Update

This is a follow up to my Bedford School Board Member to get grilled on radio by King post.

Oakwood Councilmen Joe Fouche and Robert Townsend have a radio show "Community Voices" every Wednesday from 8-9pm on 1300 AM.

This radio show will hopefully be used to improve the Bedford, Bedford Hts, Walton Hills and Oakwood area. These communities are all part of Bedford School District.

I know I said I was going to grill Bedford School Board Member Tim Tench but.... Well, there sure as hell was no grilling going on! I was not even allowed to get the fire started.

First, I want to give Tim Tench credit for having the guts to be a wide open target and go on the radio.

The other two male Bedford School Board members, Joe Mestnick & Andy Mizsak, do not have the integrity, ability and are not enough of a man to open themselves up like this in a public forum. Instead they opt for the protection of School Board Meetings where they can stifle a free exchange of ideas.

The hosts, Fouche & Townsend began the show with Bedford School Board member Tim Tench, giving a brief history of himself, then talked about No Child Left Behind and State Report Card.

I guess when I pointed out all three were uninformed and mistaken on the NCLB, I hurt their feelings. That was the only question I was allowed to ask.

Under Ohio's version of NCLB after 90 days in a district a new students "scores" are counted against the new school district which they transfer too.

Using the excuses of most failing districts, Tench elaborated that the State Report card is an unfair way to judge schools and NCLB unfairly penalizes districts when new students from failing districts move into Bedford.

The argument of transient kids or "churning" is bringing our schools down is a rambling rant by the mentally unstable and verbally abusive board member Joe Mestnick. Unfortunately, many in our district have foolishly bought into this intellectually vacuous argument.

Nothing against Tim, but this tired and uninformed argument being advanced by our district is flawed - Here's why....

They claim the 90 days allowed by the State of Ohio is not enough time to allow the schools to teach new transfers in -

• The federal NCLB allows students to be in a district for one (1) year before their scores are counted against the school and district. In 2005 Bedford School District, then State Rep. Lance Mason & Congresswomen Tubbs Jones were made aware of this - NOTHING WAS DONE!

Uneducated students from poorly performing districts transferring in?

• I believe in '03- '04 & '04 - '05 school years, the PD showed Garfield City Schools had more students from Cleveland Schools transfer in than Bedford did. Garfield scores JUMPED 20% and Bedford declined.

Does this mean we are to believe the smart kids from Cleveland Schools transferred to Garfield and only the dumb ones came to Bedford?

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Bedford School Board members complain 90 days is not enough time for to get students transferring in up to speed. Again they have done NOTHING to address this, except to complain and use this as a crutch for their ineffectiveness.

Pretty good huh - blame the kids and the state!

We have a political hack democrat on the Bedford Board who routinely criticizes republicans during school board meetings. Yet does nothing to have his democrat friends, Mason & Tubbs Jones, who have been in power, to change the state law they claim is hurting our district.

I am sorry this is getting long and a bit rambling, but I need to be fair.....

Bedford School Board Member, Joe "Nutjob" Mestnick, who is up for reelection this year, has offered some pretty comical solutions to improve our schools-

• To stop "churning" he proposed that renters cannot be evicted for not paying rent during the school year, if they have children in the district.

• The school district and investors can buy all the apartments within the district and have them razed to stop the churning of students.

AND THE ALL TIME BEST.....

• To raise money for the schools, apple trees can be planted and the new kids could pick apples to sell!

Am I against Bedford Schools - HELL NO! I am against ignorance and retread excuses.

I feel we elect people to get things done, not give excuses of why they can't! Our school board & administration have perfected the art of making excuses.

The first steps needed to improve our schools is to have politicians from both sides move to make Ohio's version of the NCLB to be consistent with the federal guide lines. This will give us a more accurate reflection of our districts performance.

Next, a "Performance Audit" of our district needs to be conducted.

A "Performance Audit" will show where the district is operating efficiently and where they are wasting money. This will create a road map to financial transparency and can lead us back to being successful schools.

Otherwise, we will continue to flounder at the bottom of the pack.

In conclusion, does Bedford have good schools - NO! But we do have the potential to become good schools again.

Note: I will be meeting with Mr. Fouche next week to have further in depth discussion about our schools.