Sunday, November 21, 1999
Lump of coal for the court
BY PETER BRONSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The classroom was bright and freshly painted, decorated with colorful posters and orange plastic chairs parked neatly around Formica-topped desks.
The students were bright too. I did my best to bore them with editorial writing until they stared with the glassy eyes of salmon on ice. But most still asked questions as sharp as a new pencil.
On Wednesday morning, I played teacher for a half day at Welch Elementary in Northwest School District (Forest Park). I saw that teaching is not as easy as it looks. I saw that kids still jump when they hear a bell and squirm to be called on.
But I did not see any children in a coal bin.
The coal-bin kids are an Ohio legend as vivid as David Copperfield: waifs with round eyes in dirty faces, struggling over their ABC's by dim candlelight in a grimy dungeon.
They are the emotional trump card in a court battle to extract billions in school-tax increases; proof that some students are trapped in cruel gulags, victims of “vast wealth-based disparities,” says the Ohio Supreme Court.
In their ruling that Ohio school funding is unconstitutional (DeRolph), four justices cited classes in converted coal bins and shortages of toilet paper, paper clips and chalk.
Last week, the plaintiffs in that case, a coalition of school administrators and teacher unions, announced their demands.
The Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding said all schools must have a “Basket of Essential Learning Resources,” including specially constructed dance floors, mood lighting for drama classes, tubas and clarinets for everyone, digital cameras, staple guns, ceramic kilns, pets with cages, laser and holographic equipment, ropes courses, psychologists, therapists, rug-making looms and hemp for fabric design.
Estimates say it all costs $4.5 billion. I guess hemp is pretty expensive these days.
But first, schools need total state control, the Coalition says: “Public education in this state is not composed of 611 independent school districts, it is a state system.”
Local school boards would be limited to “communicating state goals” and “directing” government funds. Voters' role is “moral support” and “volunteering to assist.”
The school of the future would be a state government E-check station for students. There will be no levy votes, no local accountability, because the Ohio Supreme Court will order a $4.5 billion tax increase.
Raising that much money would push sales taxes past 11 cents or make Ohio an income-tax leper colony. But the Ohio Supreme Court seems determined to get children out of coal bins and onto specially constructed dance floors with mood lighting and psychologists.
So if the court demands $4.5 billion, Ohio has a few choices:
• Raise taxes and turn out the lights on business and job growth, while state-run government schools drive more families to private and charter schools.
• Elect some better Supreme Court justices next fall.
• Or tell the court to lay off the hemp, with a constitutional referendum to save local control of schools and avoid tax increases.
Former Gov. George Voinovich considered such a ballot measure. Gov. Bob Taft said, “I obviously support local control and the people of Ohio support local control,” but he declined to comment on putting it to voters.
Don Berno, president of the Ohio Public Expenditure Council, said, “It would be a slam dunk, but the precedent would be awful.”
Maybe. But a tax revolt is better than revolting taxes for the education monopoly.
Some of Ohio's schools need work. But billions are on the way, and most schools already look like Welch Elementary, thanks to levies passed by voters.
And here's good news: There are no kids in coal bins. I checked.
“All parts of our buildings are being used, but they are painted, heated and safe,” said John Simmons, superintendent of Vinton County Local Schools, where the coal bin legend was born. “Classes in coal bins? No,” Mr. Simmons said. “We have taken big steps to change that.”
A $16 million high school opens soon, with $10 million from the state. Local voters passed tax levies to build the high school and raise $1 million a year for all schools.
“We don't want anyone to do for us what we won't do for ourselves,” said Mr. Simmons, speaking for his rural district.
That's called local control. The Ohio Supreme Court ruling that it's an outdated “cliche” belongs in the coal bin of history.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm
Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
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