The Ohio House Finance Committee released all 5,364 pages of HB33 (Budget Bill) and the substitute bill has been accepted by the House Committee. The full House will vote on these and other amendments next week.. The bill will then head to the Senate for their deliberation next week.
Highlights of the many education changes to HB33 include:
- Updating the Cupp-Patterson Fair School Funding formula from fiscal year 2018 to 2022.
- Funding for low income students’ AP and College-Level Examination Program tests
- Eliminating the requirement to complete FAFSA in order to graduate, but financial literacy courses will include instruction on how to complete FAFSA.
- Increase in minimum teacher salary from $30k to $40k.
- Makes permanent the gifted accountability changes
In addition to those changes, House Primary and Secondary Education met on Tuesday and discussed HB117 and HB12:
HB117 – Eliminate Third Grade Reading Retention.
This bill would expand grades where intervention is provided and expand the inclusion of phonics in learning standards. Cosponsor of the bill, Representative Manning cited the “High stakes nature” of the third grade retention as impetus for this bill. Currently, over 3,600 third graders are held back each year and only 15% of those students are regarded as proficient in reading by the following year.
Representative Robinson also states that current academic articles have yet to prove that grade retention helps to improve student academic success and instead has proven to be harmful.
HB12 – (Companion bill to SB1)
OEA president, Scott DiMauro, testified. Amongst OEA’s major concerns was that the SBOE should be in charge of developing academic curriculum and content standards. Under HB12/SB1, these would change under the purview of the unelected Department of Education and Workforce.