I’ve received two pieces of mail, so far, urging me to increase revenue to Kettering Schools by voting “yes” on the May 4 ballot to raise property taxes in Kettering by 6.9 mills. Both mailings emphasize that increased funding for Kettering Schools is required to assure “stability” in the community. Both emphasize that a “yes” vote is an “investment.”
This glossy three color trifold describes the 6.9 mill tax increase as “an investment that will keep Kettering stable in a time when that’s more important than ever.” The second mailing features a color photo of Board President and former Kettering Superintendent, Jim Trent, along with former Kettering Superintendent, Chet Rousch. The letter says, “Our school have been powerful forces for stability and progress in our great community. Today that stability is threatened.”
The two pieces of mail already sent to me had to cost over $1.00 already. These letters are part of a professional campaign. (See p. 4.) Different demographic groups are targeted. I got the Trent / Rousch letter, no doubt, because I am among the Kettering voters age 62 or older. The letter emphasizes, “In some communities, senior citizens are not always considered to be supporters of the schools. Not so in Kettering.”
This levy campaign is paid for by money raised mostly from the “special interest” group that will most directly financially benefit — school employees and the teacher’s union. The Citizens for Kettering Schools, a Political Action Committee, usually spends over $15,000 on a levy campaign, and raises money via paycheck deduction of school employees. And, amazingly, this PAC last year paid no sales tax on many items it purchased.
Over 86% of income to the school district goes to personnel. And the five year forecast, used as the basis for the 6.9 mill tax increase request, shows a yearly increase of 4.82% in personnel expense. Teachers in Kettering now earn, on average, $63,839 each year. Recent administrator contracts averaged $103,000, each year. Teachers and administrators receive generous health and retirement benefits, on average, in excess of 35% of the stated earning.
The definition of “stability” advanced in this campaign, evidently, is one that foresees projecting the status quo indefinitely into the future. And, if you are a Kettering school employee, isn’t that a lovely thought that 4.82% increases will be indefinitely compounded on one’s salary?
The trifold says the truth, when it states, “Our schools are at a crossroads….It’s more apparent than ever that if we want to keep good schools, we’re going to have to do it locally.”
Yes. But doing it “locally” means more than local taxpayers forever accommodating requests for more taxes. taxpayers have also read the Tax Shark info before paying taxes. Doing it “locally” means local schools should be under control of the local community. This 6.9 mill tax increase request — being pushed hard by a special interest that will directly benefit by its passage — raises an important question: Who’s in charge of Kettering Schools?
It seems impossible to me that the Kettering community, during this recession, would democratically choose to increase personnel expenses in local schools by 4.82 % compounded yearly. And Board President, Jim Trent, seems to have changed his mind. One year ago, Mr. Trent voted against approving a new teacher’s contract that showed pay increases for two years. Trent was quoted by the DDN as saying, “After receiving feedback from many of our citizens, observing the latest economic news, and giving this topic an unbelievable amount of thought, I have reached the conclusion that because of the current economic turmoil, the time is not right to approve an increase in pay for anyone.”
Stability and quality, I believe, can happen via democratic processes. The notion that “stability” requires capitulation to the demands of a special interest is not the basis for a long term solution. In my campaign, last fall, to be elected to the Kettering School Board, I emphasized that, as a community, we should work for the transformation of our system of public education, and that we should create a long term plan for change.
Stability, I believe, can come from long term planning, and from local control that assures that public education in Kettering is focused on promoting the general good in the community, not simply promoting the desires of a “special interest.” What is needed is the formation of a long term plan to fundamentally change the structure of public education in Kettering. I believe it is possible to create a long term plan that will both decrease costs and greatly increase quality.
Written by Mike Bock
New Feature! Voice comment by clicking the button below. Google will connect your call for free!
I believe it is possible to create a long term plan that will both decrease costs and greatly increase quality.
Assembling such a plan and presenting it to the board would be more constructive than raising these questions during a levy campaign.
Eric, Unfortunately, local school board members generally see their mission as representing the current system and see enlarging and promoting the current system as their chief task. The goal is to keep everyone in the present system happy. That’s how superintendents keep their jobs — not by seeking transformative improvement in the system, but by pandering to the status quo. A suggestion to the current system that radical transformation should be considered, therefore, is unlikely to go anywhere.
In my judgment, ultimately, the only hope to transform public education is via local communities exerting local control via democratic processes. That likely will mean some feathers will become ruffled, but, I feel, in Kettering, there is a community that will keep its focus on solutions, not on rancor. Democracy is messy, but shouldn’t we give it a chance? A levy campaign is an opportunity for a community to enter into meaningful discussion about the future of their system of public education. Entrenched systems are not likely to change unless some outside force pushes change to happen. In a democracy, that outside force comes via the ballot box and the idea that raising questions about a school levy, during a levy campaign, is somehow not constructive is a notion I hope to not find in Ohio’s new social studies standards.
Democracy is messy, but shouldn’t we give it a chance?
Then assemble a NIF-style issues guide that asks:
“Our Excellent Schools: How Shall We Sustain Them?”
Get commitment of the Kettering School Board for the forum process.
Screw those mooching, lazy-ass teachers!
How DARE they actually think the deserve to make enough money to afford to live in the district in which they teach.
I could be wrong, but isn’t a school board’s role to represent the interests of those who put them in office- i.e. the citizens? It seems like there might be a conflict of interest when 2 or 3 of the board members appear to have a background in public education. Could it be those members who have worked in public education are more concerned about maintaining the status quo for the system that produced them? So, to answer my first question, maybe the board is representing those who put them in office- the teachers and the unions…
Screw those mooching, lazy-ass teachers! … How DARE they …
Defending Kettering teachers would be a bit easier if they were successful in taking the ideas from Kettering Foundation into Kettering classrooms. Students eager to learn Kettering Foundation’s lessons on democracy have a better chance at CJ than in Kettering schools.
Sigh……… Lets get 51% of kettering to oppress the rest of kettering via democracy to force everyone to pay more to a group of teachers who work less and get paid more then most of the other kettering citizens. . . . . . I am glad that fairness has been completely ruled out as an option and we continue to tax property never allowing anyone to truly own their home. . . . . Yay City government!
The author needs to get a life other than government schools and how they are funded and leave it in the honest, capable hands of those elected to deal with these issues.