PROPAGANDA - WHAT THEY DON'T TELL YOU

IT IS TIME TO GET OUT AND VOTE - TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2014

Part of the renovation at the bus garage that cost almost

$3 million.   Ask for the invoices and bids for this work.

 There is only one issue on the ballot and the property owners will be footing the bill for this "special election."  The school board voted to put this levy on the ballot in August because so few people bother to go to the polls, vote early or request and file an absentee ballot.    That allows a "special interest group" to get their people out.  They have at their disposal an expensive computer system that has the emails, phone numbers and addresses of all employees, all students, their parents and other people affiliated with the schools. That system was paid out of the district finances.   

We, the people that pay the bills, do not have access to that system or any system comparable.   They have our money to use as they please.   We don't hear from them until they run out money and want even more.    

Today my husband and I went to the Board of Elections to cast our ballots early.   Anyone can vote early by requesting an absentee ballot or going to the Board of Elections and casting a ballot there. It was shocking to learn that less than 100 have voted early at the Board of Elections and about 400 have cast "absentee ballots."

Maybe you don't know the strategy used by the district to get many of those absentee votes.    The district has willing people that go to nursing homes and retirement centers.   Otterbein is a great source of votes for them and usually will carry an election for levies and school board candidates that the union prefers.   One election that I checked the totals for the Otterbein precinct there were only four votes were cast against the levy.  We are not allowed the same opportunity to even place a post card at their door. 

One key to this success is that the residents at Otterbein do not pay property taxes.   Secondly, the district has a close relationship with administrators at Otterbein and thirdly two former popular teachers of the district actually go to the residents and help them vote. Their ages do help them relate to the Otterbein residents.  They also get votes at other nursing homes.   

Below is the language as it appears on the ballot.  You can see that the district wants $4,200,000.00 per year to continue filling their coffers.  What they don't tell you is that the "Emergency Levy" was originally passed to cover debts that the district had to pay.   If you will remember the board had to be taken over by the state and the superintendent and treasurer had left the district in shame.   The new income of $4,200,000.00 helped them pay off some of that debt.  After the debts were paid the district just kept spending money at a higher and higher level.   (My last post shows how the the property taxes have increased through the years.) 

Did the board, treasurer and superintendent learn anything from the shame?   Apparently not because they spent that emergency money (our) money and spent even more.    Now they consider that large sum as an entitlement and they will do just about anything to keep that and more flowing into the treasury of the district.  There will never be enough.

1 Proposed Tax Levy (Renewal)
Lebanon City School District

A majority affirmative vote is
necessary for passage.

Shall a levy renewing an existing levy be
imposed by the Lebanon City School
District, for the purpose of
avoiding an operating
deficit
in the sum of $4,200,000 per year, and a
levy of taxes to be made outside of the
ten-mill limitation estimated by the county
auditor to average 5.38 mills for each
one dollar of valuation, which amounts to
$0.538 for each one hundred dollars of
valuation, for a period of 3 years
commencing in 2014, first due in
calendar year 2015?

O   For the Tax Levy
O   Against the Tax Levy  (please mark this one)

The important thing to remember when giving a school district money is that the district is controlled by the wants and needs of the teacher's union.  The demands and power of that union has created an almost insurmountable mountain for taxpayers to fight.

The union has never and will never represent the interests of the children.   It represents the job interests of the union members.  All unions participate in collective bargaining with binding arbitration and a contract that states salary rules (steps), seniority as the basis for decisions of salary and appointments to the more desirable jobs.  In the case of layoffs they will be made by furloughing the newest employee.    No decisions are based on what is best for the children. If a totally incompetent teacher has even a few days seniority than a better teacher, the incompetent one gets the raise in position or a cushy assignment.   It doesn't matter if that teacher is not the best available person for the job.

There is almost zero accountability regarding how our money is spent or for the academics that are taught and learned by our children.   Even the most heinous crimes are swept under the rug. Most of the time the teachers, teachers, cafeteria heads and workers, bus drivers and even the superintendent are allowed to resign with a nice letter of recommendation in their hand.    We are never told why the employee left. This is not good for their Public Relations and PR must be great in order to extract even more money from the property owners.

All unions are politically active with money and with armies of activists.  Look at the show of unity recently in Mason. Kings and in Springboro.   They wear t-shirts in the same color with the same logo and entice a few parents (special interest parents) to join their sea of red, sea of green or sea of black.   They believe that this shows unity and union powers.   They bargain for raises, benefits and job descriptions that often has the union members spend less time in the classroom for more money.  This tactic also requires the district to hire more teachers.  

The union is opposed to any improvement that will force them to do a more effective job of teaching.   They oppose school choice and will fight for the wants of their members at all costs.  The system is not designed to be effective.  It is designed to give the union more and more powers.

In the case of administrators they can come and go as they please. No one accounts for their time.   All of them are former teachers and very sympathetic to the union's demands.    When the union negotiates a raise - the administrators get a better one.   It is a poor system and is totally ineffective. Not one part of the system, from top to bottom is designed for the children and for the effective use of our money.  

There will always be a need for more money, because no one in the "system" is accountable to anyone.    Even the audit is made by a firm that Donna Davis Norris said "that she could work with."   I would think that the accounting firm should be one from out of the area and that is not beholden to anyone.

The district doesn't even follow the rules of accounting demanded by the state.    They use the Cash Basis of keeping the books because they do not have to keep an inventory of what the district owns.   That would create a problem if items turned up missing.   The state required GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Procedures) and the district refuses to implement this system.

Please don't give the district any more money.   They need to tighten their belt just like every family has to do.   They must be forced to be accountable to the property owners and not the union. Stop giving two raises per year.  Stop including luxuries in contracts for administrators.   Stop getting millions of dollars in loans that we have never approved.   Stop implementing Common Core.  Start cutting by getting rid of the Public Relations position, consultants, and that ridiculous and unnecessary post card.    

It has been proven by many studies that new buildings and large sums of money do not guarantee a quality education.   It just makes the union members happier.   

Tell is what is the emergency?   They never speak to the public until they want more money.   They just passed three levies.  

The sad fact is that only about 10% of the registered voters bothered to vote on the last one.    That 10% consisted of parents, registered students, teacher's union members, bus drivers, and the nursing/retirement homes.   That's all they need to pass any levy.

JUST SAY NO!   GET OUT AND VOTE.  MANY HOME OWNERS ARE ON THE VERGE OF LOSING THEIR HOME. THE UNION DOESN'T CARE AND SUPERINTENDENT

MARK NORTH CERTAINLY DOESN'T CARE.

PROPAGANDA VS REALITY REGARDING SCHOOL FINANCE

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

Bonds were sold for this renovation.  Looks the same as before

the renovation.

Last week we received another one of those expensive postcards that are promoting the August 5th school levy.    Please note that, as usual,  the treasurer of the levy committee is Eric Meilstrup, an officer at LCNB.   Chip Bonney, a school board member is also an officer at LCNB.  If the district uses LCNB for anything most people would find that involvement a conflict of interest.  I'm sure many of you can figure out why.

This card lists seven key facts about why taxpayers should vote for the levy. All of those reasons purport this levy to be a "maintenance" levy.   

By whose standards do we determine just how much the district needs to maintain our schools?   What does the leadership consider necessary to provide an education to our students?   We have never been told how much will be enough.    We, the taxpayers,  have to sacrifice something in order to pay more taxes.   We have to give up a few meals out, a steak now and then, needed repairs to our property etc.   What does the district sacrifice?   Nothing.

Local papers support the schools with few questions asked.   The Pulse would not exist if they didn't report school news.   Almost every page has news about one activity or another.   I have never known a local paper that didn't endorse a school levy.   Even the "letters to the editor" read as though a public relations specialist has written them.   Often they are signed by teachers or former teachers of the district.   I happen to know that "sample letters" are written by specialists at a much higher level.   Remember that the union receives the bulk of the funds not dedicated to bond issue payments.

Emergency levies are technically dollar amount levies.  In 2010 the district declared an "emergency" and placed a $4,200,000.00 levy on the ballot and in 2011 another $3,000,000.00.  The two added up to $7,200,000.00 in new funds.   Did anyone tell us why the district had such a huge EMERGENCY and just where did they spend that money?    We have been told over and over that there has been a "freeze" on salaries.   Is that true?  Of course when you voluntarily send your hard earned money to a government entity without asking questions, you can bet you will not be given any explanations.

In 1998 a 2.00 mill permanent improvement levy was passed, 2001 a 5.00 mill bond issue was passed for 28 years, 2013 a 37 year bond issue at 1.87 mills along with a 0.50 - 23 year additional levy.  The total millage collected is 59.21 mills which reduces to 36.160117 plus the inside millage of 63.82 equals a total effective millage assessed at 40.770117.  You can call the auditor and ask for the way these numbers are calculated, but the bottom line is that we are paying higher and higher taxes.  That inside number is 30.25 for Clinton-Massie and they do have new schools.  You can also find the numbers for many districts listed in an Enquirer article.

The 1.87 mill levy generates $1,444,804.00 per year which adds up to $53,457,750.00 over 37 years.  (Much of that total is interest to a bank.) The .5 mill levy generates $387,208.00 per year.   Assuming the same collection for 23 years it would generate $8,905,784.00 over 23 years.   (more if the real estate evaluation increases.)   Just these two levies transfers $1.832,012.00 annually out of the pockets of the local property owners.   

The demands MUST continue to escalate because the district teacher's union has a contract that states that they will get a raise every year.  In addition to that raise the union negotiates for another raise.   Recently the Mason Teacher's Union negotiated for a new contract and threatened to go on strike. Many did pickett the school.  In reality, employees receive two raises per year.

The school districts have found that declaring an emergency and asking for more money usually gives incentives to the parents and teachers into working hard for these levies.   These emergencies will keep reoccurring because school districts are not in business of saving money.  Before an emergency five year levy is about to expire, they must ask for it to be renewed.   They are used to those millions and have already spent them in advance.  

The district has not told the taxpayers that they received  thousands of extra money from the Federal government, they have received the following from the Rockies Express pipeline and will receive higher amounts in the future:

2011     $1,037,273.00
2012     $1,242,824.00
2013     $1,220,590.00
2014     $1,203,249.00   (half)

The district also is receiving a large sum from the new Racino.   They receive state and federal funds in addition to the local property taxes.   They spend it all and borrow millions of dollars that they never tell us about.  For example they sold $3 ++ million dollars worth of bonds in 2011 for "energy conservation."    This was a highly controversial project that used a local "consultant" who spoke at a board meeting.   No one was impressed with his suggestions.  In 2010 they borrowed $1 ++ million for a lease/purchase agreement with Huntington Bank (Did board member Chip Bonney work there at that time?)  In 2006 they sold notes for $6,100,000.00 (the reason is not listed in the budget.)  There are other loans for the purpose of purchasing buses.   They also borrowed other amounts through the years. 

A few years ago the district got rid of district owned buses and signed a multi-million dollar contract with the Laidlaw bus company.   The school board went along with that deal.   Laidlaw either went out of business or changed it's name.   Recently the district decided to buy buses and handle the transportation of students internally.   These decisions have created huge debts to the district and unnecessary expenses due to incompetent management. The Purchased Services line in the budget was $6,708,026.00 in 2007.   That would include Laidlaw's fees.  At that time we paid the drivers, mechanics and provided the facilities in addition to Laidlaw's fees.

Total Real Estate Taxes Distributed to LCSD for the following years:

2000          $19,418,018.59
2001          $20,404,522.53
2002          $24,373,186.71
2003          $27,820,329.30
2004          $28,370,816.40
2005          $28,910,006.30
2006          $39,625,779.01
2007          $40,597,330.77
2008          $41,537,416.97
2009          $39,559,322.35
2010          $41,119,624.75
2011          $42,962,120.46
2012          $48,513,571.84
2013          $48,427,789.49

These numbers do not include funds from the state or federal government. This is only real estate taxes from Warren County - LCSD property owners.

The district has a stagnant enrollment.   Some grades are smaller than in past years.   The district is receiving new money from the Racino and the Rockies Express pipeline.   These are windfall sources that did not exist in past years. Between 2000 and 2007 the taxes more than doubled. 

Just how young must they be to promote a levy?

Never vote for another school levy.   We are never told the truth.   Now they have more money with the new bond issue.   They have never told the taxpayers what they plan to build and how they plan to spend all of those millions.   Inquiring minds want to know. 


* District audits may be found at the Ohio State Auditor's web site.




   

PROPAGANDA - CRADLE TO GRAVE CONTROL

LAKOTA SCHOOL DISTRICT HAS MORE PLANS COOKING

I want my mommy

Every school district has similar or exactly the same scenario going on.   A building program of some kind is where the money can drain without scrutiny.

The school districts like to call their propaganda meetings with the public "conversation" meetings or "listening" sessions.   In actuality these leaders really don't have to have much of a meeting with the taxpayers or even parents.   There are plenty of employees who live in the district that can fill in as "the public."    Lakota says that they are "evaluating" a proposed "partnership" with building a Boys and Girls Club on the old Union School site.   They are NOT evaluating this program.   It has been decided.

This project means demolishing the historic building (once the Union Township Hall) on the chosen site. (History means nothing to the change agents.  In fact they are eliminating history in our schools.) The district would then contract to build a new and more luxurious state of the art building.   The district taxpayers have spent millions refurbishing this building and all that money would go down the drain.    I'm sure Ms. Mantia doesn't care.   Her job is to follow the federal aim to control our children from toddler to high school and beyond.  She will be long gone and the property owners will be stuck with the bill.

It isn't enough that the taxpayers are asked to build luxurious new buildings for K - 12, but now we must take care of the toddlers and after school time.   Ms. Mantia and the feds want preschool, all day kindergarten and a boys and girls club to be paid for by the taxpayers.   Many people are wondering just when the parents are responsible for caring for their children.   Does the state via the taxpayers have the right to instill all values, attitudes and beliefs in our children?  They are doing just that every day.

Lakota Local School District is "not" by any stretch of the imagination a poor inner city school district.  They state that 20% of the students are on the free lunch program.   Probably most of these students are coming from the few apartment complexes in the district.   I am told that the two person to a bedroom rule is no longer being enforced.   This would account for many of the students on the subsidized program.

What we do know is that the district voters never voted to implement any preschool, Early Childhood Development Centers.    These were added to the district without need or desire.   Kathy Klink, when superintendent, took the initiative to open the first building.  She had to go out and enlist people to sign up to put their child into the program.    Of course there were some that took advantage of the cheap alternative to a nanny or daycare.

School districts like to call their "new" and "innovative" plans "strategic" planning.   Government school leaders are on a mission for "CHANGE."   The plans have been in process for many years.   One baby step at a time they are taking over the minds of our children.    It is not a coincidence that the district suddenly came up with a new "strategic plan" to build a Girls and Boys Club, all day kindergarten, preschool with the end goal of the government's complete control of our children.

The purpose of public education was to make sure every person could read, write and compute at a level necessary to survive.   Through the years the power of the governmental dictates and the leftist union controlled every detail of the curriculum and the school day.    As the introduction of multiculturalism, social and sexual diversity, psychological and mental evaluation and testing etc. there is little time left for what most of would call "the basics."

The test scores have plummeted even though the tests are rigged.  The curriculum has been expanded for the worse.  The solutions given by the government and educational establishment have always involved more money, more unnecessary subjects and more indoctrination.  Each "new" plan is given a new name.   These days it is called "Common Core."   This is just another name for Goals 2000, Race to the Top, School to Work etc.   All are designed by the same committees in Washington, D.C. at the Department of Education.   All of the programs were designed to cost more and to further dumb down our population.  There is no local control.   The control is in Washington, D.C.  The local leaders are simply puppets of "the system."

Just keep focused on what is at the bottom of all of these "new" ideas.   For many it is greed.   All of these programs cost huge "investments" of dollars.   In the case of this Boys and Girls Club,  there are grants available through a $25 billion settlement by five of the largest mortgage lenders involved in deceptive practices used to foreclose on property owners.   Attorney General Mike DeWine provided $4.35 million of the state's settlement to the Ohio Alliance of Boys and Girls Clubs.   Lakota received a small $750,000 grant.    It will take many millions of local money to build a new building.   That $750,000 is just a drop in the bucket.  Just ask yourself who benefits from a building program?    Surprise,  the architects, builders, contractors and staff, that's who.  Who are these people?  What are their names?

I used to be the den mother of a local Cub Scout troop.   We were allowed to have our meetings after school at Liberty Elementary.    We were kicked out by the school principal and I ended up having our meetings at my home.   I still ask, why can't the community use these expensive buildings?   Why can't clubs and community groups meet in our buildings?    Why do the district dictators determine who can use the buildings?   The union can use our buildings, but we can't.   WHY?

If parents want to start a boys and girls club, let them use the buildings available in the district.   We built them and we should utilize them for many purposes.   No superintendent stays long enough to force their values on our community.    Superintendents should do their job and oversee the employees.   We are not subjects.   We own the buildings.  It is time to lay down the law and stop these unilateral decisions.  We are not subjects.

PROPAGANDA SOVIET STYLE AT LEBANON HIGH SCHOOL

Here it is in plain English right from the Communist philosophy.   This should sound very familiar.    This is what our president and his colleagues have been preaching.   This is exactly what Hillary Clinton preached in her book "It Takes a Village."   Think of the radical Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn, the radicals that now write curriculum.   This is not the beliefs of our Founders.   This is not the freedom that we were taught was our birthright - our inalienable right.    Our children do not belong to the state.  ****Note that free people are denoted as "bourgeois."   

"In bourgeois society, the child is regarded as the property of its parents - if not wholly, at least to a major degree. When parents say, 'My daughter', 'My son', the words do not simply imply the existence of a parental relationship, they also give expression to the parents' view that they have a right to educate their own children. From the socialist outlook, no such right exists. The individual human being does not belong to himself, but to society, to the human race. The individual can only live and thrive owing to the existence of society. The child, therefore, belongs to the society in which it lives, and thanks to which it came into being - and this society is something wider than the 'society' of its own parents. To society, likewise, belongs the primary and basic right of educating children. From this point of view, the parents' claim to bring up their own children and thereby to impress upon the children's psychology their own limitations, must not merely be rejected, but must be absolutely laughed out of court. Society may entrust the education of children to the parents; but it may refuse to do anything of the kind; and there is all the more reason why society should refuse to entrust education to the parents, seeing that the faculty of educating children is far more rarely encountered than the faculty of begetting them. Of one hundred mothers, we shall perhaps find one or two who are competent educators. make it possible for socialist society to train the coming generation.  The future belongs to social education. Social education will t successfully, at lowest cost, and with the least expenditure of energy.

The social education of children, therefore, must be realized for other reasons besides those of pedagogy.  It has enormous economic advantages. Hundreds of thousands, millions of mothers will thereby be freed for productive work and for selfculture. They will be freed from the soul-destroying routine of housework, and from the endless round of petty duties which are involved in the education of children in their own homes.

That is why the Soviet Power is striving to create a number of institutions for the improvement of social education, which are intended by degrees to universalize it. To this class of institutions belong the kindergartens, to which manual workers, clerks, etc., can send their children, thus entrusting them to experts who will prepare the children for school life. To this category, too, belong the homes or residential kindergartens. There are also children's colonies, where the children either live permanently, or for a considerable period, away from their parents. There are in addition the crèches, institutions for the reception of children under four years of age; in these the little ones are cared for while their parents are at work.

The Communist Party, therefore, must, on the one hand, ensure, through the working of soviet institutions, that there shall be a more rapid development of the places where children are prepared for school life, and it must ensure that there shall be a steady improvement in the training given at such places. On the other hand, by intensified propaganda among parents, the party must overcome bourgeois and petty-bourgeois prejudices concerning the necessity and superiority of home education. Here theoretical propaganda must be reinforced by the example of the best conducted educational institutions of the Soviet Power. Only too often, the unsatisfactory condition of the homes; crèches, kindergartens, etc., deters parents from entrusting their children to these. It must be the task of the Communist Party, and especially of the women's sections, to induce parents to strive for the improvement of social education, not by holding aloof from it, but by sending their children to the appropriate institutions, and by exercising the widest possible control over them through parents' organizations."

BELOW IS AN ASSIGNMENT FROM LEBANON CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT

Keep the Revolution Alive!!

Get the message out about LHS rules

Objective: Create a series of propaganda techniques to promote some of the school’s rules.

Top Secret Propaganda Assignment: You have just been hired to head the “super secret” propaganda department at Lebanon High School. The administration is concerned that enemies of the glorious “Improved Learning for Everyone” Revolution are among us. There is word that a group of students are potentially subversive and are thereby not willfully following the rules, a problem that threatens the “Improved Learning for Everyone” Revolution. As a result, the administration wants to find an effective way to re-enforce the school’s rules and encourage all students to follow them. In the name of keeping the school’s “Improved Learning for Everyone” Revolution alive, the administration has asked your group to: ü      Select three school policies and/or rules. ü      Develop different types of information programs that incorporate different propaganda techniques studied in our unit. This could be techniques from your web search as well as those used in Animal Farm. ü      Create three different visual aids to complement the propaganda you develop. (It could include posters to put up, slogans to disseminate, pamphlets to distribute around school, a series of mass e-mails, a videotaped ad, or any idea you have.) Audience Your work is aimed at the students in Lebanon High School, but designed to be propaganda with the purpose of promoting the views and position of the administration.

Process

Create three different propaganda campaigns with some kind of catchy visual aid – this could include posters to put up, slogans to disseminate, pamphlets to distribute around school, a series of mass e-mails, a videotaped ad, or any idea you have. Refer back to the examples from propaganda website. Each of your propaganda pieces should incorporate a different propaganda technique as seen in Animal Farm or from the propaganda internet assignment. Explain each campaign in a paragraph that identifies 1) the type of propaganda used, 2)a description of how it will work in Lebanon High School, and 3) the intended hidden message.

Due date _______________ 

PROPAGANDA USED BY SPRINGBORO SCHOOLS

JUST ONE INSTANCE OF HOW THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS OPERATE



Did anyone ever wonder why a school district needs a Director of Community Relations and other consultants to help the "professionals" communicate with the community, taxpayers and parents?   We have been told over and over again that the superintendents, assistant superintendents, principals and teachers are THE professionals.   We need to "trust" them.    They know what is best for the students and for the community in general. I have had that "trust" speech directed at me so many times.

Springboro Community City Schools officials really want to "hear from the residents."   (Does that sound like a broken record?)    These, so called professionals,  have a "brilliant" idea on how to do that.   They call the program "Many Voices Process"  or MVP for cuteness.  This is going to be a "yearlong"  effort to "create guiding statements and a vision for the schools."   They are going to "outreach" and believe this or not - it is not for a levy or building program.

Superintendent Todd Petrey (formerly of Lakota) says, "This is not a sales pitch."   Yeah right!    This is propaganda pure and simple.   It is aimed to focus the communities every thought and interest on how important the school district is to the community.   This MVP program is going to cost the taxpayers plenty.   

MVP is being guided (let's just say it - facilitated by more than 30 community volunteers.  I would bet all of them have been  selected for their loyalty to the union and administration.   In fact, probably half are teachers and many others from the PTA loyalists.    We wouldn't want anyone that might cause a little dissension by asking questions that were a little too in depth.     For example, Why are you spending all this money and all this time on a project asking questions.   Questions that professionals should have known the answers to years and years ago.   Maybe at the time of Socrates or even later at the time of the one room schools.

Get this, Karen DeRosa, the district's community relations consultant, superintendent Petrey and Jeffrey Stec from Citizens for Civic Renewal will be taking time to facilitate the meetings in three phases.    Sounds really important doesn't it?    I am sure that the district knows full well that all the people want is for the children to get a fine education and not to be indoctrinated by teachers in red shirts with an agenda.      

I believe that the union provoked so many people with their sea of red shirts and wearing them all week in the classroom didn't go over so well with the students or the parents.   In fact the bullying techniques used by the district's employees did make a permanent negative impression on everyone, including many teachers that don't appreciate those tactics.

They say the first phase will identify "values and beliefs."   The second phase is a "long range" plan for the school system.  The final phase will be to write a mission statement.   How about this idea?   The Springboro schools were built and paid for by the taxpayers so that our children have the skills to live their lives able to read, write, compute, have a sense of world and U.S. history and geography.     They do not have to have the daily indoctrination by facilitators on a mission to change the values, beliefs and attitudes that were taught by their parents and their church.   Let their parents handle that part of their upbringing.

The school districts like to call this charade "strategic planning."    Do they really need to spend money over and over again to reinvent the wheel?    Don't they test score the students over and over to get the results they need to meet the state and federal criteria.   This is so much wasted time and energy.   The tests have been "dumbed down" so many times that they are really pretty meaningless.    

One of the Lebanon school board meetings that I attended the superintendent bragged that "we do teach to the test."    So what good is the educational process if the students are not able to critically think and use deductive reasoning.   What if many districts don't have time to teach cursive handwriting.   Learning cursive does develop another area of the brain that is essential to the educational and thinking process.   Of course, Common Core doesn't require cursive so the educational establishment prefers to drop that skill.

Ms. LaRosa might just be the person that directed Lebanon School District's "Implication Wheel" survey.   Fifty people were selected for that fiasco.   Most of them were teachers and principals.    The whole thing was rigged to give the district the answers that they had preordained.    They divided the people into tables and rigged each table with teachers, teacher's relatives and administrators.    I got into a little trouble because one very rude teacher commiserated that "she had had several courses in "conflict resolution" and she just couldn't understand why she couldn't convince me to vote against the ROTC.     At that time the administration was hell bent on getting rid of the ROTC.   Imagine that?

The Springboro plan is a plan that is used in almost all school districts.   It is nothing new and has been going on for years and years.    It is pure propaganda that is used to get the participants to declare a program that was preordained from the beginning.

This is propaganda at it finest.     It is meant to convince the community to do whatever the educational establishment wants.    Just imagine if all of these millions and billions of dollars were actually spent on giving our students the best education possible.    Not the indoctrination that reduces all students to the lowest common denominator.    

PROPAGANDA AT THE SCHOOL BOARD MEETING

This week I attended the Kings School District board meeting.   The room was packed and many people were standing in the hall.   The front two thirds of the seating area was filled with teachers wearing red shirts.   I would guess that these rows arrived very early so that they were visible to the board and Michael Clark of the Enquirer.     I am sure it was staged as an intimidation move toward the board.

The union currently does not have control of the Kings School Board.   The voters elected three members that are not indebted to the union.   At least one retired Kings teacher is on the board and she does not wield the power that she has had for many years.   She is now on the minority.  Her voice is still heard and her opinions voiced.   

Kings Board Member, Kim Grant

One of the new board members is Kim Grant.   She has been following the district for ten years.    People do trust her with information that has been kept from the district's citizens for years.    Before she was elected she requested documents pertaining to a special education teacher that was seriously abusing her students.   The only reason she found out about this travesty was because of a "whistleblower" that could not get the administration to correct the situation.    I have written about this in another essay.   In order to obtain the information, she had to obtain the services of an attorney.   This step should not be required.

Kim is a mother and has had children in the district.  She says in an Enquirer op-ed that "she has attended board meetings, delved into the budget, has kept apprised of issues in the district."   In other words, she has been a good citizen.   Like me, she believes that "one person can make a difference."   In her case she made a huge difference to the children in Ms. Kitcho's class.   

Ms. Kitcho

The administration prefered to give the abuser a letter of recommendation and sweep the whole issue under the rug.   Sadly, the superintendent, assistant superintendent, principal and school board knew the facts of the case and did not bother to advise the parents.   It would have been better if the administration had attended the situation and perhaps seen to it that the teacher receive help.    After all, I would assume that she went into special ed because she cared about the children.  Instead the district is facing a federal lawsuit. 

A comment made at the meeting on Tuesday, June 17, 2014,  just blew my mind.  "We don't want to air our dirty laundry."    I have heard that comment many times.   When I was on a school board I was advised not to look into any of the scandals that were reported to me by parents.     One example is that the district had a huge drug problem that was never addressed.   They denied that there were any illegal drugs at any of the schools.    A parent called me and reported that her daughter was selling LSD at the high school and that no one would do anything about it.   Yes, she called the principal and he denied that it could happen. As part of the "propaganda" stand each and every district portrays themselves as "the best." Everything is perfect, all schools are "Lake Wobegon."

Instead of bothering to address problems, the union and administration prefer to always white-wash any problems.   Therefore, the problems fester and get worse.   

At the time that I served on a school board we were recruiting a new superintendent the rest of the board wanted to allow the superintendent to pick his replacement.   Of course he would pick one that would not expose the failures and financial mistakes of his predecessor.   He wanted to bring in someone that he could trust to keep his secrets.  This is the case most of the time because there is a "superintendent pool" that moves from district to district just ahead of the revelations of their mistakes and connections.    There rarely seems to be an investigation of the money that is missing or misspent.   

The Kings School Board tried to hire an interim superintendent.   A man who had been a superintendent at Kings, a man who has had national recognition and awards, a man that just retired from the superintendency at the Warren County ESC,  John Lazares.  Having Mr. Lazares there would give the board time to evaluate resumes for the permanent position.  By the way, Mr. Lazares agreed to work for exactly $1.00.    

Well,  the union went berserk, they would have no decisions being made without their approval.   They filed legal action against Mrs. Grant, they filled the board meetings with protests.   The circulated a petition to have Mrs. Grant recalled from her recently elected post.    The union wants the power and they will not accept board members that are not endorsed and selected by the union.    

Tuesday night was a perfect example of a rogue union.   A union that thinks they can do and act however they please.     The leader and speaker for the union stood up to the microphone,   as he started to speak all of the red shirts stood up with a loud noise.   The floor made a cracking sound and the red shirts stood at attention the entire time their leader spoke.    The whole "ceremony" was extremely intimidating.   After the union leader spoke many other teachers repeated similar ideas.   How dare the board make a decision without letting the union know what was going on?   They even had a lawyer there giving his threats of prosecution and recall.   I would describe the entire evening a "bullying session."  

This is how the union operates and this is an example of how the true character of the event is never reported by the press.      Propaganda at it's finest.

This is the crowd on May 21, 2014

Visualize a sea of red on June 17, 2014

They were organized.

PROPAGANDA AND THE LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD

The Union Members are First!

Students First is Just a Logo!

The local school board is supposed to represent the people of the district.   Unfortunately, that has not been the case for many, many years.   One of the most important consequences of teacher unionization is the erosion of school board authority.   This transfer of power is the result of union control and administrative control.   Administrators are chosen from the teacher pool.  Thus they are former union members and sympathetic to union demands.

Originally,  the elected school board determined the meeting agenda, the priorities of the district, terms and conditions of employment and so on.   When the union entered the picture "collective bargaining" determined everything.   The union decides everything from the number of students in a class, school day times, benefits, tenure, step raises, additional annual raises holiday calendar and everything that happens in the schools.

Today, the union actually chooses the school board.   Most school boards consist of teachers from other districts, retired teachers from the district, spouses of teachers and administrators, PTA leaders, and former administrators.   The public has been fed constant propaganda that the union's choice is the best choice.   Anyone that runs for school board that asks questions is attacked by the union and their leaders.   An independent person has a slight chance of getting elected.   The candidates without the union's help and endorsement simply have only a slight chance of winning.   Campaigns for any office require money and manpower.   The union has both.   

Often the superintendent and other union members will demonize people who question anything they do.   They resent any questions regarding curriculum, funding and spending. At the same time they claim transparency.   They don't want taxpayers to know how they spend their money.   The union requires control to get what they want.  The negotiation process is a farce.

When a contract is to be renewed,   the school board hires a professional "negotiator" to meet with the union leaders and the state NEA negotiator.    Usually there is a legal team sitting in on the negotiations.  To my dismay, as a former board member, I was told that I was not welcome to sit in on the negotiations.   If I chose to ignore that advice, I was "told" that I could not say a word and only listen to the "professionals."    The negotiators are given supreme authority.  

Of course, the whole charade is just for propaganda purposes.   The superintendent wants the district to get a big raise.   He knows his raise will be even bigger.   The treasurer sits there like a rock because the union knows to the penny just how much the district has on the books.    Their intent is to "bargain" for every cent and more.    Almost all of the general fund goes for salaries and benefits.   

Of course they will give press releases that say that the board does not care about the district, that they don't want the teachers to be professionals who only care about "the children."  The press is more than cooperative with the teacher's union.    Of course the superintendent gives a statement saying how he is trying to be fair for one and all.  He just hates to have to ask for another levy, but that is what has to happen.

This exact scenario is duplicated in every district.   They compare the salaries at other districts that are higher than those in your district.    They publish information that says something to the effect that another close district's teachers make 5% more than our district. We are so economical with the taxpayers money.  What they don't say is that district recently negotiated a new contract.   They had settled with the union's demands.  Of course your salaries and benefits are less.  You haven't finalized the new contract.  Then the same group of union officials and lawyers moves on to another district with the same spiel.

The local union follows the state and federal NEA/AFT policies and demands.   All levels of the union barrages the public with constant reminders of just how indispensable the union members are to the "children."  They get the students, parents, teachers and local business owners involved.   Usually the local bankers, architects, contractors and other businesses get involved.   If any business decides to not support the demands or the option of passing a levy to meet the unions demands, then they are threatened with a boycott.   This happens quite often.   I have seen a local restaurant go out of business because of the boycott threat and action.   Parents and citizens alike are afraid of the union.   They know children are at the mercy of these people.

If they don't get what they want then they threaten a "strike."  A strike threat gives them visibility.   They have professionally designed signs and matching shirts.   They wear large propaganda buttons on their shirts.   They have "Thank a Teacher" bumper stickers made up for parents, teachers and anyone that is willing to put one on their car.  THEY ARE ORGANIZED.

THE SCHOOL BOARD IS NOW AN ARM OF THE UNION.

80% of NYC grads cannot read properly,

but the mayor is worried about salt.

NYC schools have the strongest teacher's union

in the country.