Letter to the Editor, Chillicothe Gazette
This year, we learned that the failed, corrupt online charter school ECOT (Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow) has taken over $6 million from Ross County school districts. That’s $6 million dollars that could have been spent on hiring quality Ross County teachers, buying up-do-date technology, or supplying fresh textbooks to our students. Instead, vulnerable students and families abruptly got the boot. Stunningly, it is now up to those same underfunded Ross County schools to account for those students’ progress on the state’s intrusive standardized tests.
Ross County has already paid, and will continue to pay, the price for this mismanagement of our taxpayer funds. How do we as parents, community members, and taxpayers ensure that Ross County schools’ funding is safeguarded and actually put to work for our students? We can start by improving our representation in the Ohio Legislature and voting for Beth Workman.
Beth Workman is a former Paint Valley teacher who resides right here in Chillicothe, unlike the incumbent. Also unlike the incumbent, Beth has earned the endorsement of the Ohio Education Association through her solutions to our current education disaster. With 16 years’ experience in the classroom, Beth knows the value of well-managed educational funding first hand. In fact, Beth vows to address one of the most egregious state education issues of the past two decades: the unjust and unconstitutional funding of Ohio’s public schools, a crisis that the incumbent has basically ignored.
Kristen McDonie
Chillicothe