This is what you get when you have liberals on a school board. Lakota Schools has decided to put two levies on the ballot in November, totaling half a billion dollars, which will cost most taxpayers at least $465.5 in property taxes. They are stating that the combined $4.99 million bond issue will have a $0.95 million permanent improvement tax added to it, which will cost around $93.10 per $100,000 of home evaluation, providing $ 506.40 million to be repaid over 37 years. And all that sounds wonderful until you realize that we’ve heard this all before, such as when the Liberty Junior building was proposed and built back in 1980, and is scheduled as one of the ten schools they want to demolish with this tax increase. New school buildings can’t hide the fact that the people teaching in them and running them have no idea what they are doing, and that radical teacher union values are what are being taught to these generations of kids. And, as with these school levies, which have been a while since we’ve had one at Lakota, I will be voting not just ‘no,’ but a resounding ‘hell no’ on this ridiculous proposal. What it essentially comes down to is a bunch of liberal women on a school board who believe that new shoes worn to a social occasion can make lipstick on a swine look better. Hey, nobody is looking at your shoes, if you’ve let yourself go, and all these school board members are just that type, new clothes can’t hide what disasters they are to social considerations. And I say four ladies because Doug Horton acts like one of them, and given the way these big progressive organizations hire people like him, I would not be surprised to learn that he puts she/her as his listed pronouns. This Lakota school board is a very progressive group, and they all believe that cosmetics can hide the fundamental flaws of the education system in general.
These are the schools Lakota is planning to tear down
They believe that this is the time to do this; they have wanted to for a long time, and we have held it off in our community by having at least a reasonable stopgap on the school board. For the last couple of years, we (conservatives) had a three-to-two majority. But the way that everyone behaved, the radical leftists in the background, there was no way to keep conservative members on the board. When Darbi Boddy was no longer there, any hope of reform on spending vanished. The idea that the Republican Party could at least appease the radicals with some playing nice was a fantasy. Before they ran Darbi off, they ran off other conservatives with just as much viciousness. I determined several years ago that the Lakota school board was beyond hope, and the best course of action was to let them reveal themselves to the community as they are, which is precisely what they are doing. Talk about bad judgment, the people suggesting that new school buildings will solve their education problems of teaching students are the same people who are well known to strip on table tops at education conventions and end up passed out without their clothes in the bathroom. So, when I say that for these very pretentious people, who look like people who have let themselves go, and believe that a new outfit worn to a social occasion will keep people from seeing what they are, that is the logic behind this ridiculous half a billion dollar monstrosity. If it weren’t so outrageously absurd, we might laugh at it, but they are serious.
Republicans played nice with these radical people as long as they could, and that has largely kept a tax increase off the ballot since 2012. Declining enrollment has kept the budget afloat, and the wages reflect it, with a majority of the administrators and many of the Lakota teachers earning well into the six figures these days. Their operating budget is approximately a quarter of a billion dollars, so these failing schools are a real drain on our community. They are centers of government progressive imposition that are trending out of our society. These four school board members have been advocates for same sex bathrooms and Critical Race Theory. They ran off Darbi, who was doing a good job of pointing out those big problems, and a lot of people didn’t like that she wouldn’t play nice to keep Lakota’s board from going completely liberal, as it is now. However, in the process, they were dragging our community into the gutter, and we needed to take a stand at some point. This levy is it. I think it’s a 58% to 42% issue, with the majority aligning with the conservative nature of Butler County. They believe that enough liberal-minded people have moved in from other areas to shift the vote total to something more even, with 50% for them and 49.9% against tax increases. I don’t think so; I think they live in a social bubble and believe that Lakota residents are all at Cooper’s Hawk at Liberty Center, sipping wine with their pinkies out. I think the real voters are actually watching the latest Trump speech and are waiting for Vivek Ramaswamy to be governor and to bring School Choice to Ohio on a mass level. And to create a merit-based teaching system. Never forget that School Choice was in the Big Beautiful Bill, as I had told everyone it would be. Lakota is way behind the times, and it shows with this ridiculous levy initiative.
I remember when Liberty Junior was proposed as the latest technology-driven school back in 1980, when it was built. It was one of the first schools in the area to have air conditioning. While that was 45 years ago, it’s still a nice school and could easily be used in a competitive school environment where Lakota will have to compete with other districts for students to attend, as the dollars will not be allocated to the school, but to the child. By the time these people build the new schools after tearing down the old ones, education in America is likely to change dramatically under Trump’s administration, and with Vivek Ramaswamy as governor of Ohio. And regarding Liberty Junior, many people attended that school, but nobody exceptional emerged from all that social investment. It produced average people who grew up to be average, and I think Butler County wants more than that for the next generation. That’s why they supported Trump. And that’s why a lot more people these days are saying what I have been saying about education for decades, that government schools don’t do a very good job. And we don’t like them leeching off our property taxes to instill social values in our kids that we don’t like. And the people making these decisions aren’t very good. They live their personal lives as disasters who try to hide that from the public, like an ugly person wearing new shoes to a party. You can have a whole closet full of new shoes, and those people will never look as good in them as a runway model. New schools won’t make the ugliness of a failed union model go away, and the bad people who support that structure, as their social conduct well testifies, can’t hide it from the world with more money wasted. And yes, the cost to the average homeowner in Liberty Township will be $ 465.50 because most homes are valued at $ 500,000. A little detail that Michael Clark at the Journal News, Julie Shaffer’s lapdog for many years, ignores when he says that the value of a house is still at the 100K range. You can’t have a doghouse in Liberty Township or West Chester these days for $100,000. This is an expensive levy for a failing school system, created by failed people who are trying to hide their horrible lives behind innocent children with new and shiny schools, hoping to tear down the mistakes of the past with bricks and mortar that is a lot easier than replacing the garbage that they are. You can’t put lipstick on a swine and expect it not to be a pig, which is precisely what Lakota schools hopes to do with this massive tax increase, unleashed by their tone-deaf grasp on reality.
And just for an update on what former Lakota School Board member Darbi Boddy is doing these days. Well, I would say she is doing better work for the future than wasting it on that ridiculous school board that is run by the teachers’ union of Lakota, and all their outrageous costs and social desires. Darbi has been at Mar-a-Lago spending time, doing important things, that will be revealed in this change state for education. She is also associating with a very good person, Sam Sarbo in promoting educational freedom and school choice. I would say that Darbi will play a very important role in the future education of Ohio, in a much more potent role than what she ever could have done on the Lakota school board. And very soon, the Lakota board will wish they hadn’t ran off their cover story and exposed themselves in the way they will experience with this school levy. We tried to warn them.
As bad as I have reported Hillary Clinton to be with all the things I have written about her over the last six years, actually—she is even worse than I have said. What has been revealed with factual evidence lately—before Labor Day in America during 2016—has been enough to not only keep her out of the presidency, but to put her in jail. Hillary Clinton’s email scandal alone is a hundred times larger than Watergate—which sunk Richard Nixon–leaving the establishment in Washington D.C. with a terrible choice. Those who continue supporting Clinton will have to do so by surrendering justice in our legal system, or they have to throw her to the wolves and thus end their own political lives—and that includes media press credentials making a living off the happenings of the Beltway. Either way, there is no going back—because the crimes have been that monstrous.
For me Donald Trump is the “school choice” candidate. For many years now I have offered that “school choice” was the best option for destroying the tragic monopoly that the government school system has had on our youth. Trump is the kind of president who would actually have the guts to institute this difficult change which is the best way to prevent any more school levies in Ohio’s unconstitutional property tax incursions—theft of wealth redistributed to labor union dominated schools based on zip code. With “school choice” the education money given by the state and federal sources would go to the child, not the school meaning that public schools would have to compete with each other for those dollars—which would force an end to the labor union monopoly we have now which has driven up the cost of education without the benefit of any positive results. In fact, kids have had their minds literally destroyed in these public schools for the last three decades and Trump is offering a complete change to this system, so that alone is a reason for me to vote for him. There are many others—but for me, that is one of the big ones. There is nothing but positive things that could happen with Donald Trump as the president—so the election is very clear.
But for Democrats and those who are bottom feeders of Beltway politics—essentially the entire system that people can see on the popular Netflix series House of Cards—everything has changed. Even if Hillary Clinton survives the 2016 election and can pardon herself and many others for the many crimes committed during her rise to power—the public will be so outraged that law and order will be tossed out the window and vigilante behavior will begin to be openly conducted. If the IRS lost its credibility during the Lois Lerner ordeal and the Department of Justice with “Fast and Furious” along with its open affiliation with the Black Panthers—Hillary Clinton’s debacles before September 2016 even started are enough to push at least half the country over the brink into open revolution if the rule of law is so openly tossed out the window. Really, the only thing protecting those criminals in the Beltway and beyond—including the Alex Soros parties in the Hamptons—is respect for the Bible, and the concept of law and order—which conservatives naturally adhere to. If that is taken from them—an angry desperation will ensue and that won’t go well for Hillary Clinton and her barnacles.
I see only one path at this juncture—which is why I don’t write every day like I used to. What I have had to say is done—and is happening. Warnings and contemplations will no longer shape the arguments at local and national levels. The work is complete. Now, we can only watch what happens. Trump has to be elected president because the person running against him is a criminal caught in horrendous crimes before she has obtained the Oval Office. She can only win that election with continued help from every federal agency including the FBI—which will destroy the rule of law for our entire nation. Without question, they will try to protect themselves as Beltway surrogates, but in so doing, they will destroy our nation once and for all—which would make villains like Alex’s daddy George very happy—but for the rest of us—open revolution would be the only way to set things right in such a post apocalyptic world. With Trump as president all the news media would have to change—George Soros and all his influence would wither away within a day of the election—and the Beltway would be forced to adapt to a man who literally rarely sleeps and is at work most hours of every day—even on Sundays. It would be the most vigorous White House America has ever seen—and nobody could stand in its way for the first time in our history. Billionaire leftist activists like George’s seed, the Richie Rich playboy Alex Soros would still have their parties with fashion models disgraced for life in front of the Hollywood and sports world celebrities—but their influence would die quickly off their property parameters and for the first time would find themselves on the outside looking in.
But, there is no going back now. One of the two things will happen as a result of the 2016 election. We literally either lose our country or the establishment loses their influence. Either way, they lose. For the rest of us, we can only gain peace and justice. Speaking for myself, it’s a win/win situation either way. If we have to fight the political left in open civil war, then I’d rather get it out of the way now than wait another ten years. But, for all the millions of words I have written on all these important matters—things like “school choice” would finally happen. Can you imagine all you levy supporters out there if your kid was on a sports team under a coach you didn’t like and wasn’t helping your kid get that scholarship to college the way you have been planning? Say for instance that your child is at Lakota in my school district and they just aren’t getting the playing time you need to win that scholarship to the University of Kentucky.
But you did golf with a coach from Princeton just to the south recently and he’s in need of a kid like yours for his team. Under “school choice” he could actively recruit your kid to play for him and the money would follow your child to that new school. No longer would you be trapped to a school just because it is in your neighborhood. Schools would be decentralized, and competition would rule once and for all improving everyone’s lives properly. Even some on the political left like those maniacal school levy supporters in Ohio would gain something from a Trump presidency. But with Hillary, we literally lose our county. At this point, the choice is clear. Things will never again be acceptable under the status quo of Beltway politics. Tomorrow will either bring war, or prosperity beyond measure, there is no longer middle ground on the matter—and Hillary Clinton will forever be blamed—rightfully so.
For the latest on what’s happening regarding School Choice up at the capital, here is some testimony from Representative Matt Huffman from Lima, Ohio given on February 16th, 2011. There are plans to expand the voucher program which is an encouraging sign for those of us that are pushing for 100% eligibility in the state.
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 Mason School Board in a meeting on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 more or less gave the people of Mason the finger; (figuratively speaking of course) The people of Mason were told that because they didn’t pass a levy in November that painful cuts were headed their way. Basically, they’re going to “extend” the busing routes, along with some “pay to play” initiatives that are designed to cut nearly $6 million out of their budget.
The following clip is from the day after, and on the eve of Jeff Reeds visit to promote School Choice, ironically in Mason on Thursday. Jeff and Sharon Poe, the woman behind defeating the levy in Mason went on the Big One with Doc Thompson to cover the various issues percolating in the shadows of the Big One’s radio transmitter.
Everywhere that monopolies exist, extortion of the consumer of the products monopolies produce can take place. If you’ll remember, the Federal Government during the Clinton Administration went after Microsoft, to bust up the market monopoly Microsoft had over other companies. And at the turn of the last century, Teddy Roosevelt, the Progressive Hero, went after the Railroads. But where are the demands from these same progressives to go after the monopolies of “public education?”
That’s what it is. Mason has no right to play the guilt game with the citizens of its district. However, Kevin Bright is one of the highest paid superintendents for a reason. He’s has been one of the instructors of Levy University, taught at the annual OSBA event in November of each year at Columbus. So he’s the master of getting levies passed, so in his district, they are “choosing to play the game.”
I had a teacher send me an email, “you’re not going to stop until we’re all making minimum wage are you? We’d all have to take a 30% cut to meet the budget at Lakota.”
All I can do is shrug my shoulders to that comment. Nobody said anything about teachers making minimum wage, but a 30% cut to meet the budget is something I suggested almost 6 months ago. If Lakota, Mason, and the rest of the districts that are in trouble, which is everyone, had taken such a step, they would have taken the steps to make themselves competitive for the future. A teacher that makes a $105,000 and takes a reduction of 30% would pay that teacher $73,500, which if they have tenure, and a master’s degree, is much more in line with a proper salary. Does anyone believe that making $73,500 a year with great benefits, summers off, and every federal holiday through the school year is asking teachers to work for minimum wage? On the other hand, I would argue that new teachers should be paid in line with what they are currently making. It’s the top end that is wrecking these school budgets, not the new teachers that are only making $35 to $45K per year.
Yet there is only silence to that obvious problem, and all districts are willing to deal with is the extreme low hanging fruit. And they do that because they are effective monopolies that feel empowered to punish its consumers because they lack competition. A district like Mason knows that parents are forced to use their product, and because of the property taxes residence are forced to pay, are literally pushed into accepting realities that would otherwise be completely deplorable.
In the end it’s more about ego and PR relations than doing what’s right for the community. What would happen if the man who teaches Levy University in Columbus couldn’t even get a levy passed in his own district? What message would that send to the surrounding districts?
The Overmanwarrior 
