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SB5 repeal was a clear message

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“That showed Kasich. We showed him,” ~ Great Grandmother Marlene Quinn.

What the governor was shown in last night's historic election was Ohio voters rejecting his go it alone extreme agenda. More people voted to repeal his signature piece of legislation, SB5, in an off cycle election year than voted to put him into office just 12 months previous.

Only 5 counties, and those only barely, voted in favor of SB5, every other county voted against it. While results are still being tabulated, the measure appears to be defeated by a massive margin of 61% to 39%.

There never was any mandate to engage in attacks on middle class workers, despite what any out of touch newspaper editorial might have suggested, and last nights results demonstrated bipartisan rejection of that notion.

What should also not be forgotten, for education professionals many of the provisions voters rejected last night were inserted into the budget. If there is to be any negotiation or future compromise those aspects of the budget should be placed firmly in the center of the table too, there is no mandate for them and no agreement.

Furthermore, the Governor's education Czar is about to release plans for teacher evaluations, evaluations drafted without any serious input from education professionals. If a message was delivered last night it was surely "STOP GOING IT ALONE". Dr. Sommers should take last nights rebuke of go it alone policy making to heart, and begin a series of real meetings with education professionals and their associations in the development of real evaluations that will have widespread and sustainable support.

Public education and the people who work in it are not political footballs to be kicked around for partisan political gain. It needs to stop and it needs to stop now.

False choices in charter schools

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In an interesting article pointing out some of the problems with charter school expansion, the Plain Dealer observes that in some districts, underperforming charters are sucking money away from their contemporary traditional public schools which are rated much higher.

Charter school supporters say all Ohio parents should be able to make the choice for their children, no matter how well their home districts may be doing overall. But district officials say it's unfair for their budgets to take a hit when they're doing a good job according to the state's criteria. And it's especially galling when students leave for a charter school with a lower state ranking.

"I have no problem if we're serving students with better options, but paying for a student to go from an excellent district school to a poor-performing charter doesn't seem right," said State Sen. Joe Schiavoni, a Democrat who represents Mahoning County. "It doesn't make sense."

As well as sucking money away in order to provide a lower quality education, this story also reveals one of the other major problems with "choice". Parents don't necessarily make rational choices when it comes to their child's education. Factors other than school performance play significant roles. When parents realize their mistake, the cost to their child and the district can be significant

In Parma, for example, the district gets a total of $2,030 per pupil from the state while it has to shell out $5,700 for each of the 900 or so students who attend charters.

"You can do the math," said Treasurer Daniel Bowman. "I don't care what anyone says, that is local property tax money going out that the community approved for a specific purpose and the legislature has decided to spend another way."

By Bowman's calculation, one-fourth of the Excellent-rated district's total state funding is used for fewer than 1,000 charter school students.

The picture is similar in North Olmsted, which drove school board member Terry Groden to testify in Columbus on behalf of Schiavoni's bill. Last school year, 133 students opted for charters. That was about 3 percent of the total enrollment, but they took almost 10 percent of the district's state aid with them, Groden said.

Forty-two of those students ended up returning to the district, which was rated Excellent on its last state report card.

"They came back from charter schools that were not rated at all or were rated lower than North Olmsted," Groden said. "I'm concerned with what we have to do, or undo, with these kids to get them back up to the level of performance we want to see and how that affects the children around them."

Expanding Ohio's failing charter school experiment further as HB136 would do would only serve to amplify these kinds of problems.

Scapegoats

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A letter from a teacher, getting to the heart of a lot of the anger about SB5 we hear from other teachers and public employees.

Senate Bill Five is an attempt to scapegoat public workers for an economic crisis that began in the private sector with Governor Kasich’s blessing. Now, members of the Ohio legislature want to strip workers of their pay, benefits, and rights, knowing full well that the state’s economic problems are by no means related to those workers.

As a congressman, Kasich voted and lobbied for the complex laws that allowed financial institutions to destroy the national economy, including the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act. Kasich and Governor Walker in Wisconsin want to scapegoat public sector workers for problems that began, with their approval, in the private sector!

Firefighters and teachers in Dayton did not peddle and trade risky mortgage securities for self-serving banks. Police and EMTs in Cleveland had nothing to do with the government bailing out financial institutions that engaged in the gross mishandling of people’s lives and fortunes. Corrections officers and nurses in Cincinnati did not develop a system of shadow banks that wrote off-balance derivatives, nor did they have anything to do with bait-and-switch predatory lending. Still, the legislature wants to blame public workers.

Rather than creating scapegoats, Kasich should reexamine his role in the financial crisis. In order to protect middle class public-sector workers, voters should vote no on Issue Two.

Sincerely,
Matthew Blair

SB5 heading for humiliating defeat

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PPP has just released the final poll of the campaign and the results show that SB5 is headed for a massive defeat on Tuesday, if the We Are Ohio campaign gets all its voters out to vote.

Democrats are almost unanimous in their opposition to SB 5, supporting repeal by an 86-10 margin. Meanwhile there's division in the Republican ranks- 30% are planning to vote down their Governor's signature proposal while only 66% are supportive of it. Independents split against it by a 54/39 spread as well.

If this margin holds on Tuesday night it will be a humiliating defeat for John Kasich. Kasich continues to be one of the most unpopular Governors in the country with only 33% of voters approving of him to 57% who disapprove.

Poll For SB5 Against SB5
PPP Mar 15th 31% 54%
Wenzel Apr 12th 38% 51%
Quinnipiac May 18th 36% 54%
PPP May 25th 35% 55%
Quinnipiac Jul 20th 32% 56%
PPP Aug 18th 39% 50%
Quinnipiac Sep 27th 38% 51%
PPP Oct 19th 36% 56%
Quinnipiac Oct 25th 32% 57%
PPP Nov 6th 36% 59%

More crazy teacher evaluation ideas

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It seems there's even more crazy ideas about how to evaluate teachers than we originally thought. Now, one school district wants to include chance grocery store encounters to the evaluation matrix. No, we're not joking.

A teacher who has a chance encounter with a parent at a grocery store and chats about school can earn credit toward a financial bonus.

That is the way it is in the Challis School District in Idaho, a state where nearly 30 school systems have adopted teacher evaluation systems that include as one measure how well teachers get parents involved in their child’s education.

In the five-school Challis system, teachers are supposed to make contact with the parents of each of their students at least twice every three months, according to the Associated Press.

A teacher can send a note home to fulfill one of the “contact” requirements, though the other must be face to face. It can, Challis Superintendent Colby Gull was quoted as saying by the AP, be fulfilled by a chat in the supermarket during an unexpected encounter with a parent.

That counts for official contact purposes, he said, “as long as they’re talking about what’s going on in the classroom and the parent is informed about their student.’’