Republican Vivek Ramaswamy stated during his campaign rollout events last week that he does not want to pick a fight with teachers’ unions if elected governor in 2026.
However, implementing merit pay for teachers, a long-standing item on Republicans’ educational policy wish list, would most likely necessitate a political fight.
Former Republican Gov. John Kasich, who served from 2011 to 2018, lost that fight on multiple fronts. High-profile examples include Senate Bill 5, a comprehensive collective bargaining reform that included merit-pay components.
In a referendum later that year, voters overwhelmingly rejected the law. The Cleveland Plan educational reform bill of 2012 included some merit pay provisions.
However, those elements were never implemented after Cleveland Metropolitan School District administrators removed them in 2017, following a strike threat from the Cleveland Teachers Union.
“I kind of thought it was dead and buried,” said Steve Dyer, a former Democratic state lawmaker from Akron who now works as a liberal education policy analyst.
The rub with merit pay
Merit pay involves something seemingly simple: paying teachers more for doing a good job. Texas and Florida, whose governance Ramaswamy has stated he wishes to emulate, are two prominent Republican states where merit pay has taken root. Supporters argue that merit pay attracts and retains good teachers while weeding out bad ones.
“Students need good teachers,” said Aaron Churchill, an analyst at the Fordham Institute, a conservative education policy think tank. “There’s nothing wrong with bringing that back into the spotlight and rewarding the best teachers.”
However, disagreements over how to evaluate teachers, as well as opposition from teacher unions, have stalled efforts in Ohio and elsewhere. Concerns included excessive reliance on standardized testing for teacher evaluations.
Teachers have stated that this would provide financial incentives for them to “teach to the test” while de-emphasizing other subjects.
Teachers in states with merit pay systems have also reported difficulties with personal budgeting, as large performance bonuses one year can disappear the following year.
And they have stated that students’ home lives, specifically their socioeconomic status, are the most important predictors of success, rather than teaching quality.
“The devil is in the detail with these things,” Dyer pointed out. “And what the educational reformers learned the last go around was that it was a lot more complicated than the simple caveman approach.”
Changing how teachers are paid would necessitate changing state law, as the state’s salary schedule for teachers, which is based on the number of years teachers have been on the job and their level of credentialing, is established by statute.
This could pave the way for a union-backed referendum effort similar to the 2011 SB5 repeal campaign, which was a major political setback for Kasich that he struggled to overcome for the remainder of his time in office.
In his stump speech, Ramaswamy stated that he wants Ohio to be the first state in the country to implement merit pay for both teachers and school administrators.
“I will do whatever, and I mean whatever, what is required to stand for the achievement of our students, because that’s what we owe to the next generation,” Ramaswamy told reporters.
City pot revenues go up in smoke
Ohio’s cities and townships that approved marijuana dispensaries were expected to receive millions in taxes. However, Gov. Mike DeWine and lawmakers are debating whether to redirect the funds elsewhere.
Click here to learn more about why cities are feeling burned and what state legislators say they plan to do about it.
More 2026 teasing
Two prominent Ohio Democrats, Sherrod Brown and Tim Ryan, continue to seek publicity while remaining out of the 2026 state elections.
Brown, the former longtime Democratic U.S. Senator, and Ryan, the former congressman who received praise from national Democrats during his unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 2022, used national media platforms this week to raise their profiles and discuss what they believe the Democratic Party should do next given Donald Trump’s control of Washington.
Brown published an op-ed in The New Republic, a liberal magazine, on Monday. Brown criticized Democrats for supporting free-trade agreements in the 1990s. He argued that this is why the party has lost credibility with working-class voters, echoing the final themes of his Senate campaign.
Brown made no mention of running for office, instead stating that his work “in the coming months” will center on advocating for a “generational effort” to reform the Democratic Party. A former Brown Senate aide publicized the column in Ohio and elsewhere.
Ryan, meanwhile, appeared on a Monday podcast hosted by Jen Psaki, a former Biden administration press secretary who now hosts for MSNBC.
Ryan’s appearance echoed the views of prominent party strategists who believe Democrats must be strategic in choosing which battles to fight against Trump.
He also praised Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s views on the need for increased regulation of processed foods, while sharply criticizing Kennedy’s other positions, including those on vaccines.
The Tressel-Ryan connection
When asked if he might run for Senate or Ohio governor in 2026, Ryan said he’s “entertaining all options.” However, he stated that remaining in Columbus would be better for his family.
That would put him on a collision course with Dr. Amy Acton, the former state health department director and the only Democrat running.
Ryan also mentioned new Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel as a potential “wildcard” in the governor’s race. If Tressel entered the race, Ryan said he would stay out, citing a relationship that began when Tressel recruited Ryan to play quarterback at Youngstown State University.
(Ryan, a former Niles high school football star, left Youngstown State and transferred to Bowling Green State University due to a knee injury.)
“That’d be tough. “He’s a mentor, so I’d never run against him,” Ryan explained.
Tressel, meanwhile, is making the political rounds. He will be the keynote speaker at the Medina County Republican Party’s upcoming Lincoln Day Dinner, party officials announced on Monday, which is a rite of passage for any aspiring GOP candidate.
But Tressel told reporters Wednesday after an event at the Statehouse in Columbus that he hasn’t considered running for anything next year. He also stated that he hadn’t followed Ramaswamy’s campaign launch and had yet to meet him.
“I’m just trying to figure out how I can be helpful in this role, let alone in any other role,” Tressel told reporters.
No voting changes in transportation budget after all
The Ohio House passed House Bill 54, a $11.5 billion transportation budget that funds road and highway construction and maintenance.
The measure passed unanimously, which is an impressive feat in today’s polarized political environment. That’s because Republicans ended up removing language that would have altered the state’s voting laws, such as requiring people to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote at the BMV.
