The American Rescue Plan, Fair School Funding Plan, and You

ACTION ALERT: Urge your state Senator to support the Fair School Funding Plan now!

Featured Education Matters guest: 

Stephen Dyer, Director of Government Relations, Communications & Marketing, Ohio Education AssociationPrior to joining OEA, Stephen Dyer was the Education Policy Fellow at Innovation Ohio, a Columbus-based Progressive think tank, where he fights for the right of all Ohio’s children to receive a world-class education, regardless of where they live. He has authored several reports for IO that have sought to ensure the fundamental right of every Ohio child to a world-class education. He is widely considered one of the state’s top education policy experts, and one of the few people in the country with the experience of actually implementing and leading the debate on every major aspect of education reform from teacher quality to student achievement to school choice to equitable financing. He has been published in Education Week – the nation’s education policy newspaper of record, as well as The 74 and Real Clear Education. He has been quoted extensively in the New York Times, Washington Post and Rolling Stone, among other publications. Dyer has headlined conferences and town halls throughout the state, and is one of the state’s most sought-after education policy panelists. He was the keynote speaker on Ohio’s charter school experience at the Cleveland Press Club.His 2011 report for Innovation Ohio, which called into question ECOT’s money-making practices, many have seen as the impetus for the eventual implosion of the school that has been revealed to be the state’s all-time, largest taxpayer ripoff and scandal. He has written extensive, groundbreaking reports for Innovation Ohio on school funding, charter schools, teacher evaluation, accountability and the Cleveland Transformation Plan. He spent a year as a fellow with the Education Policy Fellowship Program through the Institute for Educational Leadership in Washington, D.C. and served as part of an American delegation to observe the Chinese education system in Shanghai and Beijing. He recently served on a panel before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, informing the commission about how school funding systems can affect academics.Dyer also is a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Akron, where he has received accolades for his classroom teaching.Dyer has spent his career serving his community, first as an award-winning journalist with the Akron Beacon Journal, then as an award-winning State Representative representing Ohio’s Summit and Portage counties. As a reporter for the Akron Beacon Journal for about a decade, Dyer won awards and recognition from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press and the Cleveland Press Club. He collaborated on an innovative project called “Ohio: Look at the State We’re In” that analyzed where Ohio ranked on various quality of life issues. That collaboration earned Dyer and two other reporters nominations for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize.After winning his seat in 2006 to represent the 43rd House District, Dyer fought tirelessly to once and for all fix our state’s school funding system. He spent two years developing his own system, then when Gov. Ted Strickland introduced the Ohio Evidence Based Model in 2009, Dyer was the chairman of the subcommittee that transformed the new system into one that earned the Frank Newman Award from the Education Commission of the States – recognizing the country’s most “bold, innovative, non-partisan” education reform of 2009. It remains the only school funding plan produced since the 1930s that promised to lower Ohio’s property taxes to pay for schools.Dyer received the Leadership in Education Policy Award from the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, which was the group that sued the state over its old, unconstitutionally funded system. He is the only Ohio legislator ever given an award from the group. He received the 2010 Friend of Public Education Award from the Ohio Federation of Teachers, the 2010 Public Service Award from the Ohio Association of Career and Technical Education, the 2009 Homer F. Mincy Award from the Alliance for Adequate School Funding (a group representing the state’s suburban districts), and the 2009 Civic Leadership Award from the Ohio Association for Gifted Children.Dyer grew up in Hudson, Ohio, and attended Western Reserve Academy, where his parents taught. He graduated from Tufts University in Massachusetts with a Bachelor’s Degree in English, earned a Master’s Degree in journalism from Kent State University and a law degree from the University of Akron. He lives in Green with his wife of 19 years, Melissa, and his two sons, Logan, 13, and Carson, 9, both of whom attend Green Local Schools. 

In this episode:

"It's a really exciting time, and it's essential that our educators exercise their voices at the state and local levels to make sure that this money gets spent in the best way possible to ensure the ultimate success for our students."1:35 - $4.5 billion in ARP money for Ohio's schools: A lot of money and a lot of opportunity for our kids2:30 - The ARP regulations require that educators and their unions be given the opportunity to provide input on how the money is spent. Read the full language here. 3:50 - The 16 ways the ARP money can be used, including investing in personnel, communities, buildings, and technology5:00 - Different needs in different districts5:30 - Maintaining and growing the ARP investments through the Fair School Funding Plan8:45 - The Fair School Funding Plan in the hands of the state Senate and the fate of the last one-time federal education funding package in Ohio11:40 - Call to action for Ohio's educators and community members to contact their state Senator to support the Fair School Funding Plan12:45 - Advice for how to advocate for students' needs in local decisions about how ARP and FSFP money is spent13:45 - "If they're getting away with it, it's your fault."15:00 - The opportunity to use ARP money to implement the FSFP faster16:46 - A former state legislator's perspective on whether the state would ever be at this point: "If you had told me ten years ago that we'd go from the state defunding education by 1.8 billion to the state investing in education by 1.8 billion, and the state going from no school funding formula to a rational one that actually calculates costs and needs of students, I would have told you we must have legalized pot because you're high"17:55 - "We are on the precipice of doing something great for our kids, and not just now but into the future.""What we want to make sure happens is that every kid in every community, regardless of zip code, regardless of background, is able to achieve their dreams. And right now, we have the opportunities lying right in front of us to deliver this to every student in the state, and it's up to us to make sure that it happens." 

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