State Representative Jim Buchy
Balancing Ohio’s Education Dollars by Introducing Values to the Classroom 

In west central Ohio, values play an important role in our lives.  On Sundays we go to church, Monday throughSaturday we go to work, and our children witness the values we have in our homes, and make no mistake they carry those values for the remainder of life.  Values is part of what makes educating our children in west central Ohio less expensive compared to urban school districts. 

On the farm, children learn about hard work from a very young age. Many times in grade school they join the Cub Scouts or Girl Scouts and in third grade they join 4-H.  Each of these programs extends the values learned in our homes and provides the opportunity for young people to interact with another adult role model.  In urban areas these opportunities are not easily accessible for young people.  

The 4-H and FFA program, if made accessible to the young people in Cleveland and Cincinnati, will provide values and knowledge that will help these young people gain employment in the food industry after high school.  

I have worked with OSU Extension, the Ohio Department of Education, the Ohio Department of Agriculture, the Cleveland and Cincinnati teacher’s unions, the Cleveland and Cincinnati city school administration and urban state representatives to outline a pilot program that will run K-12 with 4-H both in school and after school and the FFA program for the high school.  There are 80,000 unfilled jobs in this state. Teaching our urban youth about agriculture will provide them hope, and prepare more young people to work in the food processing industry that is thriving in the Cincinnati and Cleveland areas. 

This all started following a visit to Cleveland Metropolitan School District where I learned that students were dropping out because of a lack of opportunities.  The 50,000-plus student population only provides career technical education in one building to around 200 students grades 9-12.  The high poverty district needs more career tech programs to increase the graduation rate and get more young people working out of high school.  An agriculture program is inexpensive as it can be taught in the standard classrooms with science lab equipment.  This is an opportunity to share some of the great things about our rural schools with the urban schools. 

The annual cost of educating a student in an urban school district is more than $5,000 greater than educating a student in west central Ohio. Introducing values and hope to the classroom may reduce that cost and allow state education dollars to be spread more evenly. 

Innovation is the best way we can save money at the state level.  In the case of introducing agriculture to urban schools, we are cutting our future costs and providing better job training for future employees in the food processing industry.  Please inform me of your opinion on current topics by completing a survey at tinyurl.com/buchymay. Thank you for your continued communication.  Your feedback helps guide our legislative priorities.