Next governor should make Ohio’s kids a priority

Children can’t vote, but they have some powerful voices advocating on their behalf with Ohio’s gubernatorial candidates, Republican Mike DeWine and Democrat Richard Cordray.

The Ohio Children’s Hospital Association and Groundwork Ohio have joined forces to encourage Ohio’s next governor — whomever it will be — to adopt policy platforms ensuring access to early-childhood education and health care for those who can’t demand it themselves.

Groundwork Ohio has been advocating for earlychildhood development since 2004. Executive Director Shannon Jones, a former state senator and state representative and current Warren County commissioner, says the nonprofit research and lobbying organization has 40 years of data to back up its views on what children need to be successful in school and life.

OCHA has long represented Ohio’s pediatric hospitals and worked with them to improve medical treatment and outcomes for children. Now it is working with the Health Policy Institute of Ohio to develop an assessment of child health in Ohio to guide public policy the advocates would like to see in the next administration, said Nick Lashutka, OCHA president and CEO.

The two groups will deliver a formal report at a Vote of Ohio Kids Forum on Sept. 27 at which they are counting on business leaders from across the state, many of whom sit on the boards of their local children’s hospitals, to ramp up the pressure for the next governor to invest in early education and children’s health care as a strategy for economic and workforce development.

The group issued a public invitation to Cordray and DeWine on Tuesday.

It has been 20 years since an Ohio governor made early-childhood development a strong priority, dating back to the two terms of the late George Voinovich from 1991 through 1998. He was a champion of programs focused on the first three years of life. Groundwork promotes quality preschool based on research showing 90 percent of brain development occurs in the first five years of life.

Tying workforce development to early childhood development, Vote for Ohio Kids contends just 40 percent of Ohio children enter kindergarten at the level they should be, making it difficult for the state to rise above current levels of just 43 percent of the workforce having the degrees or credentials needed for available jobs.

Combining advocacy for education and health care for children makes sense. Some of Ohio’s most powerful community and business leaders sit on the boards of the state’s pediatric hospitals — in central Ohio they have included Columbus Partnership CEO Alex Fischer, U.S. District Court Judge Algenon Marbley and Abigail Wexner, to name a few.

Measures that Vote for Ohio Kids are pushing include increasing state spending on quality child care and preschool for lowincome children as well as home visits for expectant parents and caregivers of infants and toddlers, especially those at risk for physical, social and emotional challenges.

With Ohio governors often serving two terms, the child advocates want to set the stage for a policy agenda they believe could be in place for eight years. “We can’t afford to not get this right,” Lashutka said.

Nor can the next governor afford to get it wrong. This will be a special interest worth the attention of the gubernatorial candidates as well as those setting public policy in the Ohio General Assembly.