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Education earned lots of limelight in Governor John Kasich's latest proposed budget budget--in fact, his education plans make up close to 30 percent of the state's roughly $72 billion* operating budget for 2016-17.In the proposals released on Monday afternoon, the administration tucked in a mix of new education priorities, including a slight increase to the state's amount of per-pupil funding and changes to the funding formula itself, along with cornerstones of Kasich's older education plans, like an emphasis on career tech education.Over the next few weeks, we'll be digging into some of the proposals and what they could mean for Ohio's students.But in the meantime, here's just a few of the big highlights.EARLY CHILDHOOD:
- Pre-K expansion: over the next two years, Kasich wants to add more than 6,100 high quality preschool slots for disadvantaged students. The cost will come in at an extra $40 million.
K-12:
- An uptick in per-pupil funding: currently, districts receive $5,800 per student. Under the new plan, that'll be bumped up by a hundred dollars next year, and by 2017, the funding will hit $6,000.
- Charter school regulations: research shows the performance of charter schools students lagbehind their traditional public school counterparts, and some groups have been calling for reform measures for years. A new charter school accountability evaluation system went into place last month. Now, the state department of education will monitor charter sponsors according to "strict criteria," and sponsors with unfavorable ratings could lose their schools.
- Testing reductions: the amount of time students spend on standardized tests has been a recent hot-button issue. Earlier this year, the Ohio Department of Education recommended the state's testing time take a 20 percent cut. Kasich's plan calls for cutting testing time by 18 percent, bringing down the amount of time students spend on standardized tests to 2 percent of the year.
- Renewing the Straight A fund: Using $200 million of lottery funding, Kasich wants to continue giving two rounds of grants to districts to promote innovation. The program stemmed from his 2013 budget**, and more than 300 districts submitted proposals.
HIGHER ED:
- Making college more affordable: A big chunk of the budget's higher ed plans hinge on ways to try to keep costs down. Some of the mentions include shelling out $18.5 million to expand the amount of educators teaching college classes in high school, freezing tuition increases by no more than 2 percent, creating a task force to specifically study affordability, and finding new ways to use campuses during long breaks.
- Debt relief fund: Details were pretty scant on this plan, but the proposal calls for creating a $120 million debt relief fund, offering an undetermined amount of recent college graduates who may hold "low income, in-demand jobs" and stay in Ohio for five years some type of financial assistance.
- Curbing on-campus sexual assaults: By the beginning of the fall, the state will identify the best ways to prevent and respond to assaults, along with giving $2 million to see those ideas through.
*An earlier version of this story identified the wrong total two-year budget amount, along with the legislation that established the Straight A grants. StateImpact regrets the errors.