Plunderbund has noticed that Gov. John Kasich and the elected Republicans in the Ohio legislature are busy creating laws for everyone else.
As we’ve pointed out over the last couple of days, Ohio’s private schools are exempt from the same level of standardized testing requirements that are stressing out teachers, students, and parents in the public schools. These exemptions occur because of the ways the laws are written by Ohio’s elected state officials — they simply make the laws apply only to the public school children, omitting nonpublic (i.e., private) schools from the vast majority of the testing requirements.
Currently, students in Ohio’s public schools are required to test a minimum of 20 times throughout their 13 years (K-12). Meanwhile, students in the private schools (including Catholic schools) are only required to take the Ohio Graduation Tests when they are in high school. The public schools have the burden of engaging children when they are 8 or 9 years old in third grade in the process of high-stakes testing when they take the 3rd grade reading test in October and again in April along with the math assessment. These children then take the reading and math tests again every year through 8th grade in addition to science tests in grades 5 and 8....
These laws also demonstrate the disdain that Kasich and Republicans have for public schools and public school teachers. When Kasich, with the approval of the legislature, cuts education, they still expect students and teachers to perform at higher numbers. They'll be ready to criticize public school students and teachers when grades and testing scores go down. They just hope that voters forget of that the GOP and Kasich cut funding, teachers, guidance counselors, nurses, and specialists from the schools.
What else have these Ohio Republicans done? They've passed the most restrictive laws on women's health, birth control, and access to safe, legal emergency abortion. The Republicans are doing their best to cut, restrict, and block voters from exercising their rights at the polls.
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*** How many jobs has Rep. Steve Stivers created for the people of Ohio's 15th district? Anyone? I'm still looking for them! It appears that most of the legislation Stivers supported had to do with protecting bankers, maximizing profits for traders, and repealing the health care law, again, and again, and again. He did not create any jobs. Yes, he did sponsor a "job fair" in his district, but those jobs offered were minimum wage positions.