State Board of Ed 2012 Results

In the 7 races for State Board of education, 4 pro-public education candidates won.

Ann Jacobs defeat former OSU QB and Kasich appointee Stanley Jackson handily 65-35. Both Mary Rose Oakar and Stephanie Dodd also handily beat their opponents 63-37 and 60-24-15 respectively, with Michael Collins narrowly defeated his 2 opponents to be reelected.

Bryan Williams, Jeff Hardin, both incumbents defeated their pro-public education opponents. To round out the results, Sarah Fowler, a home-school graduate was also elected.

The State board of education has a lot of work to do, as the Dispatch notes

The new board has some heavy lifting to do in the coming year, starting with the hiring of a state superintendent. The post has been vacant since early August, when Stan Heffner resigned after an ethics probe.

The board also must fix state-issued report cards that have been manipulated by false data submitted by school districts, and oversee implementation of Ohio’s third-grade reading guarantee and more-rigorous curriculum standards.

Let's hope the pro public education voices are listened to. We'll be watching closely.

Anger over reckless budget runs red

In 2010 John Kasich defeated Ted Strickland 36,407 to 23,761 in Medina county. Speaker Batchelder defeated his opponent even more convincingly 32,406 to 13,666. Clearly, Medina county runs a deep shade of red. With that in mind, this isn't the kind of response Republicans would expect on their home turf

Concerned Medina County residents came looking for answers Thursday night about school funding and pending state budget cuts from the top-ranking Republican in the Ohio House.

Instead, some said they felt that House Speaker William G. Batchelder and State Sen. Larry Obhof, whose districts include Medina County, left them hanging.
[...]
The two state legislators, Obhof in particular, a first-term Republican from Montville Township, took some heat from angry audience members when discussions wandered from educational areas into political, and what happened while former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland was in office the past four years.

"Talk about what Kasich is doing to education up here," one angry man yelled out while Obhof was speaking. "Keep politics out of this talk . . . we're here to see what's happening to education."

The outburst brought applause and cheers from the crowd in the reliably Republican county.