December 20, 2019
This is a story about education policy, but please keep reading anyway. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll find this is really a story about who wields power and how what we say we want from our schools is changing.
The leading character in this drama is Ohio Excels, a newly formed group of the states most powerful business interests that’s quickly emerged as a heavyweight lobbying force in education policy in the well-polished halls of the Ohio Statehouse.
In about a year on the job, the coalition’s wing-tipped warriors drawn from the ranks of the Columbus Partnership, Greater Cleveland Partnership and Ohio Business Roundtable, among others, already has put their stamp on Ohio’s new graduation standards established in the latest state budget, besting a competing proposal from the Ohio Board of Education.