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Home > Blogs > Lakota Schools News and Issues > Archives > 2010 > September > 23 > Entry
Billboard campaign sparks battle of words
The Ohio Education Association and the Education Action group are facing off in a battle of words…or press releases.
Read here to find out more about the campaign the EAG launched in southwest Ohio. And read here for the interview I had with the OEA.
Below, I am pasting the press releases from each organization.
Take the facts like adults, OEA School reform group responds to union’s diversionary tactics
MUSKEGON, Mich. - Several days ago, we at the Education Action Group unveiled 25 billboards http://e2ma.net/go/8646934357/3107495/98691342/24830/goto:http://www.oheaexposed.com/billboards.htm in the Greater Cincinnati area, designed to draw public attention to the incredible amount of money local schools are forced to spend due to various provisions in labor contracts.
Our goal is to draw attention to a report we issued last spring, titled "Ohio Teacher Contracts - <http://e2ma.net/go/8646934357/3107495/98691343/24830/goto:http://eagfdn.org/documents/Ohioteachercontractsanalysis_000.pdf> <http://e2ma.net/go/8646934357/3107495/98691344/24830/goto:http://eagfdn.org/documents/Ohioteachercontractsanalysis_000.pdf> The Black Hole of School Spending."; <http://e2ma.net/go/8646934357/3107495/98691345/24830/goto:http://eagfdn.org/documents/Ohioteachercontractsanalysis_000.pdf> In that report, we outline costly and questionable union contract provisions from schools throughout the area, so taxpayers can get a better idea of where their dollars go.
We also hope to encourage residents to personally inspect their local school's labor contracts, and determine for themselves whether education dollars are being spent in the wisest manner possible, particularly in this era of teacher layoffs and program cuts.
But predictably, some responded to our information campaign with an attitude of "kill the messenger."
The Ohio Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, issued a statement suggesting that we're the type of group that shows up to spread an "anti-union, anti-public school" message during election cycles, then disappears again.
The statement also accuses EAG of being a Republican front group that's promoting vouchers for private and religious schools.
The fact is that we're a year-round non-profit organization that advocates for financial and structural reform in public schools. Rather than being anti-public education, we advocate for policies that can save public education from its own self-destructive tendencies, so it can better serve students and survive into the future.
We are affiliated with no political party, but have taken a strong stand for empowering parents to choose the best educational options for their children.
The OEA's critical assessment of our organization is nothing more than a diversionary tactic, produced by the union's professional spin doctors.
"Does it really matter who we are or how we operate, as long as we pass on accurate information about school spending to the citizens of the Cincinnati area?" said EAG Vice President Kyle Olson. "The information in our report came directly from teacher contracts
and employees of local school districts. We didn’t make anything up.
"We suspect that the OEA wants to knee-cap us so people won't look at the information we provided. If they do, they might come to the conclusion that we're right about high labor costs in Southwest Ohio schools. By portraying us as the evil outsiders, union leaders hope people will ignore our message and keep giving them and school administrators a blank check.
“We believe Ohio residents are smart enough to look at the information we present and decide for themselves whether it has merit. We don’t believe they’re going to ignore our important message about how their tax dollars are spent, just because self-serving union leaders call us nasty names.”
Focus on the benefits of investing in public schools Recently, a conservative, out-of-state organization has blanketed the southwestern Ohio area with billboards that question spending on public schools.
With these billboards, the group, calling itself Education Action Group, has brought its campaign to Ohio. Finding information about the Education Action Group isn’t easy. A visit to EAG’s website reveals the group’s philosophy, with links to anti-union organizations and anti-union commentaries, but does not disclose any financial information. What do 25 billboards cost? The group will not say. Who is backing them? They refuse to reveal this as well. In fact, for a group claiming dedication to transparency, EAG reveals nothing about its finacials.
EAG Director Kyle Olson says his organization is non-partisan and not opposed to public schools. The Michigan Education Association says EAG is a front group for Republican Party activists who want to expand the use of tax-financed vouchers for private and religious schools.
It has become the trend during election campaigns for anti-levy and anti-pulic education groups like EAG to surface, speaking out against public education, and then to retreat again once the elections are over. For educators, however, the work of preparing our students for the future and promoting the importance of public education isn’t seasonal. Educators do this work each and every day.
Members of the Ohio Education Association, as well as administrative groups like the Ohio School Board Association and the Ohio Association of School Business Officers work together to provide solid financial information to voters about their local school levies. Despite intermittent negative campaigns, we know Ohioans support the basic right of every student to attend a high-quality public school. We think most members of the public understand how teachers spend much of their own money toward books and other classroom supplies, even though their salaries lag behind those of private sector individuals with comparable college and graduate school educations.
Investing in pre-school, primary and secondary education now will provide calculable returns in the future. Providing our children with the education they need to compete in the emerging global economy is not only good for their futures — it’s good for Ohio. A well-rounded, high quality primary and secondary education leads to high earnings and economically stronger and stable communities. Strong support for local schools promotes community prosperity and higher home values too.
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By Tracy Jones
September 23, 2010 2:49 PM | Link to this
The Lakota School District Has Been Wasting Millions Of Dollars Every Year For Decades!!They Need To Cut Teacher Salaries By 35% Now. The November 2nd 2010 Lakota School Tax Levy Is Predicted To Go Down 62%-38% Due To High Voter Turnout Of Residents Against The Tax!! Unemployment In This Area Is At 19% When you Factor In The Unemployed Folks Whom Were Self-Employed And Now Out Of Work And Do Not Qualify For Unemployment!! I’m Voting N O On The Lakota School Tax!!
By Rob
September 23, 2010 3:54 PM | Link to this
Misery loves company doesn’t it Tracy. When the levy fails and the state takes over what will be your excuse then. They will loan Lakota money which must be repaid, then guess what. They will demand that Lakota puts another levy on the ballot until it passes. Life’s a Bi**h
By WC
September 25, 2010 10:15 AM | Link to this
Cut teacher salaries?? You’re out of your mind!! They are worth every dollar for having masters degrees and years of service. Come up with a different answer… because the teachers VOTED to NOT take a pay increase for TWO YEARS. Find a different answer…
By Not Exactly WC
September 25, 2010 12:51 PM | Link to this
Teacher’s VOTED to TAKE STEP increases for two years which will reward 68% of Lakota’s highest paid teachers with more money for one sole reason: they’ve been in the district the longest. It’s an anitquated rewards system that needs to go. That money would have been far better spent on distributing it to the top performers in the district. By the way, if you did some research you’d learnt a Master’s degree does not neccessarily translate to success in the classroom and they’re certainly not needed in all the courses being delivered.
By Chris
September 26, 2010 10:45 PM | Link to this
Maybe I’m biased, being married to a teacher, but cutting salary on professionals that have always been notoriously underpaid is just not an option. Everyone just thinks their jobs are so easy, they think they just go home and enjoy their evenings and weekends and summers, but they don’t! My wife spends hours every evening grading your children’s work and then hours every weekend preparing lesson plans to teach your children. Many summers are spent getting continuing education so that your kids can keep learning from the latest developments and standards. And the classroom is not what it used to be when we were in school. Now there are often horribly disruptive kids in the classroom with the well behaved ones that often need to have their own aides. If the levy fails, those jobs are at risk meaning that there will be more challenging children per aide making it harder to keep these students from being disruptive. Some of these children are loud, but some are violents, pushing down heavy book shelves and biting to the point of drawing blood. I’m willing to bet one of the primary reasons you live where you do is because of our school districts’s excellent reputation. I know times are tough for many people, but hurting the very thing that can help make sure future generations don’t suffer shouldn’t even be left to the fickle masses. Education should simply be a guarantee.
By Not Exactly WC
September 27, 2010 9:26 AM | Link to this
Chris - Education for kids should be a guarantee but annual raises regardless of performance and fast rising wages equally for all who deliver it - with zero regard for the demand for a teacher’s specific skills, should not. Look, your spouse may be a hard worker, but too many of their peers are not nor are all skills needed equally. And in all serious your spouse is doing nothing more than what a majority of professionals have to do year-round and on nights and weekends. Uupdating their education, various certifications and licensures in between is also a given, though the majority don’t have employers like schools to cover those costs. It’s time education joined the real world as it wastes far too much money on compensation programs that reward little more than attendance (thier allowed absences are far too generous too). Lakota’s latest contract is worse as it rewards only the oldest teachers’ not best at the expense of kids. Teacher’s don’t like to discuss that, especially those with tenure.
By Ashley
October 26, 2010 9:27 PM | Link to this
Tracy, it is difficult to even consider a person’s argument when they fail to write in any standard remotely resembling that of the English language. Evidently, your education failed you. If you were to cut teacher salaries in your district, why would anyone want to spend 180 days per year dealing with students who can so often be remarkably spoiled and disinterested in their own education, in addition to endless hours spent helping students after school, arriving at work early and staying late to ensure the best lesson plans to help students achieve, figuring out ways to differentiate instruction in order to equalize the learning environment, dealing with parents who believe that their children are God’s gift to humanity, accommodating several required extra assignments that are not part of teaching at all and trying to incorporate new government mandates into their lessons each year all the while working with constant cuts in resources and funding? Having summers off of work does not really count when one considers the fact that teachers get paid significantly less than people employed in almost all careers requiring similar educational backgrounds. Teachers care about helping their students. It is a calling, not something to be done for the benefits. Do not pretend that good teachers are easily dispensable in your community. Incentives go down - recruitment of passionate teachers becomes more difficult - schools start to fail - property value decreases. Be careful what you wish for. If there are no incentives to do a job that is far from glamorous, keep in mind it is the future generations of Americans that will suffer from lack of passionate teachers who instead choose to do something more financially satisfactory with their degrees. The United States has fallen to 18th in educational rank among the 36 industrialized nations. Unless you want your children and the future leaders of your country to fall short in their endeavors, I would recommend finding somewhere besides teacher salaries to cut funding from. If anything, people of this country need MORE incentive to teach our children how to succeed in order to compete in a global economy. I guarantee the politicians behind those billboards make a lot more money for much less honorable work than your teachers.