GrannyGate

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The pro SB5 campaign, building a better Ohio, is now at the center of a political firestorm, now being dubbed "GrannyGate", for airing one of the most deceptive and dishonest ads in Ohio political history. The ad has been deemed so dishonest that major TV stations WSYX, WTTE, WCMH in Columbus; WSAV, WCHS, and WVAH in Charleston; WTAP in Parkersburg; WTRF in Wheeling; WDTN and WBDT in Dayton and WTOL in Toledo are all refusing to air it

First reported on political news blog Plunderbund, the story has now gained mainstream attention, such as this report from WKYC 3

Marlene Quinn, the grandmother being illegally misrepresented by Building A Better Ohio had this to say

"I think it's dishonest and downright deceitful that they would use footage of me to try to play tricks and fool voters. It's insulting to the brave firefighters that saved the lives of my grandson and my great-granddaughter Zoey.

I'm outraged. They did not ask my permission. I feel violated.

I want to stop Senate Bill 5. Everyone should vote No on Issue 2.”

Cincinnati firefighter Paul Weber, one of the firefighters who rescued Marlene's granddaughter also had a strong rebuke

Despite all the negative news reports the Better Ohio campaign are now receiving, they continue to be unapologetic about their disgraceful actions.

Join the Future believes that this kind of campaigning has no place in the body politic of Ohio, and Better Ohio should immediately cease and desist from airing this, and all other misleading, dishonest ads and issue an unequivocal apology to Ms Quinn, the Cincinnati firefighters and the people of Ohio.

We are asking our supporters to contact Better Ohio's endorsers and politely ask them to request this course of action. It reflects badly on their organization to continue to support such disgraceful actions

Here's is a possible sample letter you can use or adapt.

To whom it may concern,
I am writing to you, because your organization has endorsed the Building A Better Ohio Issue 2 campaign. I wanted to make you aware of news reports regarding a dishonest TV ad that stations around the state are now refusing to air. While I am sure you are now aware of these reports, an example can be found here - report from WKYC 3.

As a concerned citizen I am requesting that your organization contact the Building A Better Ohio campaign and ask them to cease and desist from using this dishonest and deceptive ad, and apologize to the great grandmother they are using. This type of campaigning reflects badly upon supporters of Issue 2, and more broadly upon Ohio.

Thank you for your time and consideration

You can share any responses you receive from these organizations, in confidence, with us - admin@jointhefuture.org. You can also sign the We Are Ohio petition to request all TV stations cease airing this ad.

Gahanna city council in the hot seat

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Gahanna city council has put itself in the hot seat over SB5. A member of the council has placed a resolution on tonghts agenda, supporting issue 2. We are hearing that attendance at tonights meeting might break records as members of the community flock to denounce this resolution.

We have heard that council President Dave Samuel is opposed to the resolution, as is At Large council member Tim Pack. We have also heard that the Gahanna Mayor does not support this resolution and will not sign it.

If you live close by, or espeically live in Gahanna, you can attend in person
When: Tonight at 7pm
Where: Gahanna City Hall. 200 South Hamilton. Gahanna, OH 43230

If you can't make it at such short notice, please consider sending a message, before tomorrow nights meeting, in opposition to this resolution to your council representative.

At Large (President) Dave Samuel

Ward 3 (Vice President) Brian Larick

At Large Timothy W. Pack

At Large Nancy McGregor

Ward 1 John McAlister

Ward 2 Shane W. Ewald

Ward 3 Brian Larick

Ward 4 Beryl D. Anderson

State budget decisions severely harming communities

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When the governor and legislature passed the buck on balancing the state's budget, the effects rippled down through hundreds of schools districts, districts like Dublin city schools.

Dublin city schools are excellent with distinction. You don't get any better than that. Now being threatened by the reckless budget, this school district is scheduled to lose $10.9-million of state funding over the next two years. Like so many other districts, Dublin has to choose between damaging cuts, or asking the community for their continued support.

Two central Ohio school districts gave glimpses last night of what might be cut if their tax issues on the November ballot fail.

Potential cuts in Dublin schools include “well over 100 teachers,” among other jobs, Superintendent David Axner said at the district’s Board of Education meeting.
[...]
Those cuts would vary depending on whether board members decided to dip into reserve funds. The plan that officials presented last night assumes the board would use about half of the $15 million reserve. But the district still would eliminate about 150 jobs, limit transportation and reduce elective classes.

Although officials haven’t decided on exact numbers, they would eliminate more than 100 teaching jobs from all grade levels, Axner said.

High-school students, who now choose from six foreign languages, would have fewer options. Bus routes would have fewer pickup areas, Deputy Superintendent Mike Trego said. Class sizes would increase.

Not only would an excellent school district be harmed if this levy fails, but at a time when the governor is talking about creating jobs, thousands of quality, important jobs are being lost in school districts like Dublin all over the state.

The budget that passed is now having a three pronged negative effect on the quality of Ohio as a place to live, work and study.

1. It is hurting our future by making it harder to educate our state's children. Less teachers, greater class sizes, less academic choice, less extra curricula activities. Students don't get a second bite at their childhood education.

2. It is hurting our economy. At a time when job creation is hard to come by, we have purposefully decided to destroy thousands of quality jobs that help fuel local economies.

3. Passing the buck to the local level causes either cuts in school quality which adversely affects property values, or causes increases in local taxes to help offset the reckless budget cuts made by the state.

The legislature didn't need to make these choices, other options were open to them, it's hard to imagine a more damaging policy choice than the one that was made.

ps. If you live in the Dublin city school district, vote yes on issue 15.

The attack on collective bargaining

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Policy Matters Ohio has just released a report looking at the Benefits of Bargaining, titled "How Public Worker Negotiations Improve Ohio Communities". You can read the full report here (PDF).

We've pulled out the executive summary dealing with education.

Teachers: Teachers’ unions bargain to improve classroom conditions, benefitting teachers and students alike. Some of the issues teachers’ unions negotiate that improve student outcomes are:

  • Class size: Teachers’ unions often bargain to maintain low class sizes, especially in K-3 classes. Studies have shown that small classes are especially helpful to younger students, low-income students and students from minority communities. Small classes enable more writing assignments, better student-teacher relationships, and safer, more stable classroom atmospheres. We found that teacher unions often bargain to shrink and maintain class sizes, while management sometimes seeks to save money by increasing class sizes.
  • Discipline plans: Public employers and teachers’ unions use collective bargaining to develop discipline plans for students in order to minimize classroom disruptions. Under Senate Bill 5, discipline plans can be made without teacher input, which could undermine teacher authority and increase disruption. We also found examples of proactive union steps to prevent discipline problems. The Cleveland Teachers’ Union has negotiated to create In-School-Suspensions, to keep students off the streets and ensure discipline challenged students get proper treatment.
  • Improving school quality: Teacher unions fight for classes that improve curriculum. They have negotiated to ensure multiple choices of foreign language classes in high schools and to ensure music, art, and physical education classes in elementary schools. These classes also provide preparation periods for core-class teachers, which can improve their performance.
  • Improved Evaluations: Ohio teacher unions have been especially proactive in creating teacher evaluation and training systems. The Toledo Federation of Teachers created the Peer-Assistance and Review (PAR) program in the 1980’s, which pairs veteran teacher mentors with newly-hired or struggling teachers to provide guidance and evaluation. The PAR program is now in over 70 school districts around the country, including Toledo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Columbus, and has been praised as one of the best systems for improving new teacher quality.
  • Our contract and literature review also found seniority in layoffs is not well understood. Generally seniority is only used as a tie-breaker after other circumstances have been considered, and principals retain a large amount of discretion in hiring and layoffs.

Policy Matters Ohio reminds us of some of the provisions within SB5 that constitute the attack on collective bargaining

Senate Bill 5 was passed in March 2011. Key provisions of the bill include:

  • Eliminating the right to strike for all public workers;
  • Limiting the right to bargain over health insurance, pensions, staffing levels and working conditions;
  • Confining bargaining rights for state-level employees to wage issues only;
  • Eliminating binding arbitration, a process for resolving impasses for safety forces, described below;
  • Allowing the legislative body to impose its own resolution in the case of an impasse;
  • Reclassifying most professors as management to take them out of bargaining units;
  • New minimum requirements for employee contributions to health insurance and pensions;
  • Restricting the ability of teachers to advocate for more effective classroom practices, including smaller class sizes and better teacher evaluations.

Turgid mandates

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Gov Brown of California just issued a veto of a state bill that would have expanded testing even further than an already prescriptive system. We're not sure what our favorite line is, because there are so many good ones, but if pressed, "Lost in the bill's turgid mandates is any recognition that quality is findamentaly different from quantity." would be a contender.

Here's the entire veto letter.

SB 547 Veto Message

Here’s What’s So Bad About School Choice

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"Choice" is a mantra thrown around by many in the corporate education reform movement, often to disguise true intentions of profiteering. Here's a smart article looking at just some of the problems with "choice". We've excerpted just a small piece, the whole should be read.

Problem 3: The Driver for Parents’ School Choices Is Not Always Educational Quality

There’s another fundamental problem with this approach as well. In our economic system, consumers demonstrate how much they value an item by how much they are able and willing to pay for it. A best-selling toothpaste demonstrates it’s the superior product by the very fact that more consumers decide to buy it rather than rival brands. Kaufmann believes the same dynamic should be at work for schools.

But society has a strong interest in well-educated young people prepared to assume the responsibilities of citizenship. This is the job of our schools. Hence we have far more of a stake in the choices parents would make for their students’ schools than we do in their choices of laundry soap or cat food.

Before we hand over responsibility to parents for determining what kinds of schools will educate our next generation of citizens, we ought to have confidence in the values that will inform their decisions.

This doesn’t seem to be much of a concern for Kaufmann. He writes that “parents concerned for their children’s welfare are highly motivated to choose wisely.” He implicitly assumes that the values that parents apply in selecting schools for their children are the same educational values that we embrace as a society. Accordingly, we can assume that thousands of individual parental choices will have a cumulative impact that reflects the values that we share as a community.

Further, since the end goal is academic excellence, we can also expect that the objective measures of educational achievement available to us, like standardized math and reading scores, will be of critical importance to our choosing-wisely parents.

We agree with the conclusion of the article.