Tag: education

My “Little” Problem: Progressive Public Affairs Consultant Openly Lies to the Media

A story of manipulation from David P. Little.

The below press release is a typical campaign assassination attempt that has led our nation into bankruptcy. People like David P. Little make their entire livelihoods manipulating the facts and shaping the opinions of the voting public. In this letter Little shows how “little” he truly knows. For instance, and I’ll go into greater detail at the end of this essay, he denigrates tea party types as using simplistic language, where in reality, most tea party types are more sophisticated and currently read much more than the typical public employee. So to use terms to attempt to reduce public perception of tea party types is to confuse his own political opinions with facts which he presents below as truth, when in fact they are only the opinions of a man with limited understanding.

So without any further delay, enjoy the below Press Release from David P Little.  You can listen to Darryl Parks reading the press release along with my appearance on his show by clicking on the video below. 

 

 

From: DPLITTLE [mailto:dplittle@fuse.net]
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 9:24 AM
To: David P. Little
Subject: Bullwhipping Quality Education in Butler County

Dear Friend of Public Education,

Every year opponents of adequate funding for public education become more vocal and hostile to the historic mission of public education in America. Each election season our schools are reduced to pleading for support from constituencies that are being told that we should abandon our traditional system of public education and institute more private or unregulated for-profit charter schools without elected boards or genuine accountability to the citizenry.

It is clear that the simplistic language and tactics of tea party type enthusiasts are now being utilized in these battles; this is reason enough for their efforts to be strongly and consistently opposed. So I write to invite you to join us—now.

This year these perennial battles feature a wealthy businessman in the Lakota School District of Butler County who is intent on bullwhipping our educational system by withholding all financial support and making hostages of the students and staff in these institutions.

Pretending he is Buffalo Bill while flailing with dueling enflamed leather whips, Lakota levy opponent leader, Rich Hoffman, a wealthy businessman and anti-government activist, is leading the attack on a school system which is the envy of many across the region, widely known for opportunity and excellence.

Using hostile talk radio and YouTube video as vehicles, Hoffman and other levy opponents are intent on bullwhipping the administration, teachers, and the thousands of students and family members that depend of the Lakota Public Schools. While pretending that he inhabits a wild west show, steeped in pioneer values and individualism, Hoffman presents Confederate battle flags in his videos and ignores the fact that public education was among the very first accomplishments of all frontier settlements in the United States and remains the steadfast goal and anchor of all quality communities.

Please review the links below for additional information and details of how you can assist in the fight against opponents of quality education in our region. Battles such as this impact the success of public education in all of our communities and disinformation of this variety must be opposed with energy equal to the task.

Thank you,

David P. Little

David P. Little
Public Affairs/Political Consultant
207 Woolper Avenue
Cincinnati, Ohio 45220
Cellular: 513.477.2651
dplittle@fuse.net

Now Mr. Little, its time for some facts about your note; public education was not “organized” during the foundation of the country. We had public education, but the organized portion of public education started with 4 employees during 1847 in Ohio. The OEA officially formed in the early 1900’s ahead of the NEA. You are confused when you assume that public education must involve organized labor. The fact that you associate those two issues together means you cannot understand how to solve the problem. Frontier towns made the teacher a central part of the town’s foundation, as they should be. But organized collective bargaining is an entirely different matter. This is the problem since you need help understanding the difference.

I’m not pretending to be Buffalo Bill. He had a beard. Do I have a beard? I’m Rich Hoffman, and there’s only one of me. Buffalo Bill was Buffalo Bill. Do you understand that? Or is it too difficult?  I’ll make it easy for you.  Buffalo Bill is in the old photo.  I put my wife in the one with me in it.  That way you can see the difference.  (I was chewing my food)

You mention that I use confederate flags in my videos. You use that term in a plural sense, when in fact confederate flags appear in only one of my videos, one that was shot at a Wild West Arts event, where confederate flags, pirate flags, and American flags are very common. In those events, the confederate flag does not represent slavery the way people like you that have perpetuated as progressive ideas that have moved through our culture. In the Wild West groups, those flags celebrate history, and the Civil War is important in reflection because our country grew as a result. But in my video, the flags are flying in the wind on one of the vendors booths at the site. Confederate Flags are quite common in Gatlinburg, Tennessee as well, and are part of southern culture which I happen to like. But saying that doesn’t automatically mean I’d ever endorse slavery, quite the opposite. If slavery existed today in the United States, I’d be against it with the same voracity that I protest school levies. The trouble with you is that you are seeking to make an issue of that, as if it somehow reflects racism, which is a typical progressive strategy. When they can’t win an argument, they just call people names and hope it sticks. It’s kind of like throwing darts in the dark and hoping they hit a target. So you completely misrepresented that one video, and there certainly aren’t any plural videos.

You used the word pretending twice. I’m not doing any pretending, David. I have video of some of the Wild West Events I’ve been in. And they are steeped in pioneer values and individualism. There’s no pretending about it. Or maybe you don’t understand what the word pretend means.

Is this pretending?

And it’s not always western arts. Sometimes it’s just doing stunt work, or stand in work for contemporary films. https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/bullwhip-consultant-on-films/

Hey, and the firewhips are specially made with Kevlar. If they were leather, they’d burn, and I couldn’t reuse them. But I’ll give you a pass on that. Doing so much desk work like you have, I wouldn’t expect you to know that.

And I, or none of the people I know who are against tax levies want to withhold all support and hold students and staff hostage. The trouble is, organized labor has attached itself to our children and it is difficult to remove those elements because the organized labor is a radical system that threatens to destroy our children if we don’t give them more money. That is why one of the first cuts is busing in order to pass a levy. In Lakota they have a budget of over $160 million dollars. So that is not withholding all funds as you’ve stated above.

Now you had a six paragraph letter, and you told 4 complete fabrications of the truth in the whole body of that document. The only reality of those statements is in your own mind, but yet you wrote them down and sent that information out to many important people as though it was truth. Very, very, very irresponsible. And what disinformation specifically have we pointed out in the No Campaign? And what action are you calling for in that letter? Violence? You said the word fight. That means violence to me. And none of us are against quality education. We’re businessmen. We expect results, and we expect quality. But we are against the way organized labor has driven the budget to the level it currently is. We see it as the fault of your clients and your personal philosophy that has irresponsibly spent themselves into crises. And we also blame the same for hiding that irresponsibility behind our children. These radical slanders from your side will not be tolerated unchecked.

And let me take issue with your very first paragraph. You say, and I quote “Each election season our schools are reduced to pleading for support from constituencies.” Excuse me? These are public employees. They have to make a case for their existence. Yes. That’s a fact of life. But you’re term about being reduced to pleading states that you believe the people you represent are somehow entitled, and are therefore above the taxpayer. You forget who your boss is. And David, because you do so much work for politicians, you also work for the taxpayer.

I did a little checking on you.

David Little’s Experience
Strategist & Communications
DPL Political Consulting Services
(Public Relations and Communications industry)
January 1993 — Present (17 years 10 months)
Public Policy/Political Consultant
David P. Little, Consulting Services
(Public Relations and Communications industry)
March 1987 — Present (23 years 8 months)
INDEPENDENT PUBLIC AFFAIRS CONSULTING EXPERIENCE:

• Regional Director Statewide Campaigns /Media Consultant; Four Ohio constitutional offices including Governor, Attorney General, Auditor, and Secretary of State

• Five U. S. Congressional Campaigns; Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky; Campaign Director and/or strategist; Responsible for strategic planning, issue briefing and development, press relations, issue development, opposition research, campaign publications, select speech writing and intensive debate coaching

• Reform Ohio Now Campaign, Southern Ohio Director Constitutional Ballot Initiative; Managed regional office and activities, volunteer staff, and media relations as part of a statewide seven million dollar ballot initiative to reform elections, redistricting, and campaign financing in Ohio

• Natural Resources Defense Council; Washington, D.C. (2008) Year long legislative climate change/global warming assignments in conjunction with M+R Strategic Consultants, New York & Cleveland, Ohio

• Alliance of American Insurers, Chicago, Illinois; Developed and implemented rapid-response media strategy and maintained political/legislative relations in New York, New Jersey, & Pennsylvania

• ProgressOhio.org, Columbus, Ohio; Three year staff retainer with numerous press spokesperson assignments, State Capitol and statewide media events for environmental, social justice, multiple other clients

• Americans United for Change; Washington, D.C. Statewide press events & public Issue development political education efforts in Ohio (2006) AFL-CIO & related organizational financing of assignments

• Healthcare Leadership Council; Washington, D.C.; Midwest Field Director; Represented coalition of 50 healthcare industry CEO’s on national healthcare legislation. Created and maintained relations with Governors, Congress, business allies, editorial boards, and U.S. Senatorial tours

So what do you mean by fight, David P. Little? I’m just a guy that doesn’t want to see taxes increased. I see you, and your side with a hand out, with a lack of business understanding, and with a political agenda that I’d consider dangerous to the country I live in. And you better think hard about whether or not you want a fight with me.

Rich Hoffman

www.NoLakotaLevy.com

A Two Month Drama, The Battle of the Lakota Levy

A Chronology of the No Lakota School Levy Campaign,

New article in the Enquirer:

Lakota Schools basically got caught inflating the deficit numbers. They’ve changed the projected deficits three times since April. First at $28 million, second at $10 million, and now it’s down to $4 million.

What this means is that when pressed, the School System found ways to cut their costs without impacting the service to the customer, the community. Just think what they could do if they could bring their wages and benefits down to what everyone else was making, instead of the inflated wage the education profession expects now.

Check out that Enquirer article here.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20101016/NEWS0102/10170339/1196/NEWS/Lakota-deficit-estimates-muddy-levy

There has been so much that has occurred over the last 8 weeks regarding the No Lakota Campaign, I thought I would put all that information in one place, so everyone has easy access to it. It would be impossible to put a link to every article here, but I must regulate it to just the key points.

• Here is the big one, the release of the top wage earners at Lakota, which exhibits why they have a financial crisis they imposed on themselves by lack of discipline.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/pay-rates-for-top-434-teachers-at-lakota-schools/

• This is the first visit to WLW’s Scott Sloan Show where we reveled to most of the Midwest why Lakota and other school systems are drowning by their expenditures.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/rich-hoffman-and-dave-varney-visit-the-scott-sloan-show-on-wlw/

• This was the second visit to WLW, this time to Darryl Parks show on the following Saturday.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/wlw-on-saturday-september-25th/

• To put things in perspective for much of the mail I was getting, from people who obviously don’t understand basic economics, I did a video which was featured on The Blaze.com, using a bullwhip trick I knew to explain the problem of public sector employees getting in the way of private sector needs.

http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2010/09/04/a-whip-trick-to-save-america/

• After seeing the video I did for The Blaze.com, The Enquirer did a story about my metaphor of using bullwhips to describe cutting unneeded costs from public budgets.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100922/NEWS0102/9230322/Man-wants-to-whip-proposed-levy

• After all the positive coverage, which came because the group I’m working with had brought up truly legitimate questions that seldom get asked, or dealt with in the press, the Pro Levy people decided to attack the largest voice that had helped us ask those basic questions. As usual with public employees, they seek to silence anyone that questions them. “They use the squeaky wheel gets the grease” trick and hope if they yell loud enough they can silence any criticisms leveled in their direction. This is the standard organized strategy using The Delphi Technique in order to build consensus among voters. Lucky for us, 700 WLW had the guts to stick with the story.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/pro-lakota-group-threaten-wlw-radio/

• Due to the request of many of the Pro Levy people who started to see the error of their own view points, I published a budget idea so they could see that there were actually options to what the school system had been telling them.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/lakota-budget-plan/

• Then I published the numbers of how much the State of Ohio had cut from Lakota and reviewed the previous levy attempt in May of 2010.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/lakota-levy-but-wait-we-just-did-this/

• And I summed up the situation involving all parties involved in the Lakota School Levy.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/09/09/the-lakota-school-levy-and-the-infamy-of-bad-decisions/

• We received a letter from a person that is very much against the school levy that has children in the school system. I published it here to remind everyone why fighting this levy was important.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/why-fight/

• Here I show a collection of interviews that show that Lakota should have seen the financial crises coming, but did not act in time to avert any potential trouble. Instead of dealing with the true problems, they reverted to just asking the tax payers of the community for more money.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/a-financial-crises-just-doesnt-happen-lakota-should-have-seen-it/

• The Pro People went on the Scott Sloan show to try to refute everything the No Levy people, and specifically, I had been saying. What ended up happening was Scott Sloan read the Lakota Teachers contract on the air, which proved to be indefensible.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/the-power-of-the-big-one-scott-sloan-reads-the-lakota-teacher-contract/

• By popular request, I did another whip trick video to explain the difference in budgets from what a Yes vote gives the district, and what a No vote gives, and why establishing a budget amount is important.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/bullwhip-economics-pubic-versus-private-sector-the-lakota-school-system/

• At the Lakota School Board Meeting on October 11th, 2010 the No Lakota Levy people showed up in force to speak out against the levy in front of the board. Virtually no Pro Support people showed up to speak in favor of an indefensible and audacious levy increase to impose upon an economically ravaged community.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/the-lakota-school-board-meeting-3-weeks-before-the-election/

• Some kids were caught trying to steal our No Lakota signs which point to a larger, more organized attempt to steal away the opposition’s message in order to sneak the tax through with uninformed voters.

http://www.fox19.com/Global/story.asp?S=13305856

  • Here I am on WLW again to discuss the sign theft and other dirty tricks that have occurred.

Rich Hoffman

www.NoLakotaLevy.com

Don’t Drink the Lakota Kool-Aid

I continue to hear this preposterous notion that people should vote for this Lakota School Levy in order to preserve the value of their home.  That comment, which seems to be the only argument left by the Pro Levy people, is in my view one of the most selfish, and uneducated statements someone could make. 

What we’ve learned over the last two months is this: the levy is about preserving very lucrative teacher contracts that extend to large state wide and national unions.  They’ve made themselves so large and powerful, a local school board can no longer deal with the influence yet we are expected to pay locally as though our school system is still community run.  This levy is NOT about children.  It’s about money and security.  Nobody wants or expects teachers to work for free.  It is excessive to have an average salary of over $60,000 per year plus benefits!  That’s called mismanaging the budget.  If a single teacher gets cut, or a bus doesn’t pick up a child, it’s by choice to protect very inflated wages and benefits.  It’s all about money and union influence, nothing more. 

Second we’ve learned that the deficit numbers have went down over the last 6 months.  They started at $28 million, and then were at $10 million, and now they’re at $4.2 million.  What that means is that once people pull up their boot straps, good people can accomplish a lot, and that’s what the No Levy People have been trying to say all along.  

And lastly we’ve seen what Pro Levy People are willing to do to win.  They’ll steal signs.  They’ll threaten large radio stations, and they’ll call people names who step up and point out what should be obvious. 

If the people who move to Liberty Twp, and West Chester only move here for the schools then they’re as shallow and selfish as the real estate agents who are more concerned about their own pockets then the health of the community. 

Don’t buy the Kool-Aid the Pro People are selling.  Visit us at NoLakotaLevy.com for the facts. 

Rich Hoffman

www.NoLakotaLevy.com

The Lakota School Board Meeting, 3 weeks Before the Election

There was a School Board meeting for the Lakota’s Administration on Monday, October 11th. Normally, three weeks before a major election, there is a lot of emotion and many people show up for these things to voice their opinion. Many of us from the No Lakota Group spoke. There were a few that spoke in favor of Issue 2, but overwhelmingly, the voices came out against the levy.
Since none of the papers covered this overwhelming discrepancy, I invite you to view the speeches here. The public portion of the meeting begins at the74 minute mark. I am the second speaker of many that spoke out against the Lakota School Levy.

Enjoy the speeches and remember to VOTE NO on Issue 2 on November 2nd.  Click on the below link to see them. 

http://www.lakotaonline.com/videos.cfm?vID=5617

Rich Hoffman

www.NoLakotaLevy.com

My Love of Real Science and the Adventure of Discovery!

It’s certainly not that I’m against education. Quite the contrary, I believe an education never stops. However, since I have continued my own education well into my adulthood, there are some glaring issues that emerge regarding traditional education.

About a decade ago, I read Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race, a very meticulously written book. In short it is a catalog of anthropological and archeological artifacts that don’t fit nicely into the authentic endorsement of historians. The book demonstrates that relics that don’t fit in the scheme of things are routinely ignored. At first that sounds conspiratorial, but my experience says this is quite possible. Education institutions are routinely provided with facts that they ignore. Namely funding issues, where the unions insulate their membership from the evolution that is occurring in the outside world.

The new way of learning is quickly turning to computers; Rosetta Stone Software for foreign language comes to mind. And if the free market was opened up, and unions didn’t resist the change, similar programs would emerge for mathematics, reading, history, literature, just about every academic endeavor. The role of the teacher is changing, yet they are being paid more highly than ever, in a time that education is on the precipice of change, for the better. Do we still need a teacher in the front of the room teaching like an authority figure? But because of the protectionism that goes on, nobody can even ask the question.

And the same thing happens to relics. When evidence is presented that doesn’t fit the endorsed university theories, there is a lot of resistance, because that puts the credibility of the university at risk who published the original theories. It shouldn’t, but in the world of big business education, change threatens the income stream. So the result is that education is stagnate, and not constantly evolving as quickly as our technology allows.

Below, I’ll let Micheal Cremo explain for himself.

Because of this resistance from authentic education, emerging sciences, such as cryptozoology, and paranormal research is being ignored. Those sciences are at a phase similar to where archeology was at the turn of the century. Universities and their published results were what gave legitimacy to archeology and anthropology in the first place. And because universities are slow to accept new and larger ideas, they are missing the boat. The History Channel, and Travel Channel, and these kinds of cable entertainment are doing actual scientific investigation that will soon be considered legitimate. A show like Ghost Hunters is doing what universities should be doing, but they aren’t because at some point in the past, so-called legitimate scientists with university backing proclaimed paranormal research as hokey.

Yet all across the country, there are thousands of paranormal reports each year, and this phenomenon has a direct correlation to our own history.

For instance, how can you study the motives of North American Indians without investigating the source of their beliefs where they routinely reported visits from the Gods, and had a strong belief that the rulers of the spirit world dwelled in animals?

A few years ago I went to the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. In case you don’t know the story, in 1967, to 1968, Point Pleasant was ravaged with UFO reports, strange government agents, and a creature called by the press, a Mothman. The Mothman is a 6 foot tall creature that flies around with red eyes terrifying people, and supposedly shows up before major disasters.

I don’t want to get into all that here, but I couldn’t help but compare the stories of the Mothman in Point Pleasant to the civilization of Cahokia just outside of St. Louis.

Cahokia was an ancient city of Native American habitation around 1200 AD and contained at least 20,000 residents. It wasn’t discovered until developers built a neighborhood over it in East St. Louis. Developers thought the ancient North American city was just a bunch of hills. As it turned out, Monks Mound at Cahokia is the third largest pyramid in the world by volume.

At this site they worshipped a god called “Birdman.” Its description was almost exactly like that of the Mothman, which was just up the river about 400 miles in Point Pleasant some 700 years later. This in itself is a mystery. And while at this archeological site, you can’t help but think of the world without buildings. You can see St. Louis from the top of Monks Mound. The primary highway runs right by it, yet most of America doesn’t know much about Cahokia because it’s not taught in school. It doesn’t fit nicely into the scheme of our educated belief system.

But the evidence is right in front of all of us. And I’m the type of person that will try and connect the dots even further. I’d be inclined to ask why such a city was built at that particular location in the first place. I mean there are lots of locations along the Mississippi River.

An interesting aspect of St. Louis is that it is built on a series of caves. Caves used to be very important to Native American cultures. Most agriculturally based cultures, and especially hunting and gathering cultures have ceremonies for the youth that involve going into caves and letting the spirits guide them to some sort of revelation.

One of the most haunted spots in St Louis is the Lemp Mansion, which was a family of early beer brewers that had a tendency to commit suicide. The Lemp Mansion had access to these caves where a fantastic pool was build down in the cave system, under the mansion. It is hard for me to not connect some of these mysteries that are hidden to us by the busy contemporary existence that hurries itself on the surface of things. I can’t help but think that the caves of St. Louis were important aspects to life in the city of Cahokia, and that the same god that residents of that city worshipped is possibly the same creature that hunted Point Pleasant, West Virginia. And the same “spirits” that resided in the caves, that ancient Cahokian’s sought out in their rituals were the same ones that haunted the residents of the Lemp Mansion and inspired them to decrypted lives of misery and suicide. It’s just a thought, you never know.

However, modern science doesn’t have anyway to deal with all that. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist or aren’t connected in some way.

In the end, it all comes back to money. Money is the god of modern institutions. And because they are always primarily concerned about how they will get it, or how they will preserve their union endeavors, they will overlook obvious mysteries that are all around them, and actually take steps to suppress the information to protect their budgets for fear of explaining how scientific theories of the past are suddenly wrong.

Basically, we are changing as a human civilization. And we’re changing faster than orthodox systems can keep up with. And that makes just about everything they are protecting irrelevant.

We know now that there are over 10 known dimensions. Quantum physicists can even name them to some extent, even if we can’t yet understand how to relate to something that is not part of our 4 dimensional realities. Much like radio waves, these other dimensions exist even if we don’t have a device that can detect them. There are many such revelations that are coming at us at a furious pace. And yet orthodox education and politics is always in the way of understanding.

So when I speak out about institutionalism, it’s for reasons such as those mentioned above. I look at people who proclaim the above as “hokey,” “crazy,” or even “silly,” as being a big part of the problem. They are the same fools that proclaimed the world was flat, or that Hell was under the earth because they were aware that volcano’s spewed lava. Science is expanding and institutions cleaving to the old ways will soon be as relevant as a dinosaur fossil in a museum and we’ll laugh at how old and archaic we used to learn information truly was.

When it came to Forbidden Archeology, the evidence of suppression was so obvious it started me thinking of how much of that suppression actually goes on. And it is clear that there are many scientific factors that are not yet discovered, and not part of our human existence by understanding. They may be felt, or suspected, but not yet proven. So to cleave to the old ways is to cleave to what is false.

Rich Hoffman

www.overmanwarrior.com

Bullwhip Economics: Pubic versus Private Sector (The Lakota School System)

It has been an interesting debate over this last month regarding the Lakota School Levy, and what has emerged is a philosophic difference. There is a portion of the population that is either working for the public sector in some form or another, or there are people who don’t. Among those that don’t there are some that wish they did, because the benefits are so good.

For a guy like me though I would never want a public sector job. The idea of being paid by the tax payer is an abomination that cuts to my core beliefs of self-reliance.

When my Whip Trick to Save America did so well at the start of the No Levy Campaign, I received a lot of requests to make another video using my bullwhips to explain some of the complicated budget issues that center around public versus private sector jobs.

Most of the video my wife and lovely assistant holds targets in her mouth while I cut them out explaining how it relates to the economics of public versus private sector jobs.

At the end of the video I do more whip work in slow motion while Scott Sloan of WLW Radio reads the Lakota Teachers Contract to a member of the Pro Levy Group. The discussion is valuable because it helps put the mindset of public sector sympathizers into the proper framework.

They are a fascinating species these public sector oriented employees. The bottom line is it’s easy to spend money that isn’t yours. Public officials have been over spending for a long time, which has made public jobs too lucrative, actually putting our country on the verge of bankruptcy. So now we have to fix it. And fixing it starts with local issues like school levies, and city government. I hope this video inspires everyone to pay attention to the small stuff, and to vote on November 2nd, 2010.

Rich Hoffman

www.NoLakotaLevy.com

The Power of the Big One. Scott Sloan reads the Lakota Teacher Contract.

700 WLW has long been a beacon of truth in the Tri-State. Every half hour on the hour they broadcast the news as it changes and migrates throughout the day. And in between those news casts they discuss the tough issues. When a major storm strikes and tornados litter the sky seeking to destroy everything in their path, The Big One is the station everyone turns to until the storms pass. When snow threatens to cover us all with white death, The Big One is there. So it is with the same vigilance that another storm is threatening us all, an avalanche of an education system in Ohio that is crumbling under its own weight, and only one powerhouse of media has the guts to explain the situation.

A couple of the personalities of that great station Scott Sloan and Darryl Parks have valiantly stood against the forces of power that seek to propel the planned agendas of special interest and the relationship to the big business of education. But before I provide you with the very powerful clip of Scott Sloan reading the Lakota Teachers Contract on the air the reader here needs some background on the situation.  (The Scott Sloan reading is at the bottom of this post)

The State of Ohio Supreme Court case of March 24, 1997.

Section 2, Article VI of the Ohio Constitution requires the state to provide and fund a system of public education and includes an explicit directive to the General Assembly:

“The general assembly shall make such provisions, by taxation, or otherwise, as, with the income arising from the school trust fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the State.”

And with that statement, the State Supreme Court found the current funding system being used by the State of Ohio as unconstitutional. The directive was then given to the state to properly fund all of education in the state of Ohio within the constitutional provisions.

Since 1997, nothing of any substantiality has been attempted in Columbus however, completely ignoring the Supreme Court decision. Instead, special interests have dug in and divided and conquered each school district with chaos, driving the per pupil education rate to such an extent that it makes it impossible for state legislators to attempt to tackle the problem. After all, in order to live by the state constitution, Hocking County, Ohio would need to receive the same type of funding as Butler County, Ohio. And in order to do that the cost per educated pupil would have to be determined.

The result was that from 2002 to 2010, in the Lakota School District in Butler County, Ohio for instance, the average salary of a teacher went up from $48,000 per year to a staggering $62,000 per year in just an eight year span. Other districts across Ohio have seen the same type of increase.

What is the result of this sudden jolt of salary increases? The cost per pupil in the State of Ohio was right around $6,500 in 1999 and is now just over $10,000. Since most education budgets occupy around 80% of the education expenditures, the cost per pupil is directly attached to teacher salaries and benefits.

In the State of Ohio the average teacher salary is roughly $55,000. Lakota is at $62,000. And the cost per pupil is directly connected to those wages. So what has happened is since wages have expanded nationwide for the teaching profession due to the diligent efforts of the NEA and the OEA teacher unions, along with others, the State of Ohio legislature is completely unable to determine what the cost per pupil is for teaching children, because many of them seek endorsement of the powerful unions, and therefore won’t touch the subject.

And with all this knowledge known and in print for all to see, newspapers cower away from such data in search of an easy headline. And television can’t seem to see behind the children that the powerful interests in education cower behind. There is only one place in Ohio that has the guts to tackle this issue for the complicated monster it truly is:

The Big One, 700 WLW

And with that, I present one of the most powerful moments of radio that I can remember in my lifetime. Scott Sloan actually took the time to go through over 160 pages of Lakota Teacher Contract in order to present the facts on the air to a group of Pro Levy supporters. To do such a thing required hours of preparation. Most people with much more at stake won’t read the contract because it’s too difficult, and that is how we all end up scammed, because people are reluctant to do the work. But Scott did the work and read it on the air. And for that, many people owe him a tremendous debt.

Click to listen:

Rich Hoffman

www.NoLakotaLevy.com

A Financial Crises Just Doesn’t Happen, Lakota Should Have Seen It.

A financial crisis is not something that just happens. There are many factors that have led to the situation at Lakota. Below are two of the big ones. In short, the reason that the group against the levy has emerged is in response to the irresponsibility shown first at the state level, and second at our obligation to bring the costs down before we consider funding at the level the state is insisting on.

The first part of the problem with the funding of Lakota Schools comes from the fact that the state cut funding to our district. How did we get to this financial crisis?

This is a chart of how the state government distributed funding across the state. As Mike said, he’s right, Lakota is viewed as a wealthy district, and the plan was to send the administrators back to the community even though we all pay our taxes to the state already.

Here Mike Taylor announces the second part of why there is a problem. At the end of this video, he talks about the amount of money that teachers make. He clearly believes what he’s saying.

He’s been a part of education for so long, he can’t relate to what life is like outside of education. “They don’t make enough for the job they do.” He points to other districts, and says the wages are on par. Just because it’s broken everywhere doesn’t mean we will fund a broken system in our own district. So because the wages have migrated into the ranges they currently are, and because the state won’t support the structure, if it is left to the local community, we are going to insist that the costs be reduced to something we can properly fund. That is our answer to the state.

Rich Hoffman

www.overmanwarrior.com

How to fix a Neurotic Person

It is my observation that much of the legislation and panic that runs rampant in our society is the result of neurotic people. The fix is easy according to the makers of Family Guy.

Rich Hoffman

www.overmanwarrior.com

Pro Lakota Group Threaten WLW Radio

Pro Lakota Group Threaten WLW Radio

In the video below Pam Perrino and others of the Pro Lakota Levy campaign threaten WLW radio for putting me on the air during the last week of September, 2010. Their goal seems to be to shut down all resistance to their proposed tax increase of the Lakota School Levy. Pam had in fact been on the previous week after Dan and I did our show. But she still harassed the radio station for putting us on the air making false claims and legal threats. This video is a bit long, but worth listening to. At the end, I found the clip where she had in fact been on the previous week, right after Dan and I left the station.

I find it appalling that Pam participated in this activity. Being against this school levy, we have every right to express our views on the No Lakota Levy side. But the Pro Side shows their arrogance in this display and threats of boycotting the station, its methods like this which have created the situation that all of education is in. The threats and intimidation create one sided debates, and over the years have allowed for the imbalance we are witnessing.

The people against this levy that I know want to see the costs of education brought down to sustainable levels. We don’t care what other schools are doing. We’re not going to play the game anymore. And these irritating displays by angry mothers and teachers are not acceptable. Nobody in their right mind would want to spend money on this type of mentality.
It’s a shame that we’re all guilty of throwing money at people like this just to shut them up.

And on top of this activity, every single yard sign the No Levy Group put out were stolen over the first weekend of October. Again, the mentality is an attempt to eliminate the opposition. This is not how elections are supposed to be conducted. One would expect this kind of behavior in places like Cuba, Iran, or North Korea. Not in West Chester, Ohio!

Rich Hoffman

www.overmanwarrior.com