Education playing a role in Governor Kasich’s budget proposal

Governor Kasich released his proposed budget for the next two fiscal years this week. In it, is a proposed funding plan for state education.

Doctor Richard Ross, the state superintendent of public instruction, made his first stop to discuss the budget in Zanesville Tuesday. It will allocate $700 million to statewide education. That’s in both traditional public schools and public charter schools.

“They’re all our children, whether the parents choose to go to a public community school or whether they go to a traditional public school,” Ross said. “The issue is we’re going to hold charters’ feet to the fire. Their sponsors are going to have to deliver or we’re going to close them down, so there was a need to increase funding for both sets of schools.”

Ross said the state is going to hold sponsors of charter schools accountable and get rid of them if they don’t shape up.

“One of the big components of the governor is quality schools everywhere, so I think another push is to make sure our community schools are performing because our goal is to make sure that every student, wherever they are in this state has access to high quality education,” Ross said.

Another aspect of the budget is to get teachers trained to teach college credit. He wants to see more students going to college having already earned some college credit. He believes it will increase the college graduation rate.