News for March 29th, 2011

The Plain Dealer has a rundown of where we are with S.B.5 and some of the changes expected to be included

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The latest version of Senate Bill 5 -- a Republican-backed plan to reduce collective bargaining rights -- will be unveiled Tuesday with nearly a dozen changes, including modifications that could address concerns police and fire unions have raised.

Any changes short of entirely scrapping the bill, however, are unlikely to sway Democrats and union leaders, who have pledged to put SB 5 before voters on a statewide ballot either this November or next if the measure passes.

Onto the subject of "choice", despite it's staunch advocacy of the policy, Dispatch readers continue to reject the idea of increasing vouchers

If you lumped all of Franklin County's charter-school and voucher students into one district, it would be bigger than the South-Western school district.

Those 21,794 children would make up the sixth-largest school district in Ohio. Nearly 12 percent of publicly funded students in the county attend charter schools or use a state-funded voucher to attend private ones.

The Budget continues to bring bad news, with this article demonstrating clearly that the assault on public education has nothing to do with education

Scarce resources for gifted students could be lost entirely under Gov. John Kasich's two-year budget plan.

Stay tuned to our Twitter feed today as we cover the S.B.5 hearings and rally.