Both candidates for governor recently unveiled similar plans for Ohio education with calls for college affordability, reducing testing and better funding for struggling schools.
Republican Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and Democrat Richard Cordray, the former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director, have sparred over numerous issues, including the opioid crisis, Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, or ECOT, and recreational marijuana in the days leading up to the election. Despite their differences on many policy issues their education plans echo each other.
“Throughout Mike DeWine’s career he has proven that he is a fighter and that he is able to get things done for the people that he serves and that is in direct contrast to Richard Cordray,” Joshua Eck, a spokesperson for the DeWine and Husted campaign, said.
Eck said he is glad that Cordray and DeWine are able to agree on certain issues, but when you look at both candidates’ records as Ohio Attorney General, DeWine shows he can get the job done.
"As the country's top consumer watchdog, I shut down for-profit colleges that cheated students out of their hard-earned money, and I went after predatory lenders who were saddling students with debt,” Cordray said in an email.
Jeanne Melvin, the president of Public Education Partners, or PEP, said that she doesn’t believe DeWine because of money he has accepted from charter school organizations.
PEP is a statewide organization that was created to connect education advocates in Ohio.
“Charter schools were not formed to help children, they were formed to help the people who own the charter schools and companies,” Melvin said. “It is just unbelievable all the scams that are taking place because the charter school oversight is just terrible in the state of Ohio.”
Both Cordray’s and DeWine’s education plans seek to address college affordability in Ohio but they both want to go about it in different ways.
On Cordray’s website it says that he wants to make community college free in Ohio, while DeWine wants to seek out other alternatives, such as mandating tuition prices for all four years of college.
Eck said that this plan would require all Ohio colleges to guarantee tuition at freshman year prices, meaning students would pay the same price all four years.
