- 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.
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