How Do Other States Fund Schools And What Can Ohio Learn?

Efforts to overhaul Ohio's school funding model have been revived in the Statehouse this year. 

Lawmakers have brought a bill that died at the end of last session to the front of the line, newly named House Bill 1. There's also talk that the new funding model could be incorporated into the state's two-year budget bill.

Ohio's school funding structure, relying heavily on local property taxes, has been ruled unconstitutional four times since 1997 and as part of ideastream and WKSU's collaborative Learning Curve series, WKSU reporter Kabir Bahtia has been following how we got here, and whether the latest efforts will truly be a fix. 

Meanwhile, ideastream Education reporter Jenny Hamel decided to take a look at how other states fund their schools to see if there's a better model out there for us to learn from. 

This hour, those reporters join The Sound of Ideas to talk about this complex issue and their reporting thus far. 

Later in the show, we'll talk about the new Cuyahoga County Planning Commission Data Book, which gives statistical insight into the makeup of our region. 

And, finally we'll hear more about the winners of this year's Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards from ideastream Senior Arts Reporter, David C. Barnett. 

-Kabir Bhatia, Reporter, 89.7 WKSU
-Jenny Hamel, Education Reporter, ideasteam

-Patrick Hewitt, Senior Planner, Cuyahoga County Planning Commission
-Mary Cierebiej, Executive Director, Cuyahoga County Planning Commission 

-David C. Barnett, Senior Arts Reporter, ideastream