterson, said a substitute bill is in the works that should touch on longstanding concerns the Ohio Supreme Court had about the constitutionality of the state’s education system.

“We’re taking a more balanced approach in the new bill,” Patterson, D-Jefferson, said.

The state’s contribution to education budgets has stagnated over time, while private schools have benefitted from the EdChoice scholarship program, in which some state funding for public school districts has been redirected to religious, charter and community schools.

EdChoice scholarships were frozen at current levels in an omnibus bill responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Patterson said a substitute version of House Bill 305 seeks to address “overarching criticisms” of the original bill, and the education system itself. One of the major criticisms is the distribution of money in the school funding formula between school districts with varying financial situations.

“Under the current formula, districts are all interconnected, so as one district becomes wealthier, another becomes poorer,” Patterson told the Ohio Capital Journal.

In the new plan, co-sponsored this time by Rep. Gary Scherer, R-Circleville, legislators want to reassess the amount that districts are able to raise on their own before they decide what the amount of state aid would be to schools.The proposed bill would also take the weight solely off of property taxes for school funding, something the 1997 decision by the Ohio Supreme Court in DeRolph v. State of Ohio ruled was a big reason the education system violated the state constitution.

The new plan will combine property and income taxes along with a calculation of a district’s wealth level to “determine a district’s true capacity to raise its fair share,” according to Patterson.

“The question is what is fair for the locals, and what is fair for the state,” Patterson said. “We have fine-tuned for that.”

Disadvantaged students would receive more immediate help than in previous funding models if the new bill is made law. In the original proposal for the bill, aid would have been phased in over time for school districts, but legislators are now looking to channel that aid to districts immediately. 

Patterson planned to meet with interested parties — teachers’ unions, public school officials and community school representatives on Tuesday to discuss the plan. One of those parties is the Ohio Federation of Teachers, who said school funding needs a direction that accounts for social and emotional learning as well as test proficiency.

“We’re hopeful that (the sponsors) are moving in the right direction,” said OFT executive director Melissa Cropper. “No school funding formula will be perfect, but having no school funding formula has been a disaster.”

In the next month, simulations of financial situations will be run to test the effectiveness of the bill as it stands, and Patterson hopes the bill will be ready when the Ohio House returns to regular session in September.

After anticipated amendments and passage of the bill, Patterson said implementation of the new formula could take years.

With EdChoice pitting private schools and public schools against each other for funding in the state model, Patterson said concerns were brought from both sides, and his bill plans to address private school issues as well.

“What I’ll say is we have heard their criticism and have addressed their concerns in the substitute bill,” Patterson. “I think they’re going to be pleased.”

The changes made to the bill Cupp once authored have the blessing of the new speaker, according to Patterson. 

“Speaker Cupp understands the absolute necessity of passing House Bill 305 in this General Assembly,” Patterson said.

Neither Cupp nor Scherer responded to requests for comment.

• • •

This story is provided by Ohio Capital Journal, a part of States Newsroom, a national 501 (c)(3) nonprofit. See the original story here.

COMMENTARY: Trump is ancient history.

Kamala Harris is America as it is now

By John L. Micek

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 16: U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to examine issues involving race and policing practices in the aftermath of the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd and the civil unrest that followed. (Photo by Jonathan Ernst-Pool/Getty Images)

If there is a more authentically American story than the one of U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, you’d have to make it up.

On Tuesday, the California Democrat, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, became the first Black woman in American history to be named to a presidential ticket. And across the United States on Tuesday, Black women, who saw themselves reflected in Harris’ eyes, rejoiced.

“I’m so excited I can hardly talk,” former Philadelphia City Council member Marian B. Tasco told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “For us to have an African American woman be a candidate for vice president, that is just so exciting for me, having worked so long in the political arena.”

Harris, 55, who made national headlines with her briskly efficient evisceration of then-U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh in 2018, emerged as an early favorite in the veepstakes when former Vice President Joe Biden announced he intended to choose a woman, likely a woman of color, as his running-mate.

It’s long past absurd that America stands nearly alone in the industrialized world for never having put a woman in the Oval Office — and yes, Clintonistas, I hear you, the popular vote numbers in 2016 said it all. That does not mean Harris joining the 2020 ticket is any less epochal.

Harris, who enjoyed a close relationship with Biden’s son, the late Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, when she was the Golden State’s top cop, survived a culling process that sometimes threatened to be reduced to a mere popularity contest as various — and vastly qualified — contenders waxed and waned.

As The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty wrote Wednesday, the very qualities that some believe hampered Harris’ short-lived presidential bid — that she is cautious and deliberate — are the very attributes that make her an ideal running-mate for Biden, who will benefit from her counsel should he win the White House in November.

But crucially, in choosing Harris, Biden picked a running-mate who will meet where the country where it is now: A multiracial and multiethnic republic, where the voices of Black and Brown people have been raised and are, rightfully, prominent, and who will shortly become the majority of the population.

Harris, like President Barack Obama before her, brings an intimate knowledge and understanding of that changing America.

During last August’s Democratic debate, she took Biden to the woodshed over his opposition to busing,  forcefully arguing that it was a ticket to opportunity for hundreds of thousands of Black children just like her. She and Biden later mended fences over that televised moment of confrontation.

While she’s not without her flaws — Harris has been forced to reconcile her calls for police reform during this tumultuous summer of change against her career in law enforcement — Harris is a living refutation of the crass and hateful nativism of the Trump administration.

As he has struggled to brand Biden, a nickname that won’t be printed here was changed in a new round of ads that debuted Tuesday, Trump will similarly struggle to brand Harris.

That’s due in part to changing American attitudes about race and race relations (a majority of Americans support the Black Lives Matter movement), but also because of the policy ground Harris has staked out during her time in the Senate.

Like Biden, a Senate veteran before his ascension to the vice presidency in 2008, Harris is largely a moderate Democrat who will defy Trump’s efforts to paint her as some empty vessel for the party’s progressive wing.

Trump has so far failed to tar Biden with that same brush, though that has not stopped the Conspiracist-in-Chief from trying to craft a Bizarro World Biden who’s held in thrall by The Squad.

Nor is it likely that Harris will wilt in the face of any presidential Twitter storm. Her questioning of Kavanaugh reminded the nation of her prosecutorial bona fides. They were cemented with Twitter shade of her own, when she clapped back at Trump “Don’t worry, Mr. President, I’ll see you at your trial.”

And it’s safe to say she will deal with Vice President Mike Pence with equal precision in any veep debate this fall.

Finally, though it seems grim to talk about it, Harris has the experience and expertise to step in if Biden, who will be 78 by the time of his possible inauguration in January, is incapacitated and unable to serve.

Biden has described himself as a “transitional candidate.” And in Harris he has found an ideal partner to whom to pass the baton.

As much as Trump has tried to move the country backwards, putting up walls, withdrawing America from the world stage, and hearkening back to a segregated past, Harris is a living reminder that the arc of history is always forward-moving.

She’s America as it is now, and will be in the decades to come. Trump is an unpleasant chapter the country can’t move past quickly enough.

This story is provided by Ohio Capital Journal, a part of States Newsroom, a national 501 (c)(3) nonprofit. See the original story here. John L. Micek is the Pennsylvania Capital-Star's Editor-in-Chief. Micek's commentary is syndicated to more than 800 newspapers nationwide by Cagle Syndicate.

• • •• • •

·    

Unemployment comp benefits too little, too late for many Ohioans

Feds release unemployment guidance, could be a long time before supplements reach Ohioans

By Marty Schladen

The U.S. Department of Labor last week released guidance to the states on how it will disburse money to supplement unemployment checks. But it’s far from clear when — or whether — hundreds of thousands of out-of-work Ohioans will see those funds.

A $600-a-week federal supplement had been credited with keeping millions of unemployed Americans — and the economy — afloat, but it expired at the end of July. 

The Democratically-controlled House passed an extension of the benefit. The Republican-controlled Senate introduced a bill cutting the supplement to $200 a week, but failed to pass it.

Then President Donald Trump on Aug. 8 signed a memorandum that would repurpose federal disaster relief funds to provide $300 a week in additional support. But it would exclude people getting less than $100 a week in state benefits — a group comprising many minimum-wage workers and service workers who get a low hourly wage and tips on top of that.

The administration of Gov. Mike DeWine signed on to the plan last week, but said additional guidance was needed from the Labor Department before any predictions could be made about when funds would be disbursed.

The money can’t come quickly enough for many Ohioans. 

According to the U.S. Census’ Household Pulse Survey for the week of July 9-14, nearly 1 million Ohio adults sometimes or often did not have enough to eat in the past week. In addition, more than 400,000 hadn’t paid the previous month’s rent and 360,000 homeowners hadn’t made the previous month’s mortgage payment.

“This is before the $600 (federal unemployment supplement) expired,” Zach Schiller, research director for the think tank Policy Matters Ohio, said.

Earlier in the week, DeWine also underscored the urgency of getting money out to unemployed Ohioans. He praised Trump for taking the actions he did and he called on Congress to get busy — something that’s unlikely to happen until early September at the soonest.

However, state officials have to clear several hurdles before they can start distributing the federal dollars Trump has attempted to repurpose.

For example, “States will need to develop a self-certification process in accordance with FEMA instructions for claimants to certify weekly that they are unemployed or partially unemployed due to disruptions caused by COVID-19,” the Labor Department guidance says.

And state officials will have to reprogram antiquated, overwhelmed unemployment systems to process the benefit.

“We are examining the DOL guidance on lost wages assistance to see what kind of system programming is needed in order to pay these unemployment benefits,” Dan Tierney, DeWine’s press secretary, said in an email. “As noted in the guidance, all states are required to develop a self-certification process for claimants based on instructions from FEMA.”

He said that once state officials figure all that out, they’ll make beneficiaries whole, but it’s hard to know when that will be.

“While (the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services) intends to pay these retroactive benefits as quickly and efficiently as possible, there are several procedural and programming steps that must take place before that can happen,” Tierney said.

There is also a serious question about whether the Trump plan is legal. Georgetown University law professor David Super last week wrote that it is a clear violation of the Stafford Act, the federal law governing disaster assistance.

Schiller criticized the scheme as ill-conceived at a time when so many Ohioans are in desperate need of assistance.

“Altogether, the whole thing is kind of a half-baked measure,” he said.

This story is provided by Ohio Capital Journal, a part of States Newsroom, a national 501 (c)(3) nonprofit. See the original story here.

• • •• • •

Ohio Minority Health Strike Force issues final report, recommendations

DeWine announces plan of action to "advance equity"

By Susan Tebben

Ohio’s Minority Health Strike Force released its final report last week, laying out both how disproportionate the health care and economic lives of people of color are across the state, and ways to deal with it. 

The strike force was empaneled to collect information on COVID-19’s effect on African Americans and other minority populations, along with the racism and trauma that leads to worse health outcomes for those communities.

According to state numbers, African Americans represent 14% of Ohio’s population, but represent 24% of positive COVID-19 cases, 32% of hospitalizations and 19% percent of deaths from the disease.

The group’s report notes the most important framework needed to advance equity are the categories that make up social determinants of health, those things that make up the overall health of a person and community.

In order to advance equity, “racism must be dismantled,” the Strike Force members said, and that must include action in three categories: health care and public health, the social and economic environment and the physical environment.

The first recommendation from the group is a statewide, government-wide and community-wide acknowledgment of racism as a public health crisis.

Ohio’s legislature already has a resolution in both the House and Senate declaring racism a public health crisis, but neither have successfully passed through committee. The House version didn’t see a hearing before the body went on summer break.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine made several statements during his Aug. 13 press conference about the report, including stating outright that he believes racism is a matter of public health.

“There are racial disparities in Ohio … certainly in health, education, housing, and we could go on and on,” DeWine said.

The sponsors of the Senate’s proposed resolution said the governor’s comments further underscore the need for the measure.

OH Sen. Hearcel Craig

“We have a duty to protect the lives and freedoms of all Ohioans, and that starts with addressing the glaring inequities in our health care, housing, education and justice systems,” said state Sen. Hearcel Craig, D-Columbus, in a statement. “Governor DeWine was right when he said that history will judge us for how we choose to respond to these disparities.”

House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes, D-Akron, was a part of the Minority Health Strike Force, but criticized the lateness of the final report, and the lack of action by the governor.

OH House Minority Leader
Emilia Sykes, D-Akron

“For thousands of Black workers and Black families, it’s too little, too late — the damage is done,” Sykes said in a statement. “The governor and his team moved quickly to address some issues but not the ones that dealt with Black and Brown lives.”

Several of the strike force’s recommendations focused on creating cultural competency and health literacy, along with urging equitable representation in government and the private sector and a health equity lens for policy.

“The state of Ohio should support the recruitment and retention of an equitable representation of Ohioans of color in health care and public health professions in all established workforce development programs,” the report stated.

Through better representation, the strike force hopes to target those social determinants that cause increased mortality rates and comorbidities in people of color.

Comorbidities are health problems such as hypertension and heart disease that exacerbate or expand into bigger diseases. Racism and discrimination of all kinds can lead to trauma and stress, and social determinants like poverty can impact immune systems, and overall health, the strike force said.

“Comorbidities render communities of color more vulnerable to COVID-19 complications and death,” the report reads. “While protective factors, such as supportive family and caregiver relationships, social connections, and economic security can mitigate these risks, the impact of trauma and toxic stress often persists.”

Health disparities were a problem for people of color long before COVID-19 began ravaging the state and country. “Preexisting disparities” like diabetes, hypertension and heart disease were already prevalent in Black and other minority communities, and were only made worse by new traumas, the report said

With that in mind, the strike force also recommended new policies and services to address safe and affordable housing, broadband funding, access to public transportation, and criminal justice reform.

“State government leadership should formalize a partnership to identify policy reforms to reduce community violence, police brutality, and bias in policing, sentencing and other aspects of the criminal justice system,” the report stated.

In response to the strike force report, DeWine enlisted his cabinet in a “plan of action to advance equity,” which proposes an entirely new study group, the Governor’s Equity Advisory Board to “assist the state’s efforts to dismantle racism and promote health equity.”

In addition to Sykes, task force members from northeast Ohio included physicians Lolita McDavid, M.D. MPA [Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital] and Charles Modlin M.D., MBA, FACS [Cleveland Clinic]; business owner Andrew Jackson [Elson International, Inc.]; agency executive June Taylor [Western Reserve Area Agency on Aging]; Cleveland State Professor Ronnie Dunn, Ph.D.; and public officials Jamael Tito Brown [Youngstown mayor] and Alisha Nelson [director, RecoveryOhio], who served as co-chair. 

A full list of task force members can be found here.

This story is provided by Ohio Capital Journal, a part of States Newsroom, a national 501 (c)(3) nonprofit. See the original story here.

Additional reporting contributed by R. T. Andrews.

• • •• • •

EDUCATION | Supporting Students in Pandemic Times

Local agencies hope to aid working parents by providing safe spaces for students during virtual school hours

This story is provided by ideastream as part of special community coverage of COVID-19 and funded by Third Federal Foundation and University Settlement. [Photos by Tim Harrison for ideastream.]

By Rachel Dissell

For some parents of school-age children, the decision of most area school districts to start the school year with remote and virtual learning came as a relief, as uncertainty about increasing cases of COVID-19 and possible outbreaks loom.

But for many Cleveland-area parents, the news sparked worry. Parents who can’t work from home, don’t have reliable internet or necessary virtual-learning technology, or who live in neighborhoods with rising levels of gun violence are balancing concerns over the coronavirus and fear of their children falling behind in school or being unsafe at home alone.

Rahaim Stubblefield, 16, foreground, and David Warner, 16, both of Cleveland, use the computers in the teen room following an afternoon playing basketball at the Boys & Girls Club on Broadway Ave. in the Slavic Village neighborhood of Cleveland. The computers are placed more than six feet apart to accommodate the new distancing rules.

Community after-school programs and some area churches are stepping in with plans to offer safe, digitally equipped, socially distanced places for students during school hours beginning in September. The hope is that they can help parents keep working and students keep up with studies this school year.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio accelerated plans to expand its programs as soon as Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Eric Gordon announced in July that students would learn remotely for the first nine weeks of the school year, a decision followed by many other local districts. 

One of many concerns was the well-known “digital divide” in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, said Jeff Scott, president and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio. More than 40% of Cleveland households don’t have regular access to broadband, according to a digital inclusion study and U.S. census data from 2018.

The clubs normally serve about 2,000 youths, ages 6 to 18, daily at 39 centers in Cleveland, Akron, and Lorain and Erie counties. The arts and recreational activities and tutoring and career-readiness programs traditionally are provided after school. 

The idea that students, through no fault of their own, might lose academic ground, “It just makes your stomach churn,” Scott said. “That's why we are so committed to figuring out a model that allows us to operate during the [school] day.”

In April, a CMSD survey of parents led to estimates that as many as two-thirds of families did not have electronic devices needed for learning at home. The district scrambled in the spring to distribute more than 10,000 computers and WiFi hotspots to students. Local foundations and businesses have contributed millions of dollars and donated hotspots for the fall, though it is unclear how many students still lack adequate computers and high-speed internet access needed for remote learning. CMSD schools last week were conducting parent surveys about technology needs. 

A challenge for churches

Local pastors will also offer support to working parents and their children by opening up as many as 20 churches to school-age children in September. 

The Cleveland Clergy Coalition hopes to offer safe places with digital connections and adult supervision during the nine weeks or longer of remote learning, said the Rev. Aaron Phillips, who leads the coalition. Some of the congregations provided after-school programming and tutoring before the pandemic, Phillips said, but the demand is expected to be greater this fall, especially for parents who must work. 

The churches that will open to students, mostly on Cleveland’s East Side and in the inner-ring suburbs, face a litany of logistical issues to get their spaces ready and to make sure proper health protocols are in place for children who would come during the daytime hours to learn.  

The project, Phillips said, won't be easy. "It's a huge undertaking and we don't know where the funding resources are going to be to help us with any of this."

The challenges of opening to students are also compounded by the higher rate of COVID-19 infections in Cleveland’s black community, Phillips said. As of July 15, black Clevelanders made up 73% of the hospitalizations for COVID-19 and 57% of the deaths attributed to complications from the disease, though they make up about half of the city’s population. 

Other organizations, such as YWCA of Greater Cleveland, charter schools and youth development programs, are also looking at operating small learning centers for school-age children. 

A test run

The Boys & Girls Clubs estimates it might be able to serve 500 to 700 students at its standalone centers, three of which are in Cleveland, where 37,000 kids attend district schools and more attend charter and parochial schools.

Churches are still gauging demand and figuring out how many students each building can accommodate. 

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio reopened nine of its 39 clubs in June, including this one on Broadway Ave. in Cleveland. The clubs are working on a plan to serve school-age children during the day at multiple locations so students can learn safely and have access to needed technology for remote learning.

With a small number of students using the facilities each day, Boys & Girls Clubs believes it can operate safely. The organization already had a test run of sorts, Scott said. In June, it reopened nine of its Northeast Ohio locations to provide meals and safe gathering places to kids dealing with stress from the pandemic, social and racial unrest, and community violence, Scott said. 

The first time a club learned of an exposure to the virus, which has happened a handful of times, it shut down for several days to clean. Leaders personally made sure front-line staff were comfortable with reopening, Scott said.

The organization activates a task force within the hour of learning of a positive coronavirus case involving a club member. It uses a process similar to the one when a club member or family experiences community violence: Learn what happened, find out how staff and families are feeling, make a plan to respond to concerns and plan for next steps, he said.

The effort includes balancing both virus-related health issues and the other safety issues some kids face daily. In July, the week the decision was made for Cleveland schools to open remotely, the city had recorded 83 official coronavirus deaths, five more than the 78 reported homicide deaths.

“It really is about the nuances of all these situations,” Scott said. “And you're in a tactical battle on a day-to-day basis and make the best decision that you can based on the information that you have. But the inputs are many. The inputs are about the virus, the inputs [are] about our kids’ safety and all of the social unrest and the racial equity issues that we're dealing with,” he said.  

Violent crime in Cleveland neighborhoods is up. Homicides have increased about 20% from last year and shootings have jumped nearly 40%, according to Cleveland police crime statistics. 

Four kids involved with Boys & Girls Clubs in Cleveland have been killed or had a family member killed by gun violence since the beginning of May, Scott said. Pre-pandemic, a single such incident might have happened once every couple of months, he said.

Attendance at the King Kennedy club on the East Side was down recently following several shootings, Scott said. Children were afraid to walk the 200 yards to the club from the King Kennedy Estates, where many of the members live. 

National effort

Efforts similar to those in Cleveland are emerging across the country, particularly in urban areas, where concerns about COVID-19 have to be balanced with the realities of keeping children fed and safe from violence and other risks where they live. 

Higher-income families are creating “learning pods” by hiring educators to help with instruction for small groups of children while schools are closed or operating virtually, said Jen Rinehart, vice president for research and policy at the Afterschool Alliance, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C.

Replicating that pod-style learning among local organizations or programs that serve low-income families can help prevent existing inequities from being exacerbated, she said. The alliance created a blueprint for programs looking to partner with school districts. 

But those endeavors will need public policy support and funding so that all young people have access to a safe, supervised place that offers technology support, access to food and additional enrichment, she said.

One obstacle is that current federal funding, through childcare and education grants that support before- and after-school programs, only allows money to be spent when school is not in session. The Afterschool Alliance and others have asked the U.S. Department of Education to relax those rules so money can be used to serve children who are learning virtually during the school day, Rinehart said. 

Planning for school

Over the next few weeks, staff from the Boys & Girls Clubs will prepare each site that will open to students, working with school districts from Cleveland to Sandusky, Scott said. 

Staff members are trying to answer a long list of questions, including:

·      How many kids they can safely serve?

·      Should gyms be used to spread kids out?

·      What hours should they be open?

·      What infrastructure — from desks to power cords, fiber-optic cables and hotspots — are needed?

·      How long will it take to ramp up and how much it will cost?

Ideally, the clubs will create distance-learning pods where children can set up to do schoolwork and the center’s youth development staff can monitor and help them with their work. 

Depending on the club, the plan is to serve ages 6 to 18 and group them by age, like the old schoolhouse model, Scott said.  

The centers hope to also continue to offer after-school programs by closing to clean for a few hours each day and then reopening, Scott said. 

The churches that will open to students, mostly on Cleveland’s East Side and in the inner-ring suburbs, also face a litany of logistical issues to get their spaces ready and to make sure proper health protocols are in place for children who would come during the daytime hours to learn. 

“It’s a matter of safety as well as providing the tutoring and educational piece that we know our students are going to need during this virtual period as well,” he said.

The Boys & Girls Clubs and the clergy coalition both said they were working closely with CMSD to reach families that might need help the most. They are also learning how to use the district’s new online education software and discussing whether district transportation might be available for some students. 

Cleveland Metropolitan School District officials did not respond to questions sent last week about the community efforts to support students’ learning. 

• • •• • •

Contact info for parents seeking help: 

Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio: 216.883.2106

The Cleveland Clergy Coalition: clevelandclergycoalition@gmail.com

• • •• • •