In a speech to the Ohio Education Association, Democratic gubernatorial candidate and Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald announced six principles that will guide his education policy as Governor.

Include Educators in Decision-Making and Policy Formulation at the State and Local Level   Educators are the experts on education. The FitzGerald administration education policies will be shaped by someone who is actually in the classroom every day. It’s long past time we stopped blaming educators, and started including them.

Increase State Investment   FitzGerald will invest in our public education system at the state level. Ohio’s working families shouldn’t face higher local taxes every year because the state is funding tax breaks for the wealthy, rather than our schools.  Tax cuts for the top one percent are not going to educate Ohio’s children. 

Stop Teaching to the Test   A FitzGerald administration will also end the unhealthy obsession with standardized testing that’s bad for students and teachers, including placing a moratorium on the third grade guarantee. 

The Race to Privatize our Public Education System is a Race to the Bottom   FitzGerald will reform a funding system that benefits for-profit institutions regardless of performance, and put the focus back on creating quality public schools.

Address the Development of the Whole Child   A FitzGerald administration will treat children as human beings, not numbers. A complete education should include art, music, physical education, foreign language, and business education.  Stripping our schools of everything but high-stakes testing is a recipe for increasing the dropout rate.

Invest in Early Childhood Education   States across the country have implemented successful early childhood education initiatives, but Ohio’s children are falling behind. Students that do not start kindergarten prepared to learn are at risk for falling behind and staying behind for the rest of their education.