Make no mistake: the Cleveland Metropolitan School District is still struggling. That makes it very similar to other large urban districts across the United States. While it has been improving by fits and starts lately, it certainly doesn’t help that the state school board keeps moving the goalposts in terms of what success looks like.
If we want to improve outcomes for our kids, we Clevelanders have no choice but to approve the renewal levy, since years ago legislators in Columbus made it perfectly clear that they had no real desire to see the gap in educational outcomes between richer and poorer districts shrink.
That’s why we still fund schools via property taxes, a method that the Ohio Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in the DeRolph decision in 1997. The justices said that the state funding system “fails to provide for a thorough and efficient system of common schools,” as required by the Ohio Constitution, and directed the state to find a remedy. But the legislature completely ignored the ruling, and the underlying problems with the school funding system remain to this very day.
One of the most common manifestations of racism in America is the difference in how schools are funded in predominantly black and poorer communities versus middle class white communities. This stark difference is one of the cornerstones of institutionalized and structural racism.
Until we’re able to educate children from America’s inner cities as efficiently as their suburban counterparts, we will remain essentially two nations. Since the government at both state and federal levels are dragging their feet on creating parity, it’s up to us as citizens to do this for our kids.
That’s why passage of Levy 108 is critical.