Strickland’s State of the State: Quick Comments

UPDATE, Jan. 30: For those who want to compare Strickland’s SOS riff on education to his promises, you can look here at the education element of his “Turnaround Ohio” plan in the 2006 campaign. Note, as I did in February 2007, that Team Strickland didn’t tell us during the 2006 campaign that he wouldn’t get around to dealing with education “reform” until two years after he took office.

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I may see the need to supplement this tonight, but at the moment I don’t think so.

The full speech is here; my unevaluated excerpts from last night are here.

I see a number of things that jump out:

• SCHIP, with its 300% of the poverty line threshold, now gets to about 80% of the median income in the state for families of 2, 3, and 4. That means, as an educated guess, that maybe 45% of all families at that size are eligible. Hmm. If you were an employer whose workforce was entirely relatively low earners, why would you bother having a health plan? Ding-ding: That ‘s the goal — State-run health care. It’s getting closer.
• Health care coverage for “dependents” up to age 29. Believe me, Ted doesn’t mean “dependents” in the way the IRS does. He wants anyone still living with Mom and Dad to be able to latch on to Mom and Dad’s coverage. This is horribly expensive, will drive costs up, and will in some cases cause extended families to live together — not that it’s a bad thing in and of itself, but it sure runs contrary to the way most homes are built and the expectations of most people these days.
• Three C passenger rail — This has been studied time and time again. It’s a massive, massive waste of money on a service almost no one will use. We have a mass-transit system known as the interstate highway system and supporting roads, and (amazing) it goes door-to-door! If you want something like this without the horrible capital investment, buy Greyhound’s routes in Ohio.
• Ted seems almost joyful that the state funds the majority of school costs. This is not good. This means the state controls the schools, and localities really don’t. Other proposals the Governor has made only go to prove that. No school district can dare to go against the grain.
• Longer school year — I’m not sure it’s necessary, and I somehow doubt we’ll get 10% more school year without incurring 10% more in salaries.
• All-day kindergarten — For a guy whose party is supposedly “for the children,” this is a really tone-deaf proposal. Part of why kindergarten is a time-tested half-day is that many children have a hard time leaving home. This is legitimately traumatic, especially where the emotional bonds are close (i.e., where the parenting has been pretty good). Being gone 3 hours a day is a manageable trauma. For many, going from zero to six or seven isn’t. The solution? (Here it comes) universal pre-school. I fail to see the need for taking kids away from their parents so much, and so much earlier.
• The move away from standardized tests to the ACT looks like a move away from accountability. I may be wrong, but I don’t think Ted sees a low ACT score as keeping a kid from graduating high school. If a kid isn’t functionally literate, something should.
• The plan to let property taxes go up with inflation sounds nice, but frankly, the voters need to be able to vent their frustrations if the schools aren’t performing, and making the district ask for every increase is the only way I see to do that.