Ohio lawmakers have passed a bill that would require schools to teach students to graduate high school, get a job, and get married — in that order — before having a baby. They call this order of events the success sequence.
Ohio Senate Bill 276 passed 58-36 during Wednesday’s House session and the Ohio Senate concurred with the changes made to the bill later that night before going on summer break.
Ohio Republican state Reps. Haraz Ghanbari, Gayle Manning, and Jason Stephens joined Ohio House Democrats in voting against the bill.
State Sen. Kristina Roegner, R-Hudson, introduced the bill, which originally began as legislation that would allow Ohio to join the Interstate Compact for School Psychologists, which allows licensed professionals to provide services across state lines.
The bill passed the Ohio Senate unanimously in November.
The Ohio House Education Committee made changes to the bill, including adding the success sequence.
“Young people are statistically far less likely to live in poverty when they complete high school, work full time, and marry before having children,” said Ohio Rep. Sarah Fowler-Arthur, R-Ashtabula.
“This gives young people tools to make informed decisions about education, work, family, and their future stability.”
The Heritage Foundation — the right-wing think tank that published Project 2025 — provides model legislation for the success sequence.
The bill requires the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce to have a curriculum list for the success sequence for grades 6-12 and this would be a graduation requirement.
Following these sequences of events means people are “overwhelmingly less likely to live in poverty in adulthood,” the bill says.
However, a 2021 study funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found those who finish high school, work full time, and get married are less likely to experience poverty, but the order did not matter much.
“I feel like some of us must have missed the basic statistical lesson that correlation is not causation,” said state Rep. Beryl Brown Piccolantonio, D-Gahanna.
“It completely misses the fact that there are so many other explanations for why so many people struggle in life so much. … Teaching that graduation, then work, then marriage, and then kids equals success also leaves out all of the unique ways that people live in our state.”
Ohio Senate Bill 156, a standalone success sequence bill, passed the Ohio Senate last year accross party lines.
State Rep. Sean Brennan, D-Parma, shared the story of his mom who graduated high school, got a job, got married, and eventually gave up her job to raise her two children.
“Her path did not follow a fairytale outcome,” Brennan said. “She suffered horrible abuse from her husband, lost everything when he left. She’s forced to work two low-paid, non-union jobs, supplemented by public assistance to keep clothes on her kids’ backs, food on the table.”
She later died of breast cancer.
“The so-called success sequence did not save my mother,” Brennan said. “It didn’t shield her from poverty or systemic societal problems. … Just because some individuals who follow a certain pathway avoid poverty, it doesn’t mean those steps cause success for everyone.”
Brennan also said teaching the success sequence is one more burden on teachers.
“They’re already stretched thin, and this part of this bill adds another requirement,” he said.
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This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.
