By Joshua Benton Blade Columbus Bureau Page 3 NEW LEXINGTON, O. — Tales of woe filled the courtroom here yesterday as educators representing poor school districts told of collapsing ceilings, unsafe shop classes, and oppressive deficits. “There are serious safety issues for our children,” said William Phillis, executive director of the Ohio Coalition for Equity […]
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By Joshua Benton Blade Columbus Bureau Page 3 NEW LEXINGTON, O. — Ohio’s school-funding plan doesn’t do enough to help poor school districts and it saddles them with unfunded mandates that end up costing money, a school official testified yesterday. “It’s overwhelming,” said Ernie Strawser, treasurer of the Jackson City School District in southeastern Ohio. […]
Read More… from School-fund plan called no solution; Official: poor districts shortchanged
By Joshua Benton Blade Columbus Bureau Page 3 NEW LEXINGTON, O. — An expert on the way states pay for their public schools called Ohio’s new plan “illogical” and “arbitrary” and too easy for lawmakers to manipulate. “The state doesn’t in fact know what it is financing with this new legislation,” Kern Alexander, president of […]
By Joshua Benton Blade Columbus Bureau Page 3 NEW LEXINGTON, O. — Ohio may be fixing up some of its most dilapidated school buildings, but it is moving far too slowly to get to all of those that need repairs, an attorney for a coalition of school districts argued here yesterday. In more than four […]
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By Joshua Benton Blade Columbus Bureau Page 3 NEW LEXINGTON, O. — On the math and minutia-packed fourth day of hearings here yesterday, attorneys for a group of school districts tried to poke holes in the work of the man Ohio hired to fix its school-funding system. Denver-based consultant John Augenblick spent his second day […]
By Joshua Benton Blade Columbus Bureau Page 3 NEW LEXINGTON, O. — The consultant Ohio hired to fix its school-funding system testified yesterday that the state has done a good job – even if it hasn’t always followed his suggestions. “It would have been wonderful if they had taken all my recommendations,” said John Augenblick, […]
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By Joshua Benton Blade Staff Writer Page 1 After spending the last two months trying to sell the Fallen Timbers battleground to commercial developers, Mayor Carty Finkbeiner announced yesterday that he wants to see it turned into a historical park. The biggest hurdle remaining: raising the millions of dollars it will cost for preservationists to […]
By Joshua Benton Blade Staff Writer Page 14 When you think of great camping spots, the first place to come to mind probably isn’t downtown Toledo. But this weekend, it got top marks from a group of Ohio RV enthusiasts. The Ohio Nomads, an organization of retirees who camp all across the state, left Toledo […]
By Joshua Benton Blade Staff Writer Page 13 They don’t make chicken paprikas in south Louisiana, but you wouldn’t know it from the sound coming from East Toledo yesterday afternoon. Six men from Szeged, Hungary, assembled at the Birmingham Ethnic Festival yesterday to play the music Louis Armstrong helped start decades ago in New Orleans. […]
By Joshua Benton Blade Staff Writer Page G1 When you think of Woody Guthrie, you think in black and white. You think of dust bowls and desperation, of socialism and slow train rides. His image – earnest folkie troubadour, roaming America from sea to shining sea – is as set in stone as the faces […]