Like any good student, Ravenna Schools Superintendent Tim Calfee paid close attention to the Governor's speech.
Calfee: "I took extensive notes, and when I was done I kind of said, Wow."
Calfee heads a district of just over 3,000 in Portage County that has been rated by the state as in "continuous Improvement" for the last two years.
He says he's impressed that Strickland had the nerve to scrap the Ohio's graduation test, remove flaws in the funding system and commit to lengthening the school day... But...
Calfee: "If 20 days are added to the school year, all teacher salaries would go up. That's a huge expenditure."
Sue Vogelsang echoed Calfee's cautionary approval. She's a parent and school funding activist who says some of the governor's proposals are not new.
Bite: "Some of this has been talked about forever. Will it have some teeth is the question."
Strickland proposed raising the state share of funding education in Ohio to 59 percent. Calfee and Vogelsang say they don't know whether that will pay for all the improvements he's proposed. They won't begin to figure that out until Strickland submits his budget on Monday.
KH, 90.3