Columbus, Ohio – The Ohio Business Roundtable today announced its support for Governor Ted Strickland’s education reform and funding plan.

“The Ohio Business Roundtable has continually demonstrated a commitment to improving Ohio’s system of education and fostering the collaborative partnerships that will help move our state forward,” Strickland said. “I appreciate the Ohio Business Roundtable’s support and look forward to continuing our important work to make the critical education reforms necessary to prepare our students for the demands of a 21^st Century workforce.”

Below is the full text of the Ohio Business Roundtable statement:

For more than a decade, the Ohio Business Roundtable has worked hard with policymakers and key stakeholders to improve educational quality and raise student achievement in this state. We believe Governor Strickland’s education reform plan appropriately builds on our progress while making great strides in implementing the goals of the recent Achieve report and Public-Private Collaborative Commission. The Governor’s plan is comprehensive, dynamic, and student-centered. We commend Governor Strickland for his leadership and urge state officials to embrace the plan and work together to make it even better, just as we are committed to working with our fellow business leaders to help it succeed. In the end, we all recognize that no plan of this breadth can succeed absent focused and disciplined execution. We, therefore, commit our energy, project management skills and business experience to work collaboratively with state leaders in carrying out the hard work of implementation once the budget has been adopted and signed into law.