Kettering’s School Levy: To Improve Public Education We Must Vitalize Our Democracy

This post started out as a comment in response to Bruce Kettelle

Bruce, the thing is, I think we can both agree that school levy advertisement should not contain statements that are flat out untrue. And, in an ideal world, school levy ads should not contain statements that are misleading, either. But, the problem is, most any phrase that might be used to promote most school levies is likely to mislead. The phrase, “This Is A RENEWAL Levy,” to most people would probably communicate a promise of “zero increase in tax rate.” The phrase, “We are continuing with the same tax we approved in 2004,” would also probably be interpreted to mean, “zero increase in tax rate.” And the phase, “ZERO increase in taxes” communicates, “zero increase in tax rate.” But, regardless, approval of Kettering’s 6.9 mill renewal, in fact, will mean an increase in the effective tax rate

Because levy advertisements so easily misinform, a school levy sign should indicate a web-site link where an interested voter can easily go to research the levy. I’m surprised that some on-the-ball member of the Ohio Assembly doesn’t propose legislation requiring a web-address for levy campaigns. The levy web-site should have complete information and be designed to educate, not to sell. It should welcome contrary views and debate. The information should include the history of the levy, why it is needed, what it is used for, and what a “yes” vote means. There should also be information that would give a voter a good financial picture of the school district. The emphasis should be on open information, open dialogue.

I would feel different about the Kettering School levy ad that says “ZERO Increase In Taxes,” if the Kettering Schools had such a web-site, or at least, on their Kettering Schools web-site, had good information pertaining to the 6.9 mill renewal levy. Instead, at the Kettering Schools web-site, there is zero mention of the 6.9 mill renewal levy. Not a peep. No information about the levy at all. The absence of any mention of the levy at Kettering School’s web-site seems strange. At the Centerville Schools web-site, there is a great deal of information about the proposed Centerville School levy.

The Kettering levy committee did four different mailings of literature concerning the levy. Some of these mailings were sent just to selected groups of voters — those voters most likely to support the levy. I would like to know how those lists of school supporters were compiled. This use of targeted mailing is a common technique of sophisticated election campaigns. The purpose of such campaigns is not to vitalize democracy, it is to get out the winning vote. The idea is to get more “Yes” votes than “No” votes. But, it seems to me, the overall controlling motive must be not passing a levy, but building wide based and in-depth public support. And this bigger motive requires vitalizing democracy.  Using what could be seen as anti-democratic strategies will eventually reap public cynicism and eroded support of public schools. Someone needs to be looking out for the public good. And this someone should be the school system itself.

The emphasis needs to be on getting our democracy to work. Each taxpayer in Kettering School District is a shareholder in the public schools. I’m reminded that last year I wrote a review of David Matthews “Reclaiming Public Education by Reclaiming Our Democracy.” Matthews is President of the Charles Kettering Foundation. His central point in the book is that, in order to get our schools to work as they should, we will need to get our democracy to work. He writes, “We must have the public we need before we can have the schools we want.” To improve education,” the book argues, “there must be a more engaged, more informed, more active public: to improve education we must improve our democracy.