There were many residents that spoke well at the Mason School Board meeting on February 8, 2011. But none spoke quite so well as Mr. John Meyer. Listen to him speak in the video below.
For that speech, I am dedicating this post to Mr. Meyer as the first official “Warrior of the Week.” If more people stood up and spoke like Mr. Meyer, we’d have a lot less corruption, manipulation, and scandalous behavior. It’s when the community sleeps that improprieties are committed by public officials. Now the community is wide awake, and I politely tip my hat to Mr. John Meyer for his bold and articulate speech that solidifies the temperament of the community.
John was on a media tour the following day which is captured here. Click to listen.
On February 8, 2011 Stacy Schuler will resign from the Mason School District at the 7 pm school board meeting. Kevin Bright has made the announcement that he will recommend Stacy be fired, and the board will of course act on that request. And to make matters easier on herself, Stacy is resigning, much the way George Coates did. George so far has stayed under the radar even though his actions may be technically much worse.
Now, it would seem that the firing of Stacy Schuler should be a forgone conclusion. It shouldn’t even be a question. George Coates the assistant principal felt bold enough to take cell phones from students, apparently in search of nude pictures of the student body from text messages sent to boy friends and girl friends known as sexting. And we know that the assistant principal was sending Stacy nude pictures of himself, at a minimum. These employees felt so untouchable that they abused their positions audaciously. The union provides an unprecedented level of job security, and that leads all too often to various degrees of abuse.
So the announcement of firing Stacy Schuler sounds all too similar to me. The proceedings from superintendent to school board are extremely reminiscent of how levies are introduced to a ballot issue, or how busing and other services are reduced. The formal proceedings are only formalities designed to make the public feel like they are a part of the process, when in fact the real decisions have already been made.
And that’s what’s wrong with education broken down into its most simplified form, and why many people are looking to School Choice as an option to this kind of tyrannical monopoly. It’s the kind of issue I’ve spent thousands of words discussing here in a hope that this chronicle can provide others questioning public education, some sense of support, and a blueprint to defeat their own school levies in other districts.
The things I’ve brought up for years are not only coming out of my mind however. Traditionally the union strong-arm methods have successfully isolated dissent to a defensive position and used the press to radicalize those dissidents in the eyes of the public. Meanwhile those same political thugs capture the high ground of “defending the children,” and use that platform to negotiate lucrative contracts from the public. Doc Thompson had on a guest from the Kato Institute that validates with a professional opinion what many of us in the trenches are feeling. It’s a great interview so enjoy it.
When Stacy goes to court, it will be revealed that the activity within the Mason School System should be on a nationally syndicated soap opera of provocative tradition, not taken as a serious institution that has the aim of educating our students. When board members are engaged in affairs that are publicly known, and other teachers are caught doing despicable, and immoral acts that are known by many in positions of power, the public faces the moral dilemma as to what to do.
What often happens is parents kick the can down the road because their kids are only in the school system for a relatively short time and those same parents just want the system to stay in tact long enough for their children to get what they need from the system. The union knows this, and they calculate that each year some kids leave, and new ones enter and since nobody cares truly for the health of their neighbor, and their communities, unions use that sense of selfishness to conduct a stage play full of smoke and mirrors.
So when Kevin Bright makes his announcement, and publicly chastises Stacy Schuler for her terrible behavior, know that he and the school board are aware of much worse than what Stacy has been involved with. But they will throw Stacy to the wolves like a Roman Emperor throwing a thief to the lions in a gladiator arena to appease the crowd. Their intent is to get past this terrible episode so people forget and get back to their lives, and the school can put another levy on the ballot in November to cover the step increases that the union contract requires.
Ironically, and this gives you an idea how big this story is, this is a video from China showing the Mason School System attempting to distance itself from Stacy when just months ago all was well, cover ups and all.
I say cover ups because these stories were very well-known, and for the superintendent to not know about it is one of two things. He’s really out of touch and isn’t listening to anybody. Or he is just trying to keep the bad stuff hidden so there isn’t any interruption in revenue flowing into the school system. Both options are bad.
When the congress of 2010 marched Health Care Reform down our throats in March of that year without even reading the bill, and voted on it strictly on ideology started by philosophies begun in the 1960’s and even earlier while communism from the Soviet Union was making a push to replace capitalism. Those congressmen didn’t care if Health Care was in violation of the United States Constitution because their plan is to change the law with Supreme Court Case Law. They also didn’t care that Health Care, as we’ve been doing it is going out of style.
Health Care of tomorrow won’t be controlled by pharmaceutical companies like it is now, the days where our elderly will take drugs and have costly operations with artificial body parts as replacements will be a thing of the past within the next decade. People won’t take drugs to extend their lives and regulate their bodies as they age and stop performing normal function. Science is literally on the cusp of regenerating parts of the body with its own cells, and that is the future of medicine.
Doc Thompson had on a doctor promoting a new show being exhibited on Nat Geo 10pm on February 7, 2011. After its initial run, the program will run again and probably be on YouTube, so make certain to look for it. It’s about the science of regenerative tissue. But for now you can listen to that doctor talking to Doc.
By the time Health Care becomes a staple of normality in our society like Social Security and Medicare is now, assuming that it stands up to a Supreme Court Ruling, which I don’t think it will, this new science will be mature enough for average people to participate in. And I can tell you right now that all those companies that are looking to the Health Care Industry to make money will oppose regenerative tissue technology. I will also say that religions will violently oppose it, because suddenly the whole idea of life expectation will change. If people can continue to heal all through their lives and build their own regenerative tissue from their own cells DNA, then people will live a LOT longer, and that will force religion to catch up and adapt, which they will be reluctant to do.
That’s why the Health Care Bill is a foolish, pointless piece of legislation. It needs to be repealed and politicians need to start looking to these emerging sciences to solve the problems we have with Social Security, and Medicare. With regenerative science, the cost of keeping people alive will dramatically decrease, and people who have built their lives in the health care field will have to find other things to do for careers. We are on the cusp of true technical marvels that will change the ideology of the human race. And we need to embrace those changes boldly, and not cling to the status quo.
So that young lady is right. My purpose here is to let people know where I see the walls that are holding back that changing ideology. I do rant about the walls I see. And my overall Freudian logic behind those rants is to do my part to break down those walls so we can all enjoy the benefits of mankind’s science without becoming lost as godless heathens. It’s important to recognize what we’ve done right as humans, and what we’ve done wrong, and to boldly go to the next step, because we are standing at the foot of those steps. All it takes now is to have the courage to walk up them.
Also consider the date of the article in which she gave the interview below. She was “supposedly” insane while she was speaking to the reporter. However, the Mason School System had enough confidence in her to use her to help sell their school levy to the public, even as she had another relationship with her direct supervisor, George Coates going on during all this activity.
To see more about the Stacy Schuler situation check out these articles as well:
What I’m interested in when I run into an article like the one written below by the Mason High School’s online magazine, The Cronline, is what is the overall message. The Cronline is a student magazine at the school which is designed to create an impression to the public and give student reporters a way to hone their reporting skills. So it’s partly an education device for the school and a public relations arm.
When I read articles like the one below, I can’t help but see patterns hidden in the wording. It’s a habit of mine. You could say I’ve made a living seeing what other people overlook. So I went back and re-read this article that I remembered from right after the levy campaigns in November 2010 ended. I took it back then as a nice PR piece that teachers do to let parents know that their kids are in good hands with ambitious professionals. My initial impression was I thought Stacy was putting a lot of emphasis on being busy, and was probably trying to hide the fact that she was actually bored, and the slant of the writing was to help make parents want to vote “yes” for their levy in November. However something seemed wrong with it that I couldn’t quite get my teeth in it. Butbecause it was Mason, and not Lakota, I left it alone.
The balancing act October 29, 2010 No Comments Between five jobs, Schuler uses meditation, organization to control stress Janica Kaneshiro | Staff Writer
A common excuse among high school students is, “I didn’t have time,” and many times, they feel like their teachers don’t understand their busy schedules, according to Mind and Body Wellness and Sports Medicine teacher Stacy Schuler. She said what many don’t realize is that school is just one aspect of many teachers’ lives. For example: Schuler has five other jobs.
“I teach at Mason High School,” Schuler said. “I work for Atrium Medical Center, so that means I do athletic training at Mason and other schools that Atrium covers. I work for Miami Valley Hospital. I do athletic training for [Alter High School], and I also do strength and conditioning [there]. I also work for the sports advantage clinic [at Miami Valley Hospital], and that’s for people who do post-surgery rehab, and athletes trying to improve their fitness. I [also do] yoga and personal training at people’s houses.”
Senior Justin Lamb, who works with Schuler after school in the training room and at the Atrium as an intern, said she has taught him various ways to deal with time constraints.
“She’s taught me a lot,” Lamb said. “With physical training everything is about time management. She’s taught me that you have to keep everything in place for everybody, like water for the football players and dealing with injuries in a timely manner. She’s really good at managing her time; she has to be.”
Schuler said she understands that students sometimes have hectic schedules since her own demanding lifestyle is crazy. “Kids [say], ‘You don’t understand; you don’t know what it’s like to be busy,’” Schuler said. “But I’m like, ‘Yes, I really do understand what it’s like to be busy.’ Sometimes I laugh because I feel like students don’t see teachers as anything else besides the [people] standing in front of the class.”
Besides just her paying jobs, Schuler said her other time commitments include being an avid animal rights activist, starting her own business, to practicing her black belt in the art of Ninjutsu.
“I have my own photography business,” Schuler said. “Also, in my spare time, I love to do my martial arts training. That’s something that, right now, I only get to do really very sporadically, [and] it used to be a weekly thing for me.”
Schuler said she was raised as a busy person, so it’s only natural for her to want to take on several commitments. She said her current time commitments fill her schedule with activities from dawn to dusk.
“[Monday through Friday,] I wake up at five a.m.,” Schuler said. “I’m usually home around ten. On Friday nights [I get home] a lot later because of [football] games, so sometimes I won’t get home until midnight. On weekends, I still have to get up early because I have football injury checks in the morning. I usually have games and tournaments on the weekends [at which I have to work,] so I might get up at six a.m. on Saturdays, and I won’t get home till 8:30 or 9 p.m.”
With everything she does, Schuler said that she can get stressed out, but sleep and organization are major factors in the way she handles it.
“[T]he way I deal with [stress] is really through yoga and meditation, because even if I don’t get enough sleep, …I meditate,” Schuler said. “If I lost [my iPhone calendar,] I would show up to the wrong place wearing the wrong work shirt or something, so I have to be really organized.”
Schuler said that even sleep and organization aren’t enough to keep her relaxed all the time, and when she gets really stressed, she tries to change her perceptions.
“If you just…get perspective on a situation, [you] realize that stressing does you no good,” Schuler said. “It’s not going to fix the situation and it really just takes you further away from any sort of resolution or any productive work towards whatever needs to be done.”
Senior Chloe Crites, who is in Schuler’s Mind and Body Wellness class, said that Schuler has taught her to look at her commitments with a fresh perspective when she gets stressed.
“I think it’s crazy [that Schuler has so many jobs],” Crites said. “I can’t imagine her schedule, because I get stressed and I just have one job. But [by being in her class,] I’ve learned from her that [when I get stressed, it helps] to know everything has a purpose and if I focus on one thing at a time it isn’t so bad. She teaches us to always take a break for yourself, because that helps you focus.”
Schuler said she isn’t perfect and she knows of a healthier lifestyle than she is living now. “I used to wake up earlier to come in [to the school] and work out,” Schuler said. “But I just wasn’t getting enough sleep, and as much as I preach a healthy lifestyle, I would say I’m not a good example of a healthy lifestyle right now.” Even with her demanding schedule, Schuler said she aspires to do even more in the future.
“There’s so much I want to do,” Schuler said. “I love learning other languages [and traveling]. So [I want to do] more of that. I also really enjoy music, …so there [are] things I want to finish, and things I don’t have enough time for. I also want to spend more time with the people close to me.”
Now, it’s easy to look at that article and see the Freudian slips. Actually they are quite obvious and funny if you think about it. The trick is in learning to read between the lines without the benefit of hindsight so you can avoid peril. If we can learn anything from articles like this one, it’s that whenever you listen to a public official of any kind, listen carefully to what they tell you and how they say it. Because you may save yourself a lot of headache if you listen to that little voice that goes off in the back of your head instead of ignoring it out of convenience.
In the face of such scandals as what is being dealt with currently at the Mason School System, and one month ago at the Lakota School System, thousands of rank and file participants within the teachers union crave to put these episodes of unpleasantness behind them. The worst thing in their eyes is for public debate to occur beyond a two-day news cycle. If a story lingers for too long, the value for the service they want to offer diminishes in the eyes of the taxpayer.
The downfall of those status quo protectionists however is technology. No longer can a spokesman tell a group of friendly reporters a controlled diatribe of manipulation intended to diffuse a crisis till it falls from people’s minds as their busy lives consume commitment to a righteous cause. Now with text messaging, and blog sites like this one, information moves freely without the control mechanism of political machines, and is why the FCC is pushing Net Neutrality.
That’s why what happened on 700 WLW February 4th of 2011 was unique as a story broke on that station throughout the day preceding a major indictment from a prosecutor’s office. It started with Sharon Poe speaking about the crises with Doc Thompson and ended 9 hours later after the indictments were announced and attorneys started to chime in with legal discussion. The story is basically this, a teacher Stacy Schuler of the Mason School System was indicted for 16 counts of sexual battery with 5 students. She is also involved in a sexual way with a separate issue involving the assistant principal George Coates. George called in his resignation on February 2, 2011. The story arch was fascinating and is captured in the video below. It is recommended that you activate the video and finish this article while listening if you are fortunate enough to be able to do both. If not, then give yourself some time. It’s a video that is 2 hours and 7 minutes long but condenses 9 hours of radio news breaking evolution over the day and is a compelling story in itself. So turn off the TV and let the video play and enjoy the theater of the mind without commercial interruption for the drama is as good if not better than any movie available to rent.
Sharon (the woman in the interview) and I have known, as most in the Mason community and in neighboring Lakota have known for some time that serious sexual allocations were transpiring in Mason. In fact I have the list of many improprieties, most of them taking place with consenting adults within the system and not directly effecting students. But the number and rank of the participants is alarming for any workplace. This teacher is just the most obvious participant because she got caught. Her actions since they involved students that posted information on Facebook and other online forums could not be quieted by the spin doctors and the info got out into the community.
Check these links for information on all the soap opera issues going on in Mason. There are several articles on those pages. Scroll down to the “Sex and Drugs for All” School Districts section to read the information. This information was published by Charles Foster Kane.
Scott Sloan came on after Sharon and had been working with the same information we all had but Scott had the guts to act on it. After he went off the air with Doc, a caller from Mason came on and defended the district and proclaimed that WLW was behind on the story and it wasn’t a big deal. WLW was in fact the only news organization running with the story. All the other outlets were waiting for the indictment to come down and reacted predictably once the story broke. That particular caller reflected a huge part of the population that just doesn’t want to deal with bad news.
It is because of people like the caller that these problems in schools have continued. They empower the perpetuation of illicit behavior in public institutions with the same careless abandon that a large portion of the population accepted the seductress explanations from former President Clinton.
The target audience of complacency which Clinton, Obama and teachers unions, along with others, speak to know what they’re doing. They hope to solicit more recruits to their thinking by encouraging public drunkenness, sexual exploits and other forms of decadent behavior because in such personalities are future apologists that won’t have the courage or fortitude to confront difficult issues when they present themselves. And on the backs of such weak souls were built the corruption we are finding in public education. In fact, as I was writing this article I received this comment from a reader which fits in the category just discussed.
Author : thompson (IP: 72.173.182.116 , 72-173-182-116.cust.wildblue.net) URL : Whois : http://whois.arin.net/rest/ip/72.173.182.116 Comment: you’re nuts. Salaries have nothing do to with morality. And for the record, teaching salaries are NOT I sugges you collect your thoughts before you put them out there to be read. Hope I don’t stumble onto anything else you rant, I mean write.
That is a guy that doesn’t see how things connect. The misspellings are because that’s how he wrote it, I duplicated it the way I received it. And to respond to that guy, being nuts is to take things at face value, like he obviously does.
You see, it’s not just the sex that is going on with some of the teachers, and administrators. Or principles and assistants that think it’s acceptable to send naked pictures of themselves to co-workers on computers owned by the school. Or child pornography obsessed teachers taking pictures of kids with their shirts off in the classroom. This is about the wholesome advertising of public education services to the community to justify extraordinarily high salaries negotiated by public sector unions. It’s like most things in life, in the end it’s about money.
During the levy campaign back in September after I had made a couple of appearances on WLW the Pro Lakota Campaign had flooded the station with protest letters and accused the station of being disingenuous to teachers and rationalized my questing of the amount of wages being imposed on our community budget as hateful. Their assertion is that because of their educational background and the fact that many of them have master’s degrees that they are better positioned to teach our children and that spending more and more money on public education will yield increased results. Or in the case of Lakota and Mason, it was to keep those districts excellent by approving a tax levy on our properties. We were told, “Wouldn’t you spend just 20 bucks a month to keep your kids safe.”
However, what we are finding is that these people in public positions are just as human as anybody. And these teachers and administrators in these schools are no more qualified to raise our children than our average citizens. This whole issue comes back to the topic of wages and whether or not public education officials should be paid so much and communities should be required to supported collective bargaining agreements.
My day on this historic date started as one of my employees told me about his experience of dropping off his son at Lakota because of the busing cuts. Lakota had stopped using police to guide traffic at the entrance my employee was using as a drop off. Instead a school official named by his son as an assistant principal was directing traffic. That assistant audaciously knocked on my employee’s window and told him to use a different entrance. “You can’t pull in that lot. You have to go to the other side.”
My employee told him that they had a paid parking spot in that particular lot and he had a right to be where he was.
The assistant principal directing traffic told him again to use the other lot.
My employee asked what he was supposed to do about his paid lot, the assistant said; “you should have passed the levy.”
I have instance upon instance given to me about principles at Lakota taking active roles in creating an environment of hostility that if they occurred in my work place, I’d be obligated to address the issue before the behavior corrupted my workforce, but not in public education. They live by different rules than the rest of us. And that becomes evident when you get to know some of them.
That’s why the sex scandals in Mason are important. Even if the teacher is innocent of all 16 counts we know that there is inappropriate behavior that went on between the teacher and the assistant principal at a minimum. As a society do we put up with it, because the taxpayers are the boss in this situation? Or do we just look away? Do we just approve the next levy while the bloated, corrupt monster of public education lingers on under collective bargaining agreements negotiated under school board members trained by the OSBA to carry out to the letter policies created by the teachers unions which are bankrupting communities?
I remember specifically when Lakota threatened to go on strike in 2008. What was their sticking point? Wages. They tried the same general tactic floating the strike word around back in March of 2010. It wasn’t about kids. It was money. Watch that video here. They got what they wanted. It didn’t matter to them if the community could afford it or not.
For those that don’t want to discuss the issue of cost and whether we get the value for the money we spend, I put the blame squarely on your shoulders for the current state of things, public education being just one, but very costly issue. When I hear stories like this sex case, and again, I know there is a lot more to the story which will be revealed, I get angry. I can’t understand why stories like this wouldn’t make people angry. But I also tend to view the world from the perspective of an employer. People that just want to punch their time card and cruise through life tend to look the other way when trouble comes or when taxes are too high and harming the community.
The underlining issue is arrogance. These Mason school employees that are currently in trouble have so little appreciation and respect for their community and where the money comes from that supplies their income that they participate in these reckless sexual activities. That behavior speaks volumes of how public education views the public they serve and it comes out when they are pressed.
The ultimate audacity is revealed in the Mason spokesman Tracy Carson when she was on with Tracy Jones and Scott Sloan putting on a happy face for the Mason District on January 26th, the same day that Stacy Schuler was put on leave. No doubt Mrs. Carson will say that she didn’t know about the teachers coming legal trouble, but what kind of spokesman wouldn’t know about this story, because I was hearing about it, and it’s not even my job to know. I find it hard to believe Tracy didn’t know. The story was out well before implementing the leave and if the spokesman knew anything about what was happening in the school, she’d know about this teacher, because everyone else did.
Yet, listen to her words on WLW. Do you think she actually thought the Mason school system could contain this story? Depending on how you answer that question will determine your ability to think critically. Because the bet from these people is this, you can’t think critically even when the evidence is right in front of you.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The primary reason I started this site back in August was because I caught a group of union members working a local message forum in order to apply “peer” pressure on potential Anti-Lakota Levy advocates to keep their opinions to themselves. I thought the comments I was reading were “thuggish” and inexcusable toward good people who were just trying to voice their opinion.
In March of 2010 the Pulse Journal published in a special edition the wages of all the teachers and administrators of all the local schools. And it amazed me how quickly people forgot, and how shallow the waters of our collective memories really were. Local TV news, newspapers and other media were doing the stories but people forget. 6 months later when that information was needed it was lost when those decisions were needed, such as during an election.
So I saw a need to create a site that would make it easy for people to remember where we were, and watch over time how we got where we’re going. I have a conservative opinion and a literature background and enough business training to break down issues as well as any reporter. I also have a background in video editing and visualization technique, so I set out to use all the assets of a web-based site, video, sound, and literature to create a unique web-based news service that does not have any commercial ties, political affiliation, or otherwise special interest that might taint the content of my posts. They would simply be my opinions that I have found many, many other people share.
That’s why this site has been successful, because it utilizes all the benefits of what a web site can offer. And it would be noted by now that I have a lot of radio clips up here, mostly from Doc Thompson. Well, there’s a reason for that. Since Doc came to town, I have found that I like the man. He has similar views as I do, so I enjoy his program. I’ve met him and I like him personally too. He has a deep sincerity in what he is doing, and I respect that. There are parts of his shows that I think deserve to live on in a sense of permanence instead of reaching people’s ears over the 50,000 Watts of the Big One, and then becoming lost among the millions of radio waves that emanate around the globe. I have found that many people miss a lot of the good stuff he broadcasts because they have busy lives themselves, and could benefit from listening to his show at their convenience. And the things he talks about are very similar to the things I’m writing about, and as I mentioned in my About Me section, I like to write these blogs in two ways, with the typical literary style, then again with the assistance of video and audio. I have put thousands of videos on this site to help bring depth to the discussions expressed here. So it is only natural to use Doc’s show to assist my topics and let the reader get more from these articles than just text.
A few years ago when I was touring The Land Exhibit at the Epcot Center, I was intrigued by their horticultural activity and thought the work at Epcot was way out ahead of the rest of the nation. It brought to my mind, “why is it that the farmers in our country aren’t producing with the techniques at the Epcot Center?”
The Celebrity Gardner had sent Doc some great vegetables grown from a farm in Northern Ohio using innovative techniques that led to a great discussion from a man on the fore-front of innovative horticulture. Listen to that interview here:
As usual, progressive government with its farm subsidies and other intrusions have created a status quo environment that is actually preventing the beneficial evolution of horticulture evolution. It is a shame now that many of today’s youth won’t have a grandma or grandpa that run a farm. Growing up, both of my grandparents ran farms. Farm life was a fact of life, and was part of the community experience. Many kids today have to go out of their way to see a farm, let alone know somebody that runs one. Heck, most kids are lucky to have contact with two biological sets of grandparents, or even parents, another wonderful legacy of progressivism.
That’s a sad fact, and another sign of weakness in our American Society. Everyone wants to be lawyers, and doctors, and politicians, but nobody wants to be a farmer. Just some of the comments leveled at me, because I love my background, and the backgrounds of my family, that I’m some kind of “hillbilly” or country “hick” of “low intelligence” because I wear a cowboy hat yet live in a “professional” community. Those opinions come from women with rear ends the size of busses and men that surrendered their manhood to dominating women long ago, so I weigh them properly in perspective. Those types of people are shallow in their understanding of how things work, and it’s because of people like that which allow politicians to think we’re all stupid, because those people behave foolishly. They are the first ones to put down a hunter for skinning a deer, because they buy their meat in a grocery store, and they are the first to call a farmer a “hick.”
My wife and I went to Amish Acers up in Indiana one day just for the fun of it. Amish Acers is a really cool community located just on the fringe of the Chicago Skyline, which you can just barely see over the horizon of the Earth. Amish Acres is like the amusement park of everything Amish.
Think what you want about the Amish. They have their religious beliefs, but they have a culture that decided not to follow down a progressive path, and people flock in large herds to Amish Acres to buy “authentic” Amish goods, watch “Amish” plays, and in general experience a much simpler life where things make sense.
What does that say about the American consciousness? American’s deep down inside love quality. We love independence. And we love the simplicity of a straight approach to religion, life, and family. And American’s see in the Amish what they used to be. That’s why they drive to Amish communities to buy items of “quality.”
Horticulture is yet another victim of Progressive ideology, and it is the progressive oriented government that is hindering the wonderful technology that is currently available.
What a shame, because like everything else in our lives, we could have better food and a higher quality of life, if only we had the courage to have it.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the start of “progressivism” as it emerged in the early 1900’s. I was shocked to learn that the first “socialist” congressman was elected during the election of 1910, that gives you an idea of the kinds of discussions that were taking place during that time. I can understand to some point the hunger to bust up the monopolies that business had over the working population. I admire Teddy Roosevelt for sticking up to the court decision by Simeon E. Baldwin for the ruling of Hoxie v. the New Haven Railroad of 1909 which denied liberty of labor compensation for the loss of a leg of an employee in a collision of two trains. Such stories ushered on its back progressive ideas that sought to regulate “big business” abuse.
Now, after 100 years of asking questions, we know what went wrong, and why it went wrong, and the experiments of “fairness” have caused trouble on the radical opposite end of the political spectrum. And that trouble has literally bankrupted our nation.
Listen to Doc Thompson discuss the State of the Union the way President Obama should have done during his State of the Union Address on Tuesday January 25th, 2011.
Obama should not have said that the state of our nation was “good.” While I understand not wanting to scare people, saying such things is like a football coach telling his team at half time, when his team is down three touchdowns, “hey, you guys are playing good. Keep it up.” What the coach should say if he’s a good coach is, “hey, you guys are down three touchdowns. You still have a chance. Toughen up and win this game!” No, instead the President said America is strong, because he doesn’t want to admit to anybody that changes are coming.
How screwed up is it? Listen to this radio bit about the Death Tax. Here Doc has on an expert about the Death Tax as it applies to Ohio, but the examples could be applied nation wide.
The hinge-pin of American society is self-reliance however, and people like Teddy Roosevelt knew that. The Progressive Party wasn’t supposed to become the monstrosity of naïveté that it currently is. It was supposed to free people to live good lives. But weak, power-hungry politicians quickly distorted the policies to create jobs for themselves by expanding government to an extraordinary size that it was never intended to become. And now government is collapsing on itself.
America will survive because the people that made up the country are still out there. But the government in the size it is now will not. It would be advisable that everyone unhook themselves from as many Federal shackles they can handle, and to do it rapidly. It will be less painful now than later when you won’t have a choice.
I spent a year reading the Federalist Papers, the Anti-Federalist Papers, and the work of John Locke. It was not easy, because it can be a dull read, and is sometimes repetitive. The volume of that work however is deeply innovative and provable, and far more philosophical and intellectually sound than anything produced in any nation in the history of the world. And if you want to see this nation succeed in the future, America will stick with the blueprint that works. The other social experiments that have been attempted need to stop, now.
A sure way to clear your mind is to think from high places. Two of my favorite places on planet earth are the Kennedy Space Center and the Epcot Center because both of those places are about ideas, and perspective.
That’s why this video is a thing of beauty. It is a fine example of the best and brightest that the human mind has yet produced.
The following video is a collection of Space Shuttle launches from 1981 to 2010. I first fell in love with the shuttle program when I was able to stand in one at the Kennedy Space Center. And I will never forget the 3D Imax film they showed at the Center of a shuttle docking with the International Space Station. This video is of the same caliber and is a true thing of marvel.
And here is a camera view from the booster rockets during launch and decent when ejected after the stage 1 process. Enjoy the ride to space and back to the Atlantic Ocean again. When you see the splash down, the rockets will be approximately 150 miles northeast of the Kennedy Space Center.
Once in space there are many questions that transcend the things we think are important back on earth. Perspective is relative. The definitions of what we consider to be time changes subtly at first, then radically.
Ironically, we discover when studying the very large reaches of space that it is the very, very small that affects everything we experience.
The Overmanwarrior 
