Lakota made a decent decision in re-thinking its plans to cut busing. Unfortunately, they are still making cuts in busing when in all reality, that is the last thing in the world that they should be cutting.
The new proposal will allow students in kindergarten through sixth grade living 1 to 2 miles from their school will be able to keep their busing for the rest of the year.
This is an obvious attempt to buy some time and to look as though the school system is working with the community.
There is some very grim news looming on the horizon for public schools all over Ohio. It looks as though Governor Kasich will cut the budget to education 15 to 20 percent. That means there won’t be any quick fixes at the state level to fix the funding problem. I am hopeful that the funding structure can be fixed during the Kasich administration, but the first priority for him is to cut the budget deficit in Ohio that is over 8 billion dollars.
That means that schools trying to maintain the status quo of what they are accustomed to in funding levels, will try to put more levy proposals on the ballots this upcoming spring to avoid the pain. What they should do is deal with the real numbers they’ll be dealing with when Kasich also cuts many of the state mandates that will save millions to districts, because that is the plan as I understand it, and will change the amount of money school districts need.
When you have to deal with budget cuts, and we’re not asking Lakota to cut their budget, We’re asking them to put a cap on the budget and live within it, is that substantial cuts have to be made.
I’m going to attempt to answer some mail here that I don’t have time to address individually.
• There will be changes on the school board when we have another election. There are a lot of people that want to run. However, and I know school board members that currently sit on boards all over Ohio that tell me how the Levy University works up in Columbus, and how they are singled out if they don’t follow the union line. So it will take more than just one school board member to affect change. Changes to the board will require changes in culture, and that’s the phase that the Lakota School System is in.
• Busing is one of the items taught at Levy University in Columbus to extort money from the community. Kevin Bright, superintendent of Mason has taught the class, so there is a local connection. He is the superintendent at Mason that currently makes more than any state governor in the United States.
• To the union reps and teacher, yes the community does expect the same education results to our children even with reductions in money. Education is not a sports team. We can vote for sports teams and other entertainment with the purchase of a ticket. We can only vote for wage levels in school systems and school board members with a vote. Lakota has said no twice. We currently pay approximately $11 dollars per 1000 in property taxes to support our schools and we’re telling you to live within that amount. If you can’t, quit and we’ll hire people who can do it.
• Schools are not alone in the budget crises situation. We have problems in Cincinnati ranging from the stadium deficits to the request in Butler County to having an income tax. All across the state and the nation government entities are trying to sustain the level of income they’ve manipulated for themselves at public expense. They did this while we were all sleeping and busy with other issues. But now we’re out of money. We’re individually taxed too much, so we have to pay attention now and start saying no, so that service levels can be paid a wage that is more manageable. But we still expect the police to show up. We still expect the teachers to teach. We still expect government to do its business. But we do not want to pay excessively for those services. Again, if you don’t want to do the job, we’ll find someone else to do it for a wage we’re willing to pay. End of story.
2011 will be a tough year. But if we pay attention to the basic issues, we’ll get through it together. Teacher’s unions will have to make compromises or get out of the way. That’s all there is to it. You won’t be allowed to extort our communities at the expense of our children.
I know Kasich is going to have a tough time when he gets to office, so I have joined his Captains for Kasich program. And I invite you to join me there, because we will need a considerable defense for the aggression that the teacher unions will put forth once it becomes obvious that the education culture will have to change in order for education to survive and continue to educate our youth properly. The unions will fight the change every step.
You can contact me for Captains for Kasich at:
http://captainsforkasich.com/an/profile?contactId=98ccd083-9ace-454e-95b4-9e24698c7282
I also started a Twitter account because so many people asked me to. Join me to receive direct updates.
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
Rich Hoffman
The Gunfighter's Guide: 