Senate Bill 5 (Cleveland, Republic: school districts, taxes, costs)

[Cleveland_Collector]

Originally Posted by davery5872

So you are saying the Harvard Educational Review was bought by the US Department of Education? Where did you get that? ERIC is an educational resource website sponsored by the US Department of Education. Mostly used in higher education. To say that ERIC has a liberal bias is unfounded. If you have data to back up your claim, please list it.

Didn't you know that anything that supports your claim or refutes his will have a severe liberal bias no matter where it comes from and that what he states will be the honest-to-god truth even if he just pulled it directly from his arse?

Also, my educated belief is that, if teachers lose the right to bargain collectively and have to take a paycut, many of them will leave the profession altogether. It will be the 1960's teacher shortage scenario all over again. And, who can blame them? Why work a professional job for a non-professional, state-controlled salary and crappy benefits? Tell Kasich and his $2 haircut to go teach these kids himself.

[davery5872]

Originally Posted by rrtechno

ACT/SATs are also standardized tests that some are suggesting should be used as a basis for determining merit pay scenarios.

Since SAT tests are for HS students, how would you base a 4th grade teachers pay off it?

[EarthBound?]

Originally Posted by rrtechno

ACT/SATs are also standardized tests that some are suggesting should be used as a basis for determining merit pay scenarios.

You would think that in this day and age they would find a better way of doing that.

Originally Posted by davery5872

Since SAT tests are for HS students, how would you base a 4th grade teachers pay off it?

Really, it's not like the 4th grader has their sights set on college already. And teacher curriculum is very basic still at this point.

[Cleveland_Collector]

Originally Posted by davery5872

Since SAT tests are for HS students, how would you base a 4th grade teachers pay off it?

Correction: SAT/ACT tests are typically for HS seniors. How about the rest?

How about HS students who choose not to go to college and/or go to vocational ed. programs instead? What do we gauge them on?

What about the fact that a student has multiple teachers in multiple subjects? Is the SAT/ACT going to cover them all (because it currently does not).

What about the differing levels of difficulty in class curriculum? How will they differentiate the "merit" of physics and chemistry teachers vs. health and phys. ed. teachers? Maybe they'll give the SAT/ACT every year and add a health section!!

[rrtechno]

Originally Posted by Cleveland_Collector

Correction: SAT/ACT tests are typically for HS seniors. How about the rest?

How about HS students who choose not to go to college and/or go to vocational ed. programs instead? What do we gauge them on?

What about the fact that a student has multiple teachers in multiple subjects? Is the SAT/ACT going to cover them all (because it currently does not).

What about the differing levels of difficulty in class curriculum? How will they differentiate the "merit" of physics and chemistry teachers vs. health and phys. ed. teachers? Maybe they'll give the SAT/ACT every year and add a health section!!

Exactly why any kind of standardized test should not be the basis for determining merit pay. Too many factors involved. And exactly why teachers, the ones who experience those factors, SHOULD be involved in structuring any restructuring of compensation packages.

[wrightflyer]

As far as the ACT/SAT college entrance concerns, having worked in honors admissions for a major univeristy, I can tell you from personal experience that it is one of many factors going into choosing a student for that school. Most schools now realize that these tests are not whole reps of these students and that numerous variables factor into how well a student will fit at that particular college or university.

ACT/SAT merit based pay would be dumb. If you have a problem teaching to the test now, I could imagine it would be worse with this scenario.

This whole SB5 thing is a PR nightmare. Gov't should have approached the teachers unions and cordially asked for concessions. That way, if the unions refused, then you would have this bill or layoffs. States, unlike the Feds, have to balance their budgets. This is one possible way to do it because frankly, we are in an economic craphole. As a taxpayer, just as with levies, I will support with two reasons: 1) I can afford it. 2) The admins are being good stewards. The district doing well factors into number two. I personally can't afford tax increases now as a poor college student, and morally feel that forcing taxes on just one segment of the population is unjust, even if they do have more money. I also find the same argument that taxing the wealthy will drive them out of state (or even the country) works just as well as the teachers threatening to leave if they lose collective bargaining rights.

Then with the PR from the unions trying to force the issue onto the "for the children" note, angers me because that comes really, really close to manipulation, IMO. Draging their students into the fray, even by talking about it in the classroom without giving an unbiased opinion, is dangerous. Since most teachers probably have a heavy bias on this, that opinion should be checked at the door and left between the teachers/unions, the parents (taxpayers), and gov't. It could (and does) come across as bias in the classroom, and I (if I were a parent) would be upset if my child came home without a proper perspective on the issue.

[davery5872]

I've been talking to a few teachers lately about some of the other items in SB5. Such as eliminating the seniority list when firing teachers during reduction in force. On the face, it sounds good. The common thought is that there are all these lazy teachers around that are high on the seniority list that can never be fired. So, yes let's get rid of the seniority list. Unfortunately, the reality is a little different. First of all, while I can't say there are no lazy teachers, there are very few. And if the administrators would do their job, there would be zero. It's not hard to get rid of bad teachers, if an administrator wants to do it. The other thing that happens when a teacher has a little security by being high on the seniority list is that they tend to be a counter balance to the administration. When the administrators are making political decisions, those veteran teachers keep reminding them of the educational aspect. When the principal decides to have an assembly every two weeks for the football team, those veteran teachers voice their concern about losing class time. When the superintendent succumbs to parental pressure to change a student's grade without the consent of the teacher, it is those veteran teachers voice their concern. My fear is that if seniority is eliminated, these veteran teachers will be fired in retribution. Who will stand up to the administrator politicians?

[EarthBound?]

Originally Posted by davery5872

I've been talking to a few teachers lately about some of the other items in SB5. Such as eliminating the seniority list when firing teachers during reduction in force. On the face, it sounds good. The common thought is that there are all these lazy teachers around that are high on the seniority list that can never be fired. So, yes let's get rid of the seniority list. Unfortunately, the reality is a little different. First of all, while I can't say there are no lazy teachers, there are very few. And if the administrators would do their job, there would be zero. It's not hard to get rid of bad teachers, if an administrator wants to do it. The other thing that happens when a teacher has a little security by being high on the seniority list is that they tend to be a counter balance to the administration. When the administrators are making political decisions, those veteran teachers keep reminding them of the educational aspect. When the principal decides to have an assembly every two weeks for the football team, those veteran teachers voice their concern about losing class time. When the superintendent succumbs to parental pressure to change a student's grade without the consent of the teacher, it is those veteran teachers voice their concern. My fear is that if seniority is eliminated, these veteran teachers will be fired in retribution. Who will stand up to the administrator politicians?

Now those are the types of teachers that need to be protected. The principal and the superintendent need to be fired.

And again we see that sports programs take front stage to education again just so the Neanderthal's offsprings get to run up and down a field with a little ball grunting like monkeys and apes.

[rrtechno]

Since this bill is supposedly so important to solving Ohio's budget problems that the governor has suggested that there will be a similar item in his budget bill if this doesn't pass, just how much is it supposed to save the governments per unionized public employee on average? $1000, $10,000, $20,000? It seems the focus right now is on the "greedy" public employee's unions as being the cause for our problems, but how many of you have actually calculated things out? According to my calculations, if you take the earlier projected deficit of $8,000,000,000 (8 billion) and divide it by the 359,500 unionized public workers in Ohio (a figure that came from an editorial in the Columbus Dispatch), you get $22,253.13. IMHO, There is no way that this bill can come anywhere close to that amount of governmental savings. There has to be a different agenda focus for this bill.

As for the working people who oppose the protestors who are fighting for the rights to keep working for positive working conditions changes that have spilled over into the private sector over the years, it reminds me of the quotation by Martin Niemöller in Germany after WWII.

"When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out."

The public employes are the first target. Who will be next? Who will be there to speak out?

[EarthBound?]

With all this being sais and done, isn't Ohio still a (Work at Will State), and not a state with the (Right to Work Law)? Just wondering and I'm really no for , nor am I against the SB5, I just like to look at things from both sides. Even though I'm a fan for the unions they pay out huge bonus's after their sorry cans were bailed out with our tax dallors.