Though the techniques and technologies in Ohio education have evolved countless times, the flow of the school year has remained largely unchanged. A summer vacation following months of work by students has been a staple across the country for generations. However, here in Ohio, there is a possibility that this may change in the future. Ohio’s gubernatorial race is to occur in 2026, and consequently its candidates have started announcing their future plans and policies to the public. One candidate is Vivek Ramaswamy, who has acquired much popularity as the Republican choice for governor. Recently though, one of his proposals has brought about considerable controversy.
In November of this year, Ramaswamy released a TikTok video in which, amongst other financial plans, he claimed that in order to bring about more positive change in the state, it would be a good idea to take the school year and extend it year-round, as well as lengthening school hours to change it from ending at three o’clock to four for the purposes of reducing the cost of childcare. This video would be clipped, and the seven second segment in which the idea was brought up would be reposted to other social media sites, most famously by his primary opponent for the upcoming election, Amy Acton. Acton’s initial tweet reposting the clip was accompanied by a caption labeling the video as her opponent’s plan for year-round school. Her campaign manager would then proceed to tell journalists that such a plan was a means to ruin public school budgets, and showed how out of touch Ramaswamy is.
Following this, certain individuals online made the assertion that the video was AI-generated. Upon further inspection, and validation from fact checking organizations such as Snopes, this was refuted, and the video was confirmed to in fact be real. After drawing so much heat, Ramaswamy took down the initial video, and a new version would be uploaded, edited in a way which cut out this claim, and instead focused on the other policies discussed in the video, though a link to the original remained on his Threads page. Angered responses didn’t only stem from Democrats though, as outcry and opposition has arisen within Ramaswamy’s own party regarding this claim. Most notably conservative journalist, Meghan McCain has made scathing remarks about Ramaswamy, following his video, calling his proposal an “absolutely insane idea.”
Very few comments have subsequently been made by Ramaswamy in regards to this matter; however, members of his campaign have attested that the clip is not as large of a deal as many have made it out to be, and that it has been misrepresented by Democrats as a declaration of policy, whereas instead the video was more accurately a more casual conversation with voters. This avoidance of discussion revolving around the video has made it vague whether or not this is still an idea which Ramaswamy stands with. Thus far, there has been no formal confirmation, nor retraction of his sentiments, meaning that it remains unclear whether next November voters will get to decide whether or not school will last year-round.
Sources
https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-insists-real-vivek-ramaswamy-policy-proposal-is-ai/
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/11/26/vivek-ramaswamy-school-year-round-ai/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/enough-meghan-mccain-outraged-vivek-213143058.html
https://www.thecentersquare.com/ohio/article_c31959f0-e685-419c-b0d5-6c9c100e5782.html
