Strickland favors more state control

K-12 and college education, health care would benefit

Sunday, February 11, 2007

COLUMBUS - Gov. Ted Strickland has settled on strategies to improve health care, education, and higher education in Ohio. The same strategy, in fact, for all three: more state control.

The newly elected Democrat says the move will boost quality and cut costs for the state's $10 billion annual investment in schools, colleges, and hospitals.

Mr. Strickland wants to resurrect state regulations on hospital construction, group universities under a chancellor who reports directly to him, and package new statewide school achievement standards with an effort to shift classroom funding from local taxing districts to the state budget.

"In four weeks in this office," Mr. Strickland said in an interview with The Blade last week, "I've come to see, more clearly than I ever did, the desirability of bringing in some healthy collaboration and cost-savings to systems."

All operate on a simple premise: that government guidance can help save money and improve results.

The Ohio Board of Regents may suspect a power grab, though: it recently proposed allowing a cabinet chancellor......

James Tuschman, a Toledo attorney and secretary for the regent board, warned that consolidating responsibility for higher education under Mr. Strickland could expose public universities to political fads and counterproductive ideologies.

"Higher ed really should be depoliticized," Mr. Tuschman said. "If the governor has complete control and governors change, the consistency for higher education's long-term management would be changing." More....

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That's pretty good 4 weeks in office and he's changed from no plan to "Now, I have a plan."

I always thought more government control means more corruption, more wasteful spending and more bureaucracy.