- Posted by David on October 23, 2009
http://www.celebrateworthington.org/
Tues. Nov. 3rd, Vote FOR 49 for Worthington City Schools
Issue 49 is about protecting our children and our community’s future. The Worthington City School District provides an excellent education to our children. Without our support, our children’s education, our property values and our future are in danger.
Issue 49 will provide the District with the funds it needs to prevent harmful cuts. $11 million has been eliminated from the general fund over the past three years, and further reductions would severely endanger education. Without additional funding soon, the district will eliminate all support for extra-curriculars, like sports and after school programs for the 2010-11 school year.
Issue 49 is so much more than a schools issue. It’s a vote for our District’s and our community’s future. It will help protect what we’ve all worked for-and keep our community attractive to buyers.
Be sure to find Issue 49 on your ballot and support our children and our future.
- Posted by David on October 21, 2009
Someone in the media who "gets it." There are a lot of people who assert that they can solve all of Worthington's issues on a spreadsheet or through specious analogies. Funny, funny-sad, how these same people never put their simple solutions to complex problems to a public vote. Easier, I suppose, to take potshots at the District on websites or in online postings or in letters to the Editor or in the often, unintentionally I am sure, hilarious emails rather than actually run for a Board seat on a campaign based upon the principles so dearly espoused. Talk but no action. Anyway, I think the gentlemen below fairly hits the proverbial nail on the head. Read on...
If you have a levy fight, you should have a board fight
By GARTH BISHOP, COMMENTARY EDITOR
Published: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 4:00 PM EDT
When there's a school funding issue on the ballot, members of the community always come up with a myriad of reasons to vote for or against it.
The most prominent justification I've seen for "no" votes this time around is the issue of teacher pay. It's not unreasonable; teacher pay is every district's biggest expense.
Frankly, I always thought it was kind of silly when people protesting school districts' spending would focus on certain other expenses, like extracurricular activities or executive retreats or even administrative salaries. When you look at the budget as a whole, they're just a drop in the bucket.
Not that voters should just ignore drop-in-the-bucket items like these, but if they really think their home district needs to cut costs, there are more salient areas on which to focus.
It seems like all the local school districts with levies on the ballot have seen voters clamoring for greater concessions from the teachers in an uncertain economy. And in almost all of these districts, concessions have at least been offered.
I want to believe that all the voters saying the district doesn't deserve the levy because the teachers are paid too much has researched the issue and are using good information. But I'm skeptical about just how dedicated some people are to that argument.
Take a look at Worthington. I've probably gotten five times as many pro-levy letters as anti-levy letters this fall, but teacher pay has certainly been an issue with the anti-levy crowd. I have no doubt a lot of the "no" voters are going to use teacher pay as justification for their decision.
And yet, look at the school board race over in Worthington. Or rather, look at the big, empty void where that race would be if it were actually contested.
Westerville also has a levy on the ballot, and teacher pay has been brought up there too. But its school board race has just one challenger to the three incumbents on the ballot.
Not every community has this issue. Reynoldsburg and South-Western both have sizable fields of candidates alongside hotly contested levies on their ballots, and Hilliard, which doesn't even have an operating levy, has several candidates using teacher pay as one of their central issues.
But it's disappointing to see that in some communities, the teacher pay issue is just an excuse to not vote for the levy. It's the school board that negotiates with the teachers' union when the contracts expire, but it seems that some people who feel passionately that teachers are paid too much don't feel passionately enough to do anything about it.
Contract negotiations may take place in closed session, but usually, the community knows when they're taking place. Teachers often attend school board meetings en masse to prove their solidarity to the board, but rarely do you see more than one or two community members providing an alternative voice at those meetings.
Whether you believe teachers are paid too much, too little or just enough, I think we can all agree the prominence of the issue shows it's a conversation we need to have.
But if we're going to have a conversation, everyone needs to participate in it. If you really want change, just voting against the levy likely isn't enough to cause it.
Copyright © 2009 - Columbus Local News
- Posted by David on October 14, 2009
Although I hate to give a falsehood any attention, I want to expose this one particular one to the light of ...ummmm... truth. Apparently, the ability to divine one's intent runs rampant in Worthington. Now, added to that, we have been presented with the following statement from a letter to the Dispatch and local papers: "From the public financial information on the district's Web site, I knew the generous contract would require a levy to pass." This remarkable quote from an otherwise unremarkable, business as usual, anti-levy letter struck me as odd. The contract has been approved for nearly a year, yet Pam Williams claims to have had this knowledge and hasn't, to my knowledge, shared it with anyone, certainly not in the one email I received from her earlier this year.
So, in my view, her assertion is a fabrication, an ex post facto attempted re-interpretation of fact. I stand by my assertion that no levy was, or is, needed to fund the current union and administrative contracts. Since Pam Williams already has knowledge that I am wrong and that a levy was, and is, needed to fund the current contracts, I challenge her to provide me, immediately, with the "public financial information" upon which she purportedly relies. I am sure she'll have no shortage of assistance but, in fairness, I'll wait until noon on Friday, October 16th, 2009 for provision of the proof. Again, she already stated she knew that the current contract needed a levy to pass to fund it, so she should have zero problem immediately providing the proof to the public.
- Posted by David on October 8, 2009
Guess who made the above statement? If you guessed it was an administrator or a school board member, you'd be right but guess again who made that statement in his opening statement this past Tuesday at the Beth Tikvah forum. If you guessed that it was a representative of the anti-levy group, you'd be right. I'm just saying... I'm the messenger, don't shoot me.
Ponder the above while reading Chesley Sullenberger's new book: Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters. I am sure there are some quotes applicable to school levies in there.
Better yet, while reading the book, take a few moments to rearrange your deck chairs, it'll make your ride on the Titanic all the more pleasant.