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School Consolidation: No Panacea

School Consolidation: No Panacea

For Ohio schools, 2010 was a very good year.  Education Week ranked Ohio’s education system 5th in the nation and the Education Commission of the States applauded Ohio’s efforts under Governor Strickland to reform its school system. But with “consolidation” on the mind of our governor and several republican legislators, all of that could change in 2011. Several reports, the most recent from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice, indicate that consolidation is not necessarily the funding panacea Ohio’s legislators think it will be.

Based on a report by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, and the Greater Ohio Policy Center, our Governor advocates the elimination of at least one third of Ohio’s districts. If the governor was a student of mine, I would tell him to question everything he hears, never go by one source, and do your research.

The Great Lakes Center report points out there is no guarantee consolidation will save any significant amounts of money and may jeopardize the quality of education. Even an analysis by the Dayton Daily News had similar findings saying that many consolidated districts may save in superintendant salaries, but add other administrative costs that offset the savings. There are also other hidden costs to taxpayers such as the increased costs of transportation.

Marty Strange, policy director of the Rural School and the Community Trust agrees and says that in small districts superintendents often act as a jack-of-all-trades, but in larger districts those duties are meted out to additional administrators. “On a per-graduate basis, a high school with as few as 100 kids has a lower cost-per-graduate than a school with 1000 kids.”
There are also hidden costs to funding consolidation. West Virginia has spent more than $1 billion on consolidation in the last ten years, including expenses to shut down smaller schools to build larger ones. State leaders have admitted that it hasn’t brought down administrative costs, energy costs, or transportation costs despite the fact that there are fewer districts and fewer students then ever before.

Other problems include wasted time riding buses that pollute our air, less individualized attention for students, and fewer opportunities to participate in extra curricular activities. Let’s face it, if you combine three high schools, there will still be only one football team with the same number of players. This also increases the barriers to entry for parental involvement. If you think parent attendance for parent-teacher conferences couldn’t be any lower, try adding an extra 30-minute drive to that equation.

Republicans purport to be the party of small government. The Republican Party Platform derides “bigger government” and calls on the government to limit its reach into people’s lives. So why don’t live up to their stated principles now? State legislators need to give control back to the local school districts and let us govern ourselves!

Consolidation should never be about saving money, but only about improving education. Local districts have managed to consolidate schools within their districts and improve education on their own without having big brother to tell us what to do. Let’s keep it that way!

By Susan Ridgeway, Streetsboro Education Association

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General

We Didn't Start the Fire

Triangle Factory fireThe rhetoric is loud and clear.  Somehow teacher and public workers unions are responsible for the Great Recession. Led by ranting governors from across the nation, the public actually believes such wise men in their high positions. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney recently stated, “Average government workers are now making $30,000 a year more than the average private sector-sector worker.” Maybe we should all work in Massachusetts because Governor Romney, obviously, knows something we don’t.

Governor Christ Christie, (New Jersey) has never tried to hide his contempt of teacher unions. All you have to do is go to YouTube and find a variety of videos of him sarcastically mocking teachers as if we are the perpetrators of some mass conspiracy to put down the lowly, privately employed worker. Governor John Kasich has also made some troubling statements about public unions. Even New York Governor Cuomo recently suggested that by freezing state-worker pay his state will be saved.

A recent Gallup poll and a 2010 Pew Research Poll show public support of unions is at less than 50%. Historically this is not unusual, as pollsters aptly point out. During times of national crisis the public tends to blame any institution of power including unions. However, the idea that public employees make more than their private sector counterparts is nothing more than a myth.  Jefferey H. Keefe of the Economic Policy institute states that, all things being equal, public employees still make 3.7% less than their private employee counterparts.

Lets’ be clear about this, public worker unions did not cause the economic shortfalls that most states face today, nor are they responsible for Americans losing their homes. Union leaders were not responsible for the banking crises or the greedy bonuses that were paid out to executives after the bailouts were awarded. There are no unions in banks.

Interestingly, since the recession hit full force two years ago, teacher unions have been more than willing to maintain current levels of pay. Many work without contracts and most look for grants to help make up budget shortfalls for supplies in the classroom. In Ohio, our reward for that could be legislation to limit our right to strike, despite the fact that the number of strikes have gone down and are shorter in duration since the collective bargaining laws have been passed.

Let’s also be clear that were it not for American Unions most American workers — not just union members — would not have improved working conditions monitored by the Occupational Safety and Health Act regulators. Most American workers now have eight-hour workdays, a minimum wage, unemployment insurance, and pension benefits.

As we approach the 100 year anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of New York City and the fourth highest loss of life from an industrial accident in U.S. history, we must remember the 146 young women and girls who died as a result of deplorable working conditions.

The garment workers at Triangle had actively sought to improve their working conditions, including the conditions that directly led to their deaths: broken fire escapes and managements’ practice of locking the doors to the stairwells and exits to keep workers from leaving early. After striking for for more than three months, workers at Triangle went back to work without a union agreement. Management never addressed their demands. But following their deaths, workers’ rights activists such as Francis Perkins pushed for comprehensive safety and workers’ compensation laws.

We know the truth. Now write your state representatives and spread the truth.

By Susan Ridgeway, Streetsboro Education Association

Categories

General

February 2011 Ohio Schools

  • IN THIS ISSUE
    • Negotiating the future – What’s at stake for students in the coming state budget cuts
    • Speaking out on pensions – OEA retiree discusses why all OEA members must speak out for economic security in retirement
    • Legislative update, Association news, and more

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