It is not an accident that people of all ages from all places love Star Wars. Star Wars is about all the purest notions present in the minds of humanity.
Whenever there is a big Star Wars event, such as this latest one at Hollywood Studios fans from all over the country show up in costume to celebrate unbridled creativity and the spirit of adventure.
As for the ride itself, here is a sneak peek at the actual ride itself.
As a boy I was without question the fastest kid in my entire school. Nobody could run faster than me, in dodge ball I was always the last kid standing and I was one of the strongest. I won the pull-up contest in the winter Olympics event in the fifth grade; in fact I won the school equivalent of a gold medal. I was always really good at sports, all sports especially basketball and hockey, so of course a very pretty, very popular girl wanted to “go steady” with me, in the fifth grade. Now to the adults in my life, it looked as though I was headed in the right direction, cute girlfriend, the gym teacher was telling my parents that scholarships were in my future from any school of my choice because my physical abilities were unusually proficient, and aside from being very combative with my teachers, my future looked bright, except for that one small problem, I spent hours and hours and hours in the basement of my home playing Star Wars with my brother. My family couldn’t afford all the toys that Kenner was producing, so my brother and I built our own, all inspired from the Star Wars galaxy.
A very pretty girl who rode my bus was persistently letting me know she was interested in me. Under pressure from all the other “popular” girls that rode my school bus, and the boys that would soon become the “jocks” in later years, I told the little girl I’d go steady with her. Such a girl promised to be very adventurous. It was well-known that she would probably take off her clothes for me and let me do pretty much whatever I wanted, because she had said so to her girl friends intending me to find out. So I said yes.
At home that night I was doing the usual thing, eating my dinner as fast as possible so I could go downstairs and play Star Wars. During dinner that girl called me.
“Hello,” I said to her as my mom handed me the phone. My parents looked proudly at one another.
“Hey sweetie, what are you doing? I heard you said you’d go steady with me?” the little girl said.
I was looking at the clock. It was about 6:15 PM and I wanted to build a spaceship with some shoe boxes my mom had left in my room. I didn’t want to hang on the phone with some stupid girl. “Auh, yes.”
“So, can you get your mom to bring you over?”
“Tonight? To your house?” I said looking at my mom. I was thinking of the possibilities. This girl was one of those girls back then that had both parents with full occuapations so she was home by herself most of the time. In fact, during the summer, in her neighborhood most of the kids were home by themselves all summer because their parents were always working or too tired to pay attention to what the kids were doing.
“Yes silly, to my house. My mom is going to be gone till 9 and my dad is on a business trip. I’m here by myself and I want you to come over.”
I looked at my mom, my dad, and my brother who was ready to go downstairs and play Star Wars. “What are we going to do?”
The girl giggled on the other end of the phone. “We’ll think of something.”
I knew what that meant. This little girl had let quite a few of the boys she had “gone steady” with, see her naked, so that was what the girl had in mind. She figured that would seal the deal with me.
My life flashed before me. I realized that if I went to that girl’s house once, she’d want to do it again, and again. She’d also want to talk on the phone all the time like a lot of the girls from that time were doing. I did not want to spend my time talking to some stupid girl on the phone. I just wanted to see her naked, but not to get wrapped up in wasting my time. My heart’s desire was to go into the basement and play Star Wars.
“I don’t think I want to go out with you,” I said to the girl.
“What?”
“It’s a school night, and I’m busy.”
The girl started crying. My dad’s face dropped and my brother went downstairs knowing I was going to be off the phone soon. He was younger than me, in kindergarten at the time, so wanting to see a girl naked wasn’t even a relevant thought.
“Nobody has ever broke-up with me before. We’ve only been going out for a couple of hours. Is it because I’m ugly? I’ll do anything you want.”
“It’s not because you’re ugly. It’s just that I……..I’m busy.”
The girl hung up, I went downstairs and played Star Wars. The next day at school, all the girls’ friends were angry at me for breaking up with their friend. One girl who knew me very well because her brother played with my brother and I said, “You broke up with her so you could play that stupid, gay, little Star Wars thing you guys do. Isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said honestly.
“I thought so. Well, I’m going to tell her why.”
She did, and from that day on, that girl and all her popular friends shut the door to me out of that rejection. She never really got over it, until we were seniors in high school and my friend and I had a ghastly reputation for excessive speeding, violent fights and other aggressive behavior, and were getting ready to leave school for the day when she came running across the parking lot to stop me. She asked me for a ride home from school.
I looked at the girl; she looked old at only 17. She had been having sex for many years, and virtually every popular boy in school had either seen her naked, or had sex with her in some form or another. She figured because of my reputation I’d want to spend time with her. I think she really needed a ride home, but she was looking for a chance I think. I instantly felt bad for her. She had been very attractive just a couple of years before, but now her skin was blotchy from where she went to the tanning bed too much. She actually had wrinkles around her eyes. Looking at her I couldn’t help but think she reminded me of a sperm suppository that had semen oozing out of the pores of her body.
“No, I can’t.”
I was surprised that her eyes actually welled up with tears. “Why, are you going to go and play Star Wars again?”
I looked at her to assess her pain. It was obvious she was trying to go back in time to fix something in her life, and I felt compelled to help her. But not compelled to stop doing what my friend and I were about to do.
“Sorry, but we’re getting ready to catch Rambo II. The movie starts in 45 minutes.”
I started up my car and skidded out of the school parking lot as was usual. That was the last time I ever saw or spoke to that girl.
The people who grew up successful and happy had little things like Star Wars in their life to help them through tough times. People like that girl, that filled the empty moments in her life with the penis of a young boy, in an attempt to steer that boy where she wanted ended up sick, diseased and terribly broken before they even hit 20 years old.
It is the child in all of us that must be kept alive, and not destroyed in some mindless pursuit of some perceived economic, or social value. The truth of mankind can be found in events like Star Tours.
Because there are many, many more discoveries that must be made for the human race to advance forward, we are a long way from completing the human adventure. So complacency of thought in the mundane realm of food and sex is not enough. When the entire world has the tools of academia at their disposal, it still takes the wondering adventurer, the outcast, the geek, to see what was always there.
What got the Bulldog into trouble at 700 WLW were videos like this one.
For those who don’t know who the Bulldog is here he is with Tracy Jones while on the air.
I have had the misfortune of terminating a lot of employees and it’s never fun. But you can often tell as an employer, even if you like the employee that must be terminated, that the day will come when you will have to do the deed. It’s hard to look a person in the face when you are their source of income, and tell them they are no longer needed by you. It is a rejection very similar to breaking up with someone that is in love with you. It is very hard to do.
Here is the Bulldog in his famous cage fight. People that crave constant attention can be good personalities for something like radio, but at the same time be destructive to the employees around them because to them anyone that isn’t over-the-top flamboyant is boring, or otherwise, a dork.
Out of all the terminations I’ve been involved in, and it’s so many that I can’t count them on the hands, and toes of four people, there is a small percentage that become violent, because those employees build the illusion in their minds that they are the greatest employee to ever grace your presence. There are traits that you, as the employer can readily see while they are in your employment that indicates trouble ahead. The sooner you can deal with that trouble, the better. The longer it goes on, the worse it will be later.
The employee in question took this reluctance by me to mean that he was invaluable. In his mind, he convinced himself that he is doing me a favor and his tasks were irreplaceable. I knew I had a problem with this employee based on how he interacted with other employees, and when I noticed he was taking liberties with the rules because he had developed a sense of entitlement that I would have to act soon. I didn’t address those problems as I would other employees because in my mind I was waiting for him to make that terrible error which would allow me to cleanly terminate his employment. This provides a clean separation that stands legal scrutiny and is necessary in this day and age with all the legal maneuvering that goes on. You hope as the employer that the employee will see that you haven’t taken an interest in the actions of their obligations because it is a kind of warning sign to them that they are on the cusp. But in some of these people, their egos take that kind hearted warning as an act of endorsement and they fail to see the truth because they build up in their minds an image of themselves that is of much higher value than reality reflects.
I could tell even from a distance that Eric was in one of those types of situations. In his email to me, he complained about management and how he had been overlooked for the 9-12 night spot and how he had been overlooked for the 3-6 spot with Tracy Jones. Eric was very upset that he was always ready on a dime to come in and cover for the hosts when they were off, so he felt that just by his work ethic he should have had a chance. In his anger he knocked the station for their ratings, their management decisions over the last year, a year when he had received many opportunities at the station he wouldn’t have gotten otherwise, and in general made a real butt of himself. He was shameful to say the least. Yet it was obvious to everyone that something was wrong with Eric Deters.
On June 1st, a few days after WLW surprisingly pulled Deters from the weekend spots, this video was put up. It tells the story of Eric Deters putting up the controversial video called “White Women and Pot” then realizing he went too far, called this guy and asked him to take the video down. Eric made several bad errors here, he crossed the line in the first place with the original video, but then he made it worse by calling up this guy and leaving a message on an answering machine that would end up being used against him. So as a radio personality on the powerful 700 WLW this was the kind of act that sealed the Bulldogs fate with management. It would have done it for me, even though I like Eric, this kind of behavior just pulls down the image of the radio station. I would have fired him too. There is that fine line of controversy, and putting into the hands of a predator, ammunition that can damage everything a radio station builds as a reputation, costs more than money, it costs credibility.
In this video, Eric made himself vulnerable by committing one error on top of another which snowballed into a tragedy. Ironically, in these tape recorded messages, Eric makes the case for himself why he can no longer work for 700 WLW, because it was just a matter of time before he stuck his foot in his mouth and he really did in this recorded message. WLW would not have been responsible if they hadn’t acted, even if they had to do so with a heavy heart.
I have listened to WLW for decades now. I have seen many radio personalities come and go. From what I can see, 700 WLW was doing their best to find a home for Eric out of pure loyalty. WLW as a business is first about the news, then about Reds baseball, and just behind those things is talk radio where hosts must fill the mind of the listener in that delicate art form of mind theater. Eric was a natural self-promoter, but lacked credibility, which a talk show host needs. Bill Cunningham for years walked that fine line carefully; his role is now a comedian. Nobody takes Cunningham very serious, and that’s the path he chose. He is the Jerry Springer of WLW. Doc Thompson has the difficult act of being the straight man for the station. Doc works hard to get to the facts, and he calls things as they are. In this next video, Doc gives a review of the Bulldog comedy routine while ironically doing an interview with an author who wrote a book about why celebrities crash and burn.
Speaking from experience, any time an employee that lacks natural talent but is rich in ambition confronts another employee of genuine talent, the first employee will seek to undermine the second with various forms of ass-kissing. That ass-kissing will win employment opportunities but it will not win respect. Shooting straight may not get the instant, easy ratings, but it will build the audience over time, and this is the path Doc Thompson has chosen. He spent most of his career in Cleveland but has also worked full-time in Lincoln, Las Vegas, and Albuquerque. He is a 5 time Marconi Award (the Academy Award of radio) winner for radio excellence. He’s at 700 WLW because he has to fill the role of Mike McConnell who played the straight man for a long time in Cincinnati. Doc is the real deal and a guy of genuine talent.
A man like Eric Deters made his bed and it is disgusting to attempt to bring down other radio personalities like Doc Thompson to cover the sins of his own doing. Doc’s criticism of Eric’s actions reflected my own opinion, that Eric was crossing the line in so many ways that he was embarrassing, not only to the station, but to himself. But the Bulldog was such a hard worker, and a guy that was always available for any shift of coverage which made it difficult for them to part ways with the Bulldog sooner. They did what they could to give Deters all the support they could afford to give. Behind the scenes they were probably doing what I was doing and that was scratching their heads wondering if Deters was even a stable enough individual to handle 50,000 Watts of responsibility.
In the end, Eric proved he couldn’t handle it. What every self promoter must understand is that you can sometimes cross the line, and when you realize it, you step back across it. What you don’t do is cross the line, then claim that there isn’t a line. And when you realize that you can’t convince people that the line isn’t there then try to back-track and erase the evidence. Bill Cunningham crossed that line often, but when he noticed it, he quickly corrected himself and would cover the flaw with humor. Because Deters was completely copying the extreme behavior of Bill Cunningham without the sense and humanity, the Bulldog wasn’t sure how to deal with the deeper and deeper grave he was digging for himself with his wild antics. The ultimate ending to living life over-the-top is you eventually go over.
I know personally two officers in Hamilton that were demanding sexual favors from women they pulled over. They offered the girls and women a warning in exchange for getting out of the ticket. The cops resigned before the investigation got underway which is a standard FOP trick which allows the officer to get another job later once the stories cool down. How do I know about it? I know one of the guys. After he resigned he called me to ask me for a job, hoping I didn’t know why he left the force. These are not isolated stories. They are epidemic. The power of the position invites corruption of that power. And when you have too many police, which politicians prop up and pander to so they can get the support of the powerful FOP for elections, the police are bored while on the job, so the weak ones tend to abuse their power. They pull over attractive woman because they can. They pull over speeders, especially speeders in nice cars, because they have nothing else to do, and they have to raise the proper amount of revenue to justify their existence. And they exist for purely political reasons, because the sheer numbers of officers provide the FOP with the political clout to influence elections. It’s a big scam, and just one more imposition on the tax payer. Again, we pay for our own demise, harassment, and erosion of freedom.
TAKE YOUR TIME WITH THIS POST. WATCH THE VIDEOS AND LEARN FOR YOURSELF. WHAT YOU WILL SEE WILL CHALLENGE JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING YOU THINK. SO IT WILL TAKE TIME TO ACCEPT. TAKE YOUR TIME AND ENJOY YOURSELF. THINK ABOUT THIS INFORMATION OVER A PERIOD OF DAYS, NOT HOURS.
What doesn’t work is college. How is college a scam? College is a European concept and since America has adopted it as a way of educating our population, we’ve lost much of what makes America great. If you do nothing else today watch this documentary by the National Inflation Association called The College Conspiracy. It’s just over one hour-long but it is well done and loaded with important facts which supports what I reported in my article about why some the most successful people in human history didn’t go to college, or dropped out while there.
Once you bite down, you’re caught. The following video is no different from a typical fundraising campaign for education institutions. Whether its fish or tax payers, the lure is all the same.
The shallow battle cry of equality is what the Bolsheviks under Lenin wanted. And what he gave them was a leader that clung to power, and opened the door for Stalin who sent the Soviet Union into the Stone Age of humanitarian thought.
We see in our modern age similar influences lost in the daily ruckus of living. But the ideology hasn’t changed much luckily, so the footprints are easy to see for anyone with eyes that care to look.
This is why welfare doesn’t work. This is why public workers are generally less competitive than private sector workers, and this is why public housing fails terribly. This is also why public schools fail.
OKLAHOMA CITY, OK — More Oklahoma families will be able to send their children to the schools of their choosing, following today’s passage of the Oklahoma Equal Opportunity Education Scholarship Act. The bill will provide partial tax credits to individuals and businesses that donate to nonprofits that distribute private-school scholarships to eligible families.
By a vote of 64-43, the Oklahoma House of Representatives approved the measure, which previously passed the Senate chamber by a vote of 30-14.
“This is another step in the direction of choice for Oklahoma’s parents and children,” Robert Enlow, president and CEO of the Foundation for Educational Choice, said. “We look forward to seeing school choice continue to flourish in the Sooner State, and we are eager to watch other states follow Oklahoma’s lead.”
The Oklahoma Equal Opportunity Education Scholarship Act, sponsored by Rep. Lee Denney (R) and Sen. Dan Newberry (R), would make families with incomes up to 300 percent of the income needed to qualify for the federal Free and Reduced-Price Lunch program eligible to receive scholarships; however, scholarship-giving nonprofits must spend a portion of their expenditures for low-income students in an amount equal to or greater than the percentage of low-income students in the state.
Eligible students, 50 percent of whom must be enrolled currently in public schools, can receive scholarships worth up to $5,000 or 80 percent of the average per-pupil expenditures in the school districts where they reside. With a “cap” of tax credits allowed set at $1.75 million—and with the tax credit itself being worth 50 percent of the donation—the program will provide potentially $3.5 million toward scholarships. The program also provides a separate $1.5 million in tax credits for donations made to nonprofits that distribute “educational improvement grants” to public schools, which is similar to a 10-year-old program in Pennsylvania.
If the Senate agrees to the changes made in the House, the bill will proceed to Gov. Mary Fallin.
The Foundation for Educational Choice is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, solely dedicated to advancing Milton and Rose Friedman’s vision of school choice for all children. First established as the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation in 1996, the foundation continues to promote school choice as the most effective and equitable way to improve the quality of K-12 education in America. The foundation is dedicated to research, education, and outreach on the vital issues and implications related to choice and competition in K-12 education.
I write a lot about education. Within the education reform movement, I receive a lot of information from very passionate people who are doing their best to address some of the issues involving education, and today I heard from a couple of them that find themselves defending the community of Lebanon from another tax increase.
After that interview I received notes from Cyd and Sandy Trugrul about Lebanon and education issues in general, that they both spent a lot of time putting together. I thought those notes deserved to be listed in their entirety below.
A Note From Cyd Zimmerman: The woman on the Darryl Parks interview below.
It’s important to preface this conversation by laying the framework as to how I got here and why I’m so angry and frustrated. So many that are staring down the barrel of another school levy have the same feeling coursing through their veins and are confused or unorganized in how to go about change. After all, Spring now means levy season. Not good.
Radio is a tough gig and it’s easy to lose your way. So much to say, and so little time, and that happened to me. I had caught wind of yet another school levy mid January of this year. This was on the heels of a 5.41 mill emergency levy that was passed in November of 2010. It generates 4.2 million per year. I could not believe it. I had no clue who to talk to or where to begin so I attended my first ever board meeting that following Monday. It was just an announcement that they were deciding one of three amounts to choose from in my early understanding. Nevertheless, I was alone in a sea of empty chairs. There were a couple of others and I now know one of those people was Rick McPherson filming. I left as they were just finishing up and thought to myself…I’m screwed. Where are all the people? Where are the taxpayers? I was aware of the Lakota levy last November and the great deal of press it had gotten, having moved to Lebanon from West Chester. I Googled them and was pleased to see the site still up. I contacted them through the email and asked for help. The response was immediate. I had found Rich Hoffman’s site via the NolakotaLevy.com and the journey began. I found someone commenting on the site, speaking of the levy, and contacted her. I then met Rick McPherson who was looking for others and they gave him my email.
That’s all takes, but you can’t be thin-skinned or shy. That’s not a problem if you’re mad enough to demand some answers. On to the bigger picture and where does the money go? I went to the Lebanon School site and it was pretty well layed out. Here’s the problem. 77.6% going just for wages and benefits. I would never begrudge the salary of a great teacher. They are pillars of the community. But where is the line in the sand?? Here is where SB5 would have made a huge difference. Don’t call it a pay freeze and continue step increases not to mention the other perks still in play. This has happened and you had no say. Contracts signed before the bill. We all know it. This is all about fiscal responsibility and accountability. I have to do it in my home and I expect the same from this entity.
Broken
Someone school me on why we pay for this supers $650.00 a month car allowance, family YMCA membership which on their site is $73.00 per month, cell phone (50 bucks a month), when he makes more than the Governor of Ohio?? More than the Lieutenant Governor, more than the Secretary of State, more than the Attorney General, on and on. It’s all on the web site. http://www.lebanonschoolfacts.com
I’m sorry, but that is borderline criminal in my book. And it’s NOT ok. And shouldn’t be with you either.
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3.2% goes for supplies and materials. Hold on…3.4% is for other. What other? If it’s all about the children why is the “other” number higher? I still don’t have that answer…Do You?
I hear the phone calls have started for support of more sweaty cash. I’d like to get one of those calls. Hopefully it would not be a shallow conversation as was the one that ensued yesterday with Mr. North. He totally missed my side. Fine. He’s doing his job. Straddling the line between the unions and community must be brutal. Don’t say to me you have no intentions of having at the very least, an open Q&A or a town hall and then ask for millions. NO. Why? Because they can’t answer the tough questions on the spot. Oh sure, I can fill out the card and send it in. He said he has hundreds of cards. How much would the postage and cost be to them if I took them up on that offer? Small in the massive scope but this is the mindset I do not understand.
School bus drivers making over 16 bucks an hour? Really? Shrink wrapping the books at Little Miami because you have to be a certified librarian to hand them out? This is all just so bizarre.
Broken
This is the tip of the iceberg but some of the key points from emails I get. I understand. They ask the simplest questions. I know exactly where they come from. They are busy. It gets so deep, it will blow your mind. But I too have a life and if I had time to say on the radio what was on my mind, this touches the surface.
To those out there in our shoes…We hear you. Darryl spoke of the numerous emails last week asking him to pick your district. We never would be here without the help of those from neighboring districts, particularly Dan Varney and Rich Hoffman. These guys get it.
So reach out to us. We’re busy but you can email the lebanonschoolfacts site and we’ll respond. Keep the hate mail at bay. It won’t be tolerated and end up in spam. Our vision is clear and we won’t be bogged down with the naysayers. You had your time.
I’ve been working to educate people on school funding and the effects of the “mandatory” school curriculum for over thirty years. The one and only reason I have stuck to this is because I believe that the demise of our country is at stake.
The schools, their funding, their administrators, their unions are the lowest level of government that “we the people” have any hope of effecting change. If we can’t make an impact at that level the Federal level is certainly hopeless. I have not wanted to give up on my country.
In my opinion, last night’s fiasco regarding the federal budget was a diversionary tactic for covering up other more serious issues taking place in the world. I feel sure of that. The media loved covering the situation. Another 7.++ earthquake in Japan hardly got noticed. I guess the four nuclear towers are “all better.” That’s off topic now too.
The school unions and leaders use the same tactics when going after the property owners for more money. Anyone that is against raising taxes “hates the children” and doesn’t support education. In their propaganda their job is the most important job in the country. No salary level is too high. I have heard teachers say that they should be paid at the level of doctors. Their mantra is that the future of our country depends on the great education that the children receive from the union teachers. Of course “the more it costs the better the outcomes.” Nothing could be further from the truth in that statement unless you consider the outcomes that they want to occur. These may be much different from what the average person believes should be happening.
We all notice that the cuts that the boards propose are always ones affect the children the most harshly. You have mentioned all of them quite precisely.
Many people are afraid to speak out regarding their opposition to a levy. They are afraid of retaliation to their children or to themselves. One parent told me that her child came home crying because she didn’t love him. She said, “where did you ever hear such a thing.” His answer, “My teacher said that if you weren’t voting for the levy you don’t love me.” He had heard his parent discussing that they couldn’t afford to vote for the levy. In other words, the teachers are polling the children. The teachers are working in the classroom against the parents; this for their own monetary gain. How repugnant is this?
When I checked on “who funds levies” through the years, it is always the same people with the same vested interests. In Lebanon it is highly touted and supported by LCNB. (Chip Bonny, a board member, now works for LCNB. He formerly worked for Huntington Bank. The district obtained over $1M from Huntington Bank last year to buy back the buses that they formerly turned over to Laidlaw.) (I was told by my banker that transaction was a totally irregular transaction and would not be tolerated by his bank. He also said that Bonny, no doubt, received a nice bonus for that business. It would have been the case at his bank.) The postcard sent out by the Pro-Levy group lists Eric Meilstrup as the treasurer. He is an officer with LCNB. Steve Wilson, CEO of LCNB has served on the district finance committee and heads up the full page of endorsements listed in the local paper.
LCNB also owned (until this month) Dakin Insurance. Lebanon buys it’s insurance from Dakin.
Other special interest groups funding levies are developers, construction companies, architectural firms, lawyers and other business leaders. Small amounts are given by the teachers, who can look forward to nice raises every time a levy passes.
Over 85% of the budgets pays for salaries and benefits. Other salaries can be hidden in many areas of the financial states and could make that percentage go up.
Any cuts suggested are called “draconian” and “extreme.” No cuts are acceptable to the schools, county, city, township, state or federal levels of government.
The costs listed to give the per pupil amount are only from the General Fund that is for the operation of the schools. They never list the huge debt owed for the costs pertaining to the buildings And other loans they get (buses, copy equipment, phones, etc.) Those projections go on for years and years into the future. Our great-grandchildren will still be paying off those debts. ironically the buildings and equipment will be considered obsolete or even trashed. By the time the final payments are made.
When they speak to the people they try to use terminology that most people don’t understand. (I call it educationese.) This way they speak “down” to you, as though you are a child. They are the “professional” and you are insignificant in the scheme of things. They are taught how to “handle” the public a part of their college curriculum. It is part of the “Training for Change Agents” text. They study how to change your beliefs and those of your children. How to change your values from Christian to Secular Humanism. The fact is that last year the board hired at least two new administrators.
Krista Foley (from Piqua – Student Services and Mason, Kindergarten Supervisor.) She is listed as administrator of various student programs at a salary of $95,626.
Bill Lautar, former student services director in Kettering (where he retired) Director of Human Resources at $98,343. (double-dipper)
July 15, 2010, Western Star: Lautar said he is in the process of filling other certified and classified positions before the next school year, including a secretary for the transportation office, coaching and extracurricular positions and teaching positions in special education, language arts and science.”
Schools are divided in this totally ridiculous configuration.
Louisa Wright – Early Childhood, Principal, secretary, 17 teachers Bowman – First and Second Grades, two principals, two secretaries, 53 teachers. Donovan – Third and Fourth Grades, two principals, two secretaries, 53 teachers. Berry – Fifth and Sixth Grades, two principals, 2 secretaries
Jr. H. S. – (Former H.S.) Seventh and Eighth Grades, two principals, two counselors,
High School – Three principals, 1466 total students 9-12
The total enrollment is around 5,000. I see plenty of room for cuts.
There are several people listed in the salaries listed on the blog as receiving “Retirement Incentive” payments.
Many “Teacher Assistants” listed for our overworked teachers. Many substitutes listed. I am told they have a higher absentee rate than the students.
We pay the entire retirement costs for the administrators (pickup on the pickup), we pay the entire health benefits for North and other admin. I admit that I haven’t read all of the contracts. Mark North is given unlimited time off to attend meetings and to consult. (I can’t imagine him consulting at anything.) There are numerous meeting held all over the country and world. I am going to request who traveled where in the past five years. It won’t help this time around, but good to have on hand for the future. I assure you that the Lakota people travel all the time. There is a NSBA conference in San Francisco this weekend. Most of them go with their “significant other.” After all, the room is paid for.
How many non-essential personnel is Lebanon employing if the superintendent isn’t doing anything? That’s the kind of question you have to ask before any levy should ever be put on a ballot. And the fact that the question wasn’t ask should insult every person in Lebanon that pays taxes.
1. What was your involvement with the Lakota Levy?
a. I am currently the spokesman for No Lakota Levy.com which is a group of residents and businessmen living within the Lakota district opposed to further property tax increases. For many years we all worked separately from our various positions, but when it comes to the business of defeating a Lakota Levy we pull our resources together to finance the campaign portion of such an endeavor and run a unified campaign. I handle the media contacts and campaign strategy in conjunction with a core group of approximately 22 motivated members at the front of the effort, each handles specific obligations from data collection, legal needs, financing, and content design. My specific obligations were to collect all that information and project it through the website of nolakotalevy.com and other media outlets.
2. What is your main reason for not supporting the levy?
b. The only way to sustain the education budget at Lakota is to stop the inflating costs. Education is going to have to get leaner, not larger. School Choice is going to force competition, so Lakota must adapt if it hopes to continue to be a choice school for students moving to the district. Online classes are proving to be more efficient for some forms of education, such as foreign language and mathematics. Blind obedience to older forms of education are proving to be devastating to our national culture, so throwing more money at an average, or outdated system is not wise, and the teacher contracts that we are currently obliged to at Lakota are inflating the budget in an uncontrollable way, the average teacher makes over $62,000 per year and the step increase obligations are increasing that budget each year. Real estate movement has frozen as a result of the Housing Bubble crash of 2008 and taxes need to actually go down to attract business and residential growth to the area, not up. Passing a levy would only make this problem worse and far less attractive. Potential business development and residential expansion will move to Franklin, Trenton and Monroe if taxes continue to increase which is not the direction we want to go to in Liberty Twp and West Chester.
3. You say that to pass the levy it would just be putting a band-aid on a much larger problem. Is this problem the mismanagement of state funds in your opinion?
c. My opinion is that education has grown to expect too much funding. It has become used to a large bureaucratic system that funnels money without question under the umbrella of education and those dollars are not getting children the education they need. The band-aid is a term to that describes the levy increase is only to pay for an inflated budget driven by step increases from a teachers union that told the press they took a pay freeze, yet the budget needs continue to expand because of those step increases, so the statements to the press and community were very deceptive. Throwing more money at the situation will not improve the educational lives of the children in the community. In fact there is no evidence that more money will solve anything. What we need is competition introduced to all school districts, through programs like School Choice. This will force school systems like Lakota, and Mason, and all others to bring down their per-pupil costs which are currently hovering around 10K per student. That’s a ridiculous sum that as a society we cannot allow that cost per student to increase to 11K or 12K in the coming years. Those costs need to go in the other direction so we can sustain education far into the future. Not just till many of the district employees currently in the system reach retirement. Our concerns are for the health of the district. Not the current employees.
4. With the levies not passing, what effect do you think this has on the West Chester community?
d. Unfortunately in the short run busing has been cut, electives cut, lay-offs of some of the newer teachers, who probably shouldn’t have been cut because they were new and full of energy. Sports have been cut, but all these cuts are really cents on the dollar. They are intended to impact the community negatively in order to secure future funding, and that is an unfortunate game to play. The healthy aspect of not passing the levies is that it has helped create the need for a bill such as S.B.5 which will give our school board the ability to control its costs. One of the primary complaints I’ve heard from the school board is that there is very little they can actually do, because the union contract is so restrictive. That kind of restriction costs an enormous amount of money in compliance. So because of the failures of these levies, we have been able to get advancements of programs like School Choice, and S.B.5 which will allow our school board to continue to manage Lakota as a highly sought after school district. The most devastating event that could have happened in recent history is when the teachers union threatened to strike in 2008, which immediately drove up the labor costs within the Lakota School district, and this has had a very negative effect on real estate that is cautious of such high taxes and the ability of the school system to remain solvent. I have been asked, as many in the No Lakota Group have, why I don’t run for school board to help solve these problems. Well, when S.B.5 becomes law I can think of about 50 people right off the top of my head that would then be ready to help run the school district properly, businessmen that are successful in the West Chester area. They won’t do it now because the unions are a radical group showing no flexibility or understanding of fiscal responsibility. I personally would not deal with such people, and many of the people I know won’t either. What we can do at this phase is deny more money to a broken system. That forces them to live within a budget. The district really should look at lowering their 160 million dollar budget to something below 120 million. We’re not asking them to do that. We’re asking them to work with what they have without increased costs. Just under 100 students were added to the Lakota School System after 2009 because the housing market froze. That lack of growth occurred well before Lakota failed a levy. It is a direct result of a poor housing market, and extremely high taxes. More tax increases is an insane and treacherous path that will force a decline in what we’ve all worked hard to build in West Chester and Liberty Twp. We need to drive our costs down instead of up and by voting no we are forcing that discussion to take place. We’re not taking away their money. They are choosing to respond to the small cuts instead of getting their payroll under control. The same amount of money is still flowing in their direction. And that figure will go down if they continue to make Lakota appear to be a bad district for sports, busing cuts and electives, driving residents away which will further lower the taxable income the district receives. The district must be responsible, work with the budget they currently have while keeping Lakota a desirable district attractive to parents while using S.B.5 to get their costs in line the moment it is passed.
5, Do you think the education or school system reflects on a community?
e. No, that is a popular myth. The school system is a reflection of the community not the other way around. The kids that go to Lakota are good or above average because the parents that send those kids to school care about their kids. Whenever parents take an active role in their kids those kids will perform higher. The school system will be good because the people in the community are good. Money has nothing to do with it. Things are good or great because of the people involved. Paying people well does not make something good. It only says you appreciate the work they do and you pay them more money so that they won’t leave and go someplace else. Lakota was a good district when there were cows next to the school buildings and there was not air-conditioning, because the residents that were attracted to live in the district are good people, and they still are. Because of that long-standing success Lakota has attracted people from other places within the city. But these are the first type of people who will leave and turn their backs on the district in the crises we currently face, because they falsely believe that money is the key to success. It is not. Success is a state of mind. And because Lakota has good people it will remain a good district.
6. Do you think with the school levies not passing people will be discouraged from moving into the West Chester community?
f. I think some of the parents that are looking for a great school system with a foot half in half out will be, and those types of people are the first to leave when something goes wrong anyway. They cost our community more with their short-term investment hoping to get excellent schools for their kids on the backs of the tax payer while not making a long-term commitment to the community. They usually move away when their kids grow up and downsize. I don’t have much sympathy for those types of residents. As a community we need to build a strong community with residents that are willing to invest in our district and maintain that investment, and not sell at the first sign of trouble. To do that we need to lower taxes. We need to lower our overall operating budget and still provide the services that other districts have cut to maintain their costs. We need to think outside the box and not allow ourselves to sink in obligation to union contracts that are outdated and forced upon the community through coercion. Coercion is exactly what the strike threat in 2008 was and that behavior has no place in our district. There are a lot of great teachers out there and we want them in our schools. We’ll offer them good pay, a nice community to teach in, and pleasant students with parents that care. Those are all benefits. But we cannot afford over 400 personnel that make over 65K per year. That’s way too expensive. The teachers union should have recognized this and renegotiated their contracts to bring their costs in line with the community at large that is considered statewide to be affluent, yet average just around 50K per year per working professional.
7. What are some positive aspects for the community with the levy not passing?
g. It is forcing the discussing of how we can cut costs and still maintain the high level of service that Lakota has built a reputation around. If successful, Lakota will be one of the first school districts of its kind to remain excellent while reducing their budget, which is a process that must happen. It’s not an option. Once we bring costs down for education then West Chester can explore the possibility of lowering tax rates and attracting growth back to the region from the imposing tax rates that we are currently experiencing. This should be the first desire of the school board, to provide a quality education and to do so within the allocated budget. Not passing the levy has stopped the blind obedience to union step increases by exposing them for what they truly are.
8. With the levy not passing, do you think Lakota schools are cutting appropriate aspects to fit with their budget?
H. Absolutely not. They should not have cut busing. That is less than 3% of the total budget. They should not have cut sports. Sports are less than busing as far as budget significance. They should not have laid-off any teachers. They should not have cancelled electives before they explored reducing their inflated labor costs. All teachers with tenure are not worth 65K per year. If we reduced overall payroll by 30% Lakota could have saved nearly 30 million dollars which more than solves the budget problems. But making such decisions requires true management understanding and making tough decisions, which are unpleasant, especially with a teachers union that is very contentious. After all, it was just 2008 that they flooded the school board meeting in October and threatened to strike. Once S.B.5 is passed, teachers will not be able to extort more money with such manipulative methods that are destructive to the community at large. If those employees seeking unreasonable sums of money wish to teach someplace else, they are free to leave. But they will not be able to strike and stop work hurting our children in the process. The problem starts when we have superintendents like Mike Taylor that feed the teachers union with comments saying “I don’t think teachers make enough money,” this coming from a former teacher himself that has obviously lost touch with the cost value of services in the private sector. The superintendent, reports to the school board. The school board reports to the community. All the teachers report to all above and what has been forgotten is who the manager of funds is. It is not the teachers unions that threaten a community with striking in order to drive up their labor costs. It is the community itself that has had to deny funds in order to stop the excessive bleeding of tax payer dollars that has been corrosive to further development of our area out of sheer greed. No, the cuts have not been made in the proper place. A real manager understands that the excessively expensive employees are better off to go someplace else while the hungry, appreciative employees that are in the business for all the right reasons come out of college every year and are there for us to hire. Labor is not in shortage so the advantage goes to the manager, the community. Our school board will need to begin thinking like managers of the community’s money instead of trying to hold back a wall of threats by a teacher’s union that wants more than any community should ever be expected to pay.
9. Is there anything else you would like to add?
I. It is unfortunate that the perception that passing a school levy is actually good for kids. This was created by union marketing and has no basis in reality, absolutely zero. What is good for our children and our communities is competition and options. The current level of school funding at 10K per student is too much and relies on broken models of tax collection from unconstitutional property tax acquisition. It is my conclusion after watching the behavior of education costs for over a decade closely and fighting 6 school levies that the union influence has been detrimental to community management of school district costs. The trend in the future will be less funding from the state so more finance dependency will have to come from the local communities all over Ohio. That means that the teachers unions will have to either become much more accommodating and realistic or must be eliminated completely in favor of a system dictated strictly off competition. For myself, I simply don’t want a single dollar of my tax money going to union activity; because I do not, or have ever support them. I think they are bad and devastating to the American economy and I think it’s the wrong kind of thing for any children to be exposed to. I’d personally like to see children striving to be much more self-reliant and competitive, which I don’t see happening in public education. But that aside, it is the costs that everyone in the community must consider, personal issues aside. And it is labor costs that are the most extraordinary part of the budget that must be handled. This should not be a difficult concept for tax payers to understand. This is exactly why sports teams have salary caps, so a team cannot spend above a maximum set budget. School systems need to have a funding cap that the community establishes and the school board must figure out how to live within that cap. For Lakota that number is somewhere between 150 million and 160 million, which is a lot of money to spend on educating 18,500 students. If that means Lakota has to drive the costs down to 7K per pupil or even 6K per pupil, then that’s what the district must do, and still meet the excellent rating of the community. If they refuse to provide this service, then School Choice will be implemented and parents can send their kids to Mason, or Little Miami, or Fairfield in order to get the services they want as parents. This is the reality that is arriving, and it is expected that Lakota will embrace this challenge and emerge as a leader, because failure is not an option. And neither is higher taxes. If they can’t think out of the box to drive down their costs, then they need to step aside so people who do think this way can take control and get the budget under control.
Now, to support some of what I put down here I point you dear reader into the direction of two articles. These two articles describe the problem of public school from two angles, but centering on a common theme. Public school has a monopoly over education, where it shouldn’t, and that monopoly exists to protect the financial structure of its employees and nothing else. If we ever hope to truly educate our children properly we will eliminate this monopoly in favor of real, competitive education that has genuine value and a benefit for the communities that support it.
New Report Shows Vouchers Benefit Public and Private School Students
INDIANAPOLIS — A new report by the Foundation for Educational Choice finds that out of the 10 “gold standard” studies examining school voucher programs throughout the nation, nine showed that vouchers contributed to the academic improvements for students who use them.
The report also reviewed all 19 empirical studies on how vouchers affect academic performance in the public school system, finding that 18 of these studies show vouchers improved public schools.
“A Win-Win Solution: The Empirical Evidence on School Vouchers” reviews the studies spanning 20 years, including some recent ones. The empirical research consistently finds school voucher programs have improved the academic achievement of both the students who transferred to private schools and those who remained in public schools.
The research, by Greg Forster, a senior fellow with The Foundation, examines randomized experimental studies and other high-quality empirical studies evaluating school voucher programs conducted by researchers at Harvard University, Stanford University, Cornell University, Princeton University and the Federal Reserve Bank among other respected research institutions.
Forster, a senior fellow with The Foundation, says that test scores and graduation rates would have improved more dramatically if the voucher programs were offered to all students and not restricted based on income and other demographic factors, or capped to a certain number of participants.
“We are seeing some benefits thanks to vouchers, but we would see much more improvement with much more choice,” Forster said. “The more competition, the more pressure there would be to improve public education. With a lot more choice you will likely get improvements on a much broader scale.”
There are 26 school choice programs in 16 states and Washington, D.C. The first limited voucher program launched in Milwaukee in 1990. More than 190,000 students nationwide use public funds to attend the private school of their choice.
“Choice works,” said Robert Enlow, President and CEO of The Foundation. “We have known that for a while now. This review of all the research underscores it. What we need now is more choice for more kids to achieve more success.”
About the Foundation for Educational Choice
The Foundation for Educational Choice is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, solely dedicated to advancing Milton and Rose Friedman’s vision of school choice for all children. First established as the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation in 1996, the foundation continues to promote school choice as the most effective and equitable way to improve the quality of K-12 education in America. The foundation is dedicated to research, education, and outreach on the vital issues and implications related to choice and competition in K-12 education
NH Supreme Court: homeschooled girl must go to public school against mom’s wishes
BY JOHN-HENRY WESTEN
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CONCORD, NH, March 17, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld a lower court order Wednesday that sided with the father of a homeschooled student and forced her into a government-run school against her Christian mother’s wishes.
The court made clear that it was not addressing larger religious liberty and homeschooling concerns and was basing its ruling only on the narrow and specific facts of the case.
“While [the case] involves home schooling, it is not about the merits of home verses public schooling,” stated the justices in their opinion.
“We affirm the decision on the narrow basis that it represents a sustainable exercise of the trial court’s discretion to determine the educational placement that is in daughter’s best interests.”
The court heard oral argument in the case on Jan. 6.
Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney John Anthony Simmons, who represented the mother, who is divorced from the father, argued that the burden of proof was on the father to prove harm in order to change the schooling arrangement. Because no harm was demonstrated and the girl was acknowledged to be academically superior and socially interactive, even by the court, Simmons argued that the homeschooling arrangement should not have been changed.
However, in the original order issued in July 2009, Judge Lucinda V. Sadler reasoned that the girl’s “vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to [her] counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view.”
“Parents have a fundamental right to make educational choices for their children,” responded Simmons. “Courts can settle disputes, but they cannot legitimately order a child into a government-run school on the basis that her religious views need to be mixed with other views. That’s precisely what the lower court admitted it was doing.”
“The lower court held the Christian faith of this mother and daughter against them,” Simmons said. “Unfortunately, the Supreme Court bypassed this issue and wrote this off as a ‘parent versus parent’ issue without recognizing the very real underlying threat to religious liberty.”
Nevertheless, ADF Senior Counsel Joseph Infranco said that the law firm appreciates the Supreme Court’s choice to limit “its decision to the facts of this case,” which should ensure that the decision “cannot be used as a battering-ram against religious liberty or homeschooling.”
The “ADF will be vigilant to make sure that it’s not,” he concluded.
“We are disappointed that this young girl is being forced to attend a public school over her mother’s, and reportedly her own, wishes,” said Michael Donnelly, the attorney for the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). HSLDA had submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in the case.
“However, the NH Supreme Court confined its ruling to this case and these facts avoiding any collateral impact on the rights of other parents in New Hampshire who homeschool their children,” he continued. “While the lower court’s decision could have been read to create a presumption in favor of public education over homeschooling, the court emphatically rejected this notion.”
With all that in mind I thought about what President Obama said about Gaddafi over the weekend by saying that “Gaddafi needs to step down. He has lost the confidence of his people who means he should turn over power.” Well, Obama has lost the confidence of his people, at least a majority of them. Doesn’t that mean he should step down too?
I used to be ashamed of Bill Clinton and couldn’t imagine a worse president, but at least he had been a governor and knew some basic management skills.
I’m not crazy about either of the Bush’s. I think they wanted to be president for too many of the wrong reasons. The first clue that you have a bad president is that if a man gets a surge of power just by sitting in a chair, he’s the wrong guy. A president should not be enamored by power of any kind. In fact, the office of the president should be a step down to what they’ve accomplished in their private lives. The popular myth is that it’s the most powerful position in the world, but it’s really not. Ronald Reagan breezed through his presidency just on his ability to act and a single-minded ability to believe he was right and on the side of God. There are many, many, many more people in our nation more qualified for the presidency than Reagan was, but he could speak well. So he goes down in history as one of the greatest presidents in American history. His greatest gift was that he didn’t listen to everyone around him. He knew what he wanted to do and he did it, which makes him distinctly American. American’s are not naturally collaborative. I know that might bust the bubble of many that think very highly of Ronald Reagan, but those are the facts.
My favorite president in recent history is Calvin Collage. That’s my idea of a manager president. Everyone else has fallen short, and that covers the entire span of the 20th century. Teddy Roosevelt was my next pick for a great president, but he became too much of a monarch lover by the end of his presidency and had the fatal flaw of craving power. He could not turn away from the power, so much so that he became a progressive in order to run against his friend President Taft. Many of the presidents have done their share of good things, but not enough. Not what we should expect out of an American president.
But Obama, he’s an absolute joke. He does not represent me as an American. I mean look at his website. What are we supposed to be “fired up” about? What change? And what are we organizing? He’s the president. His message is one for children in school and people without wit to know better.
If he believes Gaddafi should step down in Libya because he’s lost the confidence of the majority of the people, which I agree with him on that point, then Obama should step down voluntarily and admit that the job of the presidency is too big for him. Maybe he could try again in a few years after he works as a manager of a McDonalds and gets some experience under his belt. Because he is an absolute embarrassment that makes me look at the decadent days of Bill Clinton with yearning. The only reason he wouldn’t do it is because he’s in love with his authority, no different from the cop that flunks his test and doesn’t belong on the force because he’s not smart enough to be a cop. This President isn’t qualified to be a president. And the people of America respect authority too much to admit it to themselves.
The Overmanwarrior 