PART I: Ohio schools that fail kids don't deserve more money. They need better leaders.

Originally published in the Columbus Dispatch, this is a slightly expanded version that goes into more detail. I truly appreciate the Dispatch for their willingness to include contrarian voices and headlines that help to sell newspapers.

Watching the latest battle over school funding in Ohio’s biennial budget process reminds me of Ronald Reagan’s famous campaign debate quip to Jimmy Carter: “There you go again.”

So, here they go again. Republican legislators seek to slow the growth rate of taxpayer money spent on public schools. Then, with typical innumeracy, Democrats claim any reduction in the rate of growth is a spending cut. And the usual suspects of teacher unions and other special interests line up to hector lawmakers, garnished with requisite photo ops of protesters.

Rinse and repeat.

While I respect this dance of democracy, I’m perpetually disappointed by the utter banality of a school funding debate that ignores the real problems.

Write this down: most Ohio public schools fail in their primary mission to educate our state’s nearly two million children in a “thorough and efficient system” as the Ohio Constitution requires. And, while you’ll rarely see it in the news, lack of money isn’t the primary problem. The real culprits are poor school board and administrative leadership that’s more focused on the wants of adults than better academic outcomes for kids.

These inverted priorities — increasing financial inputs rather than increasing academic outcomes — is exactly the problem. Next time there are news reports about upcoming teacher contract renewals or school levies, pay attention to what the parties involved talk about. Rarely, if ever, will you see or hear anything about how more taxpayer money will be used to achieve hard, objective, and numerically unassailable improvements in academic outcomes for students.

Even more rarely will there be any skin in the game for anyone on the receiving end of taxpayer largesse to pay for their failure to achieve those rarely enacted improvement goals. In this inversion of common sense and adult responsibility, students — children — always pay the price for adult failures.

I want good teachers to make good money for good results and to have a promising career path for doing so. But when more money is the only goal, there will never be enough.

It may be counter-intuitive, but the data show there’s little correlation between money spent and student academic outcomes. I wrote about this a year ago. A brief look around Central Ohio schools then showed:

“Columbus City Schools spends just under $20,000 per student each year, while Upper Arlington spends just under $17,000. My home district of New Albany-Plain Local Schools spends just under $13,000. Which one produces the best results for kids and the best value for taxpayers?”

In those examples, Ohio’s school report card showed an inverse relationship between money and outcomes.

Looming over this debate is a proposed state constitutional amendment (recently certified for signature gathering) that would eliminate property taxes entirely. If successful, it would require a complete revision of school funding since most of it currently comes from local property taxes.

In a move ostensibly designed to temper school property tax increases, Ohio House Republicans included a provisionin the budget bill that would penalize school districts that hold more than 30 percent of spending in their ending cash balance account.

Ohio’s public school finance model is complex, but I learned its intricacies as I helped manage my district’s budget during my service on our finance committee and school board. Supporters of the 30% cap ought to know that their proposed provision would have exactly the opposite of their claimed intent.

Fifty years ago, House Bill 920 was enacted to protect property owners from automatic inflation-related increases in taxes derived from levies like those that fund schools.

While that law correctly forces districts to regularly justify their spending to voters, the downside is constant levy cycles, sometimes leading to failed levies caused more from levy fatigue than from concerns about bad school management. This is particularly true in rapidly growing districts and those with a weak tax base.

Well-managed districts balance those factors by proposing sufficient millage to last as long as possible. That means they’ll have a significant cash balance in the first few years of levy collections that drops to zero by the end of the budget cycle. Capping the balance at 30% would inevitably lead to more frequent, and more frequently failed, levies.

And that would be a death spiral for public education.

The cap’s effect is so perverse, it almost seems that killing public education is the goal. If not, the Ohio Senate should strike that provision, or Governor DeWine should use his line-item veto to do so. (Editor’s note: The Ohio Senate kept the cap but increased it to 40%. Governor DeWine wisely vetoed it anyway. As of this writing, it remains to be seen if the General Assembly will override the veto.)

Our lawmakers recently enacted important legislation to eliminate wasteful school spending on controversial and divisive programming like DEI and gender ideology that distract from schools’ primary purpose. Next, they should focus tax money where it produces results for Ohio’s students.

Districts that fail to effectively and efficiently educate our children shouldn’t get a penny more from taxpayers. They should get less.

Ohioans are rightly weary of higher taxes for failing schools. If our representatives won’t fix the problem, voters can persuade them with another famous Reagan line: “When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.”

 New Albany resident Philip Derrow is a retired business owner. He was a two-term member of the New Albany-Plain Local Board of Education. He is a regular Columbus Dispatch contributor. Reach him at philderrowdispatch@gmail.com.