Ohio Gov. John Kasich has been put at odds with his own party during the past few days over a battle for education reform. On Tuesday, Republicans in the Ohio Senate pushed to slow down Kasich’s reforms, which would call for tougher reading standards and report-card rating systems in Ohio schools and districts.

The tougher reading standards could potentially hold back 12 percent of Ohio third-graders, according to The Columbus Dispatch.

With the new rules, kids would be tested every year starting in Kindergarten. Any kids who are below standards would receive special tutoring, and any who fail to improve to “proficient” or above by the time of the third-grade reading test would be held back.

Similar standards were passed in Florida a decade ago. While it was rough at first with 13 percent of third-graders in Florida being held back, scores have begun improving, Patricia Levesque, former education advisor to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, told The Dispatch.

However, research shows holding kids back hurts them more than helps. After reviewing decades of research, the National Association of School Psychologists found that grade retention has “deleterious long-term effects,” both academically and socially.

Kasich has also proposed tougher grading standards for schools and districts, which he hopes will hold schools more accountable.

Republican critics don’t necessarily oppose all the reforms, but they would like to see the reforms implemented more carefully and slowly. School officials, state education groups and teachers unions have repeatedly asked for more time to tell parents and teachers about the upcoming changes.

The news comes at a time when states around the country are moving to enact education reform after years of disappointment. In 2010, the U.S. fell to a rating of “average” in the international rankings released by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The U.S. ranked No. 14 out of 34 OECD countries in reading, No. 17 for science and a below-average No. 25 for math.

One bright spot was found earlier this year when a report showed U.S. high school graduation rates had increased to 75.5 percent in 2009, up from 72 percent in 2001.

President Barack Obama has tried to encourage widespread education reform with his “Race to the Top” initiative. The program pushes states to compete for funds with education reform plans. The states with the best programs are then rewarded federal funds as they implement reform.

Former Gov. Ted Strickland won funds for Ohio with his reform plan, and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan congratulated Ohio for being on schedule with reforms earlier this year.

The Hamilton County Republican Party endorsed five people Thursday night in this November's elections for Cincinnati City Council.

As expected, the GOP slate includes all three of the party's incumbents: Leslie Ghiz, Charlie Winburn and recent appointee Amy Murray. Also getting the nod were Wayne Lippert and Catherine Smith Mills.

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Perhaps the perfect antidote to The Enquirer's fawning, superficial coverage of the new House Speaker is the profile of John Boehner that appears in the new issue of Rolling Stone.

West Chester's favorite son — who is now second in line to the presidency — doesn't come off well in the lengthy article by political writer Matt Taibbi, who quotes both named and anonymous sources from both sides of the political aisle who have worked with Boehner over the years.

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Jobs, jobs, jobs. That is what Republican House Speaker John Boehner said would be priority No. 1 for Republicans after sweeping the House of Representatives and many state legislatures in 2010. This, Republicans said, was why they were elected: People wanted to see changes in the economy fast.

But, apparently, there was one other priority.

Almost immediately after coming into office in 2011, Virginia Republicans set the national stage for vital women’s health issues. House Bill 1 — the first bill Virginia Republicans chose to take on — was a personhood bill, a bill that define life beginning at conception. Not only would the bill have banned abortion, it would also have banned the birth control pill, which sometimes prevents birth by stopping the implantation of a fertilized egg.

An impartial observer might wonder why a personhood bill would be a top Republican priority. After all, the same election that put all these Republicans in power also had a personhood bill overwhelmingly rejected in Mississippi — a state so socially conservative that 46 percent of Mississippi Republicans want to make interracial marriage illegal, according to a recent poll from Public Policy Polling.

Nonetheless, this was the issue Virginia Republicans decided to give serious attention. In an economy with a 9 percent unemployment rate at the time, this was the most important issue to Virginia Republicans.

Ohio wasn’t much luckier with its crop of Republicans. Five months after inauguration, the Ohio House passed its “heartbeat” bill, or H.B. 125. To this day, it’s the most radical anti-abortion bill in the country. Not only would it ban abortion when a fetal heartbeat is detected, but the bill makes no exceptions for rape, incest or life-threatening circumstances.

Ohio and Virginia were not alone. Republicans were pushing anti-abortion, anti-contraception bills all around the nation. Pennsylvania, Kansas, Mississippi and Texas all made national headlines with their own bills. In more than 20 states, bills have been introduced to restrict insurance coverage of abortions, according to ABC News. At the federal level, Republicans have made funding for Planned Parenthood a top issue time and time again, and insurance companies covering contraception recently became such a big issue that the White House had to step in.

So much for keeping the government out of health care. The same political party that clamored for small government now couldn’t wait to regulate women’s health care. Apparently, the economy is too much for the government to handle, but every woman’s uterus is fair game.

There has been some backlash. After Virginia tried to pass a bill that would force doctors to give patients seeking abortion a transvaginal ultrasound, women’s health advocates in states across the nation organized protests, leading to governors and state legislatures beginning to back down in their rhetoric. Even Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican who originally supported the transvaginal ultrasound bill, has been downplaying his involvement in Virginia’s anti-abortion, anti-contraception bills.

Now, Mitt Romney, the likely GOP nominee for president, is facing some of the backlash. In a recent Gallup poll, women came out severely against Romney. In the category of women under 50, Obama held 60 percent of voters, while Romney held only 30 percent. That’s right, Obama now leads with women under 50 by a two-to-one margin.

But while that may stop some rhetoric, the bills and laws are still coming forward. The Ohio heartbeat bill is still being pushed by some Republicans in the Ohio Senate, and a personhood initiative could show up in Ohio’s 2012 ballot after a stamp of approval from Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted. Mississippi also plans to reintroduce its personhood initiative in the 2012 ballot, and other states are beginning to pass around petitions for their own initiatives as well.

In the end, one is left to wonder what could stop social conservatives. Public backlash and poor polling don’t seem to be enough to stop the Republican war on women, and in some cases it might have actually emboldened them.

At least one person who used to be close to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her family believes he knows why the prickly ex-vice presidential candidate is resigning before her gubernatorial term is completed.

Levi Johnston, the former boyfriend of Sarah Palin’s daughter and the father of her grandchild, said the governor wants to cash in on the lucrative deals being offered to her, including ones for a book and a reality TV show. Johnston, 19, held a press conference Thursday to give his views on the situation, according to an Associated Press article.

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The New York Times is reporting today that Sarah Palin has been hired by Fox News to be a regular contributor to the cable news channel.

Uh, didn’t she work there already? This is like reporting “Dog bites man.”

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When it comes to debating policy issues, most people will tend to respect their opponents more if they at least use verifiable facts when making their arguments and not outlandish statements that are easily shredded.

 Such is the case with Hamilton County Republican Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou and his attacks on U.S. Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Westwood) over the recent "cap and trade" bill that seeks to limit carbon dioxide emissions.

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U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot called the deadly storms that hit the Cincinnati area last March “catastrophic,” and he offered shattered communities a financial lifeline through the U.S. Small Business Administration’s low-interest rate disaster loan program.

In 1997, when Washington wrangling over budget issues held up relief after the Ohio River flooded Cincinnati, Chabot raged against “politics at its worst” and said his hometown truly needed federal assistance to rebuild. His words at the time: “Let us get the disaster relief to the people who truly need it.” 

Fast-forward to January 2013, and Chabot is a refusenik when it comes to helping the battered Northeast United States with federal disaster relief.

Former New York Sen. Al D’Amato is calling the Republican House members like Chabot who wouldn’t support $60 billion in aid for Hurricane Sandy-ravaged states a "bunch of jackasses.” The jackasses are members of his D’Amato’s own political party. Chabot apparently balked at the Sandy relief package because it offered federal cash to the National Park Service and other agencies that needed funding after the storm. Chabot saw pork where most in the House — the two Sandy bills passed by huge margins — saw responsible and necessary federal actions; to borrow his words, getting “disaster relief to people who really need it.” Chabot and his fellow travelers are getting pounded as short-sighted skinflints. And he probably can be criticized as a hypocrite.

After the massive March tornado outbreak, Chabot posted links on his Twitter account and his official House website that guided Ohioans in the ravaged areas on how to apply for federal help. He pointed to the U.S. Small Business Administration as a source of disaster loans. On April 16, 2012, Chabot said, “The tornadoes on March 12 affected many in our region in various ways, and the Small Business Administration (SBA) may be able to help those who have experienced ‘uninsured’ losses caused by these catastrophic storms. If you are located in Brown, Clermont, Clinton, Hamilton or Warren counties and experienced damages caused by the tornadoes, high winds or flooding, you may be eligible for assistance from the SBA’s Disaster Loan program. The Disaster Loan Outreach Center has reopened in Moscow, Ohio, with extended hours.”

You can find the link from Chabot’s official House website by clicking here.

But there is more to the story. In 1997, after a disastrous Ohio River flood wrecked much of Cincinnati’s riverfront, Chabot ripped into then President Bill Clinton for vetoing a disaster relief package. Clinton was furious that the GOP had tied flood aid to his showdown with former Speaker Newt Gingrich over a government shutdown. Chabot said stopping the 1997 disaster relief package was a refusal to help Cincinnatian rebuild and get on with their lives.

Chabot took the House floor and gave a speech about Cincinnati needing federal disaster relief. Here is his speech from June 10, 1997:

“Mr. Speaker, yesterday President Clinton sent a callous message to the flood-ravaged American families in the Midwest. Only minutes after receiving the disaster relief bill from Capitol Hill, the President who likes to say he feels our pain told thousands of flood victims that he was going to veto the bill that would help them rebuild their homes and get on with their lives. 

“Why did President Clinton veto the legislation? Because the bill contained a provision that would stop him from forcing another Government shutdown. Let me repeat that. The President is withholding aid to thousands of flood victims so he can reserve the right to once again put thousands and thousands of government employees out of work and bring the work of the federal government to a halt.

“Despite the fact that the President in a master of spin, Mr. Speaker, I do not think he is going to be able to spin this one much. The American people are going to see through this. It is politics at this worst. Let us get disaster relief to the people who truly need it most.”  

You can read his House speech here.

During its eight years in power, the Bush-Cheney Administration was a big supporter of privatizing services that traditionally were performed by government. The ostensible purpose was to save taxpayer money, although it often seemed like the real reason was to enrich the cronies of George Bush and Dick Cheney, including companies like Halliburton.

It’s odd, then, that Cheney is turning to taxpayers for a special favor.

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The Ohio Elections Commission today dismissed a complaint filed by Cincinnati Tea Party founder Mike Wilson against his Republican primary opponent in the race for the 28th Ohio House District seat. Wilson had filed a complaint with the commission contesting statements used in a telephone poll recently conducted by Tom Weidman’s campaign.

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