Testimony — Troy McIntosh, Ohio Christian Education Network, on HB12 (Economic and Workforce Development Committee)

Summary

Troy McIntosh, Executive Director of the Ohio Christian Education Network, testified before the Ohio House Economic and Workforce Development Committee in support of HB12, which would reform the functions and responsibilities of the State BOE and the Department of Education. He says he represents 150 member schools and served as a school administrator for 24 years in central Ohio. He argues that the board's structure has made the department inefficient and unresponsive. His examples include a clunky rollout of the Afterschool Child Enrichment program, delays in EdChoice Scholarship processing, and student transportation disputes. He urges the committee to send the bill to the House floor.

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Full text

Chair Swearingen, Vice Chair Santucci, Ranking Member Upchurch, and members of the Ohio
House Economic and Workforce Development Committee. My name is Troy McIntosh and I
serve as Executive Director of the Ohio Christian Education Network. Prior to that I served as a
school administrator for 24 years in central Ohio, including eight at the superintendent level. I
represent 150 member schools in our network and I stand in support of HB12 that would
reform the functions and responsibilities of the State BOE and the Department of Education.
The following reasons form the basis of our support.

   1. The structure of the board, and an ongoing level of dysfunction within the board, have
      combined to create an inefficient and too often unresponsive department. While there
      are examples of excellent work being done in the department – I will note the Office of
      Educational Options and Collen Grady as an exception - the governance structure causes
      inherent barriers to operations and efficiency that even the best of its staff cannot
      overcome. This has manifested itself most recently in the following ways:

           a. A clunky rollout of the Afterschool Child Enrichment program for both student
              participants and vendors that resulted in far fewer participants than were
              provided for and expected.

           b. Delays in EdChoice Scholarship processing that has resulted in some schools
              going months into the year before receiving funding for scholarship recipients.

           c. Student transportation issues across the state, including districts attempting to
              reduce or eliminate private school transportation in manners not in accordance
              with the law. I can give at least two examples in which I have had to intervene on
              behalf of member schools.

           d. Mismanagement of the single constitutionally appointed task of hiring a
              permanent superintendent.

           e. Its inability to provide clear direction on basic questions related to children, such
              as “what is a boy?”, “what is a girl?” These are not political questions extraneous
              to its work. It is a necessary response to political pressure stemming from a
              radical interpretation of Title IX.

       The fact is that the department lacks leadership, direction, and oversight that even the
       best interim superintendent cannot provide. In fact, I will argue that even the best
       permanent superintendent will have difficulty providing this given the structure of the
       board’s oversight of the department.




                                             P.O. Box 2945, Columbus, OH 43216   | CCV.ORG/OCEN
   2. The bill would align the structure of the Department of Education to the style of nearly
      every other executive department, in which the elected governor provides executive
      leadership, sometimes with assistance from a board, such as the state nursing or dental
      boards, with limited and specific duties related to licensure and professional conduct.
      Placing policy making responsibility in a cabinet-level office will streamline decision
      making, allowing it to be more nimble and responsive to problems and opportunities
      rather than the gridlock that comes from having the form a majority, let alone a
      consensus, from 19 different members. The board is too large to be an effective
      decision-making body. Of the top 20 performing states, only Pennsylvania has a board
      as large as Ohio’s. The other 19 high performing states have boards ranging from 7 to 15
      members. Half of the top 20 performing states have governance models in which the
      governor appoints those who control state education executive functions – either
      appointing both the board and the head or the head alone with no board in existence.
      There is a reason this model works – it aligns policy and provides direct leadership

   3. While opponents of the bill will claim that this is reducing the democratic
      representation that an elected board provides, the current structure actually serves as
      an unnecessary level of bureaucracy that impedes the democratic function of the
      executive branch. While state board members are elected, very few Ohioans could even
      name a single board member, including the member elected to represent their own
      district. More problematic is that Ohio voters often know little about the candidates
      that are on the ballot. This lack of familiarity leads to elections that can be, and are,
      heavily influenced by money because the election will too often come down to name
      recognition rather than any qualifications or policy positions of the candidates. In fact,
      we saw last November how influential money can be in school board elections.

       Further, the current structure creates a third, and unnecessary, level of bureaucracy
       that bogs down the system. This layer of elected bureaucracy does not increase
       representation. Bureaucracy always decreases democratic representation. If electing
       more officials was the answer to better representation, then why not 50 more elected
       officials? Or 100 more? The answer is obvious; because it doesn’t increase
       representation in the same way that these 11 elected positions does not increase
       representation in a manner superior to an elected governor. There is little about the
       current process that results in true democratic representation by the board. Rather, the
       executive functions of the board should be placed directly under the democratically
       elected chief executive, whose policy positions are well-known and far more
       representative of the citizens of the state. In fact, the constitutional provision
       establishing the board specifically gives the General Assembly the authority to do this.

For these reasons, I urge the committee to move the bill onto the House floor for a vote of the
full body.



                                            P.O. Box 2945, Columbus, OH 43216   | CCV.ORG/OCEN


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