There’s a dark side to Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, who at one time expressed public opposition to President Bush’s plan to resettle 7,000 Iraqis here, and namely Ohio. Of course that 7,000 will have three more zeros added to it before long.
But don’t count on him to be the Buckeye Bilbo. From Campaigns and Elections via Modern Tribalist:
Governor Ted Strickland and former state Sen. C.J. Prentiss, the Governor’s Special Representative for Closing the Achievement Gap, will host a conference tomorrow, May 30, in Columbus focused on increasing the graduation rate of African American males.
“The low graduation rate of African American males is a problem with widespread implications for our state,” Strickland said. “We need to work to keep these young people in school — for the benefit of themselves, our communities and the economic strength of the state.”
In the 2004-05 school year, only 64.4 percent of black males graduated from high school in Ohio, compared to white males at 88.2 percent. Overall in the 2004-05 school year, 68.4 percent of black students graduated from high school in Ohio, while 89.8 percent of white students graduated.
Easy solution to the problem: Just give every man of color in Ohio a high school diploma as a civil right of his reaching his 17th or 18th birthday. That way, all the social ills that Gov. Strickland reminds us that are a domino effect of lower high school graduation rates for the demographic will disappear.
