The Ohio Lottery Has Some 'Splaining To Do

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​THE OHIO LOTTERY HAS SOME 'SPLAINING TO DO

       I believe that everybody in Ohio has a bone to pick with the state lottery. Especially the citizens of Columbus. Most especially the students and parents of the Columbus City School district where the teachers are poised to go on strike days before the scheduled start of the school year on August 24.

     At this point the teachers' grievance isn't even about salary. They haven't even gotten to salary yet. At this point their grievance is about over-crowded classrooms; it's about the need for properly functioning heating, ventilation and air conditioning in school buildings; it's about the lack of music, art, and physical education programs in the schools; it's about teachers having more class periods piled on them every day than they can handle.
     Of course, it's all really about money. The Columbus School Board apparently lacks the funding to provide for a well-stocked education for its students and a minimally healthy, productive teaching and learning environment. And I want the Ohio Lottery Commission to tell me - to tell everybody - why this is.
      See, the thing is, I recall - I recall as clear as day - that back in 1987 there was a push to expand the lottery games here in Ohio. To this end there was an issue on the election ballot to amend the Ohio State Constitution to make lottery profits a source of revenue for our state's schools. 
      And oh, how we Ohioans overwhelmingly  approved the lottery amendment! Teachers were for it! Parents were for it! Churches were for it! Democrats and Republicans were for it! Folks like myself who were against gambling were for it! It was a veritable love feast of agreement among us all. After all, it was for the children. From now on our schools would be flush with funds for the best education for our kids that all that lottery money could buy.
       And oh, did the lottery money start rolling in! That is to say, one must assume the money was rolling in and has continued to roll in ever since when one hears of the obscenely gargantuan amounts of money in the lottery jackpots:   

      And while the lotto is raking in enough cash to give away dozens of millions of dollars at a pop, how are Ohio's schools making out?
        Still scratching out an existence from property taxes and whatever state and local money school districts can snag while they beg, hat in hand, for their communities to pass levies so that children can have school sports, extracurricular activities, enough teachers, safe and healthy classrooms, and a decent education. The schools in the wealthy districts where income and property taxes are high are doing well enough while the schools in the non-wealthy districts are doing not so well. In any case, for all the millions being raised by the lotto there's no evidence that Ohio schools are flush - or even comfortably getting by - with lottery money.
      And so I find myself wondering: Instead of a $99 million  jackpot, could the lottery commission not give away a $49.5 million jackpot and distribute the other $49.5 million to the schools? How about making the top lottery prize $10 million with the rest of the money collected from the ticket buyers going to the schools? Wouldn't a $10 million windfall be enough for anyone?
     Come to think of it, if Ohioans as a whole can afford to fork over enough money on a regular basis to raise the lottery jackpot to $99 million, could they not be contributing that money to the schools instead of spending it  on lottery tickets?
         Well, couldn't they?  

​Reference​:
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/education/2022/08/16/no-agreement-on-new-columbus-teachers-pact-after-tuesdays-session/65405851007/