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Leader doesn't impress Strickland at 2006 visit
By Dennis J. Willard
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Sunday, Jun 01, 2008
COLUMBUS: It is the end of an error.
After nine years on the job, Superintendent of Public Education Susan Tave Zelman announced she is leaving.
Zelman will be lauded by her supporters for making major inroads into improving education for schoolchildren all across the state by establishing higher standards for teaching and testing.
The truth is the impetus for any increased academic scores is the result of two decades of pressure from the Ohio General Assembly and the federal government to teach to the test and ignore any other warning signs that the state's education system is falling short.
Lawmakers and former Gov. George Voinovich, furious that the Ohio Supreme Court ruled the funding system unconstitutional in 1997, decided against fixing the system and instead imposed Draconian academic and financial accountability standards on local school districts.
At the time, John Goff was state superintendent.
His predecessor in the job, Ted Sanders, testified after leaving office in Perry County Common Pleas Court during the first school-funding trial that the way the state pays to educate children is ''immoral.''
Goff had a fatal flaw for a public official. He liked to talk and he didn't like to lie.
So when the Supreme Court sent the state's response to its first ruling back to Perry County for a second trial in September 1998, Goff testified that he believed the system was still unconstitutional.
He was out of a job by Christmas.
Zelman was the new superintendent and she would not make the same mistakes as Goff.
Although the Supreme Court concurred with Goff and ruled the system unconstitutional again, Zelman would never publicly agree with the assessment.
She wisely said nothing and refused repeatedly to answer questions about the matter.
In doing so, she pleased the new governor, Bob Taft, and the legislative leaders who continued to ignore the court's order to fix the system until the court gave up.
The State Board of Education, once the strongest lobby in the legislature and administration for more money for local school boards, began submitting budgets that were more in line with what lawmakers and the governor believed they could fund rather than what was needed to ensure a thorough and efficient system as prescribed by the Ohio Constitution.
Zelman was loyal to the governor and lawmakers while her core constituents — the more than 612 local school districts, superintendents and boards — witnessed the state's percentage of aid decline while they were forced to return again and again to property owners with levies.
Her salary soared to $217,000 a year, making her one of the highest-paid public officials in Ohio.
During these years, the state board meetings resembled the Soviet Politiburo circa 1935.
Matters of grave importance would be debated, brows would be arched, data disseminated and after the plenary panel would vote, everyone would embrace, pat each other on the back and retire to a dignified lunch or dinner.
Presiding over all of this was Zelman, the Uber-bureaucrat, whose charm and political acumen turned loyalists into diehards and dissenters into supporters.
She could speak for hours about one of the most divisive issues facing the country — how we teach, measure and pay to educate our children — and never utter a disagreeable syllable.
Zelman was simply magnificent.
When the state board became overcrowded with religious conservatives who wanted to alter Ohio's science curriculum to question evolution and impose creationism in the classroom, Zelman proved to be bulletproof.
Ohio was called the new Kansas of progressive thinking. The board was writing the script fora modern version of Inherit the Wind. Zelman?
She was present, but never accounted for on the issue.
Once again, her ability to use 1,000 words or more to say nothing served her well.
When Ted Strickland was running for governor in 2006, he and his wife visited with Zelman.
Afterward, he shared with others that he was not impressed and believed she used their time together to politic to keep her job rather than talk about solutions to the huge challenges facing the state's education system.
Governor, she was just being herself.
After a year on the job, Strickland has started to move more forcefully to fulfill his campaign promise to address the still-unconstitutional school-funding formula.
Zelman's departure is part of pouring the foundation.
Strickland also wants the Ohio Department of Education to be in his Cabinet with a director reporting to him.
He believes the governor is accountable for the education system and therefore should have the necessary control to implement his policies.
But he already approves the budget for schools, writes the laws that establish the fundingformula and can, as proven in the recent past, impose academic and financial guidelines for education through legislation.
Strickland also has the power to appoint members to the state board of education.
The governor maintains he wants a strong advocate for Ohio's 1.8 million schoolchildren.
He claims he wants a new Goff, but the systemic changes he is calling for suggest the state is going to end up with another Zelman.
Dennis J. Willard can be reached at 614-224-1613 or dwillard@thebeaconjournal.com.
COLUMBUS: It is the end of an error.
Get the full article here.
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