We Are Ohio Gives Back

DONATES $10,000 TO TOYS FOR TOTS AND $10,000 TO OHIO FOODBANKS

COLUMBUS – December 20, 2011 – In the spirit of the season, We Are Ohio donated $20,000 to two charities Tuesday on behalf of the voters and supporters who came together in a nearly year-long battle to veto Senate Bill 5 by a 61-39 percent margin on Election Day.

Maureen Reedy, 2002 Ohio Teacher of the Year from Upper Arlington, presented a check for $10,000 to Toys for Tots from We Are Ohio.

“We Are Ohio is giving back because we were blessed in our effort to have 2.1 million voters, 1.3 million petition signers and more than 17,000 volunteers send the message throughout Ohio and our nation that we cannot build up our state by tearing down the Middle Class,” Reedy said. “We learned we can accomplish anything if we come together, support and help one another during challenging times.”

“This donation will help put smiles on the faces of thousands of children this holiday season. We want to thank We Are Ohio for their generosity,” said U.S. Marine Sgt. Jose Ranero, who accepted the check on behalf of Toys for Tots.

Leonard Moore, a word processing specialist for Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction’s Division of Parole and Community Services, presented a $10,000 check to the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food banks from We Are Ohio.

“We Are Ohio asks our supporters across the state to join us and contribute what they can to their charity of choice. A list of charities can be found at http://www.weareohio.com/giveback and a Facebook status photo for giving back is at http://www.facebook.com/weareohio.”

“Public and private sector employees have a long history of donating to food banks across Ohio during the holiday season and all year long. We want to thank We Are Ohio for continuing this tradition of public and private sector employees giving back,” said Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, Second Harvest Food banks executive director.

Join the conversation @OhioEA and Like Us at OhioEducationAssociation

###

The Ohio Education Association (ohea.org) represents 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities.

Click here to download a summary of findings.

COLUMBUS — August 29, 2011 — Traditional public school districts continue to provide a vastly better education for students, according to report card data released today by the Ohio Department of Education. Efforts to strengthen accountability for the state’s privately operated, publicly funded charter schools in the last few years have led to slightly improved performance by charter schools. While the change does not demonstrate a dramatic trend, the even slight advances due to increased accountability indicate that greater oversight benefits students, noted the Coalition for Public Education.

State report card data shows steady general improvement in traditional public school districts’ ratings with slight improvements in charter schools.

“We are encouraged by the impact that accountability provisions have had on improving the performance of charters since stronger standards were implemented over the last few years. Even given the slight improvements by some charters, traditional public school districts remain the clearly superior option for children,” said Barbara Shaner, chair of the Coalition for Public Education.

The Coalition is a statewide alliance of education, parent and civic organizations interested in improving public education for Ohio’s children and increasing accountability to taxpayers.

The report cards, which rate performance for the 2010-2011 school year, show that while strengthened accountability has led to improved performance for some charter schools, there remains a significant drop-off between the highly rated charters and the vast majority of poor-performing charters on Performance Index Scores; whereas the difference in Performance Index scores among public school districts isn’t nearly as vast.

The Performance Index Score is calculated by examining how many students took the achievement assessments and what their scores were, with those who scored higher receiving a greater weight than those who did not. So the higher the index, the more students scored better than normal on the achievement assessments; the lower the score, the more students underperformed.

The Performance Index shows Ohio’s public school districts clearly outperform most charter schools and are more uniformly successful than charter schools. However, there appear to be about two dozen charters (out of 324 rated) that are quite successful and are worthy of further examination. Charter schools still have a long way to go to match the performance of traditional public schools. It is important to note that only 7 percent of charter schools would rate in the top half of traditional public schools on the Performance Index rankings.

“We are encouraged that legislative changes in charter school accountability over the past few years seem to be having a positive impact, but are concerned that loosening those measures – as was done this summer in House Bill 153– will cause these modest gains to be quickly lost,” said Ohio PTA President Gloria Cazan.

“This improvement happened with better accountability standards implemented, not the hands off approach lawmakers took in the first 8 years of the charter school program.”

Overall, 43 percent of charters still earned failed grades for how they serve students.

“This failure rate is outrageous considering the program has been in place for 14 years and last year alone cost taxpayers $800 million,” Shaner said.

Of the 296 ranked charter schools, 5 rate Excellent with Distinction – the state’s top ranking, while 70 rate Effective (equivalent to a B) or better. That means 23.6 percent of charter schools provide an effective education for Ohio’s children, which is slightly better than last year (slightly more than 21 percent) and much better than the previous year’s rate of 7 percent. These improvements occurred during a period of strengthened accountability standards.

• Meanwhile, of the 609 school districts rated on the report card, 567 rate effective or better. That means that more than 93 percent of Ohio’s school districts rate effective or better on the report card, an improvement over the 88 percent that rated that well on last school year’s report card.
• A little more than 43 percent of all charter schools rate in Academic Watch (D) or Academic Emergency (F) while more than 57 percent of traditional public school districts rate Excellent (A) or Excellent with Distinction (A+), zero received an F and only 6 received a D rating, the lowest number of D-rated districts since 2005-2006.

Report card ratings also show that graduation is more likely to be in a student’s future if he or she is enrolled in a public school district. In general, Ohio’s children are much more likely to graduate from a traditional public school district than a charter school, with barely one-third of charter schools graduating student at a rate that’s higher than the lowest traditional school rate.

Join the conversation @OhioEA and Like Us at OhioEducationAssociation

###

The Ohio Education Association (ohea.org) represents 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities.

CONTACT: Michele Prater
614-227-3071; cell 614-378-0469, praterm@ohea.org

MANSFIELD — May 21, 2011—Ohio Education Association President Patricia Frost-Brooks offered the keynote address at the 26th annual Crystal Life Membership Banquet May 21 at the Holiday Inn Hotel and Suites in Mansfield.

Reflecting the event’s theme, “NAACP: Upholding the American Tradition of Checks and Balances via the Ballot Box,” the OEA leader stressed the importance of voter rights at a time when these very rights are threatened by legislation including Senate Bill 5, the state budget bill, House Bill 153, and House Bill 159, which would require state photo ID for all voters.

“We are not going back to a time before we had collective bargaining rights – indeed, a time before we had our full share of civil rights promised to us,” President Frost-Brooks said. “It is no coincidence that collective bargaining rights are under fire at the same time as our right to vote and our right to equal treatment under the law.”

Frost-Brooks addressed Senate Bill 5 – legislation that repeals Ohio’s collective bargaining law – and the movement to gather signatures to ensure that a citizen veto of Senate Bill 5 is on the November ballot. “This truly is a check and balance system built into the Ohio Constitution,” she said. “We believe we can overturn this legislation. This truly is our chance to make a difference at the ballot box.”

OEA’s President reminded those gathered that Senate Bill 5 is but one threat facing Ohioans.

“The reality is that the budget bill takes another crack at those who serve the public in our cities, hospitals and schools by including many of the same anti-union provisions that exist in SB 5,” she said. “This is a brazen attempt to circumvent the will of the people.”

The proposed Voter ID legislation also threatens civil rights, Frost-Brooks said.  “By requiring a state photo identification card from every voter, HB 159 threatens to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Ohio voters. This is pure and simple, an attempt by those in power to take away voting rights from those who lack power and money.”

Click here for a downloadable copy of the prepared remarks of Patricia Frost-Brooks.

Join the conversation @OhioEA and Like Us at OhioEducationAssociation

###

The Ohio Education Association (ohea.org) represents 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities.

CONTACT: Michele Prater
614-227-3071; cell 614-378-0469, praterm@ohea.org

National Experts Ohio Tax Study Released By The Education Tax Policy Institute

COLUMBUS — May 13, 2011 — A new study commissioned by the Education Tax Policy Institute (ETPI) titled, Revenue Options for Ohio’s Future, reviews Ohio’s current tax structure.

Click here to read the Executive Summary of the report, Revenue Options for Ohio’s Future.
Click here to read the full report, Revenue Options for Ohio’s Future.

Two national tax policy experts, Dr. Bill Fox and Dr. Don Bruce from the University of Tennessee, conducted the study for ETPI. The two have extensive experience in analyzing state tax structures, particularly in the area of sales and business taxes. Professor Fox has experience working with Ohio taxes going back many years.

Fox and Bruce show that Ohio ranks as the 17^th lowest state in taxes levied at the state level.  Increases in local taxes place Ohio with a total state and local tax burden at about the national average. Ohio’s ranking among states is higher when local taxes are included in the comparison because state policies have shifted the responsibility for funding public services, including education, down to the local level.

While the study determined that the reform of Ohio’s business tax structure in 2005 improved both the fairness and the competitiveness of the state’s revenue system, the authors also determined that the combination of the recent recession and the changes in the state’s tax system in House Bill (HB) 66 lowered state revenue by $3 billion below the levels anticipated in 2005 when the state revamped its business tax structure.

Fox & Bruce conclude that the effects of the recession make a final assessment of Ohio’s recent tax reform premature. However, they estimate that the changes in HB 66 have made the revenue system less able to grow with the economy. Under these circumstances, Ohio faces difficult questions about whether to accept a decline in its public services or to find new sources of revenue to fund them. According to Fox & Bruce:

“The effects of lower revenues on public service expenditures will be strongly felt with expiration of the ARRA stimulus funds beginning in July 2011,” the study shows. “Ohio and its leaders need to decide quickly whether the resulting decline in important public services is consistent with service demands by the state’s citizens or if new revenue sources should be found.”

“This new study should help inform and shape the debate over Ohio’s budget and our ability to pay for essential community services,” said Barbara Shaner, President of ETPI. “It shows that state tax rates are not nearly the problem some policy makers are claiming, but shifting the burden — from business to individuals and from the state to local communities — is creating a very real crisis in our communities.”

The study commends Ohio’s state tax structure for maintaining a broad base for business, sales, and income taxes. The study includes options for expansions of state tax bases. The ETPI sponsored study acknowledges economic development benefits from Ohio’s tax reform bill passed in 2005 (HB 66). However, it points out that changes in business taxes left Ohio tax revenues vulnerable to shortfalls from the national recession, and some projected revenues at the time the reforms were passed have not materialized.

The study determines that in order for revenues to keep up with Ohio’s economy, state leaders should not erode the current tax structure further. Fox and Bruce praise Ohio’s general practice of avoiding gratuitous tax holidays and other exemptions that undermine the stability of the system as is the practice in some other states. In fact, the experts show there is room for expansion of the base and rates in some tax areas.

Join the conversation @OhioEA and Like Us at OhioEducationAssociation

###

The Ohio Education Association (ohea.org) represents 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities.

CONTACT: Michele Prater
614-227-3071; cell 614-378-0469, praterm@ohea.org

COLUMBUS — May 7, 2011 — The Ohio Education Association (OEA), representing 128,000 teachers, education support professionals and higher education faculty, today completed its two day Spring Representative Assembly at Veterans Memorial in Columbus.

In his legislative report to the delegates, OEA Vice-President Bill Leibensperger reported on the political nature of the Kasich budget legislation. “Our opponents are ignoring the essentials and instead focusing on political issues. Instead of focusing on jobs, they are killing public jobs through the budget and making it easier to cut the pay and benefits of existing employees through SB 5.”

OEA urges the removal of provisions in the budget bill that are the same or similar to SB 5. Now that the movement to repeal Senate Bill 5 has gained momentum, legislative leaders in the House slipped some of those same controversial provisions from Senate Bill 5 into state budget legislation, House Bill 153.  These provisions include performance-based pay for teachers, changes in teacher contracts, evaluations, reductions in force and restricting collective bargaining for community school employees. Including these SB 5 provisions in the budget circumvents the rights of Ohio voters who should ultimately decide this issue in November.

Timothy Dove, Ohio Teacher of the Year, told the delegates, “In a democracy, we have a responsibility to be political.”  Larry Davis, Tallmadge music teacher performed his original song Fight for your Rights as President Pat Frost-Brooks led the delegates in an energetic sing-a-long.

In an unprecedented response to this call for action, OEA delegates contributed a record-breaking amount to the Fund for Children and Public Education, OEA’s political action campaign.

Join the conversation @OhioEA and Like Us at OhioEducationAssociation

###

The Ohio Education Association (ohea.org) represents 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities.

CONTACT: Michele Prater
614-227-3071; cell 614-378-0469, praterm@ohea.org

COLUMBUS — May 7, 2011 — The Ohio Education Association (OEA), representing 128,000 teachers, education support professionals and higher education faculty, today completed its two day Spring Representative Assembly at Veterans Memorial in Columbus.

In his legislative report to the delegates, OEA Vice-President Bill Leibensperger reported on the political nature of the Kasich budget legislation. “Our opponents are ignoring the essentials and instead focusing on political issues. Instead of focusing on jobs, they are killing public jobs through the budget and making it easier to cut the pay and benefits of existing employees through SB 5.”

OEA urges the removal of provisions in the budget bill that are the same or similar to SB 5. Now that the movement to repeal Senate Bill 5 has gained momentum, legislative leaders in the House slipped some of those same controversial provisions from Senate Bill 5 into state budget legislation, House Bill 153.  These provisions include performance-based pay for teachers, changes in teacher contracts, evaluations, reductions in force and restricting collective bargaining for community school employees. Including these SB 5 provisions in the budget circumvents the rights of Ohio voters who should ultimately decide this issue in November.

Timothy Dove, Ohio Teacher of the Year, told the delegates, “In a democracy, we have a responsibility to be political.”  Larry Davis, Tallmadge music teacher performed his original song Fight for your Rights as President Pat Frost-Brooks led the delegates in an energetic sing-a-long.

In an unprecedented response to this call for action, OEA delegates contributed a record-breaking amount to the Fund for Children and Public Education, OEA’s political action campaign.

Join the conversation @OhioEA and Like Us at OhioEducationAssociation

###

The Ohio Education Association (ohea.org) represents 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities.

CONTACT: Michele Prater
614-227-3071; cell 614-378-0469, praterm@ohea.org

COLUMBUS — March 29, 2011 — In Columbus and throughout Ohio, OEA members and other public employees denounced the Ohio House’s amended version of Senate Bill 5 as bad legislation made even worse. In addition to approving SB 5 in House committee action today, legislators released thousands of pages of new State Budget language, including 10%-plus cuts to both public schools and state colleges.

“Combined with this state budget proposal, SB 5 will lead to an ongoing crisis in schools and public services for every Ohio community. We believe the people of Ohio will reject SB 5 through a citizens’ referendum,” said OEA President Patricia Frost-Brooks.

“We do not believe the people of Ohio elected leaders with a mandate to cut school funding, take away collective bargaining rights and privatize public schools, but that is the sum effect of legislation now moving so quickly through the Ohio General Assembly.

“Nothing is more essential than creating jobs and providing high quality educational opportunities for children. But our legislators are ignoring and short-changing these essential functions of state and local government and schools,” Frost-Brooks said.

Amendments in the House version of SB 5 are designed to restrict union funding, curb political freedoms of members and impose a one-size-fits-all approach to school districts on performance pay measures.

“These amendments really shine the light on what this bill is all about, which is silencing the voice of people who collectively bargain on behalf of their members, and, in our case, on behalf of the children we work with,” OEA Vice President Bill Leibensperger said.

SB 5 is expected to go to a House floor vote Wednesday. A Senate floor vote to concur with House changes to the bill is expected on Wednesday or Thursday. If the Senate concurs with House changes to SB 5, the bill would go to the Governor for his signature.

Join the conversation @OhioEA and Like Us at OhioEducationAssociation

###

The Ohio Education Association (ohea.org) represents 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities.

CONTACT: Michele Prater
614-227-3071; cell 614-378-0469, praterm@ohea.org

COLUMBUS — March 15, 2011 — Deborah Delisle, Ohio’s Superintendent of Schools since Fall 2008, was forced to resign March 15, following new appointments to the Ohio State Board of Education by Governor John Kasich.

To read Deborah Delisle’s letter of resignation, click here.

A statement from Ohio Education Association President Patricia Frost-Brooks:

Deb Delisle served Ohio schools with integrity and energy, and she collaborated well with Ohio’s elected leaders, as well as with all the education stakeholders, including OEA. She will be missed. Clearly,her forced resignation  is another step in the Kasich administration’s push for a pro-charter school, private school and voucher agenda at the expense of the 90% of students who attend our public schools.

 

 

Join the conversation @OhioEA and Like Us at OhioEducationAssociation

###

The Ohio Education Association (ohea.org) represents 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities.

 

CONTACT: Michele Prater
614-227-3071; cell 614-378-0469, praterm@ohea.org

COLUMBUS — March 8, 2011 — Today Governor John Kasich gave his first State of the State address.

The following can be attributed to Ohio Education Association President, Patricia Frost-Brooks:

“We welcome the Governor’s commentary on Ohio’s strengths – our cities, public colleges and major businesses, as well as his quest for new jobs for Ohioans. To see what the Governor intends for our pre-k-12 students, however, we will have to wait until his first state budget proposals next week.  For our state to remain strong and become stronger, Ohio will need to invest in high quality public education that develops an educated workforce to help grow our economy.

In his speech, Gov. Kasich acknowledged protesters outside the door of the House Chambers and said he respects those with strong opinions contrary to his own. Unfortunately, as the demonstrators outside the state house pointed out, the governor is also supporting SB5, specifically designed to silence the voices of public workers such as teachers, firefighters, and police. SB 5’s attack on collective bargaining, endorsed by the Governor, would leave school employees very little say in the quality of public education for Ohio’s students and how to make Ohio’s schools the best.

Like the Governor we believe in vigorous public debate on important issues, especially if that belief leads to more open discussions on Ohio’s future and solving our problems in a collaborative fashion. We hope the upcoming discussions will lead to fair-minded budget options, a sensible approach to labor-management collaboration and a legislative program that will strengthen opportunities for students – students preparing for jobs in what we all hope will be a healthier and more successful Ohio economy. “

Join the conversation @OhioEA and Like Us at OhioEducationAssociation

###

The Ohio Education Association (ohea.org) represents 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities.

CONTACT: Michele Prater
614-227-3071; cell 614-378-0469, praterm@ohea.org