From The Dispatch:

Almost no one on either side of the partisan divide liked the finished product — Republicans supplied just six votes, including five needed in the Senate for passage. But last night, Strickland hailed an end to the rancorous standoff.

“Our people and our businesses are struggling to stay afloat in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,” the governor said in a statement. “This budget protects them from tax increases they simply cannot afford.”

Strickland and legislative Democrats also found silver-linings in the two-year, $50.5 billion spending plan, particularly language initiating the governor’s “evidence-based” education reforms over the next 10 years.

But Republicans said the final version was rushed (and there wasn’t enough time to read it), relies on billions in “one-time” money and depends on dubious returns from expanded gambling that voters have rejected four times in recent years.

It isn’t the worst crisis since the Great Depression, and is instead comparable to the depression during the 1980s. Its just liberals and Ted Strickland don’t like Ronald Reagan’s tax-cutting answer to that problem, so they instead look back fondly on FDR’s unconstitutional expansion of federal power.

I want to know more about this expensive “evidence based” education reform package. What is evidence based reform, you ask? Well, let us look to Gov. Strickland’s 2009 State of the State address:

It is absolutely clear to me that simply tinkering with centuries-old education practices will not prepare Ohio’s children for success in college, in the workplace, or in life. Therefore, today I present my plan to build our education system anew.

The plan is based on a very simple premise: we should design our education system around what works. I have embraced an evidence-based education approach that harnesses research results and applies those findings to Ohio’s specific circumstances.

Now there will surely be those who protest that education research isn’t perfect. But frankly, we cannot afford to ignore the best available answers. Medical research isn’t perfect either, but it saves lives.

My Ohio evidence-based plan is designed to provide the best education we can for all of Ohio’s students. The elements of my plan are supported by evidence, and that evidence will guide our implementation of the plan over the next eight years.

Ah ha!  It includes evidence-based evidence reforms, supported by evidence and guided by evidence to wherever the evidence might lead.  Very evidentiary, indeed!

But in all seriousness, the only specifics I’ve seen of what is being funded is all-day kindergarten and longer school years. Because when it comes to spending priorities,  few things are more important to Ted, a fan of John Dewey, than the state getting to children early and keeping them as long as possible in hopes that they reject the traditions of their parents and become good young multi-culti leftists who will help build a more-perfect socialist utopia.

Update: I was reminded Kevin (below) of an excellent Fordham Institute report by Paul T. Hill of the Hoover Institution report which I had forgotten about. Click here to read it.

Related posts:

1. And We Have a Budget! Ted Strickland and the Gang of 5 Spineless Senate Republicans Raised Your Taxes
2. Experts Chime in on the Budget
3. Junk Requests in Ohio’s Federal Education Grant Proposal
4. Author of Ted Strickland’s “Evidence-Based” Education Reforms Can’t Answer Questions
5. Another Problem for Strickland’s Budget: Tobacco Money