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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2011 > April > 08 > Entry
Editorial: Kasich wants to fix what’s not broken
Gov. John Kaisch has some contradictions to work out.
He’s making noises about allowing public colleges to become “charter universities.” But he also wants to require professors to teach an extra class every other year, and he wants to mandate that universities create programs allowing students to graduate in three, rather than four, years.
The trade-off for allowing state schools to become “charter universities” — a designation that would exempt them from some state laws — is that they’d get less state money.
Ohio State University particularly wants more autonomy (but not too much less money).
Here’s the inconsistency, though: If the plan is to decentralize and to loosen government’s reins, how does the governor square that with specifying teaching loads and insisting that he and the legislature should effectively decide the requirements to get an undergraduate degree?
Sounds pretty top down.
The Kasich direction is a 180-turn from where things were heading under former Gov. Ted. Strickland. He and former Chancellor Eric Fingerhut spent four years trying to get the state’s universities to see themselves as part of a wider system, one that rewarded collaboration and discouraged duplication.
The thinking was that, in a world of diminished resources, colleges should be known for being strong in particular realms — and prevented from trying to be all things to all students.
The pay-off of this approach, besides efficiency, is supposed to be jobs and better schools. The hope is that “centers of excellence” — programs that distinguish each university — will be a magnet for businesses that are increasingly making relationships with colleges and researchers central to their business plans.
Giving universities “charter” status — to buy them off because the state is over a financial barrel and wants to cut its support — is throwing in the towel on the notion that the sum of Ohio’s colleges can be bigger than the individual parts. If the schools get too much license, that could minimize them as economic development tools.
The move makes no sense coming at the very time that the Kasich administration is all over the state’s myriad local governments for behaving as fiefdoms and running redundant operations.
The fact that colleges are objecting to the governor’s proposed 3.5 percent tuition caps tells you where they’d head if they were left on their own. Holding Ohio’s tuition rates in check is an imperative if the state wants to get more people going to college.
Yes, university administrators are sensitive to making sure that needy students get financial aid, but they are less sensitive to the worries of middle-class families and students about crushing college debt.
Invariably when tuition increases, colleges promise to give more money to those who can’t afford college. But cost shifting to those who can pay — many of whom are still struggling to do so — can’t be the perpetual business plan.
The state laws that universities most want out from under relate to how construction contracts have to be structured and the prevailing wage law. Specifically, they complain that a law that requires “multiple prime contractors” runs up costs and results in contractors tripping over each other. They also say that paying “prevailing wage” inflates their construction bills.
If these laws are onerous, then change them. But they’re not an excuse to go back in time, to undo all the progress that’s been made to ensure Ohio’s colleges are becoming more affordable and being leveraged to support a knowledge-driven economy.
There’s much to fix in Ohio. But where movement has been in the right direction, the governor shouldn’t obsess about putting his own stamp on things.
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