[Ohiogift] Impact of Kasich veto

Tue Jul 2 08:26:50 EDT 2013

Kim.
In a word, seriously? This administration has had gifted kids in its sights 
 since they came into office, as demonstrated by their attempt to eliminate 
 gifted funding in the previous budget cycle.

Prior to this governor (and in current gifted operating standards)  service 
was linked through unit funding of staff, and  qualified  coordination 
services had to be place before funding could flow for  GIS units. Even in 
Strickland's last budget, while money was not in "units" the  staffing and funds 
were delineated. There were -and still are-excellent  reasons for that. Very 
few educators other than trained specialists and  coordinators have any 
coursework in gifted education or the needs and  nature of gifted students. In 
the last two years, some districts have been able  to circumvent the 
coordinator qualifications by assigning the duties to someone  with another job 
responsibility and then not reporting them as coordinator in  EMIS. The people 
with two job titles do not spend 50% of their time with gifted  work, yet 
districts are using gifted funds to support their employment. What is  
confusing about knowing a district had money for gifted education, but used it  on 
something else?

As I testified in House and Senate committees, the gifted coordinator and  
GISs are often the only voices in a district (along with parents) who are  
speaking on behalf of gifted students. One only has to call on personal  
experience, or read the testimony of parents and students who came to the  
hearings, to understand the importance of the coordinator and GIS. There are  
many coordinator services that are a component of quality gifted programs, that 
 are no longer available in districts without qualified staff.

On what basis would you begin to estimate gifted ed program cost without  
considering personnel? How does one determine the cost of educating any other 
 population without considering staff? OAGC has proposed using information 
from  previous gifted cost studies as well as a conducting a new one to 
determine the  price tag. The House provided for a cost study, but the Senate 
took it  out. The Governor took it a step further when he line-itemed  the  
language to make districts actually spend the money for staff the way it was  
intended. How does taking out the language help  in any  way get people to a 
"  ‘base comfort level’ with the notion of  gifted ed as a 
non-discretionary piece of the education process" ?

People are "screaming bloody murder" about all kinds of things without  
knowing anything about school finance. Actually, that fits in really well with  
the current administration's agenda to conduct business in private 
(JobsOhio,  for example) and keep the taxpayers in the dark. Bill Phillis put it 
best in his  testimony (when questioned by one of the Senators) that, as a 
taxpayer, he had  the right to know where his tax dollars were going. 

I am hoping - and will be working- to make gifted language more  secure in 
the next budget by electing a different governor. 

Sally

In a message dated 7/1/2013 7:43:47 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
kdoucher at doucher.com writes:

Inasmuch  as the line-item veto was as to staffing requirements only, I 
believe there  may actually have been non-dastardly motivation on the Governor’
s part.   Recall that people are already screaming bloody murder about 
personnel costs  within districts.  From a simple strategic perspective, it makes 
sense to  separate the cost of gifted ed programs from the cost of gifted 
ed program  staff. 
To  my understanding, some districts already have a program coordinator 
position  in their TO but did not necessarily fill it with a gifted-certified  
administrator (which they would have been required to do under the pre-veto  
language).  Those districts that did not already have a program  
coordinator position within their TO would be required to create the position  and 
then fill it with a gifted-certified administrator.  That’s likely to  confuse 
taxpayers and draw focus away from the need for the programs  themselves 
(and onto added personnel costs). 
By  splitting the two concerns and by saving the ‘programs’ but cutting 
the  ‘staff’ piece, the cost isn’t as dramatic and it’s not borne as ‘
personnel  costs.’  As such, the gifted ed language is likely to be much more 
secure  in the next budget cycle (and in proposed legislative  changes). 
There’s  no question that the programming won’t be nearly as effective 
(perhaps  ineffective in some areas?) without the appropriate GIC in place but 
it’s a  good opportunity to get people comfortable with the gifted ed 
mandate  first.  Just as with IDEA special ed programming, the key here (in my  
humble opinion) is to establish a ‘base comfort level’ with the notion of  
gifted ed as a non-discretionary piece of the education  process. 
Bottom  line:  There do exist some rational bases for JK’s line-item  
decision.  Whether or not he used them in his decision-making is  unclear.  I’m 
not at all a mind-reader and I’ve been particularly  unsuccessful in 
understanding many of JK’s actions but I’d prefer to win a  small war than a big 
battle. 
-Kim  Doucher 
From:  ohiogift-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu  
[mailto:ohiogift-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu] On Behalf Of  anngift at aol.com
Sent: Monday, July 1, 2013 9:51 AM
To:  heather.cachat at swcs.us
Cc:  Ohiogift at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: [Ohiogift] Impact  of Kasich veto 
The  gifted unit and identification funding is still in the formula. What 
is not  there is the very specific language that indicated that unit funding 
for  coordinators would only be used for coordinators and the unit funding 
for  gifted intervention specialists would only be used for gifted 
intervention  specialists. It is clear that the governor's intent was to untether any 
ties  between specific spending of gifted funds to personnel. However, the 
unit  funding formula is still intact, which is by definition funding tied to 
gifted  personnel. And, while watered down the subgroup accountability 
section still  indicates that subgroup spending is to be spent on the subgroups. 

I  don't think the removal of the language actually stops the ODE unit 
allocation  process as was done in previous years. The veto just makes things 
very murky.  I'm sure if the governor had his way he would moved the formula 
back to the  $50 per ADM, but the governor can only delete language in a line 
item veto. He  cannot change language. If he deleted the formula he would 
have decreased  funding to districts, which would have caused a bigger upset. 

The  bottom line is that with over 5500 pages in this bill, there were only 
22 line  item vetoes, and gifted children were targeted. That is a strong 
anti-gifted  message.   

--Ann

-----Original  Message-----
From: Heather Cachat <_heather.cachat at swcs.us_ 
(mailto:heather.cachat at swcs.us) >
To:  anngift <_anngift at aol.com_ (mailto:anngift at aol.com) >
Cc: Ohiogift <_Ohiogift at lists.service.ohio-state.edu_ 
(mailto:Ohiogift at lists.service.ohio-state.edu) >
Sent:  Mon, Jul 1, 2013 9:17 am
Subject: Re: [Ohiogift] Kasich officially decides  gifted children don't 
matter 

Ann, How will this affect  kids, personnel, and districts? I want to help 
others understand what means  (and to an extent clarify for myself).  For the 
next two years will  districts have to support programming out of their 
general funds? Will there  be no support for mandatory testing? 
Heather Cachat 
Gifted Intervention  Specialist 
Holt Crossing  Intermediate 
_www.swcs.us/~heather.cachat_ (http://www.swcs.us/~heather.cachat)  
_www.diigo.com/user/hacachat_ (http://www.diigo.com/user/hacachat)  
Twitter: http://twitter.com/HeatherCachat 
<_anngift at aol.com_ (mailto:anngift at aol.com) > writes: 
#2 on  Kasich veto list:  
gifted  funding spent on gifted children.  
Not  sure I have anything else to say except for that no 1 on the list was 
some  business about spider monkeys... Yeah.  

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