Strickland's School Funding Blunder Opens Door for Obamacation of Our Children

After some empty & costly political posturing by Senate President Bill Harris (R) the residents of OH were saddled with a Gov. Strickland crafted smoke and mirrors budget, that may go down in flames depending on the OH Supreme Court ruling on slots.

In this budget Gov. Strickland was supposed to finally deliver on his campaign promise of fixing school funding in Ohio. And what a fix we got! Instead of cutting the bureaucrat BS and forcing schools to decrease the costs weighed down by far too many administrators running our districts, we find the students (and parents) will be short changed.

From the PD

For the next two years, public-school students in grades four and seven won't take a writing test in the spring. And fifth- and eighth-graders won't take a social-studies test.

That means only high school students will continue to be tested in those subjects for now.

The change was part of a cost-slashing state budget passed over the summer. Not having to prepare and score the tests will save the Ohio Department of Education almost $9 million over the two years.

"Our budget for assessments was cut by 21 percent," said Stan Heffner, an associate superintendent with the department. "The only way to hit the target was to suspend tests."

People this is a load of scholastically crafted crap!

By going to the State of OH Auditor site and typing in "School Performance Audits" you will find that untold millions can be saved in our districts. A cursory review of School Performance Audits will show you that this cost saving tool has already saved some districts from hundreds of thousands upwards to millions of tax payer dollars by cutting wasteful spending.

So if we took the 633 school districts across the state and through the use of School Performance Audits were able to save $500,000 per district -- this would lead to over $300 million in savings by cutting the fat. I guess for us stupid voters this logical fix is too easy. Plus the NEA, ODE and the teachers unions would be up in arms if they were no longer allowed to fleece the residents with the approval of our elected officials.

So to sum up the $9 million shortfall excuse being used because of budget cuts -- AGAIN -- it is scholastically crafted BS! I would defy any elected official or school official try arguing that point. In fact, I dare them!

Now onto the cutting of the tests. Believe it or not, according to the PD article state scores show...

84 percent of Ohio fourth-graders and 80 percent of seventh-graders passed writing last school year.

62 percent of the state's fifth-graders and 51 percent of eighth-graders got passing scores on that test. Just 15 of the 97 districts in Northeast Ohio met the passage-rate goal for eighth-graders.

So if the kids can read and write -- why can't they perform well in social studies?

In my uneducated, got kicked out of class as a hobby opinion I would say it is a lack of teaching -- not a lack of money. But as is typical of the school bureaucrat's they make up excuses using the students as an alibi for poor teaching...

Why have kids had such a hard time with the social studies test?

Part of the answer may lie in the fact that it came on the fourth day of testing. By that time, students had endured 71/2 hours of reading, math and science exams.

But the main problem was that the subject wasn't tested every year, as math and reading are, said Sandy Williams. She works with teachers as an instructional consultant with the Mahoning County Educational Service Center and is the Northeast Ohio representative to the Ohio Council for the Social Studies.

The social studies test that was given in fifth grade also covered material introduced in grades three and four, Williams explained. The eighth-grade test might have asked about something the student learned in grade six or seven.

Boy some nerve - huh? Asking an 8th grader something they learned in 6th or 7th grade. The sadistic SOB's... this is nothing short of child abuse!

I guess a real simple fix of placing the tests where they perform the worst first and where they perform the best last would be too logical. Or God forbid... an 8th grade teacher reinforcing past teachings and continuing on from them would be a terrible thing too.

So big deal about social studies right?

Social Studies -- covers a half-dozen areas such as history, government and geography -- so who cares if our children know about the true history of our country, how our government is run or where the hell Iran is. By allowing this downward slide in social studies it will be much easier to teach our children - "Obamacation" - where the instructions teach how bad of a country we are and we must apologize for our past perceived transgressions, how the government is there to support and do things for you and the only geographic locations they need to know is where the D.C. Red Shed (formerly the White House) is located.

The kick off for replacing education as we once knew it with Obamacation is on Sept. 8th when Chairman Obamao will become a temporary substitute teacher and address our children, without your supervision during school hours.