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Rodney Dangerfield doesn't get any respect, and neither does the Ohio General Assembly. At least not by the State Board of Education. This lack of respect borders on arrogance and insolence toward not only the members of the General Assembly but for the legislative process as well.
On May 12, the state board "adopted in principle"
some truly outrageous standards for all the schools in the state.
Normally, the board just moves to adopt rules and if the majority
votes in favor of the motion, their action becomes a part of the
Ohio Administrative Code. That is because, in those cases, the
board has legal authority to carry out whatever it is they have
in mind.
The new phrase "adopt in principle" is
a signal, overlooked by many, that the board wants to do something
that it lacks the authority to do. This raises a critical question.
Generally speaking, in the area of education, the
board functions as a collective executive secretary for lawmakers
in carrying out the expressed wishes of the General Assembly.
The Ohio Revised Code clearly states that the board
is the body that establishes rules and regulations related to
education, but these must be based on existing law. Otherwise,
the board would be creating law, and it can't do that; that's
something that only the General Assembly can do.
Showing unprecedented boldness, the board is getting
out from behind the secretarial desk and directing lawmakers to
get with the program and write laws that will allow the board
to move forward with their 103-page wish list.
It's hard to imagine the House or Senate spontaneously
entertaining the idea of forcing schools to adhere to the philosophy
of total quality management and its vague component - continuous
improvement (a data-collection cycle not to be confused with schools
actually getting better).
It's also hard to imagine lawmakers forcing local
school boards to come up with a policy for diagnosis, therapy,
and health services for all children - at taxpayer's expense,
of course.
The board wants all this and more, including "on-going
assessments" for all pupils, oops, all "learners"
but board members never made provision for informed parental consent
for their "on-going assessment" system.
It gets worse. The board says that the actual competencies
the 1.8 million students will be required to demonstrate won't
be available for another two years.
Lawmakers have received a letter from Superintendent
of Public Instruction John M. Goff urging them to act quickly
to pass needed legislation so that the board can move forward
with its grand plan.
Legislators ought to put the board in its place,
after all, if the board hadn't spent four years and megabucks
on a project that it had no legal authority to adopt and implement,
it would have had the time to finalize the controversial health
model - the one it doesn't want anyone to see. When asked specifically
about the health competencies, the Department of Education, further
damages its own credibility by saying that nothing is available
yet, thereby denying the existence of the 350-page, May 7th draft
document.
For years, the board has had the authority to develop
a model health curriculum, but deliberately put in on the back
burner. Could it be that it wants to keep the lid on until lawmakers
vote on the standards - knowing full well that the health model
could jeopardize the standards?
The board is asking lawmakers to approve new standards
for schools without giving them the whole package. That makes about as much sense as having a contractor demand authority to build 1.8 million homes without showing anyone the completed blueprints.
Without a chance to look at the blueprints, the owner
wouldn't know whether he was getting a mansion or an outhouse.
I've peeked at the blueprints, and the board isn't proposing anything that looks or smells like a mansion.
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