By their support of the Toledo Public Schools’ 5.8-mill levy request in the Nov. 5 election, Toledo voters expressed a great deal of confidence in the city’s public school system.
It is important that the Toledo Board of Education treat this vote with the respect it deserves — a resounding vote to raise our taxes in an election in which anxiety about economic security was the major concern.
Voters responded positively to the hopeful vision the school board has followed under the leadership of Superintendent Romules Durant.
Part of the levy request will pay for capital improvements on the former Scott Park campus of the University of Toledo. Mr. Durant has sketched a vision in which TPS will manage a campus on which faculty from UT, Owens Community College, and TPS will staff a series of career programs.
The district has developed several magnet and skills programs that attract high-performing high school students. Students are drawn to those programs because they can get career certification and college credit before they graduate from high school. The success of these programs is borne out by test scores.
Let’s not forget that the purpose of TPS is general education, and the district has not shown success in lifting the general education program out of mediocrity. Mediocrity would be welcome in some of the city schools where performance in basic academic skills is pathetic.
The district’s successful ballot request for a new five-year operating levy of 3.8 mills and a $99 million bond issue to be repaid with 2 mills for up to 30 years will cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $203 in new taxation each year.
TPS won this vote of support while Anthony Wayne and Perrysburg school districts with high report card rankings were defeated, though a recount is scheduled in the razor-thin Anthony Wayne levy defeat.
In fiscal year 2023, TPS had the 38th highest total operating budget, per pupil, of Ohio’s 607 school districts, at $21,005. On instruction alone, according to data from the state Department of Workforce and Education, in fiscal year 2023, TPS spent $11,413 per pupil, while Anthony Wayne spent $8,048 and Perrysburg spent $9,079.
The state provided 46 percent of that budget and the local property tax provided 23 percent. The federal government provided 27 percent.
The state and Toledo property owners are paying for the 38th most costly school system in the state, and getting some of the lowest test scores in return. Voters know that Toledo has a high degree of poverty and what that poverty means when it comes to readiness for school and family support for the student — conditions that are not caused by TPS.
Toledo Public Schools is proving successful in specific areas of career education and is adding new ones. However, those programs account for a fraction of the district’s total student population.
With the passage of this levy, we expect the district to move aggressively to channel its healthy financial status into widening the scope of that success to include more of the district’s 21,000-student enrollment.
First Published November 22, 2024, 5:00 a.m.
