'Three-year' levy to last two years

Old Timer wrote:

When a topic is debated in a reasoned manner, the result is usually a solution based upon understanding, and supported, though not necessarily liked by all, aka...politics.
When a topic is debated, based upon strong emotions, you will get continued demands from the opposing participant to "show me the facts", but to a point that the data is never enough. Also, both sides tend to use data to support their perspective or "world view", aka...politics.

OT, are you suggesting that school districts make decisions without data or totally on emotion?

Marc Schare wrote:

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OT, are you suggesting that school districts make decisions without data or totally on emotion?

School districts always use data as their basis for following a superintendent's recommendation. What becomes problematic is that unions do not heed the administration/board of education and believe what their union rep tells them, which then leads to my descriptor of "politics".

Having spent 20 years in that role, we always were honest with staff, but would run into union leadership who would try to gain financial control and dictate to the building administrators and board what wages and working condidtions should be.(their "world view") We would then hold firm on our proposals because we always believed we should do the best we could, given our financial situation.(Our"world view")

The result would be union anger because we wouldn't "collaborate", code for capitulate, and the BOE would be frustrated because they always tried to provide the best conditions possible depending on our financial situation. However, all of this was based on data, but the process would lead to the emotional element I alluded to.

Keith G wrote:

It's high time for Worthington leaders to assess our community's needs objectively. What are our demographics? Who lives here? Why? Do they plan to still be here 5 years from now? Why or why not? What services do they need? They cannot answer these questions today. They've never conducted a survey. Do they even care? Can families with children even afford to live here? What does that say about the future of demand for education? We all must cease to allow the school system to tell us what's important to us and our community. We all must begin to think and problem solve.

Don't know where you have been. The efforts you describe have been underway in Worthington for at least a year and the school district is voluntarily undergoing an extremely thorough audit so they will have objective data to work from. If you go on the Worthington Library website I think you will find links to the community planning effort and the school information should be on the district web site soon.

Old Timer wrote:

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School districts always use data as their basis for following a superintendent's recommendation. What becomes problematic is that unions do not heed the administration/board of education and believe what their union rep tells them, which then leads to my descriptor of "politics".
Having spent 20 years in that role, we always were honest with staff, but would run into union leadership who would try to gain financial control and dictate to the building administrators and board what wages and working condidtions should be.(their "world view") We would then hold firm on our proposals because we always believed we should do the best we could, given our financial situation.(Our"world view")
The result would be union anger because we wouldn't "collaborate", code for capitulate, and the BOE would be frustrated because they always tried to provide the best conditions possible depending on our financial situation. However, all of this was based on data, but the process would lead to the emotional element I alluded to.

Many of us believe that unions are the issue. Do you have any suggestion on how to get rid of them?

Schools will have unions because they were actually instituted by our own state legislature after I first started teaching over 40 years ago. Back then we actually had a professional organization which included both teachers and administrators, sharing a common mission of providing the best education possible.

Fast forward, and the teacher portion of the organization "threw out" the administrators. Enter collective bargaining (union status), and the mission becomes "wages and working conditions". Therefore, the solution is to have the state legislature declare that unions are defunct or now "extinct". Then the legislature should implement, and fund, on a stste wide level, a salary schedule and benefits package for the teachers they are responsible for.

As for complaining about teacher and administrator wages, check out the wages of the union's field agents. These folks are six figures and make more than most superintendents in Ohio.

The real dilemma is that currently, local agreements trump state statute, so the task is extremely difficult. Also, I see an Ohio Senate that is not all that caring about Ohio's children, especially the way they treat the public school system. Right now our children are political pawns, so in fact we have two elements working against our best interests....the unions and the senate.

If they were to wake up to reality and be civil and work within budget constraints and allow the superintendents to manage their districts, much of the problem goes away.

Old Timer wrote:

Schools will have unions because they were actually instituted by our own state legislature after I first started teaching over 40 years ago. Back then we actually had a professional organization which included both teachers and administrators, sharing a common mission of providing the best education possible.
Fast forward, and the teacher portion of the organization "threw out" the administrators. Enter collective bargaining (union status), and the mission becomes "wages and working conditions". Therefore, the solution is to have the state legislature declare that unions are defunct or now "extinct". Then the legislature should implement, and fund, on a stste wide level, a salary schedule and benefits package for the teachers they are responsible for.
As for complaining about teacher and administrator wages, check out the wages of the union's field agents. These folks are six figures and make more than most superintendents in Ohio.
The real dilemma is that currently, local agreements trump state statute, so the task is extremely difficult. Also, I see an Ohio Senate that is not all that caring about Ohio's children, especially the way they treat the public school system. Right now our children are political pawns, so in fact we have two elements working against our best interests....the unions and the senate.
If they were to wake up to reality and be civil and work within budget constraints and allow the superintendents to manage their districts, much of the problem goes away.

Thank you - on that list of union negotiators, I actually got tired of turning the page on pages and pages and pages of names who clock anywhere from 80K - 200K, and all I had to do was click the mouse. And these are just negotiators. Teachers make soooo much money, they can obviously afford to keep these folks in biz. If that money was spent on education, we wouldn't be here. I appreciate the time you're taking to explain the nuances from the system side.

I'm remain incredulous, however, that we can save public education for future generations. I believe it's going the way of Pittsburgh Steel, thanks to it's unions. Certainly, I can understand the union's problem. If they don't get something more in wages and benefits at every contract renewal, there is no reason for them to be there, hence no reason to collect that money from members. They get paid to perform.

I think you're suggesting State-wide labor laws specifically for teachers in lieu of unions. Do you feel the future of public education is in the concept of State-wide systems, also? Is this something that could protect wages and benefits while getting kids educated better than they are now?

Honestly, I don't think teachers even know how much their negotiators make in salary, let alone bonuses for achieving membership quotas and establishing new bargaining groups. In defense of teachers, their salaries start low,and end up very competitive, but that is by design to allow teachers to have a stable retirement. The problem is that now they want BOTH high wages AND a great retirement. That is why we are now in financial difficulty.

Ohio already has state minimum standards in curriculum, so the fact is we do have a "state system". What is the "wild card" is how local districts can exceed those minimums and graduate high performing students. With a lot of work, the three districts I worked with over 40 years were among Ohio's best, and NOT wealthy suburban schools.

The key is to gauge accurately what students are learning, and to what level of performance they are attaining. It is possible for a student to not even be at "grade level", but to be a high achiever, based upon his/her expected level of performance. We created a model that measured student achievement relative to ability, and then followed up with college entrance examinations for ALL students, IEP included, to not just see what their "score" was, but to see how much growth occured from grade 3 through graduation.

The school has a near perfect graduation rate, and 80 percent or more of seniors going on to higher education, with a five years class average of 23 on their ACT composite. More impressive is that less than 12% of the graduates need remediation in college.

Luckily, we were allowed to manage the district with great board of education support, parents who understood the importance we attached to learning, and students who had high expectations placed on them in academics and extra-curriculars, especially sports and the arts. By the way, the kids who leave for open enrollment or E-schools, and their parents, feel the demands placed on them are too great, or our behavior expectations to "conforming". That is why charters are so valued by parents...they feel more apart of the system, even if they are being short-changed, and they are. The cruelty of this is that our own legislature supports mediocrity at best, for political gains.

But to your point, if schools are in the constant battle of labor strife and micro-management, then the legislature should simply (well, not so simple really) change the "rules of the game"....but what would we be left to complain about?

School is for children to learn and to use what they learn to live their own life, not for them to "perform" to someone else's expectations. I see kids (and adults) who are afraid to ask questions, try something new or to make a mistake, because they are so worried about "excelling" and "performing." That has some pretty serious implications for our future.

Public schools should enable children to learn and develop their talents and abilities. Public schools have no right to require school uniforms, or that everyone participate in sports and the arts, both of which are personal choice activities of no particular use to making a living and not of interest to everyone. I have lived a very happy and successful life without either. I don't distain them, I personally am just not interested, but I am glad they are there for those who find them enjoyable and meaningful, but they have no right to mandate them one everyone.

We are such a negative society. We want to require and mandate what other people do, but take no responsibility for what we do. Why don't all of you try being positive and talk about what is needed for each child to be happy and successful in school and what conditions are needed to make that happen. Talk about how to recruit, hire, keep and effectively use good teachers in positive instead of negative terms.

This negativity is the dark side of the boomers--they know how to tear down but they don't know how to build and sustain anything.

Realist wrote:

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Don't know where you have been. The efforts you describe have been underway in Worthington for at least a year and the school district is voluntarily undergoing an extremely thorough audit so they will have objective data to work from. If you go on the Worthington Library website I think you will find links to the community planning effort and the school information should be on the district web site soon.

At your suggestion, I visited the Worthington Library site for a couple hours, but failed to locate any such information that was linked through the site's links or search facilities. It may be there, but apparently requires apriori knowledge of its location.

As for where I've been...right here in Worthington, paying my $12,000 a year in property taxes. And you have been...in Dublin??!!

Keith G wrote:

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At your suggestion, I visited the Worthington Library site for a couple hours, but failed to locate any such information that was linked through the site's links or search facilities. It may be there, but apparently requires apriori knowledge of its location.
As for where I've been...right here in Worthington, paying my $12,000 a year in property taxes. And you have been...in Dublin??!!

Try this: http://www.worthington360.blogspot.com/ . There was some stuff on the library site, but you are right, it was buried somewhere.

If you are paying $12,000 a year in property taxes you own a lot of property and surely you knew the tax rates when you bought your property? The increases in my property taxes have been in line with the increase in my property value. The recession we are in now has changed that dynamic, but apparently property values are starting to come back. Maintaining value (at least on residential property) has a lot to do with the quality of schools.

Good school programs that produce good workers, citizens, leaders and professionals cost money, no doubt about it. I think we benefit in the end commensurate with what we put in. I looked up "21st century learning skills" and for once the newest trend in education actually makes sense. It is looking at learning linked to real world experiences, actually doing vs. only reading about, and at applying what is learned to other situations and developing analytical skills, etc. You can google that phrase and find all kinds of stuff. Worthington has been on the leading edge in experiential education for over 30 years and we have all kinds of programs that others school districts are just now developing. Even if you own commercial property, you might consider that businesses would probably want to buy commercial property and locate in communities where they will find able workers and the kind of community atmosphere created by people who are thoughtful, intelligent and supple in their thinking.

I'm just sayin'....