3/24/08

Columbus Dispatch Letter

Roger Brown

I hope Ohio’s legislators will create the position of state director of education, as Gov. Ted Strickland is requesting. I am a retired educator. For more than 30 years I saw poor leadership and vision and what I feel was a total waste of public funds by the State Department of Education. I am not surprised the Department of Education did not cooperate when asked to look for cost-saving measures.

This is a tight-knit, scratch-each-other’s-back department that simply sucks up public funds. It creates useless bureaucratic problems for schools and hides behind easily manipulated numbers to prove its worth.

Many times throughout the years, educators including myself were simply left to scratch our heads at decisions coming from that department. It’s known as the come-around and go-around, which means its philosophy is continually changing to the point that it eventually comes back around to the same philosophy it started with years before.

I want to make one thing clear: I am a Republican. I did not vote for Strickland. However, I have been most impressed with his vision for Ohio and his strong desire to get things accomplished. At this early stage of his tenure, he is the most impressive and progressive governor I have witnessed in 40 years. Because of past experience, I had given up on any governor actually making a difference.

Strickland has given me, and I believe many Ohioans, renewed hope for change in our state. His predecessors spoke strongly about their plans for improving this or that if elected, only to disappear after they were voted in.

Let’s just hope the Democratic nominee for president doesn’t snatch him away from Ohio. So, yes, legislators should take advantage of the opportunity they have before them and allow this man with vision to become strongly involved in our education system.