Category: National Debt

The Guts to be BOLD: The Option of School Choice

It was bitter cold as I gazed across the windswept snowy tundra of several suburban Mason yards to the towering mass of the Big One’s radio tower looming in the distance. The evening sun preparing to drop over the horizon at only 5 pm lit the tower in a majestic way. It made me wonder if Doc Thompson of 700 WLW would actually show up at the School Choice event culminating School Choice Week at the Liberty Bible Academy. He said he would, and announced the event over the station’s 50,000 watts, so my hopes were high.

“Is this a religious event?” My wife asked me as we stepped up to knock on the door to Jennifer Miller’s house. Jennifer is a former Mason School Board member and firebrand for School Choice. She was hosting a dinner for the “key” people in Southern Ohio behind education reform and she wanted me to personally meet Jeff Reed, who was the featured speaker at the event that started at 7 pm.

“Why, because it’s being held at a bible academy?” I knew what she was thinking. “No. But people firm in religion tend to be support choices in education, so that’s probably why the academy is donating the space for the event. “

Our conversation didn’t have time to advance as the small frame of Jennifer greeted us with an open door. Jennifer is a “small” woman, but she had a reputation for being very “LOUD” when she set her mind to a fight.

She led my wife and me to the dinner table and a reunion with Sharon Poe and her husband. Sharon led the anti-Mason Levy effort and worked closely with me while I did the same for Lakota. Sandra Tugrul was putting bread from the lasagna dinner on her husband Yil’s plate as she enthusiastically said hello to me. Sandy is a former Board of Education member for Lakota and is very active in education reform. She along with Jennifer had realized long ago that the system was irreparably broken, and School Choice was the best option on the horizon. The two of them were the architects of tonight’s event. As Jennifer took a seat placing a bowl of salad in the center of the table, Vicky Roarke, a former teacher helped her out from her seat at the head of the table.

My wife, Wendy sat down next to Doug, Jennifer’s husband, a man we had come to know already and I sat down directly across from Jeff Reed who was speaking so rapidly that he held the same piece of lasagna on his fork for exactly 7 minutes. “Good to meet you, I’ve heard a lot,” he said taking my hand. “Glad to see so many people around here taking an active position on this. It’s a great program. Jeb Bush has made great strides in Florida…….the teachers union tried everything they could to defeat him…..Indiana is moving in this direction…..and Ohio is further along than you might think……….” He went on like that until we reminded him to eat his food. His passion was evident!

“How many states are doing this,” I asked. I first heard about School Choice from Jennifer only a few months back as I was looking for options. My role in defeating the Lakota Levy with the NoLakotaLevy Group was noted, but I felt responsible to offer a solution to the district instead of just saying “No” to school levies.

Jeff gobbled up a few more bites of his food then said, “I’m glad you asked that! So far, Arizona, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Now they’re not what our goal is which 100% eligibility for every student in those states. Right now for instance, Ohio only has 3% eligibility, but it’s a start.”

My wife and I looked surprised at each other, and then I said to Jeff, “I’m surprised that I haven’t heard of this before.”

Jeff was still a young man with a well-groomed beard not yet 40, and fit looking. He smiled knowingly. “You probably wouldn’t. People are still attached to brick and mortar schools. And teachers unions have spent a lot of money to paint school vouchers in a bad way. For them, it’s protective business. School Choice brings competition to education, and that is something they don’t want.”

From that moment I liked Jeff Reed, he was speaking my language.

But Jeff wasn’t done. “Albert Shanker, who founded the teachers union, said it best regarding the union philosophy regarding education, ‘when school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren.’ That is the behavior that we are all dealing with, and why they hate school vouchers.”

Jeff was reflecting an opinion that I had formulated during the Lakota Levy campaign which is modern education is basically being run like a flashy casino in Vegas. When you go to Vegas, or any casino for that matter, they use flashy lights, alcohol, sexy imagery, and exotic buffets to draw human beings like insects to a trap. The goal of the casino is to get you to spend money so the house makes money. They’re not in the business of giving away money, even though they sell their service that way. Brick and mortar schools use sports, local patriotism, luxurious accommodations, and convenience of transportation to get local residents “addicted” to their services. I’ve met many people who display addictive behavior toward alcohol, and gambling, and the look of a parent that has built their professional lives around their children’s schedule at school, and the promise of sports scholarships as a kind of “jackpot” is the same basic human frailty.

“So is School Choice just another name for school vouchers?” my wife asked.

Jeff took a few more bites and wanted to answer, but Jennifer did it for him. “No, not at all, school choice can be that of course, but the money comes from the state and goes directly to the parent for homeschooling, which has grown from 15,000 students in 1970 to over 1.5 million now, the money can go to virtual schools of online schooling, it can go to charter schools, or it can go to your public school. The key is that if the parent has options, it will force all schools to do like all businesses do and that’s be competitive, and that will bring responsibility to what education costs.”

Then Sandy chimed in, “and that’s how we can break up these monopolies that the unions have over public education. It’s just not fair to the students, and it’s really not fair to the parents to have to endure the outrageous costs of maintaining these monopolies.”

Sharon had been pretty quiet listening attentively, “the cost in Mason per pupil is now almost $10,000. And most of the cost of that is tied up in salaries and that’s what’s driving up the cost and forcing these levies.“

“Because they have monopoly statues that is protected by government.” I added.

Jeff finished chewing quickly so he could answer me, “exactly, do you know that schools in New Jersey are spending over $15,000 per student! And they aren’t getting any better results with those students than schools in say, Alabama, or Mississippi which are among the lowest per pupil.”

Sandy looked passionate, “That’s why Chris Christie is fighting the unions there so aggressively. I can say from experience that the unions put their own interests first and that’s what is driving up these school budgets so aggressively.”

Up till this point Vicky, the former teacher, at the head of the table had been quiet. “Back when I was a teacher, when a levy was passed, we saw money. That was the talk in the teacher’s lounge and that was our primary worry, it was about the pay day.”

I looked at her, “how did you end up with this group?”

She looked back at me with sincerity. “I want to help make it right.”

Jeff was all smiles, “may I say that I LOVE THIS GROUP. Man, I wish everyone had this much enthusiasm.”

I looked at my wife, then at Sharon, Jennifer, Sandy, then at Jeff. “We’re very serious about this. Something is going to be done and that seed is planted here in Southern Ohio. We’re here to fight and move forward.“

The conversation went on for another hour going into more detail over those same topics, much of it revealed in Jeff’s speech at the Academy which you can see below.

As 7 pm approached we left Jennifer’s house and headed over to the Liberty Bible Academy where Sharon, Vicky and Jennifer had to get everything set up. I had to find a good spot to set up the camera, whether or not to use a tripod, and figure out how to get good sound to my camera. I elected not to use a tripod because the room filled quickly with over 60 people and I wanted the freedom to move the camera around for different angles. This gave me some rough video moments, but the effort was worth it in the end.

At just before 7 pm I met Doc Thompson out in the lobby. I was glad to see him, a guy of his reputation and talent could have done half a million things on a cold Thursday night on the last of January. I recognized his tall, lanky form instantly and grabbed his hand to shake it.

“Hey, good to see you. “

“Is this the place? I just had dinner at Bravo’s right over there recently,” Doc’s voice boomed. His voice was magnificent, belonging on the radio which is theater of the mind.

“Yes, you’re at the right place. This is Sharon who was on with you yesterday, and this little woman here is Jennifer who was on with you on Monday, the day you had on Kyle Olson of School Choice.”

Doc took their hands and was genuinely happy to meet them. He stood what looked like well over 6’,3” and towered over Jennifer. After his greeting he returned to me. “So, is this it in here,” looking into the crowded room behind us.

“Yeah, I think we’re about to get started.”

“Yeah, yeah, OK.” His long legs took him to the front where Jeff Reed sat, who had been on his show the day before as well. Doc took Jeff’s hand and shook it sincerely. I noticed shaking hands and looking people in the eye was important to Doc, which is an admirable trait. He took a seat in the front so he could be engaged with the speakers. I found I respected Doc even more than I had before. He had just completed a 12 hour day working between 700 WLW in Cincinnati, and WRVA in Richmond Virginia. And here he was as promised looking at education options like the rest of us. He was far more than just another “radio shock jock.” He cared about the issues he covered on the radio.

People fluttered in and took their seats as Jeff took the podium and gave his speech.

Pete Beck was the next speaker. Pete was mayor of Mason from 2007 to 2009 where he became a member of the Ohio House representing the 67th house district of Warren County. Pete before that was a member of Mason City Council from 1995 to 2007.

Contact Pete here:
http://www.house.state.oh.us/index.php?option=com_displaymembers&task=detail&district=67

The next speaker was Bill Coley, whom I know because he represents me in Butler County. Bill did a good thing under the Strickland Administration. He managed to put Ohio on the doorstep to “true innovation” with digital technological learning. Under his plan, School Choice would be the ideal option to capitalize on the Ohio Revised Code that he’s already established, which is signed into law. In addition to being a Representative for the house 55th District he is an inaugural member with Governor Jeb Bush of the Digital Learning Council.

Here is the website Bill referred to.
http://www.oln.org/
Contact Bill here:
http://www.house.state.oh.us/index.php?option=com_displaymembers&task=detail&district=55

After the speakers there was a passionate Q & A session that went on for a couple of hours. The part that dealt with the Little Miami District I made into a section of its own, because the discussion was so constructive. But I put a good portion of that Q & A session here.

In this clip, Bill Coley is addressing State Senator Cates of District 4 who was in the back of the room sitting with my wife.

At the end, we all shook hands and went home. The event had the feeling of the “start” of something much larger. Doc spoke to Coley about putting him on his Richmond Radio show because this was the first Doc had heard about a digital learning bill that actually passed a state house anywhere and had a governor’s signature on it!

What I learned was this, that the money that the state would typically give the school district would go to the parent of the child instead, which sounds like a good idea. As far as who collects the property tax and where it goes is still something that will have to be debated in the state house. As discussed, the current method of collecting property tax was found unconstitutional. Currently the state of Ohio is spending about $4,100 on 13,000 students for a voucher program over 273 different schools. The program started in 2005 and began operation in 2006 and has increased steadily since then. That gives an idea how new the program is. The School Choice program would work much the same way. An amount of money determined by the state would go to the parent and depending on what school the parent wanted their child to go to, they’d cover the rest on their own. Either the parent would not pay the addition property tax and could afford to cover the difference in cost, or the property tax money would go into a savings account similar to the Flex accounts available in the insurance industry.

The reason School Choice as an option is important is the trend is for the cost of educating students in Ohio is hovering around $9,000 per student, communities all across the state must find a way to get those costs down, and only competition can do that.

About 6 months ago when my daughter went to the studio of WLW with me to photograph the experience for promotional reasons we had a long talk while driving there. She doesn’t live with me any longer, but we’ve always been really close, and father, daughter talks are hard to come by without spouses and other people always around. “Quality time” is something that is rare when kids grow up and move away. So we made my trip to The Big One studio a fun, father daughter day, which is why staring at that tower on the way to Jennifer’s house held so much reverence for me.

“Dad, don’t take this wrong,” as we pulled into the parking garage at The Death Star, where all the Clear Channel Stations are located. Scott Sloan was promoting my visit as we hit the garage and my daughter thought I was getting in over my head a bit. “You’re kind of a fist fight in the parking lot kind of guy. Why are you suddenly interested in school reform? I mean, you wear a cowboy hat, and you hate politics.”

I parked the car and we sat there a moment in silence. “Because it’s the right thing to do. I see that these unions are controlling the school districts and it’s bankrupting the community. I’ve worked around unions all my life. I’ve seen them destroy companies, and people making their minds lazy because through collective bargaining people forget how to fight for anything, even knowledge. I see kids your age looking blank and passionless, and I see senior citizens scared that property tax increases will push them out of their homes since they’re on a fixed income. I see parents addicted to the services schools provide with glee, that behaving like education is a right that must be provided to them, because their “drug pushers” have convinced them they’re entitled to a type of collectivism more at home in communist theory than in the guts of what America was built on, and it’s time to fight the drug pushers.”

My daughter made a face. “You’re not going to say that on the air are you, sounds a bit extreme?”

“No, I’ll calm down before I say anything stupid, but between you and me, the kind of extortion these people are doing is worse than what the mob bosses in Las Vegas have been guilty of doing. These people use the children of our community to gain for themselves a level of selfishness that is evil, because they’d be willing to hurt countless families to secure their own livelihoods. And it has to stop somewhere. So we’re going up to the Scott Sloan show and we’re going to tell 500,000 people what the real problem is. And we’ll let the people figure out for themselves what to do. I’m only going to make them aware of what’s really behind the curtain.

And that’s what we did, and that fight is just getting started.

Back when I was in school, there weren’t any alternatives, because technology was evolving. But the guy that made Star Wars was using a lot of the money he made off those films to change the way kids learn much to my admiration.

A lot of people don’t know it, but George Lucas has been out in front of this whole issue for over twenty years. He founded a company called Lucas Learning which would be an ideal program for Bill Coley’s new legislation in Ohio.

Check out the website here http://www.lucaslearning.com/

Lucas has always been committed to helping improve education. Education was his primary reason for producing the very good Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, which used a very popular character to teach his viewers a bit about history at the turn of the century.

George Lucas has done great things with his success and I learned to dare to think “outside” the education box by watching his work at Lucas Learning, and seeing the experiments he embarked on in popular forms of entertainment. I consider that Young Indy series to be a “pinnacle work.” Lucas’s method worked for me, and I used it on my own kids, and like I said, they spent their senior year’s touring Europe. If you want to do something great with your kids watch those films on DVD. They were released on DVD a few years ago and come with hundreds of hours of documentaries that were purchased by the History Channel. The work was for education to be taught in a fun way. The TV show was created as the computer industry was coming to its own, so it represents Lucas’s attempt to trying something different with the way kids learn.

But now that the computer is here to stay, education under the research started at places like Lucas Learning can greatly enhance our children’s lives. George is now involved in a company called Edutopia. Check it out:



When I finished my spot on WLW that day, my daughter and I went to the Kenwood Mall and had a Smoothie, just the two of us. She told me she was proud that I restrained my anger. She knew what I was talking about when I spoke about the thug mentality of teachers unions. She had spent thousands and thousands of hours watching movies that I showed her and her sister over the years, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles being most prominent and memorable among them. My wife and I had homeschooled our kids for a bit, and both kids finished their high school years online. So as a family we have experience in this issue and know what works and what doesn’t. My kids watched me and decided to push themselves into a lifelong education, not just a goal based education to secure employment.

Throwing money at public education just to meet the status quo isn’t the right thing to do. It doesn’t have any merit to me if a school has an “excellent” rating or not. Because the rating system comes from the same people that push the confusing and expensive legislation which are incentivized to support the whole current system that is producing mediocre results. If that’s what society wants, that’s fine with me. But I’m not going to endorse spending over $10,000 per kid to have it.

If mediocre results are what everyone wants, then I want a 50% reduction in cost.

Or we can embrace a program like School Choice to use competition to change the system not only for ourselves, but for the betterment of our children. If you still want your kids to go to Lakota, Mason, Little Miami, or wherever, that’s fine. But if those schools don’t give you good customer service, you could leave. And the threat of that will keep their costs in line.

It’s up to you. I have let you into my little circle of friends here, and introduced you to good people that have been working on education reform for decades. All you have to do is support their work and let them know you want options.

Let your state representatives know you want changes and will have their back if they extend themselves to the teeth of teachers unions and other lobbyist that will attempt to make life difficult for them. Let them know that you’re there for them with an email, or a letter. But before you do any of that have the courage in yourself to be “BOLD.”

Victory goes to those “Bold” enough to demand action. And our kids deserve to have “bold” members of the communities they are growing up in to give them better than a mediocre existence.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The Little Miami School District: Standing at the gates of Change

The threats of dissolving the Little Miami School District are interesting. After all, what is a community supposed to do with a district that has refused to pass a tax increase eight consecutive times? Who in their right mind could afford to absorb the students of the district, because all school districts around Little Miami are in budget trouble too?

Lebanon, one of the closest districts, is facing another levy attempt of their own. Mason, also close by doesn’t have the money. They just made major cuts, and are flirting with another levy attempt also. Loveland has already said they can’t afford the students from Little Miami. So the threat is an empty one at the end of the day. It comes from clueless state officials that haven’t had to deal with this issue before. Nobody taught them what to do if a community refuses after all the extortion tactics of pay-for-play sports, busing cuts, and token lay-offs occur. After the perceived manipulation of disastrous property values are dealt with, and a community still says, “NO!” what is the next step?

I was at a School Choice event, which I’ll cover in greater detail, when the Little Miami issue came up with School Choice Representative, Jeff Reed, State Congressional Representative Pete Beck, State Congressional Representative Bill Coley, along with State Senator Gates who all engaged in a lively debate with the audience about the issue of dissolution. Watch it here:

What is the real crisis? Its wages and collective bargaining agreements that have shackled the school district and made the financial situation unreasonable to the tax payers and the residents have had enough. The voters have endured the beat downs and manipulation and held tight against the extortion. This last threat of dissolution is just what it is, a threat. There is no place for those kids to go without collapsing the neighboring districts.

And the fault is in the expectations negotiated behind the back of communities enduring monstrous wages and benefits, along with the power of collective bargaining making the legislative process a nightmare for state representatives. The fault of this situation is clearly on the backs of all who participated in the reckless spending of the district’s money. And when that money ran out, which nobody was prepared to deal with, the clueless minds behind the heist must take responsibility for their pillage of the community’s assets. And a school belongs to the community, not the unions.

The first step to fixing this whole problem is what was discussed in the above video, the State of Ohio needs collective bargaining reform, and it needs it now.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Lakota is Blind to the Coming Change: No Levy in May, but soon.

At first I was ready to praise the Lakota School Board when they made the announcement that they were going to wait and look at the numbers from the state budget before placing the next levy attempt on a ballot. Until Mike Taylor commented, “Lakota needs new revenue, there’s no question about it. That need has not diminished, but no matter when a levy is passed, May, August, or November, funds would not be collected until 2012.”

What??????

What is the plan if Lakota doesn’t get another revenue stream, because the community hasn’t shown that it wants to add to their tax burden of $11 dollars per $1000 evaluation. Any more than that would actually be detrimental to home values of the community because people won’t move here in droves for a good school if they can’t afford the property tax. The school system needs to look hard at itself and figure out how it can survive on a $155 million dollar budget.

What will happen to the revenue stream if people decide they can’t live in the district because the taxes are too high, and they leave, collapsing the housing market? It’s happened in cities, it could happen to West Chester, and Liberty Twp. If the tax base left, where would the revenue stream come from? Another levy on top of the one they intend to pass sometime in 2011?

These are questions the arrogant school administrators just aren’t willing to look at. And I say arrogant because there are still comments to the effect that schools going well into the future will still be Zip Code oriented. Such a position is a refusal to look at the facts of what’s to come. In fact, the whole concept of public education has become less about reading, writing and arithmetic, but more of “social justice.”

That guy is out of his mind, but if you talk to most people who head up public education, especially union leaders, they think the same way. They just want to give children a good life. But they do so at the expense of individuality, and that costs money. A lot of money. What happens if parents don’t want their children’s individuality educated out of them into some collective ant colony that is perpetuated by public education? It’s a question that comes up by many parents that are deeply religious, or parents that take an active interest in their children’s lives.

Many moons ago, my wife and I home-schooled our children for about a year, I had to pay for the cost of educating them, and I still had to pay the property tax to the local school district, which I shouldn’t have had to do. Now it was important to us that the kids were home-schooled, because I felt the school system was holding them back, and we didn’t want our kids to feel that wall in front of them. I wanted my kids to want an exceptional life. Not just some silly life tossed into a big pot with everybody else like discussed in the above video. So we took the wall away, much to the opposition of friends and family. They just didn’t understand why we’d do such a thing. After all, wasn’t the school experience going to football games on a Friday night? Wasn’t it having a school jacket, a sense of belonging to a group identity?  (check out what Bill Ayers says at that link, 4th video down) Wasn’t part of the school experience graduating with your class mates and tossing your hat into the air? Isn’t it all about school year books and other social aspects of the education process, because that’s what people told my wife and I when we were home-schooling our kids. They really didn’t understand our whole reluctance to the “social justice” concern.

I accomplished pretty much what I wanted after a year, and we re-enrolled our kids into Lakota. My kids had friends in school, but many of them have since fallen away now that they are all grown. Anymore, if they don’t speak to people on Facebook, they don’t care to maintain friendships with the kids they went to school with. Out of all the members of our family, only I graduated with my class-mates, and to be honest, I thought the whole experience was a waste of time. My wife graduated early, even though she was an honor roll student. And both my kids did the same, graduating a whole year early, finishing their senior years with online courses. To this day, my wife expresses no regrets about missing her graduation ceremonies; she and I went to dinner at The Golden Chain Restaurant as a married couple while her classmates were running around like idiots on their graduation night. We had fun in a way many of those people couldn’t even imagine at the time. Both of my children had similar experiences exploring Europe while the kids they went to school with were opening graduation presents and trying to figure out what party to go to that night. My kids find school pride sentiments to be trivial, and rather childish.

The reason I support alternative education methods is because I’ve seen the benefit. And obviously I have no sentimental value to those other social aspects of the school experience. Because of that, I don’t see why anyone would value any of those things. If you want to have friends, talk to them on Facebook, or Xbox. Why do you have to have relationships established in the halls of a school building? In the age we live in, it really doesn’t make any sense any more.

So why is there so much focus on a “revenue stream?” And why does Lakota have to increase it?

What happens to Lakota’s revenue stream if the money they get from the state doesn’t just go to the district but to the student, for the parents to use any way they see fit. Because a group I’m involved with, School Choice is about just that very issue. That’s the article I wrote that had all the giant sand castles only to have them wash away in the ocean. That’s really an appropriate metaphor for the situation. Most school systems are just elaborate sand castles that communities have grown attached to out of sentiment, and they are willing to spend infinite amounts of money to fight back the encroaching waves.

What’s going to happen as more and more people move into the country working from their home computers and aren’t needed in a centralized building as is currently required. Or because of the efficiency of cars and other transportation devices that are emerging, people move further away out of the districts. What’s going to happen to the revenue at schools like Lakota when that happens?

If we look at the sentimental avenue of education being all about the “experience” of school, so it’s football games, class-rings, and school jackets, then paying extraordinary amounts of money to educating children is something to entertain. But increasingly, the world we live in is becoming less centralized, and people will want the options of that freedom. Sentimentality has a terrible cost, and these days, fewer people are willing to pay it. I’m certainly not alone in my lack of sentiment.

I’m strictly a performance based individual. I expect an education that continues throughout life, and doesn’t just end at grade 12, or even college. My experience with college is that people are putting their lives on hold to fulfill the dreams and market sentiment of the baby boomer generation that swallowed whole the pill of a college degree will be a cure-all and is a life-time of security. We’re learning now that’s not the case. I’ve had to give job interviews to grown adults with 4 to 6 year degrees trying to get a job paying ten to twelve dollars an hour, and wanting the job badly. The world that was promised to those recipients of degrees isn’t there. It is for some, but more and more, people are discovering that they are terribly in debt after their college experience, because the tuition is just too expensive for what you get, and the jobs available in the marketplace are not paying the type of wages that will allow those people to pay off their debts.

According though to the Lakota School Board, they seem to think everything will always be as it has been, and that’s not very forward-looking. To survive, they need to look hard at their expenses and not only consider a loss of revenue because of the next failed levy, but also the loss of revenue from parents that take their money from the state and use it on a program like School Choice. The only real hindrance to School Choice has been the union lobby in Columbus, and given the inefficiency in schools and the continuing increase per pupil of the cost of education, and the continuing problem of our state funding structure being unconstitutional, the new Governor could go a long way to solving all those problems by using School Choice to create competition and using that competition to drive down the cost of education per pupil. Think about it, $10K per kid is out of control. The state funding issue can never be addressed when the cost per pupil is that high. Changes to that perception have to be implemented now.

That’s what’s coming, and why comments like the Lakota School System will need further revenue streams, are arrogant. Lakota needs to prepare for less revenue streams, not more. To assume that education is so central to the community, not just the parents that enjoy watching their kids play sports, but the entire community, is audacious, and short-sighted.

Innovation and the embrace of technology will bring down the cost of education in the future. It will start first with parents that take an active role in their children’s education, which will put pressure on parents that are basically using the schools as a day care facility, or possible scholarship generator, clinging to the education methods that have been in place since frontiersman settled the North American Continent is expensive, archaic, and will be phased out soon. The schools that survive will be the ones that adapt to those changing circumstances. The ones that stand in the way will find themselves on the outside looking in.

If I ran the LEA, I’d renegotiate that expensive contract quickly, before I became irrelevant. Just some friendly advice.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Bulldog and the Streetcar

Streetcar of no desire update:

Bulldog Nation did a very nice bit of reporting into the streetcar issues surrounding the planned project due for construction in downtown Cincinnati. It’s well worth watching.

For those of you that don’t know who the “Bulldog” is, he’s Eric Deters, local attorney and part-time WLW host. He’s a passionate guy that I enjoy quite a bit. If the world had more people like Eric, we wouldn’t have too many problems in the country.

American’s don’t always have to agree. But American’s do need to care in order for our republic to work, and no one can accuse The Bulldog of not caring.

Now, because he is passionate, and I can relate, he has plenty of enemies. So for those of you that are putting together the name Eric Deters to the recent Enquirer controversy, you have to understand the nature of politics. Bulldog has recently produced a fantastic video dealing with the U.S. Border issues in Arizona, and now he’s done this thing on the streetcar. So special interests are coming after him.

One of the great things about Eric is he’s not afraid to speak up though, and I’ll put up his defense of those allocations here, so any doubts that might come up which might detract from the great video on the streetcar issue, can be settled right now.


If Cincinnati doesn’t watch Eric’s video about the streetcar and step in to stop the whole thing before it’s too late, the city will pay dearly for years into the future.

Many of the same people who spoke out about the stadium deals in the 90’s are the same people warning about the streetcar now. How are the financial situations surrounding those stadiums today?

And 5 to 10 years down the road, the streetcar will be another drain on our local economy. But it won’t be because the information wasn’t given to the public beforehand. It’ll be because people sat on their hands and did nothing.

Besides, who wants to ride a trolley when better technology is on the way.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Yes Lakota is Misleading People: Painting over the dirt

Georgetta
voteyeslakota@aol.com
75.185.0.41
Submitted on 2011/01/20 at 11:14 pm
Evil prevails when good people do nothing. I am a good person and I am about good education. I am doing something: speaking out. Rich Hoffman is misleading people. Teachers teach children so they DON’T end up working themselves into an early grave and barely making payments on a lot in a trailer park. The good teachers will go elsewhere in order to make a living wage. Rich Hoffman raised children and his wife didn’t work. Apparently he is making too much money. Yet, I hear no one attacking him. Some of us have to have both parents work in order to put food on the table.

Georgetta here reflects many of the comments that I get from people who think just like her. The premise is this, that education is a right, they hide the actual numbers in the scribble of government bureaucracy, and if you show that you don’t support it, or if you even question their reasoning, they use “peer pressure” to shape the community to their will, just like kids on a playground. That’s the mentality. They end up sounding like children with their minds wrapped up in extreme assertions to make their points seem to carry more weight.

The first thing they do is attack you “the tax payer” and your ability to pay the increase in tax. They’ll say, “Public education was there for your children, but now that you don’t have children in the school, you don’t want to pay.” They do the same with business leaders, “We built the good schools and you provided the homes, and now you don’t want to pay.” What doesn’t get said is that as all this growth was going on, the LEA, the teachers union at Lakota, negotiated an aggressive contract in October of 2008 that was focused on wages and that contract is bankrupting the community because at the same time, indications were that state funding was on a decreasing trend. So the contract was irresponsible, and what is happening now, is the community is establishing the parameters of future contract negotiations, because we can’t trust school officials to do the job, otherwise it wouldn’t have gotten this far out of control.

These pro levy people will attempt to proclaim that nobody but them can look at the numbers and understand the situation. They sadly put out apologist groups to plead the case like what you will hear in the below interview. What they don’t want to discuss is why there is a financial crises. They simply discuss finance as if it were beyond their control. When listening to this interview ask these questions, if cutting only a million here, or there isn’t much because the numbers are so large, then why is it such a large savings that cutting busing to 9000 students will only save $600,000, then why cut busing? And how has Lakota done everything it can do before cutting busing. Did the LEA come to the bargaining table to renegotiate their contract? And how does the tax dollars stay in the district when the union spends the union dues on political candidates. One of the reasons the LEA wants its teachers to make so much is so that the teachers will want to pay their union dues without hardship. But nobody talks about any of that here. The sum of this discussion is that there isn’t an answer. These are nice parents that just want the system to work long enough for their children to get an education. Nobody wants to play the hot potato game when the music stops, and the music is stopping. All they can really do in an interview like this is paint over the dirt.

All businesses whether they are service oriented or manufacturing oriented have a responsibility to keep their costs in line. One way that businesses do that is to use the 10-80-10 rule as it’s applied to labor. That rule states that 10% of your workforce will be your typical “top” performers, and they will get the most dramatic increases, 4% to 15% depending on the situation. 80% of your workers are average, and will typically get a standard 2% to 3% increase, otherwise considered a “cost of living” increase. And of course every place of business has approximately 10% that are poor performers and they won’t get an increase of any kind. Why? Because those bottom 10% you want to look for another job, and you want them to leave so you don’t have to pay them. It gives you a chance to hire somebody that might want to compete for the top 10% percentile. If you manage things correctly, your bottom 10% are the kind of people that your competition is hiring at the middle 80%, and you want that so you can maintain a competitive edge.

What you don’t do is uniformly advance everyone in your place of business with some socialist “everybody is equal” policy like what we have in school systems, and unions advocate. That’s a disastrous concept and gives employees like Ryan Fahrenkemp time and the luxury of job security to participate in an evil deed like child pornography. I would argue from experience that if Ryan had to fear for his job, and didn’t feel comfortable hiding in the muddy 80%, he probably would have not indulged in his warped perversion while at school. He might have done it in hiding, or in his mother’s basement, but not with his students, and not with school equipment. And he certainly wouldn’t have been making 70K at only age 42 no matter how much experience he had with the amount of tenure he’d accumulated in a relatively short time.

I used Fahrenkemp as an example because he belonged in the bottom 10% and somebody didn’t do their job in the review process of weeding him out. And that didn’t happen because he was protected by the complicated process created by the OEA which the president of the LEA had been a big part of, and knew how to manipulate the system to the advantage of her members.

So I’d say to you Yes Lakota people, who say that I am misleading people. Who is doing the misleading?

I’d say you are, by telling the tax payers that the budget just “grows” on its own. That the school system had no way to deal with people like Fahrenkemp, and that all teachers are worth over 62K, and if the community doesn’t pay it, those beloved teachers will leave the district for another one.

I would say any teacher that would leave Lakota is only in it for the money, and those are personalities that I would rate low on a review, and may be tempted to put them on the bottom 10% anyway, so for them to leave would be desirable.

All the Yes Lakota people have to argue with is emotion,
• “The money is for the kids.” No it’s not, if it was, the LEA wouldn’t have threatened to strike in 2008 to get more money, and again in the spring of 2010.
• “We have to offer top pay for top teachers or they will leave.” No they won’t because the other districts are broke too and are getting ready to go through the same process Lakota is.
• “We have to protect property values by voting for the schools.” No you don’t. If taxes keep increasing that will kill real estate values anyway, tax payers in the district already pay $11 per $1000 assessment on their property.
• “I’m for education.” No you’re not. If you were, you’d keep the budget under $160 million. Throwing money at something doesn’t mean you’re for education. It means you don’t value the source of the money but want what the money can buy.
• “We have had explosive growth and must adjust to it.” Growth, like budgets can be controlled. If the cost is too high, growth will slow down, and growth will slow down because of the economy. Growth will also slow down from parents wanting to go to Lakota who aren’t willing to pay for the extra things they want, too. One of the reasons Yes People want sports and extracurricular activities is so enrollment will increase, so parents looking for those items can move to the district and participate cheaply. It’s all about job creating and getting parents used to programs that the district tax payers fund collectively. No different from colleges with NCAA programs that are nationally known for their sports, will see increases in enrollment. It’s always about increased enrollment so money can be justified.
• “The state is forcing us to all-day kindergarten.” No, the OEA lobbied to get all-day kindergarten passed, and the Republicans in the state house are getting ready to eliminate that unfunded mandate along with many other mandates lacking funding. So that anticipated requirement will be taken away from district budgets.
• “We have to spend $50,000 dollars to get the best superintendent we can get.” No, you are throwing money at the situation like you do everything else. It’s that kind of mentality that locked us into the contract with the LEA that is causing the current financial crises. Money does not equal quality. It seldom does. Money can be used to create competition, but it is useless without competition. If money is not getting you dramatic results, it is simply killing your budget.
• “Paying for a school levy keeps your money in the community.” No it doesn’t. The union dues collected by school unions are directly applied to liberal politicians that further perpetuate the bureaucratic mess creating expensive economic necessity. The OEA had revenue of over $62 million dollars in 2008. Where did that money come from? They don’t make any products that they can sell? Check the info for yourself here. http://teachersunionexposed.com/state.cfm?state=OH All that money comes from union dues, paid from the salaries of teachers that are paid exceptionally well by the local tax payers. The average pay at Lakota for teachers is 62K per year. So the money doesn’t stay in the community.

Those are just some examples of how the Yes Lakota people are misleading the good people of the Lakota District. And they will continue to treat the voters like the fools they believe they are as long as it works.

Get ready for the next levy announcement for May. They’ll do it because they don’t know how to do anything else but ask for more money.

And you Yes Lakota people go ahead and leave your comments. I’ll post them, and I’ll use them. People need to see your thoughts. For those of you wanting to see some of them, read the comments here. I am quite aware that there are many people at many levels reading all the posts I’ve put up here and you’re looking for a way to spin it to your advantage. For an example, have a look at the work David Little from Progress Ohio attempted. I’m happy to fight your sloppy facts with the truth and if you want to spin the community around and make them so dizzy they can’t tell which way is up or down, I’ll continue to prevent it, as I have. And I’ll do it because I love my community, and I want to see education continue to be an option for families in the future. But it won’t be in a form controlled by organized labor. Those days are over.

Don’t believe me; read this from your parent union the OEA, this is how bad the financial situation is. Even the union staff is threatening to strike and the union itself is participating in union busting strategies.

The Ohio Education Association and Its Goose

The executives of the Ohio Education Association sent a memo informing local presidents that if the union gave in to striking staffers’ demands, it would require an $80 to $90 dues increase per member. Such an increase would raise roughly $10 million. That sounded familiar to me, so I checked the archives and found this, in the May 8, 2000 EIA Communiqué:
Ohio Education Association in Severe Financial Straits. The last time the Ohio Education Association negotiated a staff contract, in September 1997, it resulted in a two-week strike, restraining orders against picketers, and a lot of bad publicity. That contract expires this year and it’s bad financial news all around for OEA, its members, and the staff. OEA recently informed its local presidents that the union is facing a projected deficit of $6.3 million for next year. The union is asking staff to accept benefit cuts totaling $4 million. The rest of the deficit would be eliminated through a dues increase of up to $25 per member.

“Specifically, and regrettably, we can no longer afford to sustain the current number of OEA employees at their current level of compensation and benefits and continue to provide the expected level of services and programs without significantly raising OEA dues for you and every other member,” reads a memo from OEA President Mike Billirakis and Executive Director Robert Barkley.

Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.eiaonline.com/intercepts/2010/09/03/the-ohio-education-association-and-its-goose/

If our community is going to continue to be a “great” and “excellent” district, we have to get in front of this problem. Not avoid it by tossing more money at the problem. And the Yes Lakota people need to listen to the No Lakota People, because the solution is in good business strategy. The same tired old bullet points won’t be valid any longer. I’ll make sure of it.

Now, these video links exist elsewhere on this site, but I’ll put links here for your convenience. These are radio spots specifically dealing with education issues. Feel free to listen to the hours and hours of debate so you can form your own opinion about things. There are many radio personalities here, so the view points are varied. But the topics and discussions are fantastic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sIDwFW6tFA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxd5XO54o68
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPwhFbsTmww
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXEIUPRRxAQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r09fAoSAQhM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJETAE1iXw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAX20OsiIS0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHPjBY8UY98
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7f6iBfFxV0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDvFo_v24Y0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG9vYWHO6OM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RynERHb3jBU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU57EDXLxtw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhAeyuLovtk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoviASrmQBw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDW98mhSyPQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vtoC9QosaA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w9zXhNdw_M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrblE1gu4lU

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

China and the Cincinnati Bengals: Being tough, winning and losing.

When you talk to just about anybody about sports they are quick to declare what their favorite team should do in order to win. “Get rid of T.O. He costs too much and is a pain in the ass!” Or, “get rid of Chad, he runs his mouth too much, he’s too expensive and they can’t even win with him.” I am refereeing to a couple of players for the Cincinnati Bengals, and I hear comments to that effect all the time.

But speak to those same people about how to deal with Social Security, or Education, or any number of social programs, and people clam up and refuse to commit an opinion. I suppose that’s because the game under which politics is played is just too complicated for many of them, or they are taking something out of the systems in question, and lack the courage to assert an opinion.

And that’s the beauty of sports. Sports allow people to become arm-chair coaches because they don’t have anything invested in the team other than committing to an occasional game or a sport jersey. So they can be objective as to the possible problems with the team they’re watching.

People like Doc Thompson, and myself, can be objective about social issues, because we aren’t expecting government to do anything for us. I wrote off Social Security a long time ago, along with all the other entitlements that are floating around out there. So I particularly enjoyed Doc’s show on January 18, 2011 where he laid it on the line as to what the real problems are. Listen to that here.

Hey, he’s not exaggerating. The issue truly is whether or not the United States will stay on top of the heap in world affairs. We won’t do it complaining about silly issues as to whether or not Native American bones are returned to their graves, or whether or not the entire Constitution can be read because of our internal guilt over slavery. The rest of the world is not hindered by that type of restrictive guilt, and we have to compete with them economically.

My team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are not in the playoffs, but I am proud of how they played over the 2010 season. I watched how management approached the off-season last year and I believe they are on the march to winning ways going forward. But the team in my home town, the Cincinnati Bengals continue to be a bad team no matter how much money they spend.

Now you can go to any sports bar in America and even a drunken fool could tell you why the Bengals can’t win. And the same holds true for our county. Everybody knows how to fix the problems. But we won’t win if we don’t toughen up. It’s that simple.

What Doc talks about in that clip is a perfectly articulated synopsis of our counties problem. It sounds easy to hear him say it, but he has the luxury of seeing things clearly, because he doesn’t want anything from government. People like Thompson rely on themselves first to do most things, so the problems are easy to see.

So America, you better get tough quick. Because being tough is how you win.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Defend Ohio Rally in Columbus was Organized by Socialists

The shooting in Arizona is tragic. But at this time, the facts are still coming in, and there is other news going on at the same time that needs attention. One of those news stories is the impact of the man who structured the Defend Ohio rally up in Columbus to protest John Kasich’s position on organized labor is a Socialist!

Meet him here:

Doc Thompson had a great banter with a spokesman from Defend Ohio, a group I had never heard of because it was apparently formed just last weekend to attack John Kasich’s Administration before it could even get started. But the fellow came on WLW to discuss his position, and for that I give him credit. Listen to that conversation here:

If these people weren’t so dangerous, in trying to compete legitimately in the battlefield of ideas, I might just pat them on the head and encourage them to keep learning and trying. But, as I’ve discussed on this forum many times and in many ways, socialism, communism, progressivism, imperialism, and on and on, are infantile mutterings of the lazy, collective oriented that lack true courage, because they seek to hide their ambition behind a government entity that they wish to use as a bargaining chip.

I have news for those childish minds. The country was built on capitalist principles. Not socialist principles and unions. In fact, the growth of our nation has stopped since socialist started penetrating our political culture and used the aspects of American Culture we collectively feel guilty about, like slavery, like our treatment of women, and the handling of the poor, to manipulate the political spectrum in a way that has made the United States less competitive. For people who believe such things, their minds are like shallow streams and their recollections of American History are just as deep. American History may only be as deep as a mighty river, but there is much more under the surface that makes up the contents of the river. America is not just simple poor against rich, working man against the white-collar man, black against white, men against women, its swirls of all those things and a lot more to add. Such duality in thinking is only useful to small-minded souls that can’t see beyond their individual cages.

When I heard the interview above on Doc Thompson’s show, I thought the man from Defend Ohio was naive, but well-intentioned, and I had figured he just needed to think things through a lot deeper. But now I know after a little research, that the people behind this rally are socialists! No wonder they don’t like Kasich!

Before 2010, I thought communists and socialists in our American society was something that was attempted during the McCarthy era, and even then, I actually thought that McCarthy was far-reaching in his pursuit to weed out communists. I thought that because I believed what the media told me, that Joseph McCarthy was a right-winged-paranoid-do-gooder. I started to question the media when I saw that they used the same approach to attack Kenneth Star, when he investigated Bill Clinton. Star was just doing his job. Clinton had flat-out lied in federal court. It happened right in front of our faces, so that made me question the reporting of the socialists in the McCarthy hearings.

Now, the evidence is everywhere. Socialists have their own party. They try to put up candidates, they have infiltrated unions, newspapers, television, Hollywood, publishing. They are a legitimate competitor for political ideas and they have done it under the radar.

So now they have met at the capital of Ohio on January 8, 2011 to protest a Governor that is trying to bring capitalism oriented ideas back to a state to attempt to save that great state from the damage done by socialist that have infiltrated the political culture for decades. The difference between now, and when they originally started, is it’s out in the open who and what they are. And America has to make the decision about what they want to do about it.

It’s ok to be wrong. And socialist are out-of-their-minds wrong. But it’s not OK to wreck American Culture to pursue the infant diatribes of half-baked minds.

Now, to understand what is behind Defend Ohio, read this article. I put it up here so it doesn’t disappear after this rally turns out embarrassing for the organizers.

U.S. | Labor & Workers
SOCIALIST CANDIDATE’S BACKERS FOUND NEW ORGANIZATION TO FIGHT TO DEFEND OHIO JOBS AND SER
by Dan La Botz
Tuesday Dec 7th, 2010 8:33 AM
Ohio leftists create Defend Ohio campaign and launch Stop Kasich movement against new government’s radically anti-worker program

Supporters of the Dan La Botz, Socialist for Senate campaign of 2010 met in Columbus, Ohio over the weekend to found a new organization and launch a campaign to fight for jobs and public services in Ohio—and they pledged to resist the policies of Republic Governor-elect John Kasich. Dan La Botz was the Socialist Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in Ohio in November 2010 and received 25,000 votes.

The labor and movement activists from cities throughout Ohio created the Buckeye Socialist Network (there will soon be a BuckeyeSocialist.org website). The Network’s first campaign is called DEFEND OHIO and will focus on defending public employees’ jobs and public services.

“Governor Kasich has unleashed a class war in Ohio,” said Dan La Botz. “And we intend to fight back. Kasich’s inauguration is the ideal occasion for Ohio’s working people to protest in at the Capital in Columbus and to show the governor that he is going to face four years of fierce resistance by unions and social movements.

“Kasich,” said La Botz, “pledged to revoke the union organizing rights of home care and child care workers in Ohio. This is a vicious and despicable attack on the some of the state’s hardest working and lowest paid workers. And it is not so different from President Obama’s recent promise to freeze the wages of Federal employees. These attacks on public employees parallel the private employers drive for two-tier labor contracts intended to lower wages and they parallel attacks on social programs for low-income people in our society.

“We will be organizing working people to fight to defend public employees’ jobs, their wages, and their right to unionize. We will be fighting to defend all of the many services that these workers—teachers, social workers, water workers, garbage collectors, and so many others—provide. In doing so, we will be beginning the fight to rebuild the power of unions in Ohio.”

Union members from the Teamsters, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, American Federation of Government Employees, Communication Workers of America, and United Food and Commercial Workers were among those in attendance at the founding meeting of the Buckeye Socialist Network. Representatives from Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton/Yellow Springs, Canton, and New Philadelphia attended the half-day meeting.

…………………………………………….

Hey, you can’t make this stuff up. Progress Ohio has their name all over this. These “types” of people are in the minority, but because they are motivated radicals, they must be dealt with equal passion from those of us that think correctly. And yes, there is a correct way to think and an incorrect way to think. Individuality and the power of the individual are correct. Collectivism is wrong. It allows the worst of people to live in a state of mediocrity. This popular video of the New York Public worker wrecking a car on a snowy street is a perfect example of what you get when you allow people to live in that state of mediocrity. This is your typical union employee. And I say that from lots of experience.

Don’t ever ask me to pay for people like this with tax dollars.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

John Kasich and the Cusp of Renewal: A plan for solving Ohio’s Problems

Want to know what a politician should sound like; listen to this interview of John Kasich from Bill Cunningham of 700 WLW?

The Governor was very explicit in that interview that he does not intend to take a public job to get another public job. He mentioned a bill to prevent unions from being able to strike against public organizations and he spoke about balancing the budget and bring jobs back to Ohio by taking away the restrictions that drive business away.

All too often politicians stick their fingers to the wind and check public opinion before taking action. That is the problem. People like Kasich are successful without politics. He doesn’t need the small wage of what an Ohio Governor makes. It’s not important to him to see his name on the signs welcoming people to the state, because he’s in the job to do the job. Not to fill his ego.

Heads of companies tend to do the work of balancing the budget of companies without worrying about whether or not they make all the employees angry, because they are the boss. And a boss can’t get wrapped up in popularity. All that really matters is if the state remains financially stable so we can live our lives in the state, and it’s the governors job to make sure that happens.

If you’re the kind of person looking for the government to do something for you, then you won’t like Kasich, because you have misread the intention of government and have bought into the “great lie” of Progressives. But if you want government to get out of our way, so we can create jobs, live out our lives, and not have all the money that should go to savings going to a bunch of “air headed” progressive programs, it is with great relief to hear a governor on the edge of taking control of the state government, that professes the attitude that he’s here to do the job, not begin running for the next public office so he can get the benefits of inflated public entitlements.

That’s what you get when you put people who are independently successful in office, instead of some mindless parasites that are clueless as to how the world works!

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Desperate Cries Over Budget Collapse: A preview of what’s to come.

Coming to a budget meeting near you starting in 2011, complete chaos!

It was sadly humorous to listen to the Cincinnati City Council meeting in their vain attempts to arrive at a budget before the New Year. Cincinnati is running serious deficits and in spite of their desire to build a street car, because there isn’t enough money to pay for the current staff of police and fire department personnel. Tax increases to pay for extremely inflated public sector wages is not an option. That has been the type of band-aid fix that has always bailed out these types of problems in the past. But it is not going to fix the problem going forward.

Those two public sectors police and fire departments are essentially in the same boat as teachers. Too much money is tied up in personnel at too high of a cost per employee. And all across the nation public sector employees that are making over $70,000 a year on average are strangling the budgets of states to the point of bankruptcy.
The audio of this clip is particularly revealing about the nature of everyone involved.


The unions are refusing to see that they need to rethink their contracts. In the audio clip, the head of the police union is reacting violently to the facts presented by council and how much of the budget is taken up by her union. Just like teachers, they are all well-intentioned people who have become accustomed to a certain level of income. And the city council is ill-equipped to make the hard decisions needed. Just like school boards, and township trustees these local level political entities are not able to handle complicated problems. Public sector unions have had their way with these naive political bodies for such a long time that the budgets have bulged to these critical levels.

In 2011 I see that teachers are going to deal with this reality as well. Striking won’t help because there are too many job shortages, so teaching vacancies could quickly be filled with teachers that make far less than tenured teachers do. But it will be painful. During the Lakota Levy of 2010, a slight reduction in state funding caused a fiscal crisis at Lakota, because the step increase schedule was plotting the Lakota Budget on a perilous collision course. In 2011, that same step increase schedule is in place, but under the Kasich administration, public education funding may decrease another 15 to 20%. And local communities will not cover that large discrepancy with tax levies, because it doesn’t fix the problem and is a completely unreasonable cost to communities. It only buys a little more time for the tenured teachers to hopefully get to their own retirements while their pensions and wage rates are still intact. That is the desperation you hear from the head of the Police Union, it’s the realization that life as they have always believed it, is coming to an end. And that desperation is only a preview of the neurotic fits that public education employees will soon reveal.

It’s not that I don’t have sympathy. But remember that public employees chose their professions, and the time that’s coming will be bad for all people who work in public sector work. However, those of us that have stayed in the private sector, which pays less because competition sets the costs, will find that these desperate cries won’t affect us. The cries will come from those employees wanting to be paid from our tax money. And the noise will be intense, but it’s not members of government employment that support our society. It is the tax payer that does. So don’t let that noise confuse the situation. The pain is simply a result of necessity. Our nation needs a smaller, less intrusive government so our economy can expand. Once the smoke clears, it will be a stronger state, and a more resolute nation.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Battle Cry from the Fly Over States

It was an absolutely frigid day in the streets of Wilmington, Ohio just to the south of the Murphy Theater when Glenn Beck came onto the frozen stage and proclaimed that he thought the term “We Are Wilmington” could become the mantra of the entire nation. He said this because of Wilmington’s tenacious nature.

Inside the Theater during the 8 PM show, Beck made the announcement of his E4 Project to be launched in 2011, and it was these words that intrigued me from the moment I first heard them. Since my day in Wilmington at that event, I haven’t been able to shake the simplicity of the terms, yet at the same time the potential power they could possess in a restoration of our national value. They are Enlightenment, Education, Empowerment, and Entrepreneur. I explain them as I heard them in the video below.

As the snowy days passed and I worked out in my back yard with my bullwhips, I began to feel the urge to step onto this battlefield and help anyway possible.

I can start by spreading the message at a grass roots level. After all, progressives have built a complicated infrastructure that hides behind contemporary art and media that seriously confuses the position of most Americans.

On one hand Americans are viewed simply as faceless consumers, with advertising and didactic entertainment aimed at manipulating the consumer to their various products. But at the same time, we ask the same overly stimulated minds to be reasonable and vote with intelligence. That’s where progressives take over on the tired minds of the modern American.

So a focus on something like Beck’s E4 Project can help bring the issues to the mind of those weary consumers, and provoke them to think about the world around them that exists in a more subtle way.

2011 will be a lot of fun, and a time to proclaim to the world, “WE ARE WILMINGTON!”

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com