January 18, 2012

COLUMBUS – State Senator Peggy Lehner (R – Kettering) today took part in announcing that $1 million in Ohio Medicaid funding will be made available for the implementation of Ohio’s Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model of care. As a member of the Ohio House, Lehner sponsored House Bill 198 which established the PCMH Education Pilot Project.

The legislation and its pilot project provided the framework to better coordinate the care and services provided at 44 primary care practices throughout Ohio. The new funding resource offers the plan an added boost as it will expand the pilot project by adding six additional practices.

“These forty-four practices will be the classrooms for providers to learn how to become PCMH practitioners,” Lehner said. “While serving in the House, I was convinced that the Patient Centered Medical Home model was the future of medicine and that the proper funding would follow.”

Joining Senator Lehner at the announcement was Greg Moody, Director of the Office of Health Transformation; Angela Cornelius Dawson, Executive Director of the Ohio Commission on Minority Health and a member of the Ohio Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative; Dr.
Paul Grundy of the IBM Health Care Transformation and President of the national Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative; and Dr. Randy Wexler of OSU Family Medicine at CarePoint.

This afternoon’s press conference was held in the Ladies’ Gallery of the Ohio Statehouse.

December 12, 2011

For well over a century, members of the General Assembly have taken great pride in maintaining the legislature as a place for respectful and constructive debate. It is an unfortunate truth, however, that this healthy dialogue sometimes leads to partisan gridlock and ideological polarization. But, despite the differing stances we often hold, there remains a wealth of topics that unite lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.

Three fellow legislators and I recently closed the political ocean to take action on an issue that seemingly all of our state’s residents hold dear – Ohio’s children. Last week, alongside Rep. Ted Celeste (D-Grandview Heights), Sen. Nina Turner (D-Cleveland), and Rep. Dave Hall (R-Millersburg), I took part in announcing the legislature’s firstever Children’s Caucus. In doing so, we have taken a bold step in creating a bipartisan panel to tackle challenges facing a truly nonpartisan cause.

The Children’s Caucus plans to identify innovative, effective ways to help the 2.7 million children who live in Ohio. The four of us will work closely with a variety of experts and stakeholders to lead an ongoing dialogue centered on improving the lives of our youngest residents. In turning this work into sound policy proposals, we hope to produce measurable outcomes that will assist in guiding these children into the future.

Recent times have given way to an increasingly complex world and younger generations find themselves facing no real shortage of challenges. Areas such as education, child health and care, juvenile justice, poverty, and economic security will all be placed at the forefront of our work. An informed and comprehensive approach to dealing with these issues is essential in ensuring that all of Ohio’s children are provided with a pathway to prosper in the years ahead.

The aspirations and dreams of children often define a society. No matter the political party or economic circumstance, there is no acceptable excuse for neglecting the wellbeing of our young. Through the charge of the Children’s Caucus, a steady eye will now be focused on what is truly important. By investing our ideas and resources into the lives of the young, it will unequivocally be demonstrated that Ohio is dedicated to working on behalf of its youth.

Posted in the Dayton Daily News
December 13, 2011
William Hershey, Reporter

COLUMBUS — Maybe there is some common ground at the Statehouse in this season of good will, glad tidings and hopes of big bucks’ Christmas shopping to wake up the economy.

Sen. Peggy Lehner and state Rep. Ted Celeste think so, even if they make a political odd couple.

They’re odd because they’re not fighting with each other.

That’s all the rage around Columbus.

Lehner, from Kettering, is a Republican. Celeste, from suburban Columbus, is a Democrat.

Last week they were named to jointly chair the legislature’s new bipartisan Children’s Caucus.

There are other issue-oriented caucuses at the Statehouse and Lehner acknowledges that it’s hard to measure whether they get much done. “I don’t see a lot come out of it,” she said.

This could be different, she and Celeste said.

Even Republican Gov. John Kasich seems interested. After a luncheon to launch the caucus, six representatives from Kasich’s administration approached her about helping, said Lehner.

“We are aware of the group and are very interested in hearing what they have to say,” Rob Nichols, Kasich’s spokesman, said in an email.

Gayle Channing Tenenbaum, who’s been advocating for children at the Statehouse for 30 years, said there’s a reason for everyone’s interest, beyond the natural desire to help kids.

The welfare of Ohio’s 2.7 million children is directly related to the economy, said Tenenbaum, director of policy and governmental affairs for the Public Children Services Association of Ohio.

To learn, kids must be healthy. If they don’t learn, they can’t work. And if they don’t work, they’ll be a drain, not a boost, to the economy.

“Children in poverty come to school so far behind they never catch up,” said Lehner.

“We can predict how many are going to drop out of high school…. All of that can be remediated by good early childhood programs.”

The time is beyond right. Take your pick of data assembled by groundWork, a Cleveland-based campaign to make high quality early care and education available to all Ohio children, from birth through 6.

• In 2009, there were about 570,000 Ohio children living below the federal poverty line, an increase of 75,000 from two years earlier.

• Ohio was ranked 36th out of 50 states for the “potential for children to lead healthy lives” in a report released by the Commonwealth Fund in 2011.

• In 2010, about 20 percent — 24,000 — of Ohio’s entering kindergartners tested significantly below target school readiness levels according to a state education department assessment.

Tenenbaum has known Celeste, brother of former Gov. Richard F. Celeste, since 1970. She met Lehner after the Kettering lawmaker won election to the House in 2008. Although Lehner had served on Kettering City Council, she was best known as a staunch pro-life opponent of abortion and had been president of Ohio Right to Life.

Tenenbaum, who like Celeste supports abortion, said Lehner’s advocacy starts before a child is born and continues through high school, college and beyond.

Lehner is her “go-to-person” on children’s issues in the Senate, said Tenenbaum

She admired Lehner’s tenacity in getting an amendment removed from a bill earlier this year that Tenenbaum said would have stigmatized a child put into foster care.

If the child had been in trouble, the amendment would have required making neighborhood notifications similar to those made when sexual predators move in, said Lehner.

“She fought like a tiger over her cub to get that language removed,” said Tenenbaum.

On August 11, I was asked to represent Ohio at a competition held in Washington, DC by the Thomas Fordham Foundation to determine which of five states (Florida, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois and Ohio) had enacted the most significant education reforms in 2011. Each state was given six minutes to present their case followed by questions from a panel. Below are excerpts from my presentation.

Ohio is certainly not a newcomer to education reform…. We have been out in front of school choice for some time with over 350 charter schools and one of the nation’s largest voucher programs. At the same time Ohio provides clear evidence that school choice alone does not equate to any significant improvement in school quality. While there has been considerable attention in Ohio to the creation and governance of charter schools, it is becoming increasing clear that until quality becomes the driving factor throughout our system that we run the risk of merely making change for change’s sake.

Current reform efforts in Ohio are being redirected to focus on quality. Regardless of the “setting”, student learning must be our primary focus. Underperforming schools and/or teachers will not be tolerated. The achievement gap must be bridged but not at the expense of further watering down curriculum or lowering expectations. College remediation rates of 50% or higher are simply unacceptable. All children must become proficient in reading and basic math before they ever leave the 3rd grade.

Our first crack at addressing some of these issues was reflected in the biennial budget process just completed in June. Ohio’s biennial budget is not merely a financial document but is also the primary policy document for the Governor. Gov. Kasich is a very reformed minded leader and even while facing an $8 billion deficit, was not hesitant about including numerous education reforms in the budget. While traditionally the budget is the first order of business in a new GA, Ohio’s collective bargaining reform bill SB 5, was dropped weeks ahead of the budget. While SB 5 went far beyond education reform, the bill did away with the use of “last in, first out” policies to determine teacher layoffs and replaced seniority pay with a performance driven evaluation and performance system.

Enacting education reform via the legislative process is not easy. Reforms can be easily sabotaged by political posturing. For example it is really interesting how the Democrats in Illinois unanimously supported legislation very similar to what they unanimously opposed in Ohio.

Substantial reform also requires a level of knowledge about an issue that is unrealistic to expect in a diverse legislative body. Once a bill leaves a sponsors hand it will be worked and reworked at numerous stages of the legislative process which makes careful reform work very difficult to accomplish. As the chairman of the Senate education committee and a member of the Finance committee I was asked to be the point person for education issues in the budget process. I made a concerted effort to reach out to members of the education community to get valuable input on some of the more technical issues. We also brought some of the leading figures in education reform to Ohio to provide expert testimony on key provisions in the bill.

The process of education reform in Ohio is still very much a work in progress. We certainly did not get everything done in the budget that needs to get done. A referendum on SB 5 looms this fall however some of the more critical pieces of education reform such as developing a teacher evaluation system and ending LIFO were substantially included in the budget. While opportunities for new charter schools to open were created we also took steps to assure that failing schools of any kind would be closed and chronically underperforming sponsors would be unable to open additional schools. The availability of vouchers were greatly expanded but an effort to hold voucher schools more accountable was deleted and will be the subject for future legislation. A new Special Needs scholarship program modeled after Florida’s successful McKay Scholarship has been instituted, allowing up to 13,000 students with special needs to attend schools that can better provide for them. A framework and timeline for teacher evaluation was put in place and teachers are starting to come to the table to help flesh out the details. Ohio has been a strong supporter of the Common Core Standards and the budget provides resources to the Dept of Ed to implement the standards. Teach for America will soon be coming to Ohio for the first time.

Faced with some significant challenges the amount of education reform that has taken place in Ohio over the past six months is truly remarkable however we view it as only the beginning. Efforts are underway to create a more unified education system that better links early childhood, K-12 and post secondary education. Creating quality will be the driving factor behind school choice including in the new realm of technology based innovation. The stars are definitely well aligned for some truly innovative reforms in Ohio and while we may not win today I can assure you we will be hard to beat in the months ahead.

The much anticipated state budget was released in bits and pieces over the past ten days but as of this moment the “Red Book” has yet to be released.  The Red Book is the narrative for the budget that really lays out the Governors priorities and explains how the hundreds of line items in the budget relate to each other.  As predicted, this is a budget full of deep cuts and sweeping reforms.  Without the Red book, a lot of analysis of the budget is really just a guessing game so it probably would be best to hold off detailed comments until next month.

One thing we do know for sure is that our school districts are going to see some deep cuts.  This was inevitable given that two years ago Governor Strickland used one time federal stimulus dollars to mask significant cuts in GRF funding for schools while simultaneously imposing millions of dollars worth of new mandates on the districts.   As Chairman of the Senate Education Committee and a member of the Finance Committee I know that this spring will be filled with some very tough choices.  It is critical to the future of Ohio that we have a high quality education system. There is no reason why Ohio’s school can’t be among the finest in the nation.  To make that happen however, especially in light of serious budget constraints, we must focus on those things that we know really make a difference in the classroom.

There is ample evidence that the number one factor in student performance (over which we have any control) is the quality of the teacher in the classroom.  We cannot control the home the student comes from but we can control the environment the child steps into when he or she arrives at school.   A highly motivated, well trained and effective teacher can make all the difference in the life of a child.  A quality teacher far outweighs class size, length of the day, condition of the building or any other factor in producing growth in learning. 

One of the most important aspects of Senate Bill 5, the collective bargaining legislation, is that it replaces a contract based solely on seniority with one which requires that teachers be judged first and foremost by their effectiveness in the classroom.  Continuing contracts will be contingent on performance and only secondarily on seniority.  A teacher who is performing well in the classroom will have job protection, an ineffective teacher will not.   How effectiveness is measured is something we need the teaching profession to tell us but under Senate Bill 5 a district must develop those tools. 

I know this change in focus is very scary to teachers but it is absolutely critical to the quality of education in our state.  Dr. Eric Hanushek, a widely respected Stanford economist recently testified at a combined meeting of the Ohio House and Senate Education committee that if we were to purge the 5% of least effective teachers in our nation’s schools the total economic impact to the nation overtime would be $100 TRILLION dollars.  (To better understand how he arrived at this incredible conclusion I refer you to the book Schoolhouses, Courthouses and Statehouses).

Senate Bill 5 is only one step that we will be taking in the legislature this year to assure that every child in Ohio has access to a quality education.  For some students it may mean a voucher to a non-public school, for others it may mean attending a Charter school.  For the vast majority of students however, most of whom will attend a traditional public school, it means an emphasis on a quality teacher in every classroom.