Lebanon Gets to Go First: Budget Cuts to Avoid More School District Taxes

Where many people have arrived at in their view of public education is that they believe that the money they are spending currently is a waste of money. The kids don’t seem to be learning anything significant, and the costs just keep increasing. Many people like me want to see some new options. I’m not shy about it. I don’t like the results of public education. I’m happy to pay my fair share for the sake of the rest of the community, but I make a living saving companies money, so it is impossible for me not to sniff out extreme waste when it is so very obvious. And the only reason I get involved is because these wasteful public education organizations are asking me for money, money that comes from my property value, which to me is the same as attempting to rob me while at the same time telling me it’s for my own good.

Doc Thompson seems to feel very similar and talks about it on his radio show at 700 WLW.

As the school boards all across this state prepare to blindly look to the future and campaign for levy passage in order to throw more money into public education in the name of “helping children,” a new chip is being placed on the table to curb those uncontrollable expenses.

Once S.B.5 signed into law, school boards will have the ability to bring down their costs immediately, which means they can drive down their labor costs finally. My guess is that many of these school boards will stall making big decisions and hope that S.B.5 is put on a referendum and defeated in the fall of 2011 so they can avoid any tough decisions. But I have a warning for them that choose to play the game that way………. it will be remembered that the opportunity to substantially lower your costs was put before you, and you did not take advantage of it.

For school districts that plan to play the stall game, and mindlessly ask for yet more school levies, there are further school reforms coming that will guarantee that you will see a declining student body population, such as School Choice and online courses, as options are provided to more and more parents to put their child in alternative forms of education.

The teachers union is aware of this threat to their control. The article below is intent to raise concerns with parents thinking about alternatives, such as online schooling. The lobby campaign against those reforms are already forming. Check out this from The Pulse Journal. Read the whole article here. http://www.pulsejournal.com/news/local-news/skipping-school-can-land-students-parents-in-court-1097694.html

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Skipping school can land students, parents in court

Kids learn hard way, with truancy comes consequences

By Eric Schwartzberg, Staff Writer Updated 10:36 AM Friday, March 4, 2011

WARREN COUNTY — A growing number of students in Warren County are making up time missed in the classroom with time spent in the courtroom.
Truancy rates in the county continue to climb as school districts become more vigilant about reporting unexcused absences. Last school year, more than 5,254 individuals were part of the Warren County Truancy Intervention Program, up from 5,215 in 2008-09 and 5,099 in 2007-08.
Bethany Cole, 16, of Lebanon, started skipping assigned online lessons in 2007.
“I got on virtual (school) in seventh grade and took it for a free-for-all,” she said. “The work was hard and I just didn’t want to do it. I wanted to play with my friends and have fun.”

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Translation is this, if you are a working parent and you think your kid can take online courses to get through school, you as a parent may find yourself in trouble with your country Truancy Intervention division, and may have to go to court. It’s a fear tactic to keep people from considering reforms. In the article, it is implied that young Bethany Cole needs a teacher to keep her in line. That’s the intent of the article.

I read the paper every week, and I haven’t seen much on this topic until S.B.5 passed the senate this past week. I know that one of the reforms that will benefit from S.B.5 is coming from State Rep Bill Coley’s online class bill passed during 2010, moving away from brick and mortar class rooms.

Those reforms will happen; it’s already in the works and is signed into law. This reform happened under Governor Strickland. The unions know it, so they will attempt to plant fears in parents from attempting any school reform. So there will be many more fear tactics attempted by the union to attempt futilely in keeping the world as it’s always been for those unions, but to no avail. The old games will not work any more.

Now there will be those that will accuse me of reading too much into the timing of the above article by Eric. All I’ll say to you is that you are naive and don’t understand the process if you think the timing of that article is not intentional. Such games are no longer going to occur with impunity. I’m not the only one looking at things like this now. School district budgets are going to have to change and adapt because competitive options are going to be implemented in education.

For the Lakota School District I have put out a plan for dealing with their budget deficit issues. Check it out here.

All districts should demand that the unions come to the table and reduce their wages proportionally taking a pay cut to bring their costs to the budget revenue supplied by the community. At Lakota I proposed a 30% cut that would instantly generate 27 million dollars. No further levy would be required, and no lay-off of teachers. All courses could still be offered as they always have. The only thing that would change is teachers would be paid less, something more in line with everyone else in the community. They are paid right now 62K per year. A 30% across the board reduction would make the average 43K per year. The median income in West Chester, which is within the Lakota School District, is $97,971. If you don’t know what median means, median income is the amount which divides the income distribution into two equal groups, half having income above that amount, and half having income below that amount. Mean income (average) is the amount obtained by dividing the total aggregate income of a group by the number of units in that group. The means and medians for households and families are based on all households and families. Means and medians for people are based on people 15 years old and over with income. In short for the purpose of statistics in this case it is a husband and a wife working making $48,985.50 each. In Liberty Twp, which is the other Twp in the Lakota District the median income is $88,105 which divided by two is $44,052.50 per working resident. Many of the people working in the Lakota School District have college degrees and advanced degrees. Such measures do not guarantee automatic pay increases of 70K to 90K per year as the teaching profession believes. School boards, asking teachers to live within the wages of the community are not unreasonable and needs to be implemented immediately. I hate to use teachers in this example, but they do make up a majority of the labor costs. Administrators, many of which are well over the 80K wage range must be looked at for their usefulness. Do they contribute directly to the education of children or are they just cruising through the system? School boards are well aware of who adds value and who doesn’t, and needs to act on that information to bring costs in line. There will of course be employees that will threaten to leave if they are asked to take a pay cut. Well, let them go, because where they are going will have to do the same, and if they are dumb enough to leave a good school district for another just because of money, then they aren’t worth the money to begin with because they are not in the profession for all the right reasons.

Now my primary occupation is bringing costs down in business. It is very hard to sit across the table from someone and tell them that they aren’t worth as much money as they believe they are. It is very, very hard. But a good manager will see through the tears and the hard emotions to do what’s right for the company, because it is the company that provides revenue to all its workers. So the health of the company is very important and cannot be top heavy with excess costs. It’s for the good of the upset worker that proclaims that they are not paid enough, to restrict them for the health of the company that they work for in order to protect their job over the long run.

These unions and school districts that have been run by the unions won’t like stepping back and will attempt any kind of emotional argument to proclaim why teachers and administrators are worth 30% more than every other profession. They’ll throw out all kinds of numbers but the reality is that they don’t know what is going on outside of their specialized bubbles. They have for years been their own management ruling over the elected school boards and have given themselves outlandish pay increases without regard for reality.

For those members of the unions the warning to them is this, drag your feet and fight the process all you want. Work hard to get S.B.5 on a referendum and overturned by the voters in November if you want. Try all you want to convince tax payers to keep throwing money in your direction, because what will happen within years, not decades, but years, is the entire system will go bankrupt. Those superintendents and teachers that are close to retirement won’t care. They will hope to hold off the tide until their retirements and they can escape the system with their wheel barrel of money. But for those of you that are in your late 30’s and 40’s, you’re in big trouble, because the system will collapse well before you get to retirement.

Don’t believe me, I wrote it down here for all to see forever, so prove me wrong in the future? At Lakota in 2003 the average wage at Lakota was 48K per year. In 2011 it is as we said 62K. There was one levy approval and two strike threats for more money and benefits over an eight year period and the average wages went up by 14K per year.

I use Lakota because that’s a district I’m failure with. But similar circumstances can be found in virtually every school district in Ohio. I am envious that Lebanon will be the first to be able to use the benefits of S.B.5 to avoid a levy all together. Because now their school board will have the tools to truly bring their costs in line and avoid putting the tax payers through a levy. They will have the opportunity to teach all the districts in Southern Ohio how to proceed in such a process and will always be known as the first to do so. Because of S.B.5, there is no reason for a levy, as planned. The school board will now have the power to regulate their labor costs, and that is an exciting prospect for the tax payers.

Little Miami is in the same situation. They are now able to deal with regulating their costs in ways they never dreamed of, and if they have the courage and commitment, can save their district.

But to those that those union types that are clinging to the past, and hoping to press upon communities to pass more levies and further the tax burden on property owners, you are in for a hard lesson. Calling people names because they don’t want to raise taxes on themselves will no longer work. The days where you have twisted the arms of communities are over. S.B.5 is not a radical right-winged conspiracy against the left. It is an urgent attempt to operate on a cancer that is eating away our public education system and restoring balance to local communities from the centralized power of union influence. And I S.B.5 is not used by school boards, or if voters in Ohio vote the bill down in a referendum then the system will bleed itself dry soon and nobody will have anything.

And when that day comes, don’t say you weren’t warned and that people didn’t stand up and attempt to save it, because we did. And the unions stood in the way and caused their own demise, because they were too stupid and arrogant to see that they desperately need the operation.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

White Blood Cells: The Mystery of the Tea Party

The budget battles are waging across the county, most recently in the states drawing a hard-line in the sand, such as Ohio, Wisconsin, and Indiana, trying desperately not to become the next California. The most intense battle hasn’t even arrived yet however, and that is the battle at the Federal level, where tax and spend liberals like President Obama, and Harry Reid are coming up against a new element that runs deeper than typical, placid conservative Republicans. That new element is the Tea Party, referred to by the media, and all those rampant tax and spend happy politicians, as Tea Baggers.

The Tea Party has brought an element to the political landscape that is difficult for the establishment to understand. Greta Van Susteren of Fox News recently attempted to get her mind around the Tea Party ideal and interviewed several people who tried to understand how a movement as large as the Tea Party is, can function without a leader. The left, who can’t function without a leader, is perplexed as they reach for icons like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. It’s not about them. If they were removed from the discussion there are hundreds of capable people waiting patiently if needed. The real heart behind the movement cannot be seen in such terms.

The best way to explain the Tea Party movement is that you have to consider the United States of America as a human body. It has a life of its own, eating, breathing and interacting with other nations. Now we all know what happens when a body gets sick. We don’t feel well, our temperature may increase, and we may fill chilled, weak, and have a runny nose. When we have a cold we tend to lay down for a bit, take off work and let our immune system fight off the virus. Such sicknesses might be called in America as “recessions.” Our immune system is the election process, and given time, minor illnesses can be overcome.

But there are other viruses and diseases that cannot be easily overcome by our immune system. Viruses like AIDS actually disguise themselves as healthy cells in the body till they are strong enough to attempt to take over the healthy cells in a body.

Cancer is the same kind of subversive disease that hides quietly in the body till it sees an opportunity to strike, and take over the surrounding tissue. We count on our White Blood Cells to identify a disease and to kill it, before it has an opportunity to take over and kill our body’s tissue.

Watch this video of a white blood cell chasing bacteria. Notice that the white blood Cell does not take time to watch TV, or eat at McDonalds. Such concerns are completely irrelevant to the life of a white blood cell. Yet, study the conscious movement of the cell, it is aware of the threat to the body and it is taking action to protect that body.

The United States of America, if looked at like a human body is plagued with many cancer cells attempting to destroy the tissue of the American body. To the cancer cell, this process is not a bad thing. The cancer cell just wants to live like any other cell. The quest for life is what all life shares. But the white blood cell is dedicated to protecting the body from such intrusions so a conflict is expected; we often refer to our immune systems as “fighting off a disease.” We expect it as a natural occurrence. But the cancers that we have in the American body have penetrated our education institutions, so they train the new cells of our body to duplicate the cancer cells. They have penetrated our political system, so as to infect all the cells there to become corrupt and distorted. They have penetrated our families, so the production of strong white blood cells cannot occur so there is no defense in the body to resist them.

Some white blood cells are aware of the cancer cells, and are attacking them directly now. And that is what you might call the Tea Party. The white blood cell is void of attention, concern for power, and greed. That is unless it has been corrupted by a cancer cell or other disease. We know many politicians on Capital Hill that have been corrupted in this way by the disease of “lobby influence.”

But most of the Tea Party people are as pure to a white blood cell in our society as we have to offer. They are selfless defenders of the body called America. They don’t expect financial compensation, powerful positions, or disproportionate amounts of wealth. They are unified by a common cause, and that is the preservation of the body America.

For that reason, the white blood cells called “The Tea Party” do not need a leader to tell them where to go or what to do. All they need to know is what the cancer cells look like, and to attack them the way America expects them to in order to restore the body to health.

The white blood cell is often out-numbered and must take on larger, much scarier cancer cells and bacteria, such as was seen in the video. They will often be outnumbered. But the white blood cell more often than not prevails and life continues for the healthy body. The body can only be measured by its health depending on the strength of its immune system, or otherwise, based on its ability of white blood cells to destroy attackers. This is important because a body is always under attack from foreign invaders.

In America, diseases that the white blood cells called The Tea Party are on the lookout for are socialism, which consumes healthy growth of the body’s tissue by cutting off the flow of blood in the body. Blood to America is its corporations. Other diseases are trickster cells that attempt to weaken the resolve of the white blood cell by disguising itself, such as AIDS. In America such comparisons are in the body’s lack of ability to embrace religion, social norms, and healthy living habits. Such trickster cells will attempt to kill off the white blood cell population with unhealthy pointless endeavors so the resistance is not in place for disease growth. Greed is a specific kind of disease that might be found in the union movement where those cells expect larger amounts of substance to maintain their own existence, tricked by diseased cells into behavior that puts their own lives at risk by overconsumption. This behavior takes away the body’s ability to furnish its other white blood cells with proper nourishment which inhibits healthy growth.

The Tea Party is doing the job expected by the Constitution. The spending habits of government now must be looked at as a disease. And all elements that are attempting to crush our American body must be dealt with. There is no longer time to have the type of compassion that allows cancer cells to live next to healthy cells because we now know with clarity that the cancer cells will 100% of the time attempt to take over the healthy cell.

That leaves just one question. Where do you fit in? Are you a cancer cell, or a white blood cell?

I know what I am. And I know many Tea Party people who are pure white blood cells. The goal of this site is to identify cancer cells and attack them so that we can return to a healthy body, because there is so much cancer in this body we are trusted to protect, that we need to relearn what the diseases are, and what the healthy cells look like, so that the epic battle to overcome our sickness can be resolved and our America can return to health.

Where do you stand?

That also brings up the logical question many have leveled at me. Am I a white blood cell Tea Party guy?

I name this site after a term I wrote about in 2004 called a Overmanwarrior, which was in my mind before there was a Tea Party. I am, as a person most happy in conflict. I am not a turn the other cheek, peace-loving type of person. I respect people who are, and many in the Tea Party reflect that position which I support.

Since I am one of those types that do find myself in conflict, usually under the radar, I operate as I have for many years, alone, so not to incriminate the people around me that I care about. But my best friends are just to the left of my ideas and those are the Tea Party white blood cells that understand what’s important and what to do about it when they see the threat to that importance.

I would consider myself a white blood cell that will 100% of the time take on the largest diseases without endangering my friends. And such endeavors are not the types of battles that peace-loving people are best at. So we all have our role in curing the diseases of the body. My role is different, but very similar. It is just a variation of the white blood cell role intended for the most vicious cancers.

That’s all I’ll write about that role since further revelations will reveal the strategy to the diseases who read my site every day. As I said, the Overmanwarrior role from my 2004 book is based more on fact than fiction. And that’s all I’ll say. But it is a kind of ultra-white blood cell.

The best writers write what they know about. I’ve been doing this kind of thing for a long time, and I am relieved to see that there is now help which I welcome with enthusiasm.

If there is anything we’ve learned from our first 200 year history in the United States it’s that having checks and balances of elected representatives are not quite enough in this American experiment. Waiting from election to election to act is not enough. What is needed in the body of America are those interested in fighting off disease as soon as they show themselves and keeping those elected representatives honest with diligence, so those political representatives don’t buckle under the temptation of disease to become corrupt and work against the body of our nation. Such a thing should never happen again once America’s immune system kicks in and restores our health once again so the real American dream can be experienced by our descendents.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Who Had the Guts to Vote for S.B.5: and who didn’t

Enjoy the following video which describes the plight of the union worker.

Regarding the passage of S.B.5 in the Ohio State Senate these are the senators that voted for the bill.

1. Bacon
2. Beagle
3. Cates
4. Daniels
5. Faber
6. Gillmor
7. Hite
8. Jones
9. Jordan
10. LaRose
11. Lehner
12. Obhof
13. Schaffer
14. Stewart
15. Wagoner
16. Widener
17. Niehaus

Those who voted no to the bill were:

1. Brown
2. Cafaro
3. Grendell
4. Hughes
5. Kearney
6. Manning
7. Oelslager
8. Patton
9. Sawyer
10. Schiavoni
11. Seitz
12. Skindell
13. Smith
14. Tavares
15. Turner
16. Wilson

The 6 Republicans who voted against it: Jim Hughes, Tim Grendell, Bill Seitz, Scott Oelslager, Jim Hughes & Gayle Manning, surely had their reasons. But it will be remembered.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Blame the Rich: The Marketing Stategy of Socialism

As much as Senator Capri Cafaro championed herself during the S.B.5 debates in Columbus as a representative of the “working people,” she is a perfect example of the type of politician that does one thing while intending another. Here she is grabbing attention during Governor Kasich’s inauguration bragging about how “conservative” she is.

Here she is just a few weeks later pandering to a mob curtailing her political influence.

Who is Capri Cafaro? Well, Doc Thompson digs into the issue during his March 2, 2011 broadcast on 700 WLW. He talks about her right around the 21 minute mark in the video below.

That’s right, she’s RICH, very, very rich, from a wealthy powerful family.

It is strange how she, and people like her, manage to hide that fact when they are trying to drum up support from the “working people,” who never see that “The Rich” are pretty evenly stacked on both sides of the political spectrum. Yet the way it’s presented to people who are not motivated to do their own research is all the rich are on the right, and that if they were taxed more, then all the worlds’ problems would be solved.

What these manipulators don’t tell people is that the real strategy is something else all together.

It is an easy target to point to the rich and proclaim with anger that they should pay more so those at the bottom can have more. For this reason, socialism will always be an attractive option for a certain percentage of the population that has a tendency toward laziness.

In fact, here is how the protests against S.B.5 are portrayed by Liberation News, a socialist publication that is of course adding fire to the situation in Columbus.

Here is the link to the original article listed below:
http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/victory-to-the-ohio-workers.html

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Tax the rich and corporations
Ohio corporations get away with paying one of the lowest tax rates in the country, while the people of Ohio suffer because state and local budgets lack funds to pay for needed services. The budget crisis could easily be solved by taxing the rich and the corporations.

GE is one of the largest employers in Ohio. It would have had to pay at a 22 percent tax rate in 2009, but it can deduct massive profits that they make overseas. GE has $84 billion in overseas income held outside the United States. So, it paid no federal income taxes that year and may have gotten over $1 billion as a refund.

While the right wing is trying to use the budget crisis as the excuse to batter the people providing essential services, the truth is that the working people did not cause the crisis. The budget deficits come from actions by banks and the money spent on wars for Big Oil.

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The problem with the whole Robin Hood Theory, “take from the rich, give to the poor, is that it is misleading.

It’s not about fairness, as it’s disguised. It is all about attempting to capitalize on a natural jealousy that exists between those that have, and those that don’t in favor of an entirely new political idea rooted in socialism.

The reality is that the left, and the socialist leaning left are heavily funded by the rich. In fact, when the Progressive Party held their convention in 1912 it was made up almost entirely of the wealthy that felt guilt and entitlement due to their wealth and desired to use their wealth to reshape the world into a more just and fair society.

People like George Soros and many other very wealthy citizens, particularly in the Hollywood left, pour millions and millions of dollars into the propaganda of socialism, and they are very aware of what they’re doing. In fact, I covered recently in another article that Soros has worked to help fund Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute which is behind the famous Sundance Institute, very popular with documentary films. In fact Soros has personally helped finance a film that attacks capitalism called Better this World.

It is ironic that such people have the audacity to point at the conservative right and blame the rich for all the worlds’ troubles. It is the communist rich that manipulates what they perceive to be the weak, mindless followers of their message, and attack their capitalist rivals, the conservatives.

Yet anybody that understands economics knows that taxing the rich and giving to the poor will only destroy the economy. Because by nature, the rich are not motivated to continue innovating and providing business expertise if there isn’t the promise of gain.

The pursuit of fairness is an audacious exercise in human manipulation. When given too much power, unions have proven to be just as corrupt as corporations ever were, so the experiment has failed both ways. The only protection against both factions is provided in the Constitution’s 10th Amendment. Through states rights, and less centralized power to the federal government, citizens can participate in their government and control much of the corruption that is inevitable.

Here is the ideologue of socialism Michael Moore. He is one of the biggest cheerleaders of this “tax the rich” idea of wealth redistribution.

Yet this is what the average person thinks about the situation in Wisconsin. It becomes obvious very quick that the normal people out there are responding to the situation not based on how issues affect them, but based on what they’ve been told to feel.

It is unfortunate that many people fall as such easy targets from the greedy shape shifters of public opinion and find themselves soldiers of an invisible army, because the intentions of those shape shifters are easy to see for anybody willing to look.

Pointing to the “rich” and fostering anger and jealously is the strategy of the deceiver intent on rebuilding the world into a new and corrupt society. That corrupt society is avoidable, but only if the participants of that society seek to do for themselves and avoid the lucrative blanket of socialism, and avoid the temptation of manipulative judgment.

Those of you that chant, “workers rights,” and “tax the rich,” are only pawns to a game you are not motivated to play, so you’ll find yourselves “played” time and time again to the detriment of American civilization.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Rich Hoffman and Realistic Solutions: The Many Reasons for S.B.5

The following comment is from a reader of the Cincinnati Enquirer responding to an interview I gave.

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10:12 PM on February 28, 2011
More kids in the district, less state funding and no levies to go along with it – that’s the problem. I have no issue with Lakota doing pay to play. I agree with that.

Rich Hoffman – how about you provide some realistic solutions instead of merely stating “it’s the teachers.” Aside from further cuts to staff, what would you like to see? What would be sufficient for you to agree to a levy increase? When all of the kids are hearded back into a one room schoolhouse and the heat came in the form of a fireplace?

You see the above problem…increase number of kids in the district, less funding from the state. So what’s your solution if the levy isn’t the answer? Simply saying cutting staff won’t solve the problem as state minimums will still be required.

I’ve spent thousands and thousands of words spelling it out solutions. What has to happen is the school board needs some real teeth, the teachers union needs to have less power than management, and real education reforms need to be put in place. When those things happen, budgets can be managed, kids can get a better education, and the reality of the situation can be seen clearly.

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What follows in these various radio broadcasts below is a large amount of information that anyone wanting to understand S.B.5 and how it affects the economy, politics, and each and every life of Ohioans, feel free to listen to your heart’s content. As the protests escalated in Columbus on March 1, 2011 chanting “KILL THE BILL,” in reference to S.B.5 I was on with Doc Thompson of 700 WLW speaking about the merits to the bill that get lost in the emotion of the debate.

Also just prior to the March on Columbus one of the organizers came on to Doc Thompson’s show to plead their side of the argument. He made some great comments and I enjoyed hearing them. They represent a majority of what the protesters think based on what they let out to the public.

Bill Cunningham had one several guests that provided potent information that every voter in Ohio should hear.

Given this large amount of information, where is the same information against the S.B.5 bill? Where is the compelling case as to why collective bargaining should continue? These radio broadcasts show all sides of the story yet where has the other side explained why it’s fair that tax payers continue to pay large amounts of tax and have virtually no control over how budgets are controlled because of collective bargaining?

Do those unions and their members have any facts besides the emotional appeal of chanting and carrying signs?

No!

This is how the OEA responds to S.B.5. This is how their lobby works. Study the words carefully and consider what they mean. This is how the OEA has done business for years, and this is why we have the financial implosion that we all suffer from.

Subject: Lobby Day March 2nd and growing momentum with the Educator
>>> Connector
>>> Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011 11:04:14 -0600 (CST)
>>> From: OEA ACE’s Action Center govtsrv@ohea.org>
>>> Reply-To: OEA ACE’s Action Center govtsrv@ohea.org>
>>> Organization: Ohio Education Association
>>> To: ha@blanchester.k12.oh.us
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Dear C******E,
>>>
>>> Keeping the pressure on our elected officials means reaching them every
>>> day in different ways. If you haven’t called or emailed this week,
>>> please do so today; if you have, please reach out to your colleagues,
>>> friends and neighbors to ask them to join you in standing up for our
>>> communities and against Senate Bill 5.
>>>
>>> *Our key, upcoming actions to oppose Senate Bill 5 and make your voice
>>> heard are:*
>>>
>>>   1. *Call and email your State Senator, using our Educator Connector
>>>      line (888-907-7309)* and ACEs email tool
>>>      <http://aces.ohea.org/site/R?i=e-zDZS9AVuStasiITpzQVg..>. If
>>>      you’ve already called and emailed this week, please ask 3 of your
>>>      colleagues and friends to join you. In the past two days, we’ve
>>>      had 6 times the calls as any previous 48 hours, and we need to
>>>      keep that advocacy growing. This is the fastest and easiest way to
>>>      make your voice heard directly to your State Senator. Senators are
>>>      reporting that they’ve noticed a marked increase in calls from
>>>      educators, and we need to keep the pressure up.
>>>   2. *Join us for our Educator Lobby Day on Wednesday, March 2^nd ,
>>>      *where you get a chance to meet and talk with your State Senators
>>>      and Representatives.**This is not a coalition rally but rather an
>>>      OEA event where you will get to hear from our Governmental
>>>      Services staff beginning at 9:00 a.m. before heading over to the
>>>      Statehouse. Our Educator Lobby Days are a great way to talk with
>>>      your elected officials about a range of issues, including Senate
>>>      Bill 5. RSVP here to let us know you are coming
>>>      <http://aces.ohea.org/site/R?i=O49lH3QTUpTvKWns1dq_4Q..> and so
>>>      that we can be prepared to help you make the most of your Lobby
>>> Day.
>>>   3. *Community Coalition Rally Against SB5 on Tuesday, March 1^st .
>>>      *The Insurance, Commerce & Labor committee has not yet released
>>>      official word if there will be a hearing or vote on Senate Bill 5
>>>      on Tuesday, but our labor and community coalition has scheduled a
>>>      rally. Once we receive the official schedule from the committee,
>>>      we will be sure to send you an updated Action Alert with more
>>>      details. All members are encouraged to attend Wednesday’s OEA
>>>      Educator Lobby Day regardless of what happens Tuesday. The Rally
>>>      will begin at 10:00 a.m. and the OEA building will be open at 8:30
>>>      a.m.
>>>
>>> Please continue reaching out to your colleagues, as well as your friends
>>> and neighbors in the community. Some enterprising OEA members are even
>>> talking with the owners and employees of the small businesses they
>>> frequent, telling them about how Senate Bill 5 would harm the community
>>> and asking them to take action, too. The more people you raise this
>>> issue with and move to take action, the larger our movement grows.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Socialism is Being Taught at a College Near You: Or didn’t you know that?

While America struggles with its self-image, those hostile to American values are revealing themselves.

Today, February 28, 2011 during the Doc Thompson show, Doc had on a student protestor that is organizing a rally at the University of Cincinnati that will included college professors standing against S.B.5.

The interview was very insightful. Of course the young man was nervous, and Doc was very nice to him, helping along through the interview. But what was unique about the interview as Doc continued to ask questions that the student couldn’t answer, was the arguments of the student broke down and he revealed his true political thoughts.

The kid came straight out and announced that he was a socialist.

Now the next question that comes to mind is where did this young fellow come up with this idea? How out of our public education system did he develop socialism as a virtuous political ideal?

We already know the answer. Many of the professors that will be marching on the University of Cincinnati will in private call themselves socialists as well. And I think it’s time to have the conversation that a large part of the United States voting population are self described socialists, and many of them hide that title behind the Democratic Party, and they are typically employed in the public sector, because it suits their view of the world.

It is important to understand what people truly are because it will explain the rationality behind their voting patterns. Now professional pundits in the political landscape are very clever in hiding their socialist love. So getting them to admit to it is difficult because they know that most Americans are weary of the term. However, young students who are being taught socialism as a real option while their minds are fertile ground for planting such thoughts are not so slick in hiding their intentions. And when pressed, the kid came out and professed to the world what he was and what he wanted.

So when we see these marches that are against, “union busting,” many of the people marching lean in the direction of socialism. They may not understand that is what their ideology is because they have been taught and have never questioned their thoughts against reality. For instance, a teacher that comes straight out of college might think like this young man in the interview. And then they are employed in a school system where the culture is controlled by a powerful union that philosophize about the same thing the teacher learned in college and that teacher never has to bounce their ideals off the real world.

Now compare that to the student who comes out of college, and gets a job in the private sector. Within a few years, that young student is going to learn how tough the world is, and by the time they get on the north side of 30 years old, they are beginning to vote Republican and are becoming the conservatives that their parents were. The reason is, the socialist, utopia that college professors speak so highly about in their round about way, doesn’t work when tested against life. And it never does and it never will.

China has been able to make it work for a time because we’ve helped feed their economy. But think about the land mass and total resources of the Soviet Union and China compared to everyone else, and both those countries using socialism as their fundamental political philosophy. They have not been able to flourish as an economy without the help of the United States. What does that say?

It is detrimental and actually childish to continue to listen to advocates within the United States on economic matters who lean in a socialist direction. If they want to think with socialist leanings they are more than welcome. They can work whatever job they have and think what they want. But they are not allowed to wreck our economy over idealism.

Listen to more from David Horowitz says on this issue. This is taken from one of his seminars.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Warrior of the Week: Sharon Poe

This week’s “Warrior of the Week” isn’t being recognized for her sudden bravery in the face of overwhelming opposition for last week, or even last month, But Sharon Poe has been fighting the good fight both in front of the camera and behind the scenes for a long time. Here is footage of her prior to fighting the Mason Levy during the summer of 2010.

If you listen to the radio, you’ll probably hear her. If you are watching TV and they are covering news regarding Mason, you’ll see her being interviewed. If you go to a school board meeting, you’ll most likely see her giving a speech. But with Sharon, that’s only a small part of what she does.

She amazed me during last week when she helped me coordinate on air interviews from Columbus with news organizations, and was able to turn around in the same afternoon and drop a load of “classified” documents to a major news organization that proves to be a bold and unprecedented move revealing a major cover-up that has been contained from the tax payers for years.

While doing all this she has fulfilled a leadership role within the Lebanon Tea Party, worked to advance “School Choice” as a viable option in Ohio, and maintained very close relationships with key politicians to advance legislation key to much-needed education reforms in Ohio.

For all those reasons and more, Sharon Poe is a “warrior” that if others did half of what she does in her commitment to justice, this world would be a free and wonderful place.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The Overton Window and The Jonestown Tragedy: Richard Trumka’s Progressive Push

I’ve said it many times, I read a lot. A whole lot. And over 2010 one of the books that most jumped out at me was Glenn Beck’s The Overton Window. My daughter had bought it for me for Father’s Day and I read it in one day.

I hear people like Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO talk about the “RIGHT WING” and you hear what comes out of his mouth and you have to wonder about his sanity. As far as a union leader, and a person close to the White House, which he says he speaks to daily, I would be ashamed if that guy where my boss or leader. He clearly doesn’t understand basic economics and its people like him that create the message that millions of union workers chant.

Here is Trumka speaking in March of 2009. He has no idea how the bill he’s speaking about will “expand” the middle class, and he doesn’t have any idea how this will drive up the labor costs. He just makes statements that people seem to blindly following without question. Something he accuses Beck and other people primarily on the political right of doing.

You can read here how he believes the best way to expand the middle class is through further taxation. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/afl-cio-boss-raising-taxes-is-best-way-to-create-jobs/

America is supposed to be a group of individuals, not a unified collective sum like Trumka speaks about. The Federalist Papers, which went on to become The Constitution were written to protect American from people like Trumka, and Obama. Those people and people like them taken by themselves are not bad people, but they have a dangerous ideology and they disguise it with a message the masses can understand. So it is not a far stretch to say that when I saw Trumka speak on February 26, 2011 that the best way to create jobs was to raise taxes, which I know from economics is false, yet people chant and cheer in approval, and I witnessed the union protests all across the country, it reminded me of Jim Jones, of the Jonestown massacre from 1978. Jones had several thousand supporters that followed him from Indianapolis Indiana, to San Francisco, then to Guyana South America. Jones was an admirer of Marx, Lenin, and Mao. That’s why they chanted this song at their church rallies in the early 70’s.

Jim Jones is a tough story to swallow. Because it is the extreme example of what collectivism can inflict on people. Jones was a proud socialist. What you are about to hear is the actual death tape from the Jonestown Massacre. Jones turned on a tape recorder and gave a final speech while his thousands of followers drank poisoned drink to their deaths. He calls it “revolutionary suicide” to an inhuman world. You will actually hear people perishing in the background, so if you have a soft stomach, don’t listen to this. This behavior is far from a joke. If you listen you will hear several people step forward and speak about the greatness of Jim Jones, their “Daddy,” and of the merits of socialism and communism.
The following clip is from the film The Guyana Tragedy and is a reenactment of what you will hear below.

Here is the actual death tapes. Now consider as you listen to this, these people speaking are just moments from their death. They know it. Listen to their thoughts and what they intend.

So what is the lesson here? Well, madmen have a way of lying to themselves and distorting the reality of the world around them. And such people are attracted to socialism, communism, progressivism and all those collective “ism’s.” At that point it no longer becomes a simple argument about economics and the best way to handle economic issues. It evolves into a struggle between good and evil.

That’s where I start seeing startling comparisons from people in the modern labor movement. What they are saying are simply the words their leaders speak. Richard Trumka is a powerful union leader and in this recent case involving these labor protests, what he says in public, over a microphone, ends up coming out of the mouths of his followers.

Trumka, like many people attracted to those “collective ideologies” are prone to climb for power. History shows that it happens in every case. I don’t know of a single instance of a collective society that survives outside of a tribal village. The individuality inherit in the human being seems to break down true collectivism, and social experiments to water this tendency down in our youth have failed with terrible results. This is the reason the Tea Party has risen as a permanent movement, because many people are just tired of the “social experiments.” Many want to return to the original blue print that paved the way for the greatest nation on earth.

The Tea Party is a push back against the tendency of “collectivism” that has gotten out of control.

Whether or not he is aware of it or not, Trumka’s actions show that he is power-hungry and idealistic, and is essentially no different from someone like Jim Jones. It is quite possible that if that congressman from California had not went to Jonestown and been killed, Jim Jones and his followers would have lived for years without a mass suicide. But the scary thing about it is that Jones had to retreat to South America to have his utopian society. And the congressman was doing in that society much of what the Tea Party is trying to do in American Society. They are intervening and attempting to break up the dangerous collectivism that is consuming the nation.

Progressives are insistent in the modern age to not leave the country for their utopian society. They instead are intent to change the country itself. Here Trumka reveals what he is all about, which concerns me a great deal. It concerns me because watching his followers on Saturday; they seem to think he truly believes in this whole “middle class” protection. Yet he states otherwise.

Now this doesn’t mean Trumka is just like Jim Jones. Jones when he was in Indiana seemed like a reasonable guy. Thousands and thousands of people wouldn’t have followed him if they thought the path would take them to their sweaty deaths in a South American jungle within a decade. But Trumka’s followers behave almost identically to the congregation of Jim Jones, and that is what is troublesome.

Watch and listen to these clips from the Saturday Protests. And compare the behavior to what you heard from Jim Jones’s Congregation.

This brings me back to the Overton window concept introduced in Beck’s book. People can say what they want about Glenn Beck, but from what I know about the guy, he genuinely wants to get at the truth. His agenda is the truth. And that’s why he wrote his book, The Overton Window.

As I was reading The Overton Window, I realized that here is a guy that Time Magazine called the most dangerous man in American. Here is a guy hated by all these various progressive groups. Here is a guy that has become massively popular in a very short period of time. Here is a guy that has an agent that is very liberal. Here is a guy that knows a few rich people yet has not forgotten his humanity. Here is a guy that has hit the bottom, and realizes that it’s the little things in life that makes things precious. Here is a guy that would never, ever, under any circumstances be a Jim Jones. He might have the power to be, but he would not sub come to it. Glenn Beck is the kind of man who you could put a pile of gold in his lap, ask him to watch it for you till you come back, and when you returned 2 years later, he’d give it back without anything missing. Since he has a unique insight to how the game is played at the level he’s at now, the book, The Overton Window is a particularly rare opportunity for a reader. And I found the book and its concepts uniquely rich. It may not be the most profound literary work in history. But it is very bold in its attempt and it succeeds. What it is successful in doing is capturing the confusing political landscape that we are currently involved with revealing through a cleaver story what drives all the groups involved in creating their own Overton window that will pull society in their desired direction.
Here is the definition and description of what a Overton Window is as described in Wikipedia.

The Overton window, in political theory, describes a “window” in the range of public reactions to ideas in public discourse, in a spectrum of all possible options on a particular issue. It is named after its originator, Joseph P. Overton.

At any given moment, the “window” includes a range of policies considered to be politically acceptable in the current climate of public opinion, which a politician can recommend without being considered too “extreme” or outside the mainstream to gain or keep public office. Overton arranged the spectrum on a vertical axis of “more free” and “less free” in regards to government intervention. When the window moves or expands, ideas can accordingly become more or less politically acceptable. The degrees of acceptance of public ideas can be described roughly as:

• Unthinkable
• Radical
• Acceptable
• Sensible
• Popular
• Policy

The Overton Window is a means of visualizing which ideas define that range of acceptance by where they fall in it. Proponents of policies outside the window seek to persuade or educate the public so that the window either “moves” or expands to encompass them. Opponents of current policies, or similar ones currently within the window, likewise seek to convince people who these should be considered unacceptable.

Other formulations of the process created after Overton’s death add the concept of moving the window, such as deliberately promoting ideas even less acceptable than the previous “outer fringe” ideas, with the intention of making the current fringe ideas acceptable by comparison.
__________________________________________________

This site has an interesting twist on The Overton Window by describing it in four planes instead of just left and right, which I like.
http://www.correntewire.com/the_overton_window_has_four_panes

What these extreme left groups have done over time is they pulled the Overton window radically to the left with key phrases like, “workers’ rights” and “tax the rich.” Or “all conservatives are Hitler.” 100 years ago at the start of the progressive movement these ideas were considered radical. But in the election of 1912, Eugene V.Debs had doubled the Socialist vote from 500,000 in 1908 to 1 million in 1912. This wasn’t some guy from Europe; he was born in Terre Haute, Indiana. In fact, the Socialists had their 1912 Convention in Indianapolis; the same place Jim Jones started his socialist church. Ronald Reagan toyed with joining the socialist party when he was a young man in Hollywood. It was after he traveled to England and witnessed what socialism had done to England through the Labor Party that he turned far to the right, out of fear for his country. But those people, those 1 million people who voted socialist in 1912 are out there, and they attached themselves to progressive ideas, they had children, raised families and found themselves drawn to the Labor Movement in America on the backs of the unions. Now many of those people aren’t bad people, but they are attracted to the collectivism of socialist concepts by their family culture and genetic make-up, because let’s face it, some people are more comfortable hiding in the masses and are not inclined to stand on their own.

Those poor, unfortunate souls are the people who end up following someone like Jim Jones in the extreme circumstance. And to a lesser degree, they find themselves repeating word for word what someone like Richard Trumka utters, without any care as to the relevance of his words. Trumka knows he can’t talk to an economist about how he represents the “middle class” or how “increasing taxes on the rich,” “creates jobs.” Those are just buzz words to stir up the followers. What Trumka is really after is moving the Overton window far to the left as was the trend during the entire 20th century. It happened because people weren’t aware of the threat and it just crept into our culture subtly. Trumka said it himself; he’s not in the labor movement for wages and benefits. He’s using the labor movement as a platform to change society, and that isn’t any different from Jim Jones who wanted to change the world through religion.

The Tea Party wants none of that non-sense. The Tea Party wants people like Trumka off our back, and wants to pull the Overton window back to the far right so that the recoil will leave the political spectrum back in the middle where it belongs. The caution is there because half the nation isn’t drinking the cool-aid of Trumka. Half is, roughly. The problem is that other half are made up of people who have evolved to expect an entitlement culture, so those aren’t the kind of people who will carry a nation by themselves. They’ll need a fanatical leader to lead them. The Tea Party has no such leader. Glenn Beck could disappear tomorrow and someone like Doc Thompson in Cincinnati would just take his place, or maybe the young man in the radio broadcast above. The movement is essentially leaderless, because it is built upon the ideas of self-reliance, which was what America was intended to be.

The real threat and real money being poured into politics isn’t coming from Rupert Murdoch, or the Koch Brothers. George Soros, and all the Hollywood left has poured far more money into political manipulation so there isn’t any room to talk. Yet if Trumka says “the conservative right is for the rich, and we are for the working man!” Look at all these contributors to the radical left! Yet all these people point to the right and say it’s “Wall Street, the rich, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, all are blamed for manipulating the American people when in fact it is these people that have committed the act of their accusations.

“The working man” is another false premise captured by the labor movement and placed into the minds of Americans by the Overton window. In Ohio 655,000 people work for a union, both public and private. That’s only 13.7 percent of the 4,787,000 million people who are employed in the state. That leaves over 4 million people not represented by a union, and don’t particularly want to be represented by a union. And most of those people are not in management. Most of those people are the real workers, and is proof that such extreme rhetoric as exhibited by people like Trumka to an army of people built on entitlement. Yet, because of the Overton window, the media, and the regular everyday people accept that “workers’ rights” represents union work, because that’s how the term was marketed.

The times we live in have these two ideologies colliding before us. And unlike in the past, people will have to choose. One side is the side of life, and one side is the side of doom. So we must choose and choose wisely. Because the time has passed where both sides can’t coexist together now that the radicals have made a move and shown their intentions.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

S.B.5 Would Have Saved $1.3 Billion in 2010: Yet the OEA says it’s teachers will suffer when the average teacher makes 55K?

The picture here refers to a report from the Columbus Dispatch which cites that if S.B.5 had been enacted during 2010, the state would have saved 1.3 Billion dollars. That’s a massive figure!

Darryl Parks of 700 WLW talks about the savings S.B.5 would have saved, and addresses the hypocrites within the Tea Party Movement that are now complaining about some of the budget cuts they pushed for.

You can see the whole article for the Columbus Dispatch here.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/02/26/senate-bill-5-saves-1-3b-study-says.html?sid=101

Most of the savings are not a direct savings to the state, but an indirect cost imposed by “step increases” which is the primary reason I am supporting S.B.5. At Lakota, as I’ve stated many times, the average teacher makes over 62K . When you study the reason Lakota, Mason, Lebanon and all the other large Southern Ohio districts need a levy passed, it is because the districts have to live up to their rising costs imposed by the “step increases” required by state law. So when I asked the question, “why can’t Lakota live within their 160 million dollar budget? Why can’t Lakota cut salaries since they are obviously inflated, and leave busing alone, keep the sports, keep the electives, don’t lay off teachers?” The response was, “we can’t, because we are obligated by state law.”

Step increases are the hidden villain here. I calculated that if the teachers at Lakota took a 30% reduction, which is reasonable considering what they are making, it would save Lakota $29 million a year which would mean the district wouldn’t have to ask for more money in an operating levy.

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

That’s the reason the teachers are protesting. Because their union knows the scam that they’ve been playing against the tax payer is falling apart now that their cost to society has reached a breaking point. Their strategy all along was to continue to push for higher taxes to pay for their scam and they had full confidence based on their track record over the last two decades that they’d achieve that goal. Now, compare what you’ve learned here about step increases, and the imposed cost to the tax payer, and the amount of money teachers are making on average, and then look at Patricia Frost-Brooks, President of the OEA, comments in that same mentioned article from The Dispatch.

“If you lower the wages, and your health insurance goes up, then what does that do to a family? How is the family going to sustain their livelihood?” said Patricia Frost-Brooks, president of the Ohio Education Association.

What planet is she living on? Doesn’t she realize that her teachers are making A LOT more money than the average worker in Ohio? You can read more about Patricia’s view of the world at http://www.progressohio.org/blog/2010/09/lets-revitalize-ohio-not-go-backwards-by-ohio-education-association-president-patricia-frost-brooks.html Notice she doesn’t mention much about kids in that article. Only politics.

Patricia goes into great detail attempting to demean Governor Kasich before the election. The OEA is a lobby group in Columbus where Patricia Frost-Brooks is president of the Ohio Education Association, a statewide union representing 130,000 members in k-12 schools, public colleges and universities and education support professionals. So when you listen to what she says, consider that she has one primary job and that is to protect her members. And in her view, she if protecting her members by driving up their wages, paying them very well, so they will have the expendable income to give back some to her lobby group. It’s that simple.

She accuses Kasich of misleading. She makes that assumption based on her own actions, so she assumes that the rest of the world is playing the same game, and they aren’t. Patricia reveals much of herself in that Progress Ohio Article. She is against school reform, she is against reducing the salaries of teachers to help districts deal with their costs, and she genuinely believes that somehow education costs can continue to expand as they have forever. She is completely out of touch, and if she’s the leader of the union, and is one of the most “rational” minds, then what do the “rank and file” believe? Where do they think all the money comes from? Do they not have a basic understanding of economics?

But Tom Ash, director of governmental development for the Buckeye Association of School Administrators, said school boards may not do away with all automatic pay increases.

“At milestones during their career, I think there should be step increases in an attempt to retain those people because you don’t want to lose them,” he said. “But the notion that you should do it every year, I don’t know that that’s necessary when you’re also providing an increase on the base salary.”

Mr. Ash is speaking my language. That’s the reality of the situation. For some teachers that are exceptional, I’ll use Lakota as an example, like Mr. Duff, who is a science teacher that I think is great, I don’t want to see him go anywhere. I’d be happy to tell the school board to throw money at a teacher like that. He should make 70 to 80K per year. But for every teacher like him, there are 4 or 5 that are just cruising through their careers, and they do not deserve to make more than 55K per year, no matter how much education they obtain for themselves.

You have to understand that this whole thing is a system. The OEA for years has lobbied to create legislation that creates incentives for teachers to obtain a master’s degree. For many teachers, obtaining a master’s degree is practical and necessary. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 52 percent of teachers hold a master’s degree or higher. Although some states require teachers to obtain master’s degrees, teachers often seek advanced degrees to increase their salaries and obtain new skills.

Read more: Requirements for a Master’s in Teaching | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/list_6388286_requirements-master_s-teaching.html#ixzz1FA2fulvD

There is a reason Patricia and the OEA wants its teachers to have a master’s degree. That is because the OEA also represent teachers who work for universities and if every teacher working in Ohio continues their education and gets a master’s degree so they can qualify for the financial rewards of obtaining that degree then the money funneled into the colleges can help pay the salaries of the professors staffed at those institutions. It’s what the “working people” in know would call, “job security.” The OEA knows that their teachers at the K-12 level are likely to seek that higher degree if they can afford it with good wages to begin with, but the promise of even higher wages are at the end of that degree. Here are the tuition costs at Ohio State, as listed at their website.
Estimated Costs for U.S. Students

All costs are subject to change without notice. A complete list of quarterly tuition charges by program may be found at the Office of the Registrar’s website. http://gradadmissions.osu.edu/Costs.html

• $11,298 – tuition cost for a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, aslyee, or refugee and a legal resident of the State of Ohio;
• $28,746 – tuition cost for a US citizen, permanent resident, aslyee, or refugee whose residence is outside of Ohio;
• $13,980 – estimated annual expenses for room, board, insurance, books and supplies

The truth of the matter is it’s all about money. It’s always been about money, and it’s a game played at the tax payers’ expense and it has to stop.

Look at this ad from “Teacher World” which is a teacher recruiting website.

With an average teacher salary of $55,931,* teaching in Ohio is a great career choice. Whether you like bustling cities like Cincinnati, Cleveland or state capital Columbus, or prefer smaller towns or rural communities, Ohio has it all. Learn about teaching in Ohio on Teacher World.
http://www.teacher-world.com/statespages/Ohio.html

The OEA knows what it’s doing. It’s a shell game. They manage to obtain for their teachers above average wages so they can funnel some of that money into the higher education system. They also have to create the incentive for teachers to make more than enough money so they won’t suffer when they must pay their union dues, because the OEA needs that money to lobby elected officials and participate in the political system.

During this entire process, the OEA has managed to wrestle control away from school boards all over the state so that this financial balance cannot be upset by local communities not wanting to pay outrageous taxes. The school boards are brought into the shell game each November when they attend the OSBA, (Ohio School Board Association) event in Columbus.
http://www.ohioschoolboards.org/osba-capital-conference

Check out this video. This is how they sell it.

Once the school board members are taught what they can and can’t cover as board members, the implementations that are put in place by the OEA are safe from scrutiny. This is why the first and only thing school boards are allowed to deal with are the costs associated with direct operating expenditures, which only occupy under 20% of a school district budget. Notice how many times teachers and administrators mention in that video that the only hug a child gets in a day or hot meal they eat comes from the school system. It is ironic that they sell their service and the necessity for the massive amount of money flowing within it by creating the perception that they are the only chance kids have for success in life.

Yet, the message is effective, and the employees believe what they are told from leadership. One person that believed the message was Ryan Fahrenkempt who was teaching at Lakota last year before being forced to resign in August of 2010. As a Lakota educator, Fahrenkamp hosted a science day for students and was featured in a newspaper article about the shortage of male teachers in the elementary classroom.

He was quoted in the 2008 article while he was teaching sixth-grade at the former Shawnee Elementary School.
“I think that boys at this age need that male influence outside just the home,” he said. “In some cases, they don’t get that in the home,” Fahrenkamp said.
http://www.oxfordpress.com/news/crime/former-teacher-in-federal-court-on-child-porn-charges-1044534.html

Oh, he wasn’t the only one. Just one month later the Mason School System had this happen.

How did Stacy Schuler see herself and her role as a teacher? Schuler said she isn’t perfect and she knows of a healthier lifestyle than she is living now. “I used to wake up earlier to come in [to the school] and work out,” Schuler said. “But I just wasn’t getting enough sleep, and as much as I preach a healthy lifestyle, I would say I’m not a good example of a healthy lifestyle right now.”
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/who-is-stacy-schuler-reading-between-the-lines/

What do the parents think about this behavior? Listen to a mom read a note from her son during the last school board meeting in Mason, Feb 22nd 2011. Her son went to Mason several years ago, he graduated in 2007. This proves that the recent news went on for quite some time. The woman’s testimony is at approximately the 1/4 mark of the video. George Coates named in this video was the AP who’s genitals were found on Stacy Schuler’s computer upon her arrest and was a direct supervisor to Ms. Schuler.

http://www.icrctv.net/mason-board-of-education-22211

And it’s happening all over the country. That video you saw from the OSBA, about how school is the only safe haven for many kids is completely misleading. Parents have to be more involved in their kids’ lives. Money will not make that issue go away, because we cannot trust our kids completely to school systems. There are a lot of good people who work within the system, but schools are not the utopia’s that the OSBA envisions and tries to sell to its members.

Click this link to visit a page that attempts to capture all the school scandals in the country. Just pick a city. http://www.schoolteachernews.com/scandal.html

Parents must be an important part of a kid’s life. Schools have sold themselves as an option while busy parents conduct their lives, and in the chaos, people like Patricia, of the OEA, and Governor Strickland, pandering to union money has manipulated tax payers into funding their personal social agendas. And the experiment has been a terrible, miserable failure. Not only is the per pupil spending in Ohio at 10k per student that money has done nothing to prepare children for the world marketplace. MTV is proving to be the stronger influence among young people, and kids get that information for free. The education reforms that Patricia fears so vehemently, like competition with school vouchers, and competitive salaries controlled by school boards, are coming because the OEA have been caught not doing what is right for the children and the communities that send their children to their care every day. Public school is a valuable asset, but is producing at a mediocre level. Not at the level that the wages being asked for dictate. The OEA has attempted to cover that fact with smoke and flashy imagery. But they are the failures behind the curtain. Remember the Wizard of Oz? Patricia is the one behind the curtain in this particular case.

What S.B.5 will do is it will save tax money indirectly, with anticipated increases that used to be mandated by the state will now be controlled at the local level, where tax payers can help the school board adjust their costs to the supplied budget. And it will take control away from the shell game that the OEA has been conducting for years.

That’s why S.B.5 is a great bill. And it’s also why the OEA is so steadfast against it. It’s all about control and manipulation. That’s what Kasich means when he says he wants to return “management control” to local communities. That’s how the economics of the state get balanced and why Ohio can be a model for how the United States as a country should function. We cannot allow a central authority driven by union manipulation to drive up the costs of education in our communities, like it is now. That central authority has to be removed as an influence because they are not elected by the tax payer, yet act as a government authority. The experiment has failed terribly, and it’s time to try a method that puts the responsibility on the local community, and allows competition to do its work of driving costs down, in this case up to 1.3 Billion just for the impact of S.B.5 alone, and make the best and brightest employees excel while the mediocre stay in a budget range that does not destroy the ability of the community to fund them.

The question is, will the communities of Ohio allow themselves to see through the smoke screens and do what is obviously right or will they choose to allow themselves to be scammed by a ruthless adversary. Only time will tell.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Paying for Protection: The Organized Crime of Teacher Unions

Should a teacher have to pay dues to a union in order to work for a public school? Of course not, yet that is exactly what’s happening in Ohio and many other states. Such a policy is no different from organized crime, where protection money is required in order to avoid some retaliatory measure. This type of behavior has absolutely no place in modern education!

Doc Thompson talks to Tracy Bailey of the Association of American Educators about alternatives to teachers unions and politics along party politics. It is a fascinating discussion that deserves review. If you are truly hungry for facts, make sure to listen to this interview. Bailey discusses how teachers are listed at the top of many public opinion polls as to people society trusts. But union leaders are viewed equal to used car salesmen in a trust worthy factor, and there is a growing disconnect between those two gaps.

Check out Tracy’s link here.
http://www.aaeteachers.org/

Yet the stories of impropriety continue among the tax payer employees known as teachers. Lakota had a major scandal recently in January from Ryan Fahremkemp and Mason had one with Stacy Schuler in February and there are more to follow on her coat tails. Read this next bit of information coming out of Mason.

You can read the whole article from The Whistleblower at this link.
http://thecincinnatusstandard.com/Whistleblower_Newswire_Saturday_February_26_2011.mht

Sex and Drugs for All: The Mason Schools

Here’s yet another Mason teacher, Daniel P. Little, who is still teaching in the district.

Several of our readers said we didn’t report enough detail about Mason teacher Dan Little, 28, and his arrest in the midst of his sex and drugs two-day party spree in Room 403 at the Hampton Inn on Crescent Avenue in Covington, Kentucky. Also present at the party when the arrests took place were five other people: another Mason teacher Russell Fallon, Mason assistant wrestling coach Jabree Jones, Tasha C. Davis, Carrie Little (Dan’s wife), and John L. Miller.
____________________________________________________

I don’t know about you, but I expect better behavior out of the teachers we hire with our tax dollars. I am aware that there are always bad apples in a bundle, but what doesn’t get analyzed from all the chanting protestors in the Ohio and Wisconsin State Houses is that there is a level of expectation that the public has about their teachers. Unfortunately many tax payers throw up their hands in frustration and have stopped “expecting,” because bad behavior goes unpunished, or is brushed under a rug by administrators. That is the crime here, and that is why we are finding more of these stories from teachers that are abusing “The System.”

It is certainly not new, this idea that teachers want to have sex with students, or administrators are having sex with teachers, or teachers like in the case involving Daniel Little are getting together with a group of other teachers along with his wife to engage in extremely bad behavior. This wasn’t just one teacher and one isolated incident much like the Schuler case wasn’t just sex with one student. She was involved with the Assistant Principle also, which has not been discussed much. And Dan Little wasn’t just having a crazy drug party with his wife in a hotel room. It was with several other teachers, people we expect to teach our kids about the negatives of drugs.

But schools hire public relations people known as “spokesman” to clean up these issues and present a public face that the media can assist in portraying. Notice how Dan Little is portrayed on the Mason School System website.

Staff Awards and Honors
Mason City Schools’ staff members are at the top of their profession.
• 31 Mason teachers earned National Board Certification, MMS science teacher Dan Little and Mason Heights second grade teacher Greg Hill won the Rising Above Teacher Award sponsored by Panera Bread Company
Check it out for yourself. http://masonohioschools.com/district.cfm?subpage=185

Do you think Panera Bread wants it’s Rising Above Teacher Award going to a drug abuser? Of course not. And would the public be inclined to pass another school levy if they knew about such bad behavior? Of course not. So it doesn’t get talked about. It gets spun and twisted so a moral judgment cannot be made, and by the time the next levy hits the ballot box, the voters have forgotten, because all they see is the awards that were won and published by the school.

That’s where the unions come to play, and that is what the teachers are paying for with their union dues, protection. Dan Little makes $86,000 and he’s only 28 years old. The union has collectively bargained in favor of a teacher like him obviously. Who thinks that kind of financial compensation would be available in the private sector? But that’s not the only thing the union dues purchase for a teacher like him. The union makes it so difficult for the administration to investigate and punish bad behavior that administrators have given up too.

Administrators and I know this is a hundred percent true because I know some of them personally, spend their time protecting image and not enforcing policy. The inmates do run the asylum and everyone knows it, within the school systems. It is a running joke.

Now I get a lot of letters from people who don’t want to see it. Or they get mad at me for pointing it out, because in their minds, they want to maintain the illusion that they want to believe. And I say to those people that they are irresponsible participants of destructive behavior which directly corrupts our youth. If they cannot see the error of their self-imposed blindness, then they are as bad as the people who commit these terrible acts, because the public trusts these tax funded employees to care for their children.

I started this quest by asking a simple question. Is a the average teacher salary at the Lakota School District worth 62K. For me, no. I think that is way too high as an average. The average needs to be in the lower 50K range to meet the budget requirements. But if the public is going to be required to pay teachers like Dan Little 86K a year, is it too much to ask that he uphold a high moral order in his private life? Is a person with obvious social problems qualified to make so much? Is he even qualified to teach one child let alone a class, or several classes? Yet those questions cannot be asked because the teachers union with all their collective bargaining agreements put in place for “safety” of the employee prevents even asking the question, because the pursuit of justice is far too costly to overcome the organized crime strategies of the union.

That is the heart of the problem. There are a lot of good ideas out there. Doc Thompson as a radio talk host has went above and beyond in examining them. You can listen to hours of his testimony on this site or simply visit this extensive online video library with sound bites from his show. http://www.mefeedia.com/feeds/51484/overmanwarrior

The question is, as the supervisors of these employees, which is all of us that pay taxes, is the system the way it is now to your liking? Do you think it works? Or do you want to do like David Letterman said recently, “why don’t we just throw more and more money at education until it works.” It doesn’t matter if it’s 20K or 30K per pupil! The union bosses bet that you don’t have the fortitude to oppose them, because as long as the bad stuff is kept from your eyes and you can have deniability to impropriety, you can still look at yourself in the mirror each day and feel ok about things. They know human nature doesn’t like to fight, and they have built an empire on the backs of our children at our expense in more ways than just money, and they know most people won’t challenge them directly.

Meanwhile the bad behavior continues in the shadows. It’s everywhere if you want to lift up the rug and look. And we are paying for it all. Our kids watch us and can measure our blindness, and they will take that lack of vision into their adulthood. And when we are all grandparents looking over our children’s lives and the wrecks they have become, the guilt will be on us all for turning away from trouble, and lacking the courage to even question a system that is rooted in tyranny to protect the fates of our children from the organized corruption that resides in the human soul.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

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