The people's choice amendement

From Senate bill 5 and the budget, to the Cleveland plan, it has become impossible to separate politics from education. Who represents us in Columbus is a critical as who sits on a local board of education. Making sure those in Columbus meet their constitutional obligations towards providing a quality public education is essential.

It's a job made more difficult, and perhaps impossible by the redistricting process that has produced State House and Senate districts that meander like snakes, dividing cities, townships and counties alike, in the desperate aim to carve out safe seats.

Politicians are choosing their voters. Creating their very own tenure system, many spend so much time railing against, safe from the democratic process and voter preferences

The process of creating safe, meandering districts this time around was especially seedy

A recently released trove of email messages from Ohio offers a rare inside glimpse into how it works.

The messages, sent from June to September, show collaboration between the national GOP and state Republicans to redraw Ohio’s maps and thus cement control of both the statehouse and a majority of congressional districts.

In one email, a Republican consultant working on redistricting for the state suggested that the new political maps could save the GOP “millions" of dollars in campaign funds by making districts safer for Republican candidates.

The maps, approved by the Republican-run state legislature in September, favor Republicans in 12 of Ohio’s 16 new congressional districts. And they strengthen the majority of likely Republican supporters in at least 17 state house districts, according to the mapping consultants' own calculations.

A report on this process revealed redistricting officials rented a downtown hotel room from July 17 to Oct. 15 to keep the map-drawing in a clandestine location. In emails, staffers referred to the hotel room as the “bunker” or “off site.”

Now an effort is underway to change this process to become transparent and fair. An amendment that would allow the people to choose their politicians - to put Voters First.

Step one of this initiative is to collect enough valid signatures to qualify for the November 2012 ballot. Time is short. In order to qualify for the election this fall, over 386,000 valid signatures from half (44) of Ohio’s 88 counties are needed, by July 4th. If you want to help you can go here.

Without a doubt, having competitive legislative districts will make legislators more accountable (something we know they like to legislate for others!) to cohesive communities and produce better, more civic minded policies that suit their constituents needs, not the needs of some special interests who flood the Columbus statehouse with campaign contributions.

If that all sounds good - get involved, today. Tomorrow we'll take a look at the history of redistricting initiatives.

I Don't Understand Michelle Rhee

A must read

Of all the images of Rhee, the one that sticks in my head is when she invited a PBS film crew to watch her fire a principal. She said to the crew: "I'm going to fire somebody in a little while. Do you want to see that?" Of course they did, and they filmed it. It was then that I realized that she enjoys hurting people. She enjoys watching people suffer.

In another infamous incident, Rhee told an audience of young teachers that when she was a teacher, she controlled her restless class by putting duct tape on their mouths; when the tape came off, their lips were bleeding. Apparently, the audience found that act of child abuse very funny.

Today Rhee is a national figure. Her organization claims to have a million members, though I hear that anyone who goes to her website is automatically registered as a member. StudentsFirst sends out deceptive email solicitations—I received one myself—asking the recipient if you want to see a great teacher in every classroom. Rhee's name does not appear anywhere on the email. If you answer yes, you are registered as a "member" of StudentsFirst. I don't understand this kind of deceptive marketing on behalf of someone who claims to be concerned about education.

Her organization allegedly has raised more than $200 million and is well on its way to raising $1 billion. This money will be used to attack teachers' unions; to strip teachers of any job protections; to promote vouchers, charters, and for-profit organizations that manage charter schools; and to fund candidates who want to reduce spending on public education and privatize it. I have heard rumors about big-name donors to Rhee, but can't verify them. StudentsFirst does not release the names of its contributors.

Let me add that I find offensive the very concept of "StudentsFirst." The basic idea is that teachers are selfish and greedy and do not have the interests of students at heart. So students need a champion to protect them against their venal teachers, and Rhee is that champion. Supposedly, Rhee and her allies—assorted billionaires, big corporations, wealthy foundations, and rightwing governors—are the only people who can be trusted to care about our nation's children. A New York City writer, Gail Robinson, recently challenged Rhee's claim to be above self-interest after Rhee announced that she was bringing her campaign to New York City.

1,560,379

If you are a corporate education reformer, with the requisite pathological desire to want to fire educators, having educators stand in your way, blocking this deep seated desire is something that must be overcome.

We therefore see a secondary policy preference expressed by those wanting to privatize and corpratize public education. Policies designed to remove the collective voice of educators.

SB5 is a very clear example of this, and while publicly it was couched in "reform rhetoric", the governor has already expressed his desire to "break the back of organized labor in the schools". Scott walker in Wisconsin, Mitch Daniels in Indiana, and the legislature in New Hampshire have all tried similar approaches to removing educators voices.

But even with SB5 massively defeated, corporate education reformers like the Fordham Institute continue to push for such approaches

Teacher unions are among the most powerful political actors in America on a wide range of issues (just ask Terry Moe, Paul Peterson, or Mike Antonucci). It’s not a given that that should be so, however, or that union intervention in partisan elections is always (or even often) good for teachers as a whole. Rhee and other education reformers would do well to add paycheck protection to their toolkit of reforms to increase parent power over education policy – and protect the rights of teachers to spend their paychecks on political issues they believe in, not on the agenda of labor leaders.

We left the following comment on their post "this is a very ill informed post.

Teachers can opt out of funding unions and pay only fair share to cover the costs of professional services. Political advocacy of candidates is NOT paid out of any dues, but instead is paid by VOLUNTARY contributions by educators, typically into the Fund for Children and Education (FCPE).

One would hope that a "policy fellow" would at least avail themselves of some basic facts and understandings before espousing an opinion on a topic they clearly have no understanding of.

But the folks at Fordham aren't the only ones who would like to see educators slip quietly into the background. The Columbus Dispatch often published opinion pieces that echo these desires, and did, publishing a piece by Pat Smith, titled "Expert panel could revamp education in Ohio"

An expert panel in Ohio could identify similar savings and direct them where they’d do the most good. Such a panel ought to include certified public accountants, economists, futurists and technologists and perhaps be chaired by Ohio’s state auditor.

We're not sure what a "futurist" is, but we are sure educators are not on that list, indeed educators get a special mention - "It should welcome input, but not control, from educators..."

We asked Ms. Smith "Curious why you do not include any teachers/educators in your list of people who would serve on your proposed expert panel?". She was kind enough to respond, and her response included this

No one is more supportive of teachers than I am. I come from a family of teachers: mother-in-law, aunts, sister-in-law, my daughter and, of course, my own experience - four different systems under five different principals. But, I think the kind of expertise we need to improve the productivity of the entire state system has to come from those with different sets of skills: technology gurus, numbers crunchers, data experts, demographers, futurists, etc. Yes, as I said, they need to have input from educators (the editor edited out the adjective "strong" before "input.") But, you know as well as I do, much of the decision making in education circles revolves around ideology and not about what really works. Also, the educators tend to wear down others on panels. My worry is that there is only a finite amount of resources that is going to go into education and that we must make the very best use of those resources and that educators don't know or agree how to do that. For example: should we fund early education or lower class size? Yes, a surgeon has the expertise to operate, but not to run the hospital where he performs the surgery.

We're not sure what's more insulting, the mistaken belief that educators have no expertise in these matters, or that they constant pointing out of ill-conceived ideas wears the purveyors of those ideas down. But at least in this exchange we can see why educators simply must be silenced.

According to ODE statistics, Ohio teachers have an average of 15.08 years experience, giving them a combined 1,560,379 total years of experience. Each day they add almost a million hours of experience to this massive total. Who else in the state has this amount, depth, and level of expertise in public education?

Anyone who doesn't recognize that educators have earned a central role in education policy reform isn't serious about reforming education, they are instead more interested in partisan politics.

Note to teachers: Thanks for loving our kids

Dear Teachers,

This is the first of much correspondence you'll receive from us this year.

We'll write to beg for an extension on our children's math assignment.

"Soccer practice went late last night and there was no time for homework and we're sure you'll understand because it's Jake's first year in select and it really matters."

We'll scribble a note to ask that you move our sensitive Lucy away from domineering Evelyn - but not near chatty Suzy and as far away as possible from mean Renee.

We will write to remind you of our children's orthodontist appointments, allergy shots, physical therapy sessions for the torn ACL, early dismissals every Thursday so we can get them to ballet classes on the other side of town.

And please note that Aaron will be gone the entire week after Thanksgiving since we couldn't schedule our winter vacation any other time.

We'll email a request for extra science homework for our Anthony, who you'll recall is gifted. But could you lighten up on that weekly vocabulary list? Asking fifth-graders to remember eight definitions every week is just too stressful.

[readon2 url="http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110818/COL01/108190332/Note-teachers-Thanks-loving-our-kids?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CColumnists%7Cp"]Continue reading (the pay off is great) ...[/readon2]

Did Bill Gates Advocate privatizing public education?

Did Bill gates tip his hand to his ultimate fantasy agenda of privatizing public education?

He praises the private school model for its efficiency vis-à-vis traditional public schools, noting that the "parochial school system, per dollar spent, is an excellent school system." But the politics, he says, are just too tough right now. "We haven't chosen to get behind [vouchers] in a big way, as we have with personnel systems or charters, because the negativity about them is very, very high."

Perhaps privatizing public education is too hard because of those darn "status quo" defenders he complains about.

Teachers unions can be counted on "to stick up for the status quo," he says, but he believes they can be nudged in the right direction.

We have an email into the Gates Foundation for clarification of their position on this issue.

To whom it may concern.

In a recent Wall St. Journal article, Mr. Gates was quoted as saying: He praises the private school model for its efficiency vis-à-vis traditional public schools, noting that the "parochial school system, per dollar spent, is an excellent school system." But the politics, he says, are just too tough right now. "We haven't chosen to get behind [vouchers] in a big way, as we have with personnel systems or charters, because the negativity about them is very, very high."

Given this statement, is it the belief of the Gates Foundation that Public Education would benefit from privatization if the politics were easier?

Thanks,

You can email and ask them too, at media@gatesfoundation.org

Waiting for a Governor who gets it

Tonight's a big night for the Governor. He's having a movie night with Michele Rhee, the controversial former chancellor of D.C. schools and Margaret Spellings, the Secretary of Education under President George W. Bush for yet another showing of “Waiting for Superman”.

You would think this corporate reformers night out would be about education policy, but it's not as the Dispatch reports

John Kasich's next Waiting for "Superman" showing could have a campaign feel to it.

Kasich invited his supporters through a campaign email to host viewing parties Thursday at the time of his showing of the pro-school-choice documentary in Cleveland.

"Last year, many of you hosted house parties during the campaign and invited your friends and family to attend," the email reads. "We encourage you to consider hosting a party for this exciting event."

You do get the sense that politics always comes before education with this gang.

They are even recruiting state employees to act as movie night ushers, but as OEA reports, teachers not invited.

The Kasich plan is to hold the live event in Cleveland, plus regional screenings and events in six other Ohio cities, webcasting the panel discussion to those locations and on the internet. They’ve done this before, and they will take questions via Facebook and Twitter. Needless to say, the Ohio Education Association was not asked to join the webcast panel of speakers, but we would like our members and supporters to ask questions and make comments.

When these three – Spellings, Rhee and Kasich – get together, you can expect lots of cheerleading for charter schools, private school vouchers, performance pay based on test scores and strict limits on the unions that represent public school employees.

Since you're not invited, please take a few moments to instead ask the Governor questions on his Facebook or Twitter Pages.

We also urge you to use the Educator Connector (dial toll-free 1-888-907-7309) to contact Ohio state senators and ask them to:

• Dump the anti-union provisions they copied from Senate Bill 5 out of the Ohio budget bill (HB 153)
• Start figuring out how to restore the $3.1 billion in resources lost to Ohio school districts due to this budget.

Don't be silent!