INDIAN HILL, OHIO

By MICHAEL DUFFY

To see how brightly fortune smiles on Indian Hill High School, visit the "suite" where three counselors help steer almost all of the 150 seniors to college, or watch a practicing pathologist teach college-level biology, or witness students pull their homework off the mainframe serving the building's 300 computers. "It's a joy to teach here," says principal Laura Abegglen. "You don't ask teachers to pull magic out of thin air."

But more than 100 miles and 100 years back down the road, that's exactly what they do. At Vinton County High School, textbooks are 25 years old and in such short supply that students routinely share them. The countertops in the home-economics room are peeled back like popovers, and college guidance is dispensed from a renovated boys' bathroom. And since the school lacks a cafeteria, students troop out at noon to eat at bars, a pizza joint or a gas station, which often means a candy bar and a Coke.

That Ohio has two public school systems--one for the poor and one for everybody else--is no longer the state's dirty secret. Its supreme court in March was so outraged at this feudal arrangement that it ordered an immediate reform in the way Ohioans pay for education. The problem landed in the lap of a popular two-term Governor, George Voinovich, who must now balance the grievances of parents in hard-pressed rural and urban districts with the sense of entitlement of those living in more affluent suburbs. In sparsely populated Vinton County, where wages are low and property taxes unpopular (the district spends only $4,200 per pupil each year), the ruling took the form of deliverance. "This is our chance to get out," said superintendent John Simmons. But not at our expense, reply residents of manicured places like Indian Hill, where per-pupil spending nears $8,000 a year and voters have only once killed a school levy (they said no to a new swimming pool).

School crises just like this one have tripped up their share of Republican Governors in recent years. After a state court tossed out New Jersey's funding system, Governor Christine Whitman tried to fix the imbalance by tying new money to student performance on statewide tests--a bold approach, but one the courts have refused to accept. In April, Illinois Governor Jim Edgar spent leftover campaign funds on TV ads to build support for his solution--raising income taxes. But his own party killed the bill in committee. Having watched these stumbles, Voinovich is aiming at something more modest. Early this week, a task force he named to solve the problem is set to unveil its plan--probably a penny increase in the state's 5% sales tax. Proceeds would go to the neediest districts. The tax would fall heaviest on the poor, but in Ohio's hot economy, Voinovich may be betting even they won't notice.