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Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman and His Fellow Republicans Plan to Financially Harm Public Schools

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ohio school funding

By David DeWitt, Ohio Capital Journal, Used with Permission

Does Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman hate public schools?

He very well might not hate public schools. I doubt that he would ever use those words. But as an observer, it just really comes off like Matt Huffman hates public schools.

Or maybe he has some sort of grudge against them and thinks they should struggle and suffer more than they already are.

Maybe hate is too strong a word. Maybe he’s just callously indifferent to public schools. Or maybe it’s not hatred or indifference; it’s a kind of gristle-chewing contempt for public schools combined with a deep, warm, abiding love and affection for private, for-profit, and religious schools.

I really don’t know.

What I do know is that since Ohio’s system for funding public education was declared unconstitutional more than 25 years ago, Ohioans have only seen two brief periods of time when anything resembling a constitutional school funding formula has been in place: the evidence-based model passed and signed under Gov. Ted Strickland in 2009 and then quickly overturned by Gov. John Kasich in 2011, and the bipartisan Cupp-Patterson Fair School Funding Plan that was put in place in 2021.

Now the future of Cupp-Patterson is in jeopardy as Huffman has declared it “unsustainable.”

Huffman, who starts the year as Ohio House Speaker after being term-limited out as Ohio Senate President, enjoys enormous influence in the Ohio Statehouse amid Republican supermajorities in both chambers.

The Cupp-Patterson Fair School Funding Plan included a phasing-in schedule over six years, or three budget cycles in Ohio. Now that the first two phases have been implemented, Huffman is signaling he’s ready to call the thing off.

“I don’t think there is a third phase to Cupp-Patterson,” Huffman told reporters Monday. “I guess the clear statement I can say is I think those increases in spending are unsustainable.”

Unsustainable. Fair School Funding in Ohio is “unsustainable.”

Meanwhile, this past school year, Ohio lawmakers funneled nearly $1 billion in taxpayer dollars toward private schools after passing near-universal vouchers the year before. The vast majority of new private school voucher money from Ohio taxpayers went to families with their kids already in private schools.

In Ohio, 90% of students attend public schools, while only 10% attend private schools. But according to Huffman, shoveling nearly $1 billion per year to private schools to help families who were already using private schools is definitely, absolutely, no doubt sustainable, while funding Ohio’s Fair School Funding plan for 90% of students is not.

Even under Cupp-Patterson, school districts across Ohio are facing enormous difficulties.

Here are some headlines about Ohio school districts around the state from 2024:

• ‘Can’t survive’: Greater Cincinnati school district will have to make $1M in cuts (WKRC)

• Perrysburg schools considering cuts after levy failed in November (WTOL)

• Princeton City Schools announce hiring freeze, other cuts after tax levy failure (WCPO)

• Local school district to move forward with approved cuts after levy failure (WKRC)

• Ashtabula Area City Schools superintendent updates board on $1.7 million budget reduction plan (Star Beacon)

• Ravenna City Schools making cuts to busing, staffing, extra-curriculars as state places district in ‘fiscal caution’ (WKYC)

• Financial health of local school districts varies considerably, driving levy debates (Dayton Daily News)

• Akron Public Schools proposes cutting 285 positions to contend with budget deficit (Ideastream)

• Federal Hocking School District plans to reduce deficit through attrition (Athens County Independent)

• This school district is facing an $81 million deficit. It hopes voters will help. (WEWS)

• Cuts and budget reductions expected for Youngstown City School District due to projected deficit (WFMJ)

• Youngstown schools to cut 20 positions to deal with budget deficit (Ideastream)

• Cleveland Municipal School District plans to cut $168 million from budget over two years (Cleveland.com)

• Local school district forced to cut jobs due to budget deficit (WHIO)

• Tri-State school districts are making cuts, financial changes after levies failed in November’s election (WCPO)

• Mansfield City Schools faces $3.9 million deficit next school year (Richland Source)

• Reynoldsburg school levy fails, budget cuts likely (WCMH)

• Milford Schools approves over $5 million in budget cuts contingent on Election Day income tax levy failure (WLWT)

• Milford School District tax levy fails (WCPO)

I’m going to stop here because I could go on and on with these.

I read an abnormal amount of local news from all around Ohio, so I know this all is happening because I see these headlines all the time. I don’t expect most Ohioans to be aware that school districts everywhere across the state are facing such terrible trouble, but I do expect the Ohio House Speaker to know it, because, well, that’s his job.

What I can’t understand is this: If you know that public school districts across Ohio are facing awful budget hardship, teacher shortages, morale problems, busing problems and driver shortages, an extremely hostile public, a complete unwillingness in many communities to pass local levies, would you, as Ohio House Speaker, try to find ways to help schools give 90% of students the absolute best education possible? Or would you rip away more resources and make their problems worse?

I would try to help.

I hope most people would try to help.

But Matt Huffman is signaling he intends to cause them more pain. And that’s why I wonder, does he hate public schools? Or, does he not care about them? Or does he just love private, for-profit, and religious schools so much that it doesn’t matter to him what happens to the 90% of students in public schools?

I don’t know. But if state lawmakers cut even more from public schools, all these headlines will keep getting worse, and Ohio communities, schools, teachers, students and families will all suffer the consequences.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

OMG! I Have Proof That the Rapture is Imminent!

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hicksville ohio earthquake

For 2,000 years, Christian preachers have been saying Jesus is coming to Earth soon. As the 1976 gospel song by Andre Crouch goes:

Soon and very soon
We are going to see the King
Soon and very soon
We are going to see the King
Soon and very soon
We are going to see the King
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
We’re going to see the king

Soon and very soon? Every generation of believers believed that Jesus would return to Earth while they were still alive. And every generation of believers died without seeing Jesus face-to-face. In the 1970s and 1980s, in particular, Evangelicals were certain that Jesus was going to rapture them away, safe from the wrath and judgment God planned to pour on the Earth, as recorded in the book of Revelation. Alas, most preachers who prophesied that the rapture was nigh died, proving themselves to be false prophets. Hal Lindsey, Jack Van Impe, Harold Camping, Herbert W. Armstrong, Edgar Whisenant, Jerry Falwell, and Ed Dobson — all pushing up daisies in the cemetery — predicted Jesus’s return in their lifetime.

These days, Evangelicals have largely given up on making predictions about the second coming of Jesus. Tired of waiting for Jesus to show up again, Evangelicals have taken to building a kingdom on earth through raw political power. They do not need Jesus; Trump is their Lord.

Earlier today, Defiance County, Ohio residents experienced an earth-shaking event that I hope will change their minds about the rapture. I spent fifty years of my life hearing Evangelical preachers preach passionate sermons about the imminent return of Jesus. Countless sermons were preached from Matthew 24:

And as he [Jesus] sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

….

And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.

….

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Astute readers of the Bible will notice that I have skipped a number of Bible verses. I did this because that is exactly what many, if not most Evangelical preachers do. Their goal is to make a point or advance an agenda instead of properly exegeting the Word of God. If that was their plan, they would preach this passage of Scripture in context, and in doing so, teach their congregations that Matthew 24 has nothing to do with the rapture.

At 6:48 AM, Defiance County, Ohio, specifically the community of Hicksville (a few miles from our home), felt a magnitude 2.9 earthquake. This is the first recorded earthquake in Defiance County history. No fault lines lie nearby, so experts wonder what caused the earthquake. I suspect some local Evangelical preachers won’t wonder about what happened. Nope, these prophets of the Almighty will turn to Matthew 24, rip out the verses necessary to prove their point, and say that this earthquake is an irrefutable sign of the second coming of Jesus. Yes, siree bob, Jesus is coming soon! What other explanation could there be, right?

In time, scientists will posit likely explanations for the Defiance Earthquake®. And sure as Jesus is still lying in an unmarked Judean grave, these very same preachers will conveniently forget their earthquake predictions and move on to other newspaper auguries, sure, that this time, they will be right.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Quote of the Day: Amish Factory Farms Pollute Land and Water in Rural Northwest Ohio

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amish edon ohio

When people think of the Amish, they think of plain-clothed people, horses and buggies, and idyllic farms. While this picture is largely true, here in rural Northwest Ohio, Amish farmers in partnership with JBS Foods, the world’s largest beef producer, are operating large factory farms. The result? Polluted waterways and land. What follows is a feature story on this issue published by Circle of Blue.

Excerpted from Amish Farmers’ Partnership With Beef Giant Produces Manure Mess by Keith Schneider

Edon, Ohio — For 60 years, this one stoplight Ohio town has been known as a place where time appears to stand still. With more than 400 Amish residents settled in and around the rural community that straddles the Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan state lines, it is common to see large families traveling by horse-drawn black buggies to and from farms where they milk dairy cows and grow corn.

Adhering to a strict religious doctrine that resists new technology, Amish farmers here spent decades largely eschewing industrial farming practices that have become common around the United States.

But that bucolic tableau of plain people earnestly cultivating the rich soil where three states meet has ceased to exist, splintered by an industrial farm alliance between one of the area’s leading Amish farming families and JBS Foods, the world’s largest beef producer. Over the last two years, JBS has forged a partnership to establish a mammoth vertically integrated concentrated cattle feeding operation that is confining more than 100,000 male calves and steers in large concrete, steel, and vinyl-covered feeding barns, and generating thousands of tons of solid manure each day.

Prompted by persistent complaints of odor and contamination, regulators from the Ohio Agriculture Department and the state Environmental Protection Agency investigated earlier this year and cited nine farms for manure mismanagement, and issued fines to three farms for failing to secure proper operating permits.  

The cited farms, most owned by the Schmucker family, are close to each other in Williams County, Ohio. Inspectors from the two state agencies found uncontained manure running off big waste piles and out of barns, and draining into streams and wetlands. Inspectors took water samples that contained high concentrations of nitrogen ammonia, a contaminant of manure. 

The state findings were consistent with those observed by area residents who’ve watched as  Amish farmers piled manure in huge mounds, spread it on farm fields as fertilizer, and taken their own water samples that confirmed it polluted streams, lakes, and the St. Joseph River. 

The widespread contamination caused a deepening schism with the community, which was unprepared for such immense agricultural industrialization and the subsequent environmental contamination. 

Neither Noah Schmucker Jr., the leader of the Amish farm community, nor JBS executives agreed to be interviewed for this report. Executives of Wagler and Associates, an Indiana construction company heavily involved in building the feeding barns, declined to be interviewed. 

When asked about the concerns, Ohio Department of Agriculture Director Brian Baldridge said the agency would continue to “engage with all property owners to ensure they are following Ohio laws and rules.”

What’s unfolded around this farming town of 800 residents in the far northwestern corner of Ohio is the agricultural equivalent of what occurred during the fracking boom in Williston, North Dakota in the late 2000s. Powered by new technology, vastly different production practices, and access to huge sums of capital, a new beef production industry swept into a region unaccustomed and unprepared for such immense agricultural industrialization, or its environmental contamination. 

….

Just as in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina, Missouri and other states that support large industrialized livestock and poultry sectors, concentrated feeding operations are major polluters. Water samples collected by the Steuben County Lakes Council and the Williams County Alliance, two environmental groups, show persistently high concentrations of nitrates, phosphorus, and dangerous E-coli bacteria in streams and lakes in the region that encompass the St. Joseph River watershed. The river serves Fort Wayne with its drinking water, and drains into the Maumee River, the primary source of the pollutants that cause a mammoth annual toxic algae bloom in Lake Erie. The groups also tracked the contamination upstream headwaters of Fish Creek and Black Creek. Both flow through the Amish cattle farms. 

The situation outrages Sandy Bihn, executive director of Lake Erie Waterkeeper, who has worked for decades on regional, national, and binational groups to cure the lake’s annual toxic bloom. 

“How is it possible to let 100,000 animals, and all the nitrates and phosphorus that they produce, come into the watershed that we’re investing millions and millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars to protect?” Bihn said. “This just shows how meat and JBS are able to control the system.”

While the buggies, beards, and plain dress still help to identify Amish farms in Williams County and the two neighboring counties, there is nothing characteristically Amish about the vertically integrated, industrial scale, scientifically advanced calf and cattle production system that has quickly evolved here. 

The financial advantage is plain for the Schmuckers and the other Amish farmers. The most labor intensive aspect of the Amish cattle operation is feeding and caring for calves. Amish families are large. There are plenty of hands available for the work. Latino laborers also are employed to help with animal care and operate the skidders that push manure out of the barns. Judging by the number of new homes, new cattle confinement facilities, and the prices Amish are paying for farmland – $14,000 to $20,000 an acre, according to county records –business is lucrative.

….The civic confrontation between the Amish and English communities started in December 2023 when Noah Schmucker and Wagler and Associates sought a permit to build a $10 million feeding facility for 8,000 calves and cattle in Steuben County. It was the first time the scale of the operation and JBS’s involvement was publicly revealed. Schmucker baldly stated at the hearing that if the county refused the permit he would just build smaller feeding barns that evaded county and state permitting requirements. Ohio does not require a permit unless a barn houses over 1,000 animals. Indiana’s limit is 300.

Hundreds of residents, many of them owners of lakeside homes, protested both options, fearing water pollution from manure. The county rejected the permit, prompting Schmucker to proceed with subdividing land and construction.

Evidence of the industry’s presence, and its profitability, is everywhere now around Edon. Dozens of big concrete, steel, and vinyl cattle feeding barns have already been built, each costing $130,000 or more, and many others are under construction. Trucks hauling calves and cattle crowd the highways and the narrow dirt farm-to-market roads. New Amish homes are under construction. Manure piles rest like sleeping beasts beside confinement barns. Trucks loaded with manure head for dumping sites. The entire region’s scent is an invisible and noxious veil of cattle wastes. 

Following persistent complaints of from residents of pollution and odor state environmental and agriculture authorities in the three states inspected many of the Amish farms. Michigan authorities directed a calf feeding operation to halt the flow of manure draining into a stream that fed a nearby lake. Inspectors from Indiana’s Agriculture Department inspected a Steuben County farm and found that it was in compliance with state rules. 

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency cited nine Amish farms for violations of manure management regulations in August and set a September 1 deadline for fixing them that the farms met. Ohio authorities discovered several feeding sites where the number of cattle exceeded 1,000 animals, and the farms have since some into compliance. The state also ordered the largest mounds of manure, some towering two and three stories tall, to be removed.

The Ohio Agriculture Department issued $20,000 in fines to three Amish farms for failing to acquire the proper state permits. 

Ohio’s action reflects the limited reach of state environmental law to control agricultural contamination. Though modest, the state’s enforcement is the most aggressive against farm pollution since 1999, when Ohio cited an egg farm for fouling water with chicken litter. 

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

What Fans, Parents, and Coaches Teach Children and Teen Players When They Scream at Officials

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fairview vs defiance basketball game january 20 2018 (10)

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I attended forty or so High School basketball games a year – both boys’ and girls’ games. In the process of doing so, I shot thousands of photographs. I have attended games at every school in the Buckeye Border Conference, the Green Meadows Conference, and games at schools affiliated with the Northwest Ohio Athletic League, Western Buckeye League, and the Three Rivers Athletic Conference. (I also attend numerous tournament games.) I could spend the next hour or two critiquing the various facilities, including how suited they are for photography. I have watched dozens of officials work these games. Some of them are consummate pros skilled at their craft. Others, not so much. Some officials have rabbit ears, reacting negatively to coach or fan criticism. Other officials are stone-cold killers, indifferent to critics in the stands. I guess what I am saying is this: I know a fair bit about Northwest Ohio basketball.

 Coaches

High school basketball coaches come in all shapes, sizes, and forms. Some of them are teachers of the game, patient with their players, and rarely raise their voices. Others are Bobby Knight-like screaming psychopaths. These screamers constantly berate their players and officials. On more than a few occasions, I’ve watched verbally assaulted players stop listening to their coaches. I am surprised that school boards think it is still okay to employ coaches who treat players this way. I can’t think of a thing such behavior accomplishes that couldn’t be accomplished with a lower voice raised from time to time as needed. The best coaches in the area are men and women who know how to motivate their players to play better and harder, all without psychologically brutalizing them. These screamers are throwbacks to the days when I played basketball. I have been screamed and hollered at more times than I can count, often deservedly so. That said, I had far greater respect for coaches who were passionately firm, men who kept their emotions in control, even when the play on the court was dismal.

Officials

I was taught that you never allow a game to get to the place where the officials determine the outcome. Officials are going to miss calls. They are human, and will, at times, have a bad night. Smart players discern how the officiating crew is calling the game. Sometimes, officials let players play, rarely calling fouls. Others call everything, even nit-picky fouls. My coaches frequently reminded me that “if it looks like a foul, it is a foul.” Players have to play smart. In doing so, they keep the officials from being the deciding factor.

Some coaches allow their players to question or talk back to officials. In my playing days, such behavior would have gotten you a technical foul and a quick trip to the bench. Several years ago, I attended a boys’ game where one of the players screamed at one of the officials, when are you going to call a fucking foul? The young man rightly received a technical foul and his coach took him out of the game for a couple of minutes. He should have been tossed out of the game and suspended for the next game. Should the official have called a foul? Maybe. It doesn’t matter. Respect for officials and opponents is a crucial part of the learning experience; a fact often forgotten is that high school sports are meant to teach teenagers life lessons. When coaches, fans, and parents are screaming at the officials, is it surprising that players think it is okay to do the same?

Fans and Parents

in 2020, I attended girls’ basketball games (both the JV and Varsity games) where a man and his wife spent the entire night berating and badgering the officials. These fans were able to see from 90 feet away that the official standing two feet away was making the wrong call. Traveling was their favorite complaint — all directed at the opposing team, of course. (The opposing team won both games, with the varsity team winning by 40.) During the JV game, the clock hadn’t ticked off 30 seconds before the home team coach was screaming at the officials for “missing” a foul. She was so abusive that one official went to her and said, I’ve heard enough. Sit.

One thing I have noticed over the years is that screaming coaches beget screaming fans. Fans smell blood in the water and go after the officials. Did the officials miss some calls during the aforementioned game? Sure, but they were hardly the reason the home team received a forty-point beat-down. Lazy defense and poor shooting, and not the officials, cost the hometown girls the game. As the game got into the fourth quarter, local fans started grousing about the visiting team’s players. They seemed to think that the opposing team should have stopped playing hard. One girl shot a successful three-pointer and one fan said the girl lacked class. Don’t want the girl to make the shot? Try playing defense. Play harder, play better, realizing that on some nights you are just going to get your ass whipped. (This is the same school where fans several years ago ridiculed an opposing player for being fat. Talk about class.)

Fans think their $6-$8 ticket gives them the right to be an asshole, and to some degree they are right. I wish they would, however, consider what they are teaching children and players alike with their behavior. Some fans act as if the most important thing in the universe is their team winning the game — an event that will long be forgotten weeks or years later. One Saturday, Polly and I attended a boys’ basketball game where a man in his sixties sitting two people away from us spent the entire night — with a blood pressure-raised red face — hollering at the officials. He was quite entertaining. He was also a buffoon.

The worst fans are the parents who spend their time constantly coaching their children from the stands or verbally disciplining them for not playing harder, making the shot, defending the opposing player, or countless other offenses. These parents, intentionally or not, embarrass their children. I’ve seen more than a few players cringe when Mom, Dad, or Grandpa hollers at them from the stands. These players have coaches, so there is no need for parents to be coaching them from the stands. Let the coaches do their jobs.

What is it we want high school players to learn from the game?  Sports are meant to teach life lessons; lessons such as life is hard and sometimes the best team doesn’t win the game. Sports teach players that life isn’t fair, and that sometimes no matter how hard you work, you are going to fail. These life lessons and others prepare teenagers for the real world, a place that will eat them alive if they aren’t prepared. Facing adversity is essential to future success as an adult. I mentioned in a post titled Dear Bruce Turner one such experience I faced as a tenth-grade basketball player:

You were my basketball coach. Trinity sponsored a team in the ultra-competitive high school age Church Basketball League. One game I had a terrible night shooting the ball. I was frustrated and I told you I wanted out of the game. You refused and made me play the whole game. My shooting didn’t get any better, but I learned a life lesson that I passed on to all my children years later.

I learned on that night to never quit. Play hard, even when it seems everything you do is failing. Teenagers need to learn these kinds of lessons if we expect them to grow up into mature, responsible adults. What they don’t need to learn is that it is okay to yell, holler, scream, berate, and ridicule people who do something you disagree with. Coaches and fans alike do a great disservice to players when they go after officials and the opposing team’s coaches and players. The game’s importance will quickly fade away, but the lessons taught to players and children in the stands last a lifetime.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Home

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gerencser family 1950s
Paul and Marry Gerencser and Children, 1950s. My father, Robert, sits next to his Dad. Only my Aunt Helen, back row, far right. is alive today.

I was born in Bryan, five miles from where we live today. We live a few miles south from what was the Gerencser family farm on County Road A. We often travel down Route 15 to Bryan to shop, eat, and receive medical care. As we pass the 100-acre farm my grandparents once owned, my mind romantically turns to thoughts of Grandpa plowing and discing the ground, hoping for a harvest of beans, corn, or wheat. I think about their hard life as immigrants; no indoor plumbing and a single pump handle for water in the kitchen. My roots run deep into the rich farmland of rural Ohio. This is my home.

When we first married, we lived in rural northwest Ohio for less than a year. We then spent the next 14+ years living in central (Newark, Buckeye Lake, Frazeysburg) and southeast (Somerset, Mt Perry, Glenford, Junction City, New Lexington) Ohio.

In 1995, we returned to northwest Ohio. I pastored two churches, one in Fayette, and another in West Unity. In 2002 we left, and in 2005 returned to stay. Here I was born, and here will I die. This is home.

Eighteen years ago, we bought a ramshackle two-story house in the one-stoplight-two-bars-and-one gas-station town of Ney — population 354. We live in Defiance County — a static/declining county. I went to usafacts.org to check how Defiance County demographics have changed throughout our marriage. I found our population is declining, older, and slightly less white. I see nothing in the numbers that suggests these things will change any time soon, if ever. Remove Defiance College from the demographics, we are older and whiter. This is just how it is. You accept that you live in a largely aging, white community — one that is largely Christian and Republican. Only in who we root for — Michigan or Ohio State? Bengals, Lions, or Browns? Reds, Tigers, or Guardians? —do we find diverse demographic splits.

Polly and I are liberals; socialists; pacifists; atheists; humanists; and cat lovers — me outwardly so, Polly quietly so. Our values say we should be living somewhere on the East or West Coast, but here we are. This is home. We know that most of our neighbors disagree with us. Even in the Defiance County Democratic Party — to whom we committed to support and become more active — we are to the left of most of our fellow Democrats. We accept we will always be the black swans in a bevy of white ones. So why do we stay?

First, our six children, their spouses, and our sixteen grandchildren live here. We want to be involved in their lives as much as possible. Living here allows us to do this. We don’t want to be long-distance grandparents. Family matters to us. If it didn’t, we would still be living in Arizona.

Second, we love the slow — watch paint dry, corn grow, farmer Joe slowly walking across the road to get his mail — pace of life. When we get a hankering for good food, entertainment, etc. we drive to Fort Wayne, Toledo, or Findlay — all three are about an hour away. Then we come home to nothing-ever-happens-here-and-we-like-it-that-way Ney. Honk when you drive by and we will wave, even if we don’t know you.

Third, rural northwest Ohio is familiar to us; it’s home. Even Polly, a convert from Bay City, Michigan calls this place home. We have planted our roots here and they have grown deep. Wendell Berry often talks about the importance of place. I agree with him. On one hand, I have wanderlust, having moved countless times over my sixty-seven years of life. On the other hand, I value what we have planted, grown, and cultivated as a family here in farmland country.

A gospel song says “I’ve come too far to look back.” So it is for Polly and me. This is home, and here we will one day draw our last breath. We embrace Defiance County as it is, while at the same time working to make our home more diverse, tolerant, and kind. Many days, this goal seems hopeless, but we don’t give up.

This is home.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

It is Past Time for Us to Have a Frank Discussion About President Joe Biden

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joe biden inauguration

By Marilou Johanek, Used with permission from Ohio Capital Journal

This presidential election year was never going to be a breeze for Ohio Democrats running in front-line races. The National Republican Congressional Committee homed in on three Democratic-held seats in the state held by vulnerable incumbents Marcy Kaptur (Toledo) Emilia Sykes (Akron) and Greg Landsman (Cincinnati). Its GOP counterpart in the U.S. Senate made unseating Ohio’s incumbent Democrat in the U.S. Senate, Sherrod Brown, a singular priority to take back the Republican Senate Majority.

Plus, Ohio may not be Alabama-red but it’s getting there. It is a bellwether state no more. Democratic candidates face an uphill battle from the get-go to win the hearts and minds of Ohioans. Add in the potential drag on electoral success from the marquee Democrat at the top of the party ticket in 2024 and the path to winning for down ballot Dems gets exponentially harder.

That prospect has hung like the sword of Damocles over key U.S. House and U.S. Senate campaigns waged by Democrats in Ohio and across the nation all year. But today the fear of impending defeat is even more acute as the party grapples with the imploding candidacy of their presumptive presidential nominee. 

Far from effectively communicating a persuasive reason for reelection or forcefully prosecuting a case against his dangerous opponent, President Biden is the gift that keeps giving — to MAGA Republicans. They’re over the moon with the good fortune of the felon they’re fielding to recapture the White House.

Who knew a criminally convicted, twice impeached ex-president who incited a violent insurrection against his own government in a failed coup attempt would have a cakewalk back to power? Not with that rap sheet, which also includes adjudicated rapist and business fraudster. Yet here we are.

Biden is easy prey for ridicule and perceived weakness. What is dispiriting for many to watch will only get worse. The incumbent president, who has spent a lifetime in honorable public service, has already been reduced to a caricature. A muddled old man joke. From now until November pro-Trump operatives will unleash a torrent of clips from Biden’s June 27th disastrous debate performance everywhere people scroll. 

If you thought the president’s flubs and frailties were mocked on Tik Tok before the debate — and they were wall-to-wall brutal — just wait. Ohio Democrats know what’s coming if Biden remains in the race. What his cadre of aides and advisors tried to keep under wraps about the advancing infirmity of their aging boss is now front and center with Democratic voters and the broad coalition of pro-democracy Americans Biden needs to win. 

The panic of that electorate is palpable. They don’t want to lose their country to a vengeful authoritarian promising dystopian Project 2025 rule. They want a warrior who will fight like hell to preserve the Republic. But rank and file Democrats, Never Trumpers, and independents are not persuaded Biden can meet this existential juncture in American history.

Maybe they can still be convinced if the pervasive distraction of Biden’s cringey senior moments is mitigated. But abiding anxiety about the 81-year-old’s performative strength as a candidate has long been No. 1 on voters’ list of concerns with the octogenarian. Attempts to spin away Biden’s frailty as trivial was always an exercise in futility.

Nobody in flyover America was fooled. People saw their parents or grandparents in Biden’s shuffle and inaudible whispers — someone who had simply succumbed to the march of time. But ordinary voters, who may or may not have put their faith in Biden in 2020, were uniformly gobsmacked by how completely Biden clocked out of a presidential debate he initiated to jumpstart his reelection campaign. 

In the weeks since, millions more have seen what cannot be unseen; an elderly, incoherent, astonishingly tepid candidate unable to land a rhetorical punch against a serial liar and coup plotter. It’s past time for the tough conversations on Biden the Democratic Party ducked in January. Voters deserve a reckoning about the diminished candidacy before it’s too late.

But Ohio Democrats on the campaign trail are still ducking what needs urgent, forthright debate, still settling for the path of least resistance. For the most part, Brown continues to dodge what many Ohio voters can’t get past yet asserts “there must be a resolution so that we can get back to talking about the choice in this election.” Kaptur largely prefers to be supportive and silent about Biden’s future. Sykes has also stayed mum on Biden.

Only Landsman was candid about whether Biden should remain in the presidential race. “He could be an American hero, Joe Biden, and say look, I’ve gotta step down,” the Cincinnati congressman told CNN. He hoped the president would use the time before the Democratic convention “to prove us all wrong” but conceded, “it’s becoming increasingly more likely this is maybe just too high a hill for him to climb.”

Why is Landsman an outlier on what is obvious and distressing to constituents worried sick about saving democracy? Why, as Axios reported, were Ohio’s presidential delegates instructed “NOT to respond to reporter calls at this time” (about the albatross killing the president’s odds of winning) per the “ODP [Ohio Democratic Party] and the Biden campaign”?

Not responding to a five-alarm fire belies the profound danger of letting a free and democratic America go up in smoke. To play it safe?

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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2006: Two Op-Eds I Wrote, Warning of the Dangers of Nationalism

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Cartoon by Nath Paresh

In 2006, I was still a Christian. I self-identified as an emerging/emergent pastor. As you will see, my liberal/progressive political views were quite developed by this time. I was far from the ranch, so to speak. For my Evangelical critics at the time, it came as no surprise to them that I embraced atheism two years later.

May 2006 Op-Ed for the Bryan Times (slightly edited):

Throughout the history of the Christian church, it has been commonly believed that state and church, both ordained by God, operate on separate, yet equal planes of authority. This is commonly called the “separation of church and state.” History painfully reminds us of what happens when state and church are joined together. This union always results in the death of many people and the authority of both the state and the church being compromised. Adolph Hitler would not have been successful during World War II without the joining of church and state together. The church lost her moral authority when she became complicit in the Aryan teachings and programs of the Nazi regime. Yes, there were those who stood against Hitler and his murderous minions, but, for the most part, the German church remained silent. As a result, the world was plunged into war and millions of people suffered and died. This is but one example of many that could be pulled from the pages of history. I am using it because it is “current” history and one that can readily be researched.

The world owes a great debt to the United States for her willingness to stand against Germany and her attempt to rule the world. The United States stood on solid moral footing and she is to be commended for her courage and sacrifice. With such a great moral stand also comes a great challenge; to remain humble in the light of great victory. Coming out of World War II, the United States had the approval and appreciation of the world. Sixty years later the United States is now viewed as an imperialistic superpower that is intent on dominating and taking over the world one nation at a time. How did this happen?

Pride! One-word answer. Pride! Reinhold Niebuhr, shortly after the end of World War II said this:

We are indeed the execution of God’s judgment yesterday. But we might remember the prophetic warnings to the nations of old, that nations which become proud because they were divine instruments must, in turn, stand under the divine judgment and be destroyed……If ever a nation needed to be reminded of the perils of vainglory, we are that nation in the pride of our power and our victory.

As the post-September 11, 2001 era continues, there is an increasingly ugly, nationalistic pride that is rising up in the United States. This errant pride is seen in our nation’s actions in Iraq and in the continued saber-rattling against Iran. Strong traces of it can be viewed in the current debate going on in the United States over Mexican immigration.

A clear distinction needs to be made between patriotism and nationalism. According to Michael Dyson in his book titled Pride, “Patriotism is the critical affirmation of one’s country in light of its best values, including the attempt to correct it when it is in error. Nationalism is the uncritical support of one’s nation regardless of its moral or political bearing.” Sadly, much of what is called patriotism in the United States is actually prideful, sinful, nationalism.

As in Germany during World War II, this errant nationalism is graphically on display in churches everywhere. Christian theology has been wedded with political ideology and given a healthy baptism of flag-waving nationalism and the result is that the church in the United States has abandoned her call to follow Jesus. Far too many churches, including an unhealthy number of churches in this area, have become pawns in a political chess game. Such churches have lost their prophetic voice. Where is the voice calling out for justice and mercy? Where is the voice calling out for peace in the name of the Prince of Peace?

The flag-waving nationalism on display in many churches needs to stop. Ties with liberal or conservative political agendas need to be broken. The war in Iraq and Mexican immigration need to be viewed through the teaching of Jesus instead of a political party’s platform. It is time to repent.

Over the past 36 months, I have visited a number of churches in the northwest Ohio area, including churches in Indiana and Michigan. I have yet to hear one critical word concerning the War in Iraq. I did hear numerous words promoting the war, and sometimes I was almost certain that I was hearing a public service announcement from the defense department. Why are the pulpits of so many churches silent on this crucial issue? Even churches that come from the “peace” denominations are strangely silent or even go so far as to promote war, in direct contradiction to their church doctrine. I realize I can not make absolute judgments when I only visit a church once or a few times, but overall the silence is deafening.

It seems that many churches are requiring allegiance to the State and her war policy as a test of fidelity to Jesus. If one dare raise a voice of objection, immediate questions of salvation and love for country are raised. Coward, un-American, unsaved, liberal, and military hater are some of the kinder words hurled at those who, in Jesus’ name, oppose war. In spite of the name-calling, lovers of peace must continue to stand for peace. It is the LEAST we can do. Churches and ministers must be prodded and cajoled, and if need be, shamed into returning to being prophetic voices in the world. Instead of allowing political agendas to control the voice of the church, the clear and emphatic teachings of Jesus must set the agenda. It is time to stop the debates about “just war” (which is nothing more than political ideology wearing theological clothes) and return to doing what Jesus commands us to do; love our enemies and be a people who actively promote peace.

May 2006 Op-Ed for the Defiance Crescent-News (slightly edited):

Every time Christians gather together for communion, it is for the purpose of memorializing the death of Jesus. The death of Jesus on the cross has many theological implications: redemption and sanctification among many others. The death of Jesus also has political implications. His death, along with his resurrection from the dead, proclaimed a new Kingdom, the Kingdom of God. Who, and all that Jesus did, challenges the politics and agendas of every generation. There is a new King in the world, and Jesus is his name.

Last Sunday, many churches took time to briefly mention Memorial Day. Some churches had full-blown patriotic rallies, complete with the presenting of the colors and taps. Others sang a few patriotic songs and said a quick prayer for those who have died in our nation’s wars. Some took time to honor church members who are serving or had served in the Military.

I always prepare myself for what “may” happen in church on our nation’s various national holidays. I would prefer that churches not meld worship of God and nationalism together, but I have come to the place where I can tolerate it in short doses. Interjecting nationalism into our worship of God diminishes the focus of our worship, and can, if we are not careful, suggest that Christianity and American nationalism are one and the same.

In many sermons, we will hear that Christians need to view the sacrifice of war in and of itself, separated from its theological and political implications. An attempt is made to link the sacrifice of war with the sacrifice of Jesus. Jesus laid down his life for others and in war we are called on to do the same.

It is unwise to connect the sacrifice of Jesus and the sacrifice of war. Jesus was the guiltless dying for the guilty. In war, there are no guiltless parties. It is also impossible to divorce the sacrifice of war from its theological and political implications. War ALWAYS has such implications.

My prayer is that churches will stop being agents for the political agendas of the Republican and Democratic parties. Instead of giving public service announcements for the defense department, churches would be truer to their calling if they proclaimed what Jesus said about peace and loving our enemies. I am still waiting to hear a sermon anywhere that takes seriously the claims and teachings of Jesus concerning peace and as a result, declares the war in Iraq to be contrary to Christian teaching. Instead of wrangling about “just war” I hope and pray churches will wrangle with the implications of “thou shalt not kill,” “love your enemies,” and “blessed are the peacemakers.”It is certainly proper and right to quietly remember those who have died during our nation’s wars. Some died defending freedom, others died for a political agenda, but all died as Americans and we should remember them. We should also take time to reflect on the awfulness of war and the danger of a nation with unchecked arrogance waging war against all who cross her path.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Ohio Republicans Spending Almost $1 Billion a Year to Fund Private Christian Schools

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By Marilou Johanek, Ohio Capital Journal, Used with Permission

ohio school vouchers

If your local school district had a levy on the ballot last month, chances are it lost. Most did. That means losing districts may cut courses, counseling services, staff, busing, building. It means increasing budget deficits. It also means increasing class sizes, pay-to-participate fees, and public school students making do with less.

Imagine what a billion dollar windfall from the state legislature would mean to school districts struggling to balance their budgets with less? Now imagine that billion dollar bonanza from the General Assembly going instead to private, mostly religious schools. Spoiler alert: the private school money train is real and your tax dollars are driving it. What’s wrong with that picture? 

Ohio taxpayers didn’t get a vote on paying for the private school decisions of mainly white, often affluent parents who can afford the parochial schools and pricey college prep institutions their kids already attend. But, thanks chiefly to Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, the premier advocate of state-funded Catholic education, unknowing voters were roped into subsidizing the non-public school selections of thousands of Ohio families — including many who make north of $250,000 a year. 

Never mind that your school district can hardly keep up with inflation and rising operating costs to maintain or renovate 60-year-old buildings, let alone construct new ones. School administrators have to come to you, hat-in-hand, to beg repeatedly for funding the state won’t provide. But the gerrymandered GOP supermajority in the Statehouse doesn’t care about the fiscal distress at your district or how the latest levy defeat will adversely impact students. 

ohio school vouchers

Ohio Republicans care about diverting a ton of taxpayer money (desperately needed by cash-strapped, levy-dependent districts) to benefit private school families, regardless of income or need, who choose to send their darlings to diocesan grade schools and religious high schools. That is certainly their right. Plenty of parents decide private school is the preferred option for their progeny. Good for them.

But that individual choice is a private value, a private good being wrongly underwritten by hundreds of millions of limited public funds not going to advance the common good of a public school system that accepts all and serves nearly 90% of Ohio students. Those finite funds for education in the state budget are flying out the door to serve the few — just over 8% of students in the state go to private schools — who freely chose a tuition-based education over the free public instruction we collectively support with our taxes.

But GOP lawmakers, who made funding private education a priority years ago, have been starving public schools of adequate and equitable state aid for a long time. With Huffman at the helm, Republicans unleashed a flood of tax revenue to boost the fortunes of private schools and swell enrollment at parish grade schools and religious high schools. GOP legislators continued inflating their massive giveaway of taxpayer dollars to private schools while remedies to fix the unconstitutional funding formula for public schools languished for decades.

State handouts to private education exploded from over $69 million in 2008 to over $360 million in fiscal year 2019, a 416% jump! But that’s nothing compared to the 2023-2024 school year when state-funded tuition coupons (aka vouchers) to private school parents went through the roof. Again, thanks to Huffman’s singular zealotry to privatize public education out of business, expanded state vouchers — paid from the same line item in the budget that funds public schools — are on track to hit $1 billion by June. 

Your tax dollars at work, but not for you or your public schools or the vast majority of students in Ohio.  

This unprecedented government largesse to church-related private schools in the state is on an alarming trajectory that has no cap or public accountability. It’s a boatload of easy money from the state with zero strings attached. How great is that for families with the means to send their kids to private schools but can now do it on the taxpayer’s dime??  

Of course, Catholic dioceses in Ohio and elite private high schools are aggressively encouraging their families to exploit the state’s voucher gimmes to the fullest. The government spigot for private education is wide open and there’s lots more where that came from if Huffman has his way. He quickly scrapped the passé requirement that state-paid tuition checks only go to low-income recipients burdened with failing area schools. 

With passage of universal vouchers last year for anyone attending private schools, Huffman dropped the pretense previously used to justify public financing of religious teaching and dissolved pre-conditions to qualify for free state bucks to bankroll private choices. The 2024-2025 school year could well surpass the anticipated $1 billion mark this year as more private school families take advantage of the voucher gravy train that doesn’t stop at public schools. 

Huffman wants to go further. Publicly-funded construction of private schools. Other Republicans expect taxpayers to foot the bill for private, non-chartered schools whose deeply held religious beliefs put them beyond the state’s educational grid. Where does it end? Ask any public school district eying harsh cutbacks after last month’s levy defeat.

Better yet, ask levy-fatigued taxpayers in Ohio, who never agreed to subsidize private education at the expense of their local schools, for their vote on the matter.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

When Did Opening a Door for a Woman Become Offensive?

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man opens door for woman

As a child, I was taught to be polite, defer to others, and respect personal space. Polly and I taught our children to do the same. It has come to light recently in counseling that these things are so deeply ingrained in me, that they actually cause me harm, allowing family, friends, and strangers alike to take advantage of me. As someone who has a lot of health problems, I need to do a better job at self-care instead of always deferring to others. It’s okay to walk out the door of the gym first instead of holding the door so 20 physically fit people can exit before me. They can wait, my counselor told me, and, of course, she is right. That said, it hard for me to think this way. When I see someone behind me walking up to the same door as I am, I naturally open the door for them and allow them to go first. It’s just how I am. From letting people pull ahead of me in a parking lot line to allowing people to go ahead of me in the grocery checkout, I have always been polite and respectful.

Two weeks ago, I went to a basketball game at nearby Fairview High School. I walk with a cane, a halting, shuffling cut of a man who self-describes as a “slow-moving vehicle. As I walked towards the outer door, a mother and three teen girls came up behind me. As I started to open the door, I held it open, and said to the woman and girls behind me, “Ladies first.” I meant nothing other than being polite — no different from how I have behaved my entire adult life. (I would have said “gentlemen if they were men, young man, if a boy.)

The teen girls thanked me, my not Momma. Evidently, I had violated some sort of feminist rule. Instead of saying “thanks,” she glared at me. As we reached the inner door, I once again held it open for the girls and their mother, along with Polly and Bethany — who have watched me do this countless times over the years, both for men, women, and children. The girls, Polly, and Bethany said thanks and walked through the door. Not, Momma. She once again glared at me and instead of walking through the door I was holding, walked over to another door and entered there.

I said nothing. I have run into a few women over the years who don’t want a man doing anything for them. In their minds, walking through a door held open for them by a person with a penis is offensive. Evidently, letting a man hold a door for you and geting something for you off a shelf that is too high for you, is some sort of admission of weakness or giving into the patriarchy. Child, please.

Forget my sex. I am just a fellow human being who is generally polite and defers to others. Gender does not enter into the equation. I hold the door open for men, women, grandparents, and even children. When someone opens the door for me, especially if it is a child or teenager, I always thank them, letting them know that I appreciate their kindness.

Do you have a problem with people opening the door for you or performing other acts of kindness? If you are a woman, does it upset you if a man opens a door for you or helps you in some other way? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Ohio Legislators Want to Make “Capitalism” a Required Subject for High School Students

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By Megan Henry, Used with Permission from Ohio Capital Journal

An Ohio bill adding capitalism to a high school financial literacy credit is one step closer to becoming law. 

The Ohio House passed Senate Bill 17 with a 66-26 vote during Wednesday’s session. Four Democrats voted for SB 17 — Bride Rose Sweeney, Dani Isaacsohn, Elliot Forhan, and Richard Dell’Aquila. Every senator voted for SB 17 except state Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson, D-Toledo. 

The Ohio Senate must agree to changes in the bill before it heads to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk for his signature. 

State Sen. Steve Wilson, R-Maineville, introduced the bill last year, which lays out 10 free market capitalism concepts that would be taught. 

“One of the most important ways to prepare (students) for a successful life ahead is to make sure that they understand how money works and how that system works,” Wilson said last year during his sponsor testimony. 

The current law requires the State Board of Education to adopt standards and curriculum for financial literacy instruction, but does not clarify what must be included in the standards or model curriculum. 

The ten concepts proposed under SB 17:

  1. Raw materials, labor, and capital are privately owned. 
  2. Individuals control their own ability to work and earn wages. 
  3. Private ownership of capital may take many forms, including via a family business, a publicly traded corporation, or a bank, among others. 
  4. Market prices are the only method to inform consumers and producers about the constantly changing information about the supply and demand of goods and services. 
  5. Both sellers and buyers seek to profit in a free market transaction, and profit earned can be consumed, saved, reinvested, or dispersed to shareholders. 
  6. Wealth creation involves asset value appreciation and depreciation, voluntary exchange of equity ownership, and open and closed markets. 
  7. The free market positively correlates with entrepreneurship and innovation.  
  8. The free market may involve externalities and market failures in which the cost of certain economic activities is borne by third parties. 
  9. The free market often accords with policies like legally protected property rights, legally enforceable contracts, patent protections, and the mitigation of externalities. 
  10. Free-market societies often embrace political and personal freedoms.

“It would be up to the teacher to decide how much time to use in their classroom as they’re adding these additional concepts,” state rep Adam Bird, R-New Richmond, said during Wednesday’s session. 

As a former teacher, state rep. Sean Patrick Brennan, D-Parma, has reservations about SB 17. 

“I can attest that it’s already a very daunting task to cover all the topics thoroughly in financial literacy,” Brennan said during Wednesday’s House session. “I’ve always believed in the foot-long, foot-deep model of teaching, rather than the mile-long, inch-deep model, where students are thrown a lot of material in a short amount of time, and not given sufficient time to master it and truly put it to use in their lives.”

Ohio Education Association President Scott DiMauro said he doesn’t think the “overall thrust of the bill” will make a major change. 

“As a high school social studies teacher myself, I always taught about capitalism and the differences between capitalism and socialism in the classes that I taught, whether it was in history or government or economics, so I don’t know that it’s going to really make too much of a difference,” he said. “Kids are already being taught those concepts.” 

The financial literacy class can be an elective or as a substitute for a half-unit of mathematics — something former teacher and state rep. Joe Miller, D-Amherst, is not a fan of.

“In Ohio, let’s teach students less math as we move into the advanced tech economy with Intel coming in,” he said during Wednesday’s House session.

Intel is coming to Licking County, but the Wall Street Journal recently reported the timeline to finish the $20 billion project has been delayed and won’t be ready until late 2026 or 2027. 

Ohio’s current law requires teachers to have a financial literacy license in order to teach financial literacy, unless they teach social studies, family and consumer sciences, and business education.

Under SB 17, math teachers would be able to teach financial literacy. 

The bill would allow high school students to meet their financial literacy requirements by taking Advanced Placement Microeconomics or Macroeconomics.

“I’ve known a lot of really bright AP students over the years,” Brennan said. “They’re incredible, but they have no idea the difference between a whole life life insurance policy and a term life insurance policy, or the various types of mortgage options available when one’s looking to buy a home.”

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.