It never ceases to amaze me that the immigration issue isn’t a clear-cut issue. The Arizona law SB1070 was an attempt by Arizona to get its problems under control. Yet, when it was enacted the violent reaction to it by portions of our demographic society was alarmingly coordinated.
For all the advocates of “open borders” they are quick to call people like the man in the video below as a “conspiracy theorist” or a “radical” because that man sees that it’s wrong to not have a border that is enforced with some authority. And he is angry that the federal government had the audacity to initiate legal action against a state, just for trying to protect its border from another country.
Let me use another example. Sex used to have more value when women made men work for it. We live in a society that has cheapened everything, so it is difficult for people to see clearly the issue of border enforcement.
Over the summer of 2010 I interviewed Sheriff Jones of Butler County, Ohio who has been trying to convince Ohio to enact similar legislation as Arizona’s SB1070. He has gone so far to explore the possibility of suing the entire country of Mexico for the terrible cost it imposes on the United States. Why? Well, I’ll let the Sheriff explain it himself.
The ideology of the more liberal of America’s population want the border issue cheapened, which is why they are so upset that people like Sheriff Jones, and states like Arizona that are trying to bring value back to what being an American Citizen is.
If only all people would see that being an American should have continued value, and advocating a one world “Open Society” is a foolish enterprise. Making something less valuable so that other places won’t seem so bad is a terribly naive strategy.
And it’s not only bad policy, but it’s technically illegal. The danger is the parties involved in forcing Arizona to back off SB1070 are doing so with the assumption that they can actually bend the will of law to their philosophy through the coercion of imposed case-law.
It’s important that Americans understand what their rights are and how things are supposed to work. Because there are groups that will manipulate the truth to suit their own selfish needs, or political ideology and they’ll do it without any regard for the law.
Senate Bill 5 will start the process of taking the shackles off the State of Ohio that confine it by collective bargaining. The rhetoric provided by the sector of the population that is “addicted” to collective bargaining which has grown in influence since 1983, so long that many of those people don’t know any other form of life, is sickening. So sickening it makes me question completely the validity of public education, because these people didn’t learn the basics of American life. Their basic premise seems to be that if you can get a job, have a union protect that job for your life-time, then they are willing to sacrifice a life-time of freedom for some mundane “average” life. I personally find their view of the world repulsive and un-American. What I see in those crowded halls of protest at the State House is a group of people protecting their right to be “average.”
Old college professor hippies such as Francis Pivan, who has spent her entire life perpetuating progressivism is upset at the countries sudden desire to turn back to the Constitution, now that we know we’ve been scammed by people like her for decades.
Pivan is an old lady but she was around in the early days of all this change and she’s always been active in politics. And she opened herself to these name calling tirades when she said. “The strange stories that Glenn Beck creates with his chalkboard gain traction with Americans, who are made anxious by the large changes that have overtaken the United States, including the election of a black president and the increasing racial diversity of the population, deindustrialization and the decline of American power abroad, as well as cultural changes in sexual and family norms.”
Who are these people that I’m talking about? Is it just people like me, Doc Thompson, Ray Warrick, Glenn Beck or anybody else? No. It’s people like the comment below. This comment came to me from a woman that only knows me from these epic pages. And her comment speaks volumes of who exactly those Americans are that have now been awakened and will not sleep so soundly again. She was commenting on an article I did about John Meyer.
There are people in my life that move me. I mean…REALLY move me. They are few. My father, who gave me the tools to navigate through life..now and then as he was right when he said what I believe would waiver with experience. So right. My husband for letting me move in the direction that drives my heart and soul no matter what. Glenn Beck. Say what you may…he’s my people. He’s been saying what I’ve felt for years. Yes..I cry. All the time. And Rich, who has given strength and voice to those of us out there that share his passion and need for serious change on so many venues. We need you and those that stand by you in the fight for the simple morale and values we were taught to respect. I never thought in a million years I would be here. Last but not least…to John. Kudos to you for just handing it to them. I’m honored that you live in my county and Country. God Bless. You ARE a Warrior! Today..I am blessed.
COLUMBUS, OHIO – An overflow crowd of over 800 concerned Ohioans packed the halls of the Ohio Statehouse today in opposition of Senate Bill 5, a job-killing, anti-worker bill that would silence the voice of Ohio’s public servants. If passed by the Ohio legislature, Senate Bill 5 would eliminate collective bargaining for Ohio’s public employees and make it more difficult to attract and retain quality staff.
“Today, Senator Shannon Jones and her anti-worker allies jump-started their job-killing vendetta against Ohio’s middle class,” said Becky Williams, President of SEIU District 1199 which represents over 9,000 public sector workers in Ohio. “Reducing government, cutting taxes for the rich, and taking rights away from workers might sound good to Jones, but when you talk about taking safety forces off of our streets, educators out of our communities and leaving criminals unsupervised in our towns – it’s just not practical.”
While working under the misrepresented premise of “transparency” and “reducing the size and scope of government,” Jones openly admits that there will be no direct financial benefit to the taxpayers after her exhaustive one-year research of collective bargaining. To the contrary, a report published by Policy Matters Ohio found that “allowing public sector workers to bargain collectively reduces labor strife, reduce the likelihood of strikes and can lead to better training and higher productivity for public sector workers.”
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This type of rhetoric is dangerous, and extremely misleading. Their use of terminology such as Anti-worker and the such are manipulations of the basic facts. I know many hard-working people who routinely work circles around public workers as far as quality and it angers me greatly to hear that union represented workers are “working families.” It’s that kind of discussion that has created our bankrupt conditions that began 27 years ago.
Notice how many people showed up for this event. Those are your working families. The reason their voices get heard and the “real” working families get ignored are because the real workers are working. These people are just paid lobbyists. Groups like the OEA, Progress Ohio and many others have their members take off work to participate in these lobby events, and that’s how things became so messed up to begin with.
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.
Just another reason for the application of School Choice was discussed by Doc Thompson as he addressed the issue of the woman from Akron, Ohio that got caught lying about her residence in order to send her children to an “excellent” school.
I have a nephew that is something of a genius; school comes very, very easy for him. When he was younger his parents moved a lot, but for a few years he went to Lakota, and at Lakota he thrived, naturally. He’s a man now, but some of his best memories were of Lakota.
One of his worst experiences were when his family moved to Detroit, and he had to go to a Detroit public school. And in that school, being “smart” wasn’t so cool, or tolerated. Needless to say, he had a very rough time, and violence came his way often.
If there had been a nationwide School Choice program, my nephew could have stayed with the teachers he liked while he moved all over the country with his parents, and he could have avoided the cultural difficulties involved in changing demographic regions. On the other hand, it would work the other way too.
For those of you reading this that aren’t so technically savvy to understand how modern teaching methods are possible to be able to replace the traditional teaching methods, let me bring some personal experience to the matter.
As I’ve talked about, my oldest Daughter is married now, but she has dated the same guy since she was 14 and she met him in England. About a year before she met this young man, she and I had a long discussion after coming off The Spaceship Earth exhibit at Epcot Center in Florida. That is a neat exhibit because they constantly change it to reflect the emerging technology, so it’s always leaning forward, technically.
One of the changes was a room that displayed with cleaver animatronics an English kid talking to a Japanese kid online. She said to me, “Dad, do you think that will be possible?” I wasn’t sure, but it seemed like science fiction even to me, who had been following the technology closely, this was in 2003. Internet carriers were still charging by the hour for many services, and international service seemed to be a technical and costly barrier that would never be overcome.
Yet, one year later a new PC game came out, which I knew was in the making, called Star Wars Galaxies. It is a MMO and allows anybody with a computer to play the game with thousands and even millions of other players in real time. I gave that game to both my daughters for their birthdays, which were only 5 days apart, along with computers to run them and both my kids jumped into the world of Star Wars for the next 4 years. Naturally they met friends and did activities online within the game. A lot of my family was concerned that so much online activity would lead to some sort of sexual promiscuity. But I watched my kids closely and the activity within the game kept their minds busy with things more exciting than sex.
My oldest daughter became good friends with a guy from their online group who lived in England, just outside of London. That friendship went on for a year, again online, and they eventually wanted to meet.
The kid came over to our house a few times a year for about 4 years and the relationship matured to my delight in a traditional way. Sex wasn’t an option, because they lived over 3500 miles apart. So they started the way couples should start, as friends. And that friendship endures to this day.
Now many people who criticized me about that relationship were concerned that my kids weren’t doing the “normal” things. That my daughter wasn’t “dating” in the traditional way, or running around at school events, and all the things that society believes are important. What I witnessed was that both my children had increased their processing abilities; they’d play that game while they did their homework, and maintained online friendships. Living with me, it was impossible for them to not get outside and do some physical exercise, so that wasn’t a problem, and they still maintained relationships at school, so they weren’t anti-social kids, quite the opposite.
But the computer allowed me to solve a growing problem that I had to unravel as a parent. It was becoming obvious when my kids turned 13 and 14 years old that they were going to look a lot like their mother, so there would be lots of boys wanting to clamor all over them. I did not want to deal with 17 and 18 year old boys desiring to come to my house and pick up my kids and take them someplace that I did not have control. So I hoped to put all that off for a while by keeping their minds interested in other things so their biological concerns could be put on the back-burner.
The result was, no trouble with boys trying to get my kids into their back-seats of cars, and my kids were able to develop healthy ideas of relationships by taking away the physical pressure of being in the company of a young boy. And because Star Wars is about big ideas and is good science fiction fun, my kids with other kids learned about the basic necessities of living, food, economics, science, and emerging technology.
As time went on, my kids had webcams and were able to speak real time to their friends and really didn’t care that they weren’t physically in the presence of other kids, because their reality had expanded beyond the conventions of society. And I am very proud of them and how they turned out. It was a good decision to buy my kids that game and set them in a direction that continues to this day, because such a thing takes away the barriers that hold kids back.
My daughters both had oversea relationships. One worked out, one didn’t, but what they learned was far more valuable than dozens of dates where the pressure for sex would have gotten in the way of really getting to know the boys they were dating. It also allowed my kids to tell their classmates in school that they had boyfriends from England, which seemed to put them on a different level with the other girls who suddenly didn’t have to worry that my girls would steal the boys they were interested in, and it dramatically improved the relationships they had with those little girls.
The reason I just told that whole story is because all it took was for me to think out of the box a bit and try something different in raising my girls. I used the technology to help me solve some tough cultural problems that would have been troublesome. And the same options are available for all aspects of education, and those options are available right now.
We should not live in a country where parents have to lie and spend time in jail because they want their kid to go to a nice school. And Schools should not be able to have monopolies that drive up costs. And kids should be learning in a way that will truly prepare them for the world they’re getting ready for. The traditional way of education is holding us back socially. It is obvious to me that the traditional institutions are not being kept intact because it’s what’s best for our children, they are being held together for the adults involved, jobs, political influence, property values and sports which can be a gateway for kids to get scholarships and save their parents money. If education was truly for the kids it would be adapting to the options that are in front of us, not clinging to an outdated infrastructure that is costly and inefficient.
If you want to see that world that kids want to be in, just visit your local Gamestop store. Technology is here to stay, and learning must occur much quicker than it has in the past. Kids today are just tuning out the adult world anyway because the world they’re really interested in is on Xbox, or Playstation and the friends that play online with them every day. The world we all grew up in is changing fast. Whether that change is good or bad will depend on how we adapt to that world.
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 threats of dissolving the Little Miami School District are interesting. After all, what is a community supposed to do with a district that has refused to pass a tax increase eight consecutive times? Who in their right mind could afford to absorb the students of the district, because all school districts around Little Miami are in budget trouble too?
Lebanon, one of the closest districts, is facing another levy attempt of their own. Mason, also close by doesn’t have the money. They just made major cuts, and are flirting with another levy attempt also. Loveland has already said they can’t afford the students from Little Miami. So the threat is an empty one at the end of the day. It comes from clueless state officials that haven’t had to deal with this issue before. Nobody taught them what to do if a community refuses after all the extortion tactics of pay-for-play sports, busing cuts, and token lay-offs occur. After the perceived manipulation of disastrous property values are dealt with, and a community still says, “NO!” what is the next step?
I was at a School Choice event, which I’ll cover in greater detail, when the Little Miami issue came up with School Choice Representative, Jeff Reed, State Congressional Representative Pete Beck, State Congressional Representative Bill Coley, along with State Senator Gates who all engaged in a lively debate with the audience about the issue of dissolution. Watch it here:
The first step to fixing this whole problem is what was discussed in the above video, the State of Ohio needs collective bargaining reform, and it needs it now.
Special interests are already salivating to have a crack at Governor Kasich’s defenses, quickly attacking his staff for their lack of “diversity.”
Diversity in “progressive” terminology means “no white straight people who are men.” But for the rest of us, diversity means anybody, of any gender, sex, or nationality. Yet the illness of progressivism muddies the mind so that common sense can’t be found. Evidence of that behavior can be found from Dave in the below blog post at the Progress Ohio website. Read the whole article at the link. A small portion of it is included below.
Tell Governor Kasich Gay Rights are Civil Rights! By Dave on January 28, 2011 12:18 PM
“When the governor acknowledges them [gays] as a minority group, which they are not, you’re also saying to them that their behavior is OK. And it’s NOT OK to engage in this type of behavior when it’s gonna cause you possibly to die from AIDS.”
– Phil Burress, Citizens for Community Values
With those short sentences, Citizens for Community Values, a group that endorsed John Kasich for governor, proved that bigotry still exists in the public square. They oppose any protections for LGBT workers and made outrageous, inaccurate statements that played on radio stations across Ohio on Tuesday.
The irony is that Governor John Kasich has already found a way to deny state workers basic rights they had under Gov. Ted Strickland. Last week, Kasich signed a “non-discrimination” Executive Order and purposely removed ‘Gender Identity’ from the employment protections, despite promises that he would keep those protections during his campaign.
The interviews aren’t intended to protect John Kasich. When Doc interviewed a radical socialist organizing the Defend Ohio Rally a few weeks ago, (you can hear that interview too) Doc agreed with the socialist when the activist criticized the amount of money the Governor was paying members of his cabinet. So as would be the tendency of progressives, not everyone follows “bullet point” politics as they do, where they follow without question the rhetoric of their “leaders.”
The people I know, myself included don’t follow leaders, so we can criticize public officials and still support aspects of their political platforms.
Most progressives that I know think the world is some tribal council where a tribe leader tells the whole village how to behave. Wasn’t it Hillary Clinton that said “it takes a village?”
The goal behind the attacks on Kasich is to put him on a defensive so these radical groups can gain some form of control of the Governor’s behavior. Because Kasich could never make those radical types happy unless he ignored “qualified white men” and hired blacks, Asians, and homosexuals, and sadly a lot of politicians actually cave under that type of pressure.
I find it ironic that when Ken Blackwell ran for governor against the white Ted Strickland none of these progressives stood behind Ken. Ken was a very good candidate for governor. I was ready to support him. I would have helped with his campaign in less than a second. When I think of Ken it NEVER occurs to me that he’s a black man. But he’s a smart guy, and I’d vote for him any day.
But to assign personnel because they are “gay” or a “woman” or of some exotic nationality is to actually discriminate against people!
The facts of the matter are that none of this is about “equal rights.” It’s about control, power, manipulation, and turning the minds of the American people so they get dizzy and look to a progressive leader for clarification.
So a note to progressives, the people of Ohio did not send Kasich to the governorship of this state to be a lap dog to anybody. Everyone, including myself, may not like everything he does as a person or as a governor. But it’s expected of him to balance the budget and does the work of the people of Ohio without concern for his political future and to let the chips fall where they may with regard to all the weak-kneed emo’s that seek to further undermine our great republic.
The shooting in Arizona is tragic. But at this time, the facts are still coming in, and there is other news going on at the same time that needs attention. One of those news stories is the impact of the man who structured the Defend Ohio rally up in Columbus to protest John Kasich’s position on organized labor is a Socialist!
Meet him here:
Doc Thompson had a great banter with a spokesman from Defend Ohio, a group I had never heard of because it was apparently formed just last weekend to attack John Kasich’s Administration before it could even get started. But the fellow came on WLW to discuss his position, and for that I give him credit. Listen to that conversation here:
If these people weren’t so dangerous, in trying to compete legitimately in the battlefield of ideas, I might just pat them on the head and encourage them to keep learning and trying. But, as I’ve discussed on this forum many times and in many ways, socialism, communism, progressivism, imperialism, and on and on, are infantile mutterings of the lazy, collective oriented that lack true courage, because they seek to hide their ambition behind a government entity that they wish to use as a bargaining chip.
When I heard the interview above on Doc Thompson’s show, I thought the man from Defend Ohio was naive, but well-intentioned, and I had figured he just needed to think things through a lot deeper. But now I know after a little research, that the people behind this rally are socialists! No wonder they don’t like Kasich!
Before 2010, I thought communists and socialists in our American society was something that was attempted during the McCarthy era, and even then, I actually thought that McCarthy was far-reaching in his pursuit to weed out communists. I thought that because I believed what the media told me, that Joseph McCarthy was a right-winged-paranoid-do-gooder. I started to question the media when I saw that they used the same approach to attack Kenneth Star, when he investigated Bill Clinton. Star was just doing his job. Clinton had flat-out lied in federal court. It happened right in front of our faces, so that made me question the reporting of the socialists in the McCarthy hearings.
So now they have met at the capital of Ohio on January 8, 2011 to protest a Governor that is trying to bring capitalism oriented ideas back to a state to attempt to save that great state from the damage done by socialist that have infiltrated the political culture for decades. The difference between now, and when they originally started, is it’s out in the open who and what they are. And America has to make the decision about what they want to do about it.
Now, to understand what is behind Defend Ohio, read this article. I put it up here so it doesn’t disappear after this rally turns out embarrassing for the organizers.
U.S. | Labor & Workers SOCIALIST CANDIDATE’S BACKERS FOUND NEW ORGANIZATION TO FIGHT TO DEFEND OHIO JOBS AND SER by Dan La Botz Tuesday Dec 7th, 2010 8:33 AM Ohio leftists create Defend Ohio campaign and launch Stop Kasich movement against new government’s radically anti-worker program
Supporters of the Dan La Botz, Socialist for Senate campaign of 2010 met in Columbus, Ohio over the weekend to found a new organization and launch a campaign to fight for jobs and public services in Ohio—and they pledged to resist the policies of Republic Governor-elect John Kasich. Dan La Botz was the Socialist Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in Ohio in November 2010 and received 25,000 votes.
The labor and movement activists from cities throughout Ohio created the Buckeye Socialist Network (there will soon be a BuckeyeSocialist.org website). The Network’s first campaign is called DEFEND OHIO and will focus on defending public employees’ jobs and public services.
“Governor Kasich has unleashed a class war in Ohio,” said Dan La Botz. “And we intend to fight back. Kasich’s inauguration is the ideal occasion for Ohio’s working people to protest in at the Capital in Columbus and to show the governor that he is going to face four years of fierce resistance by unions and social movements.
“Kasich,” said La Botz, “pledged to revoke the union organizing rights of home care and child care workers in Ohio. This is a vicious and despicable attack on the some of the state’s hardest working and lowest paid workers. And it is not so different from President Obama’s recent promise to freeze the wages of Federal employees. These attacks on public employees parallel the private employers drive for two-tier labor contracts intended to lower wages and they parallel attacks on social programs for low-income people in our society.
“We will be organizing working people to fight to defend public employees’ jobs, their wages, and their right to unionize. We will be fighting to defend all of the many services that these workers—teachers, social workers, water workers, garbage collectors, and so many others—provide. In doing so, we will be beginning the fight to rebuild the power of unions in Ohio.”
Union members from the Teamsters, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, American Federation of Government Employees, Communication Workers of America, and United Food and Commercial Workers were among those in attendance at the founding meeting of the Buckeye Socialist Network. Representatives from Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton/Yellow Springs, Canton, and New Philadelphia attended the half-day meeting.
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Hey, you can’t make this stuff up. Progress Ohio has their name all over this. These “types” of people are in the minority, but because they are motivated radicals, they must be dealt with equal passion from those of us that think correctly. And yes, there is a correct way to think and an incorrect way to think. Individuality and the power of the individual are correct. Collectivism is wrong. It allows the worst of people to live in a state of mediocrity. This popular video of the New York Public worker wrecking a car on a snowy street is a perfect example of what you get when you allow people to live in that state of mediocrity. This is your typical union employee. And I say that from lots of experience.
The Overmanwarrior 
