March 17, 2026 · Education Committee · 5,644 words · 13 speakers · 88 segments
Please come to order. Good afternoon. We will begin this committee with an invocation. And the chair recognizes Representative Click,
if he's willing, to offer the opening invocation. Father, we thank you for the opportunity today to do the business of the people in the state of Ohio. I pray that you would give us wisdom, knowledge, grace, and understanding as we discern those things that are best for the education of our young people in this great state. Thank you for the opportunity to serve.
In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, Representative. The chair recognizes Representative Miller
to offer the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you, Representative. Will the clerk please call the roll?
Chair Fowler-Arthur? Here.
Vice Chair Odioso? Here.
Ranking Member Brennan? Here.
Representative Byrd? Here.
Representative Click? Here.
Representative Dean? Here.
Representative Manning-Checton?
Representative Miller? Present. Representative Newman? Present.
Representative Pickle-Antonio? Here.
Representative Ritter? Here.
Representative Robinson is excused. And Representative Thomas?
Here.
We have a quorum present and will proceed as a full committee. Members, please review the minutes from the March 10th committee meeting. Are there any objections to the minutes? Hearing none, the minutes are approved. Just as a reminder to our guests and members, please fill out the photo and video form prior to taking any photos or recordings. These must be signed by the chair in accordance with House and committee rules prior to you taking that video. So forms are located up by the witness stand. I'd now like to call House Bill 661 for its fifth hearing. Representative Byrd, would you wish to make any comments on House Bill 661?
Thank you, Chair. I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to this. I'm sure committee members will note that House Bill 661 had a potential amendment scheduled for today. And so that amendment, I'm going to ask the committee to lay aside and that we not pursue this amendment because having conversed with many members of the committee, I have found that many members of the committee appreciate the bill and its as-introduced formula or language better, and definitely appreciate that. And, you know, I appreciate so many people's interest in this bill. It has gotten a lot of attention, and that's because so many people in Ohio care about our students. And this is a student bill. It's a student protection bill, And I really appreciate so many people being willing to talk about it. It's important to many people. And so, again, to the committee, I thank you for your response, for your replies, for your suggestions. And I would just say that I'm going to ask the committee and to you, Chair, to lay this amendment to the side that we not vote on this because I have found that we have many members of the committee. I'm not going to say most or all or anything but we have enough members of the committee who like the bill in its as introduced version. Thank you.
Thank you, Representative. We did have written testimony but none was available and none was received so this will conclude the fifth hearing on House Bill 661. I now call House Bill 674 for its third hearing. We did not receive any testimony. Is there anyone here who wished to testify on House Bill 674? Seeing none, this concludes the second hearing on House Bill 674. I now call up Senate Bill 156 for its third hearing and invite Melissa Cropper, the Ohio Federation of Teachers, to offer testimony. Welcome to committee. You'll have five minutes and may begin when you're ready.
Thank you and good afternoon. Chair Fowler, Vice Chair Adioso, Ranking Member Brennan, and members of the House Education Committee, thank you for this opportunity to provide opposition testimony about Senate Bill 156. I am Melissa Cropper, and I'm a library media specialist from Georgetown, Ohio, serving as the president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, which represents teachers in traditional and charter schools, support staff, higher ed faculty and staff, library employees, and social workers. We appreciate and agree with the intent of Senate Bill 156 to help students understand the importance of graduating high school, finding stable employment, and making responsible decisions about when to start a family. We also appreciate the statistics that show the impact that these three factors have on future economic security. However, we feel strongly that questions of curriculum should be left to school districts to decide based upon what their community needs and wants. I am going to skip around a little bit of my testimony due to time. Some of our concerns. Senate Bill 156 would require the Department of Education and Workforce to develop a model curriculum on the success sequence and band-aid instructions on it in grades 6 through 12. The bill asserts that presenting this framework will steer young people away from poverty and towards success, but there is a lack of clarity about what exactly districts will be expected to use. We are concerned that there is no clarity about whether the success sequence is simply a concept that the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce will incorporate into a model curriculum or whether the success sequence is an already established branded curriculum that ODEW and districts can study. We would suggest that the core components of Senate Bill 156 could be incorporated into already existing character education programs and or social-emotional learnings that are already within our districts. Since the five core competencies of SEL are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making, we believe that many of these programs already cover most of what this bill is trying to achieve. Rather than laying on a new mandated framework, the legislature should support SEL programs and allow districts to adapt and strengthen the programming they already have in place. Supporters of Senate Bill 156 rely on statistics showing that adults who complete high school, work full-time, and marry before having children are less likely to live in poverty. Those statistics are correlations derived from looking backward at adult lives. They do not study what happens when schools teach the success sequence as a curriculum, nor do they show that classroom instruction about this sequence actually causes better outcomes. In addition, while the statistics show the correlation between the factors mentioned, we have not been able to find any longitudinal studies that validate that teaching this success sequence has actually had an impact on students. In fact, as of now, there are no well-documented, peer-reviewed longitudinal studies that follow students from schools implementing a success sequence curriculum through to adulthood to see if the instruction itself changes behavior or reduces poverty. And that research gap matters. If we're going to mandate a specific curriculum statewide, we should be able to point to clear, rigorous evidence that teaching this content changes student behavior and improves outcomes. We do believe that we're concerned that this oversimplifies what it takes to actually put students on successful tracks to economic success. Even the report, The Power of the Success Sequence for Disadvantaged Youth, which is often cited by proponents, shows in its own charts that the two greatest factors impacting future prosperity are graduating from high school and getting a full-time job. We would contend that bolstering our education system with more career exploration and more opportunities for workplace learning, such as proposed in Senate Bill 328, would be more important and more impactful than adding curriculum that has not been proven to be effective. I'm skipping on down. The need for strong health standards. If this legislature is serious about equipping young people to make informed decisions about relationships, family planning, and their future, restoring and strengthening comprehensive health education standards in Ohio would be a far more effective approach than prescribing this life sequence. Let me see, I'm running out of time. I'm going to skip down to funding priorities and local control. Rather than pass the bills like this, Ohio families expect the legislature to fully and fairly fund the public schools that educate 90 of our Ohio students They want schools to have the capability to offer electives like art music and foreign language that keep students engaged and interested in attending school They also want robust career education opportunities and quality affordable higher education outcomes And then I'm just going to skip on down to this last part. We do believe that in addition to if this bill were to move forward, we would suggest that when looking for jobs, that it would be important to include information about collective bargaining and forming a union because there are lots of statistics that I quote in here that show that when you're a part of a labor union, you actually get better wages, benefits, a retirement plan, and so on and so on, which if we're talking about getting out of poverty are pieces that get people out of poverty. So with that, I will say I will take any questions that you might want to ask. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
Thank you for your testimony today.
I would like to point out quickly, we have resubmitted. We are in between legislative directors right now, and there was a mistake on our heading. We clarify that we know we're in the House and that this is opposition testimony.
Thank you. We will make sure that gets corrected. Thank you for the clarification. Representative Miller is recognized for a question.
Thank you. Thank you, President Carver, for being here. I think you made a good point when you stated that there are many things, many factors that go into successful outcomes in children's future as they leave school and head into the workforce or what have you. My question for this particular bill that I taught sociology, I used this data, I showed it to the students and made them aware of it. Is there a clamoring for that you're hearing among your teachers and school districts at the local level to have this put in because they can't do it on their own? They can't add this curriculum locally?
Through the chair to Representative Miller, no, we have not heard that clamoring. In fact, as I say in my testimony, we think there are places in programs that are already existing in our schools that teach that you need to graduate from high school, you need to get a job, and that there are family choices to make. And again, the studies that are quoted show that the highest correlation between getting out of poverty and the three factors that are mentioned, by far the two that have the most impact are graduating and getting a good job.
Thank you.
Representative Ranking Member Brennan.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for being here, Madam President. Good to see you. Thanks for your testimony. Tony, what do you think is the best practice as far as determining curriculum and what students in Ohio should know and be able to do?
Through the chair to Representative Brennan, we believe the best practice is to involve the teachers who are in the classroom in determining, hoping to develop what that curriculum looks like based upon what they see in the classroom and based upon their professional expertise and subject matter. Of course, we always are open to the opportunity to work with the department on developing standards and reviewing model curriculum to put out there. But we do believe that the practitioners should definitely be involved in those decisions. Follow up, Madam Chair?
Please continue.
So the bill requires that do establish a committee to review the standards and model curriculum and instructional materials made up of school board members and parents of students enrolled in the district. Would you have any suggestions on how to make that an even better committee?
Through the chair to Representative Brennan, yes, we would say that we need to have classroom teachers involved in that decision-making process also.
Do I still have time?
Five seconds.
Okay. Would you suggest a parental opt-out provision in the bill?
Excuse me. I'm sorry. I missed what you said.
Would you suggest a, through the chair, would you suggest a parental opt-out provision in the bill?
Through the chair to Representative Brennan is not something that I had thought about, but that would be something that we certainly would like to consider, yes.
Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Representative Pickle-Antonio is recognized.
Thank you, Chair. Thanks for being here, President Cropper. I wondered if you have any knowledge about health standards in other states. And I don't know if you know off the top of your head how many states have health standards.
Through the chair to Representative Picantonio, Antonio, I do not want to say that I'm 100% positive on this, so feel free to fact check me, but I believe that 49 other states have health standards.
Thank you. Follow-up, Chair?
Please continue.
Thank you. So let's say somewhere in the mid to high 40s, the majority of states have health standards. What do you think that having health standards in place, how is that something that is helpful for classroom teachers in navigating topics like this?
Through the chair to Representative Pickle Antonio. Again, having health standards would allow the opportunity for children to be taught about how to take care of the bodies, how to make decisions concerning families, as well as a variety of other health topics. It would allow us to – it would allow – it would take a lot of the issues that teachers deal with in the classroom and allow them to be dealt with through health standards. But in relationship to this particular bill, it would address that issue of how to start a family and what choices you need to do. I mean, children don't always make the choices that we want them to make, but having health standards in place could help them to make decisions about how to act and how to be safe in the ways that they are acting.
Thank you.
Do any other members of the committee have a question? Seeing none, thank you very much for your testimony.
Thank you.
Ms. Cropper, also, before you leave, if you could make sure that we have the correct letterhead, please.
Yes. There is a person on my staff who is supposed to be resubmitting that, and so it should be on its way. Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Next, I have Dr. Christina Collins. Welcome to committee. You have five minutes, and may begin when you're ready.
Thank you all. Thank you. Chair Fowler-Arthur, Vice Chair Odeoso, Ranking Member Brendan, and members of the Ohio House Education Committee, Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on Senate Bill 156. My name is Dr. Christina Collins, and I serve as the Executive Director of Honesty for Ohio Education. We are a statewide, nonpartisan coalition dedicated to ensuring that every child in Ohio has access to a high-quality, inclusive, and honest education. Our coalition now includes more than 90 organizations across the state. Our partners have expressed a range of serious concerns about the success sequence curriculum. I will focus today on just two. First, Senate Bill 156 requires teachers to praise one incredibly specific series of life events over all others. Even if teachers do so with care and compassion, they are still implying that all other life paths are suboptimal. This will almost certainly lead to feelings of shame and insecurity for students whose families have not followed the success sequence, as well as an increase in bullying. Bullying is already a significant issue in schools across the country. Nationwide, nearly one in five students ages 12 to 18 reported being bullied at school during the 21-22 school year. We know this is a problem in Ohio as well. Here are just a few examples. Akron Public Schools reported 68 bullying incidents in the first quarter of 24-25. Persistent bullying at mentor schools has led to walkouts and protests over the past several years. According to the Safer Ohio School tip line, there were 359 calls related to bullying and harassment in 2024, and a recent study found Ohio to have some of the highest rates of online bullying and bullying on school grounds of any state nationwide. Senate Bill 156 is dangerous. We should not pass any legislation that gives students a pathway for ranking themselves. Second, this bill spotlights a broader and ongoing concern. Senate Bill 156 would be yet another ill-fitting piece in Ohio's patchwork health curriculum. Each new topic required by the state, whether about personal responsibility sexuality nutrition lifestyle or safety merely adds to a piecemeal curriculum that has long been lacking comprehensive research guidance and an overall framework The Ohio Revised Code currently prohibits the Department of Education and Workforce from adopting statewide health education standards without the support of the General Assembly. As a result, Ohio remains the only state in the nation without statewide health curriculum standards. Rather than developing a coherent, age-appropriate, evidence-based health framework, the legislature continues to pass one-off requirements at the whim of individual legislators. These miscellaneous requirements often leave key topics untouched, crucial questions unanswered, and even sometimes contradict one another's teachings. In our view, this success sequence proposal is not simply about adding one more lesson. It's also emblematic of the cost of continuing to legislate topic by topic without a holistic framework that ensures alignment, developmental appropriateness, and local flexibility. It's time for the legislature to end Ohio's prohibition on adopting comprehensive health education standards. Our students deserve consistency, clarity, and the benefit of current research. Educators would benefit from a consistent set of standards, not a disconnected list of mandates, and our communities deserve confidence that what is taught in their children's schools reflects sound educational practices. This committee could choose right now to pause work on fragmented policy stopgaps like CINAPA 156 and instead lead the effort to allow the Department of Education and Workforce to finally develop lasting standards that ensure all students receive comprehensive, accurate, and developmentally appropriate health education. Our coalition strongly urges you to oppose Senate Bill 156 and instead allow Ohio to join 49 other states in creating long-term health education standards. Thank you again for your time and thoughtful consideration of our concerns.
Thank you very much for your testimony. Do we have any questions from the committee?
Ranking Member Brennan is recognized for a question. Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess my first question, thank you so much for pointing that out. We've heard that again and again this General Assembly and last General Assembly, and I think it's very wise words that we need a comprehensive health curriculum in Ohio. Can you give us a little bit of the history as far as what you know about the movement and why we don't have them?
So through the chair, to Representative Brennan, My background is as a curriculum director. I was a curriculum director for 10 years. And what I know is in my entire time as a curriculum director, we have not ever had a comprehensive set of health standards. So if we have ever had them in the past, it was before my time. And I can say that not having them has been problematic at the local level.
Follow-up.
Continue.
What guardrails in this bill exist to prevent political or ideological capture of the standards?
Through the chair to Representative Brennan, as I was looking through the bill, again, as a curriculum director and also a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction, I had some concerns, you know, just looking at this from an administrative perspective, things like research from diverse institutions. Best research methods available. These are some of the things that I highlighted throughout. And so in reading this, I'm not sure that there are guardrails because some of those things seem very subjective and relative. Who gets to determine what the best research methods are? Who gets to determine what research counts in implementing this work? If I have a minute or any more time?
One last question. What would be some of your concerns there? What could happen?
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Again, through the Chair and to Representative Brennan, again, my curriculum director take on this is that this is leaning towards one particular potentially program, maybe. I don't know if a program exists. But it does seem like this is leaning toward one particular ideology that would be forced on schools. One of the other interesting things is where it tries to involve local control to whatever degree it does, it only allows the districts to review. Now, while the law does say or the bill does say districts may use the model curriculum, it still also says shall provide that instruction. So I think there does seem to be one idea in here for what that program would look like based on the description. and I think that that would be of most concern.
Thank you, Dr. Collins.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you.
Do we have any further questions from the committee? Seeing none, thank you for your testimony.
Thank you.
Next, I'd like to invite Jamie Miracle to offer testimony. Welcome back to committee. You have five minutes and we begin when you're ready.
Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Chair Fowler-Author, Vice Chair Odioso, Ranking Member Brennan, and members of the House Education Committee, I am here to testify in opposition to Senate Bill 156, a bill to require schools to use the success sequence curriculum. My name is Jamie Miracle. I'm the Deputy Director for Abortion Forward, formerly ProChoice Ohio. Proponents of the success sequence curriculum often frame their agenda as providing students with additional choice for how they can choose to navigate their lives, despite presenting no other choices as viable. Success sequence life planning strategies have long been rejected by academic critics, quote, not because following it is a bad idea, but rather because it traces a path that people already likely to succeed usually walk, as opposed to describing a technique that will lift people over systematic hurdles they face in doing so. The success sequence, trustworthy as it may sound, conveniently frames structural inequalities as matters of individual choice. As we've discussed today, Ohio is the only state in the entire country that does not have comprehensive health education standards. Like social studies, math, science, and reading, health is a vital subject for the success of Ohio students. Continuing a piecemeal approach to health topics in our schools based on the political whims of the Ohio legislature is not how we should create a curriculum for our students. Ohio students deserve comprehensive health education that equips them for their lifetime. This is what this committee should be focused on, not success sequence. A comprehensive health education curriculum which contains comprehensive sex education is often credited with teaching students the values and social intelligence many supporters of the success sequence hope to instill in the next generation. However, the success sequence program embraces the failed policy of abstinence-only sex education, leaving students without the tools they need to follow the prescribed sequence. The general public overwhelmingly supports comprehensive sex education in schools. Quote, research, public health experts, educators, and leading medical professional organizations overwhelmingly denounced the abstinence-only approach. Decades of research has found that not only is abstinence-only approach ineffective at achieving its stated goal of delaying sexual initiation and or changing sexual risk behaviors, it's also because these programs feature misinformation based on fear, gender stereotypes, and shaming tactics that negatively impact students, including LGBTQ-identifying students, those who've already engaged in sexual activity, and students who've experienced sexual violence. We cannot simultaneously claim that we want the best for Ohio's youth and yet force schools to use curriculums that cannot provide positive outcomes. You must accept some responsibility and address the structural barriers to success if this body truly wishes to reduce poverty in our most vulnerable communities. Couple that support with well-studied and effective educational programming to give students the tools they need to be successful. Supporters of the success sequence often misuse data on poverty, employment, and marriage in an effort to legitimize the usefulness of pushing this curriculum. We can absolutely acknowledge that the factual basis in the success sequence is built upon. Completing education, getting a full-time employment is correlated with economic stability. However, this framework fails to account for the complex environmental and structural barriers that shape an individual's circumstances. When we cite figures demonstrating how marriage, employment, and education status are related to socioeconomic status, the full socioeconomic reality of Ohioans isn't captured. Full-time employment may reduce poverty, as demonstrated in the 2020 Ohio Poverty Report, but other factors like education access, child care availability, transportation, poor health, especially in the form of disability or chronic illness, and discrimination significantly impact both employment status and poverty. The success sequence's oversimplification of such a complex social phenomena produces a clear message. If the circumstances in your life do not allow you to follow the sequence it is your fault you live in poverty and not any fault of our failing social infrastructure In other words an idea like the success sequence quote legitimizes inequality by attributing it to individual failure because it conveniently frames the inequalities as matters of individual choice while ignoring the blame that should fall on inequitable systems. Solutions to poverty must include tangible support from our governments, and we have an excellent example that happened just a few years ago to draw from, the expansion of child tax credits during the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the tax credits were removed, the expansion lifted nearly 3 million children out of poverty and reduced food insufficiency by 26% among all U.S. households with children. For those who fear that providing families with a child tax credit would discourage employment, the opposite was true. Rather than discouraging work, the CTC worked as a supplement to already existing incomes to fill holes where people's incomes could not cover all expenses. We must not continue to create an environment in our schools where we leave students with a dream disperred, as described in Langston Hughes' famous poem. Do not let them dry up like a raisin in the sun. We must create an environment where each and every one of them can achieve their dreams. Our students deserve so much better than Senate Bill 156.
Thank you for your testimony. Do we have any questions from committee members?
Representative Miller is recognized for a question. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. And through the chair, quick question. It seems like this will give them a piece of information. But as somebody had said, most of those in poverty don't know the real world. So should we be aligning this information along with maybe bodily, how to understand your body, how to understand relationships, how to understand things like that, that will get you in a position where you're able to maybe end at that end road of the success sequence, which is we've got an education, we've got a job, we found a partner, and now we're ready for a family? Do you believe that this bill is not as holistic as it needs to be when it comes to understanding what goes into the success sequence?
Through the chair, to the representative, most definitely. I feel like the success sequence is a roadmap. We're giving every student this roadmap. But on that road, there are big, huge potholes. There are some gravel. There are some barriers that they've got to get across. And some students get all the information you just talked about, so they've got a 4x4 with high clearance, and they can get over every single one of those barriers. And then other students aren't getting all of that information, and they've got a subcompact car that gets the first 100 feet and stops. So by giving students only a limited piece of the information and then not having the systematic supports from the government, we're leaving a lot of those students behind.
Follow-up, FMA? Just a very brief one. Thank you. So if I'm understanding you correctly, to truly navigate the real world for those in poverty, it's going to take more than just saying you need to follow this map, this very vague map. Is that what I'm hearing from you?
Through the chair to the representative, absolutely.
Thank you. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you.
Vice Chair Odioso is recognized for... Thanks for coming in today. Through the chair, I have a question. This might just be the difference of one word that we all can agree on. I'm going to propose the following, that individuals who complete at least a high school education, obtain full-time work, and marry before having children are part of a success sequence as opposed to the success sequence. Can you see this as a success sequence and not necessarily the success sequence? And can we make that adaptation to this bill?
Through the chair, to the vice chair, definitely. I think one of the biggest pieces of this bill is the proponents talk about how this is a choice that students can make while not presenting any other choices along the way. The problem is that this is the only thing in this bill that creates these curriculums. If we had a comprehensive health education standard in Ohio, like we have for math and science and everything else, students would be able to get that comprehensive level of information they need on this as an example of a success sequence, as that as an example of success sequence, as Dr. Collins talked about with social emotional learning, and all of those different pieces that help them become healthy adults able to function in our society. And so by limiting this bill to only this one piece of curriculum, we're setting students up for possible failure and not giving them what they need.
Brief follow-up. I understand what you're saying, but I believe proposing a success sequence is better than not proposing it. And in that regard, I may disagree with your assessment. Do you have any comment?
To the vice chair, I do. Because the success sequence contains failed abstinence-only programs, presenting it as A without having other options being required to be presented is giving students only part of the map. We've seen through research that comprehensive age-appropriate sex education that talks to students about not only waiting until you're ready to have sex, but how to protect yourself from STIs and pregnancy when you do decide to become sexually active, whether in a relationship, a married relationship or not, gives students the actual information. Research shows that that delays sexual activity, that it keeps students healthier. It prevents unintended pregnancy, prevents STI transmission. And so by giving the abstinence-only failed program the push in this bill instead of the scientifically-based comprehensive sex education, we're failing students.
Ranking member Brennan is recognized for a question. Thank you. Sometimes it's hard to think on the fly. But I thought that was an interesting comment that Rep. Odioso just made, and it's worthy of thinking about. But, you know, I keep thinking when I think about this bill, I think about my mom, who graduated high school, had kids after marriage, worked full-time. But then I think about how my dad was abusive. He eventually abandoned us. My mom lost everything. She worked two jobs to keep food on the table and pay the rent space for the trailer that we lived in and all the other expenses to keep us all alive. And along the lines of what Rep. Odioso just mentioned, you know, I always appreciated or always found it was a very good learning experience for my students when they looked at multiple perspectives. And so, you know, could there be a curriculum that is written by educational professionals and other stakeholders in which this is one success sequence, so to speak, that students could look at and critique and discuss so that each individual could decide for him or herself what the best path is for he or she?
To the chair, to the ranking member, certainly. And I think that's what all of us today have been advocating for, this comprehensive, holistic approach where we're also teaching students critical thinking skills to be able to look at, does this plan seem like something that goes along with my family's values and my family's experience, or does this thing over here match us better? And so by giving students that comprehensive look, that multifaceted look at these things, instead of child abuse education standards and sexual abuse education standards and all these other pieces that we've now written into code that don't give those students those comprehensive learning opportunities.
Are there any other members of the committee wishing to ask a question? Seeing none, thank you for your testimony.
Thank you.
Next, I'd like to invite Nicholas Denton to offer testimony. Is Mr. Denton with us this afternoon? All right. There are a number of witnesses that have submitted written testimony. Members, if you will please make sure to take time to review those. This will conclude the third hearing on House Bill 531. Seeing no further business before the committee, the Education Committee stands adjourned.