Now that SB 5 has been signed into law... (Union, Republic: unemployment, public school)

[buzzards27]

Originally Posted by davery5872

I agree with your statement, but how do you implement it? How do you evaluate "positive influence"?

exactly, who and how is that done. When someone on the right decides do they give a teacher low marks for having their students watch Obama's message to school kids or for teaching evolution? Does someone on the left give low marks for a teacher mentioning "intelligent design"? It becomes a political football each party uses to drive their social agenda.

Seems like a subjective term. And that is the problem with merit pay. It's either subjective or objective. Subjective would be a much better evaluation process, but the problem is the criteria. In theory, a subjectiveive evaluation of teachers would be more inclusive. It could include areas such as parental involvement, extra duties or responsibilities, etc. Objective evaluations generally mean one thing - student testing. Basing a teacher's evaluation on student test scores is incomplete, at best and may promote dishonesty, at worst. But one thing it does do is give you a very clear and simple evaluation, from an administrator's perspective. And has been pointed out before basing a teacher's evaluation on test scores does present other issues. What about schools in low income areas? What about a teacher that is assigned low scoring students? What about special needs teachers? What about teachers that teacher subjects that do not have standardized tests? If you included standardized tests in evaluations, then you must have a test for every course a teacher will teach. Band, woodshop, P.E., AP calculus, etc. Think of the classes that are taught in HS. They would all have to have a standardized test.

On side note, I read in the Columbus paper that included in Kasich's budget is a provision to pay teachers $50 for each student that reaches average yearly progress in their class. Think about this. First of all, there is currently no way to evaluate AYP in every course that a teacher has. Secondly, how is this fair to elementary teachers? They have at most 30 students, compared to HS teachers that may have 120 a week. Or how about music and P.E. teachers who have as many as 600 students a week. Do they all get $50 for every student that reaches AYP? An elementary P.E. teacher could get a bonus of $30K. If we are in such a budget shortfall, where is this money coming from?

[Droolrockworm]

I think the long and short of this is that teachers are not in anyway overcompensated for the work and impact of their efforts on Ohio children's behalf. This is a red herring created by the governors office to push his massive tax breaks for the wealthy and blame it on the honest public sector workers and people are buying into it because of the budget shortfall and god knows people are chomping at the bit for someone to blame. Once the public sector unions are broken the financing of further tax breaks will have to come from somewhere else. Case in point the lottery was meant to help fund Ohio's schools but all they did was a bait and switch and took money already allocated towards education and replaced it with lottery money...where did the money was going to schools go? I'm guessing tax abatements for GE, GM and other too big to lose companies. At what point are the people of Ohio going to realize that CEOs are pocketing their profits while laying people off and cutting benifits to their retirees all while asking the people of Ohio to endure schools that are falling apart, roads and bridges that are subpar and it is our taxes and levies that are being placed on the ballot while they have no obligation to pay them. It's time to tke OUR state back from the wealthy special interests that are behind the recession and benifitting from it at the same time.

[davery5872]

Originally Posted by Droolrockworm

I think the long and short of this is that teachers are not in anyway overcompensated for the work and impact of their efforts on Ohio children's behalf. This is a red herring created by the governors office to push his massive tax breaks for the wealthy and blame it on the honest public sector workers and people are buying into it because of the budget shortfall and god knows people are chomping at the bit for someone to blame. Once the public sector unions are broken the financing of further tax breaks will have to come from somewhere else. Case in point the lottery was meant to help fund Ohio's schools but all they did was a bait and switch and took money already allocated towards education and replaced it with lottery money...where did the money was going to schools go? I'm guessing tax abatements for GE, GM and other too big to lose companies. At what point are the people of Ohio going to realize that CEOs are pocketing their profits while laying people off and cutting benifits to their retirees all while asking the people of Ohio to endure schools that are falling apart, roads and bridges that are subpar and it is our taxes and levies that are being placed on the ballot while they have no obligation to pay them. It's time to tke OUR state back from the wealthy special interests that are behind the recession and benifitting from it at the same time.

The point about the lottery is something most people do not understand. The money from the lottery does, in fact, go towards education. Well, at least once they skim some off the top for "operating costs". What people do not know is the money that comes from the general fund gets reduced by the exact amount of the lottery money. So education does not get any additional money, it just comes from the lottery instead of the general fund.

[buzzards27]

Kasich isn't satisfied with slashing the school districts budgets. He is advocating that voters should vote against any new school levies caused by his budget cuts. Apparently, Kasich would rather see mass layoffs and pay cuts than voters approving funds to fill the gaps he created. is he still sore that the teachers' unions campaigned against him? Is this getting personal, like his dislike of the police because of that ticket from that "idiot" trooper?

Ohio school officials have warned --if proposed cuts to education funding become reality, voters across the state will face a lot of ballot issues, seeking increases in local taxes. But as Ohio Public Radio's Bill Cohen reports, Gov. John Kasich is saying those tax levies should be unnecessary, and if they do pop up, voters should vote them down.

WKSU News: Gov. advocates "no" votes on local school levies

[Crew Chief]

Correct me if I'm wrong; isn't the Governor of Ohio elected to serve the people? Not the other way around...

[davery5872]

Originally Posted by buzzards27

Kasich isn't satisfied with slashing the school districts budgets. He is advocating that voters should vote against any new school levies caused by his budget cuts. Apparently, Kasich would rather see mass layoffs and pay cuts than voters approving funds to fill the gaps he created. is he still sore that the teachers' unions campaigned against him? Is this getting personal, like his dislike of the police because of that ticket from that "idiot" trooper?

WKSU News: Gov. advocates "no" votes on local school levies

If you didn't know better, you would think he was trying to shut down public education in Ohio.

[buzzards27]

we have a county commissioner here in Medina County that has been doing the same thing with our local county home. she has been trying to defund and close it for years. she has worked it so that we have to hold a operating levy campaign every five years... There are some that say she even uses public funds and resources in the campaigns.

this Medina County Home Levy renewal will be on the ballot this fall. of courage, EVERY cities, township, library and school district will likely have levies on the ballot right because of Kasich's funding cuts. you think there might be a lot of levies going down to defeat this fall??? sadly, Medina County will likely loose their county home because of this wave of levies. It will just be another unintended consequences of Kasish policies, a footnote in the hundreds of other similar stories across the state. About 55 people will loose their home and another 20 jobs quietly be lost to this creep.

Originally Posted by davery5872

If you didn't know better, you would think he was trying to shut down public education in Ohio.

[taxedtodeath]

Originally Posted by buzzards27

we have a county commissioner here in Medina County that has been doing the same thing with our local county home. she has been trying to defund and close it for years. she has worked it so that we have to hold a operating levy campaign every five years... There are some that say she even uses public funds and resources in the campaigns.

Does she hold an elected position?

[taxedtodeath]

Wow, even democrats are "waging war" on the public unions.

House votes to limit bargaining on health care - The Boston Globe

[davery5872]

Speaking of getting rid of public schools....

The new budget removes nearly all restrictions on for-profit charter schools and the companies that manage them in Ohio. It gets rid of financial oversight and transparency from for-profit charters.

Why is this happening?

David Brennan, who owns White Hat Management, has contributed to many state Repubs. White Hat Management operates dozens of charter schools in Ohio.

Brennan and his family gave over $431K to Ohio Repub in the last election. Including
$46,681 John Kasich, Governor
$83,000 William Batchelder, Speaker of the Ohio House
$52,700 Tom Niehaus, President of the Ohio Senate
$47,500 Ron Amstutz, Charman of the Finance Committee

Keep in mind that only 21% of charter schools rate effective or better on the state report card.