It’s one of the clearest patterns of the state-level attack on democracy across the nation: as states become “Laboratories of Autocracy,” they engage in a relentless attack on public education.
And a fierce battle playing out in Ohio right now shows just how dedicated they are to their destructive mission. And why the rest of us must fight back with equal vigor.
The Same Destructive Pattern Everywhere
Whether it’s Oklahoma or Missouri or Iowa or Ohio, the assault plays out like clockwork. It’s driven by ideology and money, even if it’s disguised in all sorts of euphemisms, as if it’s even about “public policy” at all. Hint: it’s not. (If it were, they’d change policies amid all the failure I’m about to describe).
And the heart of it is that these statehouses aggressively divert the dollars that go into public schools across states into all sorts of other places—for-profit companies (that often turn out to be run by major donors, who give back some of the take as campaign contributions); outfits run by other interest groups that are their ideological and political allies, etc. And those public school funds become the piggy bank that pays for it all.
But they have a problem: these days, the places they often divert these resources to deliver far WORSE education results than the public schools (which are usually revered in their own communities) they take the money and students from. Given outcomes that are largely indefensible, they have to come up with all sorts of other ways to make this massive transfer out of our public schools politically palatable—and that’s where the culture wars and attacks on teachers and other scare tactics (“indoctrination!”) are coming from. They are working feverishly to erode trust in the entire project of public education; to drive as many away from it as possible, into their hands, as they soak up those once public school dollars.
And of course, when they do divert all that money and make public school teaching a more difficult profession (because of all these attacks), they do accomplish their goal of piling onto the struggles of these public schools, which they then use to justify sending even more dollars elsewhere.
And on it goes.
Downward Spiral: The Ohio Case Study…
Ohio has lived this downward spiral for several decades, and it’s tragically instructive as to what can happen when the right wing—both ideology and money—hijacks the school agenda and follows the above path.
Over the last decade, we have seen scams and scandals and FBI investigations and pay-to-play and relentless attacks on teachers and culture wars, on and on and on. The highest profile education “leader” at the statehouse and senate has been attacking public education as “socialism” for years. Billions have been diverted away from public schools, into the hands of usually terribly performing alternatives, through an approach that earned Ohio the nickname nationally as the “Wild West” for how reckless it was.
And amid it all, a school system ranked in the top 5 in America in 2010, is now mired in the mid-20s. Yet the state’s GOP keeps accelerating the very practices that sparked that calamitous fall.
…And Now, the Power Grab
Then something happened—the voters said enough.
In three state school board elections (Ohio has a school board made up of elected and appointed members) last November, the voters elected candidates dedicated to supporting public education and ending the culture wars being waged by the previous board. That outcome shifted the majority of that board’s elected members to likeminded public school champions, all committed to a different direction than the reckless experiments and money grabs of the past decade.
So what is the far right doing as a response?
Ever since, the Governor and statehouse have been engaged in a power grab to strip most of the power from those newly elected representatives, and instead bring the control of education directly into the Governor’s bureaucracy.
You know, behind closed doors.
With no direct accountability to the people.
And seemingly in direct violation of the Ohio Constitution, which in 1953 the people amended to created the separate school board to oversee education (and to protect education from a pattern of political interference before that Amendment).
That’s right, the very Wild West cowboys who have driven Ohio schools over a cliff now want to exert even more control over those policies—while pulling the decisionmaking process out of the public eye (all the state school board meetings are public), and shrouded within a bureaucracy they control. So they can keep doing what they’ve been doing, with no transparency at all.
What could go wrong?
Thankfully, parents and those school board members filed suit to stop this lawless and undemocratic power grab a few weeks back, and a court issued a TRO to stop the change from moving forward.
But despite that TRO being in place, the Governor last night moved forward with the power grab, eliminating the state’s Department of Education:
We’ll see how the court responds, but it appears to be yet another example of the defiance of the rule of law which has become standard operating procedure in Ohio politics today.
At the same time, the Lieutenant Governor, a guy named Jon Husted, is now doing a media tour falsely attacking the current elected members of the state school board as the reason the power grab is necessary. Of course, the thing he is blaming them for is not the fault of the new school board—but the members they ousted in last year’s elections. Heck, the effort to strip them of power began before they were even sworn in!
Where There’s Smoke…
From watching these people for years, I’ve learned to pay attention to what they fight for the hardest, and who shows up to wage that fight.
When they are willing to violate the Constitution (as they did with gerrymandering for more than a year), or Supreme Court orders (same), it means something really important for them is at stake.
So when I see Governor DeWine angrily defy a TRO, it means something big is afoot. This power grab away from the public eye is clearly a top priority.
(“Why?” I wonder. Usually in Ohio, things like this happen because big money is driving it.)
And when I see Jon Husted step into this fight out of the blue, and energetically engage in a scurrilous smear campaign before a media with short memories, my concern grows even higher. Remember: this is the person more responsible than anyone for giving us the biggest school scandal in our history . ECOT—the so-called “Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow”—scammed taxpayers of millions, siphoned from public schools, all to teach students at its “virtual school,” which was an abysmal failure (highest dropout rate in the nation). The outfit was ultimately caught falsifying its data to heist even more taxpayer dollars, sparking an FBI investigation.
How helpful was Husted to their scammy cause?
He was awarded their first “honorary degree” (along with $10,000s for his campaigns), because, as they explained: "Without Speaker Jon Husted ... the ECOT revolution in e-learning in Ohio may have ended.”
And they’re right—Husted eliminated the government institution that was supposed to provide independent oversight of these new schools at the very moment that institution was raising alarm bells about all these new “Wild West” schools.
So you bet, when I see Husted now fighting to move education policy out of the hands of a transparent and directly elected board and into a closed-door bureaucracy he and DeWine directly control, I am certain that bad things will result. Heck, he did this once before and ECOT and FBI investigation were the result! In any normal world, that alone would be disqualifying for all future office. But now he’s trying to do it again!
I’ll keep you abreast as things develop, and let you know when there are opportunities you can help fight back.
In the meantime, thank you to those parents and school board members (pictured below) who went to court to try to stop this power grab. Another example of democracy heroes, fighting the good fight:
By the fierce reaction, you’re clearly taking on a critical centerpiece of their agenda—which is all the more reason why it’s such a worthy cause.
The Endless Attack on Public Education