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Waiting for a Governor who gets it

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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!