The Alarm endorses Jean Herenden Ackerman for 21st district

The state representative seat for the 21st district is up for grabs and two Dems will be vying for the seat on May 2nd. The Alarm has decided to endorse Jean Herenden Ackerman over rival Dean Hernandez for a number of reasons, not the least of which being her stance on school funding.

Mrs. Ackerman is a teacher with a masters in gifted education and has 17 years of direct experience with the problems of school funding as a teacher in the Hamilton Local school district. She is strong opponent of the charter school system which has drained funds from the traditional public school systems at the expense of teacher salaries and more importantly student's educations. Unlike Mr. Hernandez, Mrs. Ackerman wants to eliminate the charter school system and establish a baseline per-pupil funding level that would equalize educational opportunities statewide. In addition, Mrs. Ackerman supports Ted Strickland's "Turnaround Ohio" program which would, among other things establish "Knowledge Bank" accounts, an improvement upon the current Ohio Tuition Trust program which would enhance parent's ability to establish college funds for their children.

Mrs. Ackerman also endorses Strickland's plan to invest in clean energy technologies such as ethanol production and clean coal initiatives to bring new business and jobs to Ohio. On her website, other planned intiatives include adding short-term, no-interest loans to the state Small Business Development program, publishing a quarterly budgetary report in plain language that would allow citizens to see what the government is doing with their tax dollars and election reforms such as no question absentee balloting, adding more voting booths to polling places and making a paper trail available to voters using electronic voting machines.

I still have questions regarding her actual plans for health care reform (does she support a single payer plan?) and her stance on raising the minimum wage in Ohio. But since a ballot initiative on the minimum wage is currently gathering steam and SPANOhio.org is getting organized on the health care front, I believe those issues will sort themselves out after the primary.

As far as a possible Republican opponent in the 21st is concerned, I don't think we'll need to worry much. Despite Rep. Reidelbach's problems with the conservative agenda and misdeeds, the chosen replacement, Kevin Bacon, is a former Farmer's Insurance executive who was in charge of governmental affairs, (otherwise known as an industry lobbyist). Not neccessarily the best choice for a party that's best known for its cozy ties to business. But ther'll be plenty of time for that later.

Good luck Jean.