It's been too easy in the past decade for the Ohio General Assembly and whoever sits in the governor's mansion simply to ignore the high court's rulings or else toss more money into the pot without ever addressing the overreliance on local property taxes that creates enormous economic disparities from one school district to another.

At the core of the amendment is a provision that declares a "high quality public education" as a fundamental right of each student. That hardly seems like a radical idea to us.

The plan also gradually reduces local share and increases state share of funding for public schools. If that means money is collected from around the state and then dispensed more evenly among the state's districts, that's an idea worth exploring.

The amendment empowers the Ohio Board of Education to determine the cost of a high-quality public education each year - but gives the Legislature ability to reject the board's recommendation with a three-fifths majority vote. Given the lack of political will we usually see in Columbus, we doubt lawmakers could summon up the nerve to tell moms and dads that too much money is being spent on the education of their children.

There are many other elements to the proposal, including a provision that requires state higher education payments to be no less than 2007 levels.

With this amendment likely headed to the ballot 10 months from now, there will be plenty of time to debate its merits and problems.

But the fact remains, state leaders and others have no one to blame but themselves for this citizen-driven proposal. If anyone, and we mean anyone, had done something in the last decade to fix what the courts said was broken, then perhaps this could have been avoided.

Ohio's residents finally appear sick and tired of government inaction. They're taking the law into their own hands, or making the law with their own hands.

Let the debate begin. It's been a long time coming.