You May Need to Sit Down for This!

>>>>  There is an interesting post at vxec.com about Republican governors that continue to pick on teachers.  VXEC.com:

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, blasted critics of teachers' unions Monday, claiming Republican governors have been trying to break apart a natural coalition of teachers and parents to fundamentally change the quality of life in their states.

With the major education cuts and attempts to eliminate collective bargaining rights in 2011, Weingarten said she's seen "greater ferocity" than ever before in opposition to educators from people like Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) and Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio) under the "guise of the budget."

"Let's refuse to be defined by people who are happy to lecture us about the state of public education but wouldn't last 10 minutes in a classroom," Weingarten, head of one of the nation's largest teachers' unions, told a large crowd at the annual national AFT conference.....

 How true!  These Republican governors don't have the guts to work in some of the schools some of us have.  Besides, they would never want to put in the time and effort in planning a school day because they are so accustomed to delegating the hard work to someone else.  Teachers give up so much to help their students learn and grow.  It is a shame that teachers are being disrespected by these right wing extremist governors. 

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*The Kasich budget is going to be hurting schools big time.  While Gov. Kasich gives your tax money away to businesses, our schools will be losing millions of dollars.  Yet Kasich and the Ohio Republicans expect schools to perform better than they've done in the past.
Ha!


Dispatch:

When the dust settled on the new state budget, operating funds for Ohio schools were cut nearly $780 million for the next two years, with 17 central Ohio districts facing reductions that top 10 percent this school year.....

.....Only 17 of Ohio's 612 districts will get more operating money in 2013 than in 2011....

According to the image below, Olentangy Schools, one of the fastest growing districts in the state, will lose 24.3% for the 2011-2012 school year, and 22% for 2012-2013.  That is a real kick in the pants.

(from the Dispatch)

The Dispatch article also has this:
....Schools were among those cut as Gov. John Kasich and GOP lawmakers dealt with a significant budget shortfall resulting from the use of more than $8 billion in one-time money to balance the previous two-year budget, which ended June 30....

However, Plunderbund has information that about that budget deficit, that questions the Kasich numbers:

With the Kasich budget beginning on July 1st, let’s not forget that means the Strickland budget ended on June 30th.  So, according to John Kasich’s own OBM director, what did the State end up with at the end of the last Strickland budget:

$973 million surplus.

Wait, shouldn’t that be $8 billion in the red?  We kept hearing about what a horrible fiscal shape the Strickland Administration left Ohio in, but when it’s all said and done, the Strickland Administration left such a large surplus that the State came in with revenues 5.8% larger than projected when it was passed the last Strickland budget back in June of 2009.  At the time, Republicans called Strickland’s budget director’s projections too optimistic and unreliable.  If anything, the Strickland Administration underestimated the recovery that began in earnest in early 2010.

In fact, Gongwer reports that the Strickland surplus even exceeded Mr. Keen’s projections when he started working on Kasich’s first budget.  On tax receipts alone, the State took in nearly $1.5 billion more than it expected… during the height of the recession and the first year thereafter.....

Is it possible that Kasich and the Dispatch lied to Ohioans? Read the rest of the Plunderbund article and decide for yourself. 

****  One last thing--- Kasich is still failing on diversity.  His latest appointments to his JobsOhio boondoggle is mostly white males.