HAGAN AND SCHURING HAVE THE CHUTZPAH TO SHOW UP AT STARK COUNTY'S SCHOOLS?

Yesterday's election was a disaster in Stark County's Osnaburg and Nimishillen townships.

For Stark County's remaining 15 public school districts, the defeats of the East Canton and Louisvile school levies had to be alarming.

Especially alarming for school districts who are on the November ballot with levies.

Now "the chickens are coming home to roost" as a consequence of the Ohio General Assembly passing Governor Kasich's biennium budget (2012 - 2013) in June of 2011.

In that budget East Canton loses some $614,000 and Louisville some $1.7 million in State of Ohio funding.

And here is the list of legislators (which includes Republican Christina Hagan (the 50th) and Republican Kirk Schuring (the 51st, to be the 48th, but not Scott Oelslager) voting for the measure:

Louisville schools, which has not had a levy pass in 20 years, decided early yesterday morning (just hours after the election results were tallied) to place the levy back on the ballot for November's election.

Fat chance that it will pass then.  A presidential year, a down economy, and plenty of uninformed, anti-tax types showing up to vote?  Good luck Louisville!

East Canton schools really took an electoral mugging.  Wow!  86% (rounded off) to 14% (rounded off).

Lake schools officials are still reeling from the beatings they took in 2011 and back into 2009 on a "bond issue" mind you.  These are the easiest levies in the world to pass.  And this one should have been real easy because all it was was a local match to get millions of State of Ohio money to fix some falling apart Lake school buildings.

So what do East Canton, Louisville and Lake have in common?

They are all located in the 50th Ohio House District which is represented by Christina Hagan.

Remember, Hagan voted for the Governor's budget bill which visits sizable cuts in state funding of all three districts.

Lake's is the largest at about $2.4 million dollars.

So the question has to be:  When are the voters of Osnaburg, Nimishillen and Lake going to wake up?

And extending the question:

How long is the Kasich/Hagan/Schuring tax shifting gig going to play in Peoria err East Canton, Jackson, North Canton, Louisville, Uniontown, Hartville and Plain Township?

Hagan has prevailed upon her fellows in the Ohio Legislature to make her seat a virtual lock for any Republican candidate through gerrymandering.  The 50th is indexed at about 56% Republican in its newest configuration.  And, she is out raising big bucks to boot.

It appears to the SCPR that it is next to impossible for her Democratic opponent to win.

But the operative phrase is "next to impossible," not "impossible."

We all know that the Good Book says that "all things are possible with God."

And, indeed, it will take a miraculous turn of the head of 50th District voters to send a stunning message to Columbus that no matter what their political machinations might be, people can and if provoked enough will pin them back on their ears.

Sue Ryan tells the SCPR that core of her campaign is centered on going to Columbus and fighting to reverse the 50% in state budget Local Government Fund funding of Ohio's political subdivisions and to make funding of public school districts a top priority.

She says that Stark's villages, cities, townships and other political subdivisions that receive funds from Ohio's Local Government Fund are being devastated and that if they are to survive, it will take voters to send persons like herself to Columbus.  In the meantime, they can expect that the likes of her opponent will be pushing more and more of the tax burden of local government down the villages, cities and township voters in Ohio's 88 counties.

Ryan bills herself as the candidate who will work for working class, middle income families who have to struggle day-in, day-out to make ends meet.

In this day and age, sending one's kids to school is hardly "totally" taxpayer supported as it was when yours truly went to public school.   Property owning parents of school age children pay their property taxes, a large portion of which support the schools.   All parents in many districts have to pay multiple fees and a number of districts have "pay to play" athletics or "pay to participate" in band, chior, et cetera.

Taking a look at fund-raisers for the two candidates, it seems pretty obvious Ryan practices what she preaches.

Hagan, on the other hand, has hit the big time:  Brookside Country Club at $150 a pop and possibly all the way up to $5,000.

But working class, middle class folks can pay more taxes as more and more school districts are forced to put levies on the ballot.

Hmm?

Returning to the baseline question that voters of the 50th and the 48th ought to be asking themselves:

How long is the Kasich/Hagan/Schuring tax shifting gig going to play in Peoria err East Canton, Jackson, North Canton, Louisville, Uniontown, Hartville and Plain Township?

WHY DON'T ALL STARK CO SCHOOLS VALUE GOD? SCPR COMPARES STARK'S 16 OTHER SCHOOL DISTRICTS ' MISSION STATEMENTS TO LAKE: TODAY FAIRLESS

A couple of Lake Township residents contacted the Freedom from Religion Foundation with complaints about a part of Lake Local School's Mission Statement. Lake is the home district of the SCPR and three Olson children graduated from Lake and the Mrs. served on the Lake Board of Education twice.

The first thing that occurred to yours truly is how the mission statements of Stark's other 16 school districts compare to Lake's.

Today we compare Lake"s controversial statement to that of the Fairless schools.

No mention of God in Fairless school's statement of Beliefs.

So far the SCPR has examined the mission statements of Alliance, Canton, Canton Local and Fairless schools. None mention God in their mission statements.

Who has it right: Lake or Alliance, Canton, Canton Local and Fairless.

WHY DON'T ALL STARK CO SCHOOLS VALUE GOD? SCPR COMPARES STARK'S 16 OTHER SCHOOL DISTRICTS ' MISSION STATEMENTS TO LAKE: TODAY CANTON CITY

A couple of Lake Township residents contacted the Freedom from Religion Foundation with complaints about a part of Lake Local School's Mission Statement. Lake is the home district of the SCPR and three Olson children graduated from Lake and the Mrs. served on the Lake Board of Education twice.

The first thing that occurred to yours truly is how the mission statements of Stark's other 16 school districts compare to Lake's.

Today we compare Lake"s controversial statement to that of the Canton City schools.

No mention of God in Canton City schools statement of Mission, Vision and Beliefs.

Why not?

DISCUSSION: LAKE WANTS TO BUILD/REMODEL IN THE LIGHT OF A 37.5% REMEDIATION RATE?

In last week's election the Lake Local School District bond issue failed miserably: 70% to 30%.

What was the bond issue money for?

The same thing that all bond issues are for: construction, either new or remodeling. The Lake bond effort did include some operating money which is usually overlooked in bond issues (e.g. Plain Township schools which has a beautiful new building complex but no money to operate it with).

The Lake effort is designed to raise nearly $30 million to couple with $41 million from Ohio in order to do new construction and remodeling.

The STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report) wonders "out loud" if Lake (The Report's home district) has its priorities straight given the accompanying graphic (gathered from the Ohio Board of Regents Higher Education Information [HEI] database) which shows the high remediation rate that Lake graduates experience when they enter college.

These numbers are stunning! Lake along with Jackson and North Canton are some the very best school systems in all of Ohio.

And Lake is not unique in Stark with these remediation numbers. Jackson and North Canton share them. Other school districts in Stark County are significantly worse.

The Report expects to take guff from Lake school officials and, perhaps, from other Stark County educators because of this opinion piece. Readers of The Report know that there are no sacred cows for this blog.

Educators/administrators will have a very hard time making The Report an adversary of K-12 education given the hundreds of hours yours truly has donated to the Lake schools. Unfortunately, all too often anyone who asks questions about the results that taxpapyers get for their property taxes paid to support local education are dubbed "anti-education."

Yours truly has every reason "to look the other way" on this incongruity because my own highly successful three daughters (a medical doctor, an attorney who is working on her Ph.D, and a major in the U.S. Air Force [public relations officer]) graduated from Lake (the last in 1996). They were not remediators.

The Report looks at the high remediation number this way.

Stark County's school districts must start doing a better job preparing the college bound or the county, state and nation will be the worse off competing in a global economy. The rub with remediation is this: time spent on remediation is time lost preparing for high degrees of competence in a chosen vocation.

So why the big push for new/remodel facilities when a district like Lake is short on its mission and on its vision?

Apparently, the thinking at Lake (and a lot of other school districts in Stark) is: "don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

Anyone conversant with education in Ohio knows that one of the few success stories (if not, the only one) the Ohio General Assembly has had in funding education in Ohio was the creation of the Ohio Schools Facilities Commission (OSFC).

A brief history: (from Knowledge Works/School Funding Matters)

... the Ohio School Facilities Commission was created in 1997, providing more than $2.3 billion, primarily in tobacco settlement money, to fund a statewide effort to rebuild schools rated as the worst in the nation. (GAO study, 1996)

For most school districts, there is a requirement of a local match (again, for Lake it is $30 million).

A number of Stark County schools have a high "local match." Consequently, it not a sure thing that a school district will accept the state money.

Locally, Perry School District turned down the OFSC money because it could save Perry property taxpayers $10 million by doing its construction with all Perry money and in doing so Perry could tailor its facilities to Perry's specific needs and not be dictated to by Ohio's OSFC officials.

Undoubtedly, Lake voters will face the bond issue again in May.

And many of Lake's administrators, board members, staffers and parents will spend hundreds of collective hours figuring out how to get the issue passed.

In the meantime, a gnawing question persists.

What is being done about the perennially high remediation rate?

The Report is fine with Lake voters voting for the bond issue, if that is what they wish.

Whether or not the issue passes, Lake officials need to aggressively go about fixing the districts' remediation problem and give the Lake public periodic accountings on the progress they are making.

After all the Lake mission is: "Providing education to achieve success."

After the need for remediation is repaired, then all of Lake graduates will certainly be in a better position "to achieve success" because Lake proves itself by action and not mere words to be "the Best Organization for Learning," and a model for the rest of Stark County.

One final point.

Although this blog on excessive rates of remediation is primarily directed at Lake (The Report's home district), it is a critique of all Stark County school districts. Some of which have much higher rates of remediation.

Stark Countians cannot be happy with their school systems' remediation numbers.

When numbers like these surface, Stark taxpayers have to be asking themselves this question.

Are school tax dollars being put to effective use?