Law & Courts

Mediator Has Tough Job In Ohio Funding Case

By Jessica L. Sandham — January 23, 2002 5 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Howard S. Bellman is being asked to do what no Ohio lawyer, legislator, or governor has been able to do: Resolve a school finance suit that is a decade in the making—in less than 10 weeks.

That Herculean task fell to Mr. Bellman after the Ohio Supreme Court in November ordered mediation as a way to end the state’s long-running school finance case.

At the time, lawmakers and educators throughout the state raised a collective eyebrow in skeptical bemusement. How was it possible, they wondered, for anyone—even a professional mediator—to resolve such a complex and contentious issue so quickly?

One editorial writer even went so far as to say that if the court-appointed mediator could break the deadlock and persuade the parties involved to settle the dispute, “he should be called miracle worker, not mediator.”

Well, “miracle worker” is not listed on the résumé of Mr. Bellman, the 64-year-old lawyer assigned to mediate the case, known as DeRolph v. State of Ohio. But plenty else is.

Mr. Bellman, who lives in Madison, Wis., has decades of experience mediating complex public-policy disputes, environmental disputes, and collective-bargaining. But this is the first time he has mediated a school finance case of this magnitude. In fact, education finance experts say this is likely the first time a state school finance case has gone to mediation at this late a stage in the game.

As to whether he will succeed in such a short time with a case as long-running and tangled as the school funding dispute in Ohio—which was filed in 1991 by a rural school seeking more aid—Mr. Bellman simply doesn’t know.

“It’s a fair question, but I don’t know the answer,” Mr. Bellman said in a recent interview. Mr. Bellman must submit a report to the court in mid-February. If he is not able to get the two sides to agree on a resolution, or get an extension for further mediation, then the state supreme court will take up the case again.

“You don’t know until the end,” he said. “All I can do is plod along and learn the case and try to help the parties, and then report back when the time comes.”

Starting Differences

The road to court-ordered mediation in the case began with a Sept. 17 motion in which Gov. Bob Taft asked the state supreme court to reconsider a then-2-week-old ruling that had ordered the state to raise education spending by $1.2 billion over two years. It was the court’s third decision in the case.

Gov. Taft, a Republican, argued that the court had used faulty data to calculate the cost of its funding fix, and that the economic fallout from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks made it even more difficult for Ohio to pay for the court-ordered remedy.

The court agreed to reconsider the case, and then ordered mediation in a 4-3 ruling handed down on Nov. 16. The court hired Mr. Bellman to guide the discussions in December, after giving both the state and the plaintiffs a list of possible mediators. The parties who are meeting with Mr. Bellman include Mary Lynne Readey, the assistant attorney general who represents the Republican majority legislators and Gov. Taft; Nicholas A. Pittner, a lawyer representing the coalition of school districts that sued the state; and Sen. Ben Espy, who represents the interests of the Democratic minority in the legislature.

The parties are not talking publicly about the mediation. But observers saw rough spots from the start. In his initial report to the supreme court this month, Mr. Bellman wrote, “The particular matters suggested as appropriate for governing the mediation process are under discussion.”

Apparently, the coalition representing the plaintiffs differed with state officials over whether the whole case was up for negotiation, or just certain aspects of it.

Gov. Taft indicated in a December press release that he viewed the mediation process as a chance to resolve “the few remaining issues” identified in the state’s motion for reconsideration. The plaintiffs, meanwhile, have said they see mediation as a chance to revisit broader issues raised in the court’s earlier rulings.

“We the plaintiffs believe that the current [school aid] system is incongruent with the court’s original order of a systematic overhaul,” said William L. Phillis, the executive director of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, a group representing the 500-plus school districts that sued the state.

“We must secure high-quality educational opportunities for every kid and that has not been accomplished so far,” he continued. “We have this complete systematic overhaul to protect; will not move on that position.”

Warren Russell, the director of legislative services for the Ohio School Boards Association, said the question of what’s up for negotiation in the mediation process “is a very big question in terms of where it goes and what would be included in a settlement.”

‘Clash of Titans’

Without going into specifics of the case, Mr. Bellman acknowledged that it is unusual because of the enormously high stakes for Ohio’s schools and the other state services that depend on public dollars. The case is also out of the ordinary, he says, because it highlights a tension at the intersection of the state’s various branches of government.

“The executive and the legislature seem to think that the courts are legislating, and the courts seem to believe that unconstitutional conduct has occurred,” Mr. Bellman added. “So there’s sort of a clash of the titans there. And the decision will necessarily need to be made by one of the parties; there’s no place else to go with the case.”

Mr. Bellman said his job is not to tell the parties what the answer is. Rather, he says, he works to understand the different points of view of the competing parties and then tries “to help them find ways of reconciling their points of view.”

“All of that involves many, many, many conversations,” Mr. Bellman added. “Sometimes with them together and sometimes with them separately.”

Over the course of his career, Mr. Bellman has developed vital background for his work in Ohio. He has mediated collective bargaining disputes in schools, and was the secretary of Wisconsin’s department of labor in the 1980s.

Perhaps just as significant is the fact that Mr. Bellman is both an outsider and an insider to the Buckeye State. He has lived and practiced in Wisconsin for many years now, and did not know the particulars of this case until he was called on to mediate. Still, he grew up in Toledo, Ohio, and went to public schools there before attending college and law school at the University of Cincinnati.

“The fact that I’m from the outside means that I don’t come to the case with a bias,” Mr. Bellman said. “If I lived in Ohio, it may have been difficult for me not to have some sort of attitude about the case coming in. But I think that knowing I spent some formative time here, that was important, too.”

A version of this article appeared in the January 23, 2002 edition of Education Week as Mediator Has Tough Job In Ohio Funding Case

Events

Teaching Profession K-12 Essentials Forum New Insights Into the Teaching Profession
Join this free virtual event to get exclusive insights from Education Week's State of Teaching project.
Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and K-12 education jubs at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Mathematics K-12 Essentials Forum Helping Students Succeed in Math

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Law & Courts Federal Appeals Court Upholds Block on Louisiana Ten Commandments Display Law
Louisiana's law requiring the Ten Commandments in every classroom likely violates the First Amendment, a federal appeals court ruled.
3 min read
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry speaks alongside Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill during a press conference regarding the Ten Commandments in schools Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, in Baton Rouge, La. Murrill announced on Monday that she is filing a brief in federal court asking a judge to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to overturn the state’s new law requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry speaks alongside Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill during a press conference on a law requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in schools on Aug. 5, 2024, in Baton Rouge, La. A federal appeals court on June 20 upheld an injunction blocking the law from taking effect.
Hilary Scheinuk/The Advocate via AP
Law & Courts Court Again Tells Trump Admin. to Restore Laid-Off Ed. Dept. Staffers
The judge was ruling in a case that challenged staff cuts and office closures at the Education Department's office for civil rights
5 min read
Demonstrators gather to protest outside of the offices of the U.S. Department of Education in Washington on March 21, 2025 after President Trump signed an executive order to shut down the government agency.
Demonstrators gather to protest outside of the offices of the U.S. Department of Education in Washington on March 21, 2025, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order aiming to shut down the government agency. A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to restore staffers to the department's office for civil rights, which enforces anti-discrimination laws in the nation's schools.
Bryan Dozier/NurPhoto via AP
Law & Courts Supreme Court Ruling May Redefine Transgender Rights in Schools
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case about puberty blockers and hormone treatments that holds implications for transgender students.
6 min read
Nate, 14, left, and Bird, 9, right, whose parents asked not to use their last names, hold signs and transgender pride flags as supporters of transgender rights rally by the Supreme Court on Dec. 4, 2024, in Washington.
Nate, 14, left, and Bird, 9, right, whose parents asked not to use their last names, hold signs and transgender pride flags as supporters of transgender rights rally by the Supreme Court on Dec. 4, 2024, in Washington. The high court on June 18, 2025, upheld a Tennessee law banning certain gender-transition treatments for minors.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Law & Courts Supreme Court Decision Lets Students Sue Schools More Easily for Disability Bias
The justices ruled unanimously that students with disabilities need not meet a more stringent standard when suing under two federal laws.
5 min read
The Tharpe family, pictured outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on April 28, 2025.
The Tharpe family, pictured outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on April 28, 2025.
Mark Walsh/Education Week