Governor Kasich: Clueless on Senate Bill 5

WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED our good Governor Kasich sends his children to a Christian school? Why am I not surprised he doesn’t know what it’s like to work in a public school system that takes every child, not just those who are lucky and rich, or lucky and not handicapped?

Why do I think the Governor doesn't know what it was like for Loveland Middle School teachers when we had the young man in class with the longest criminal record of any juvenile in Hamilton County? 

Why do I think the private schools, vouchers or not, wouldn’t take that kind of young man? 

Why do I think standardized testing won’t help the nine-year-old boy a friend of mine has in class, whose mother is 24, whose father is long gone and probably sexually abused him, who is supposed to wear a diaper every day to school, but doesn’t, and has “bowel issues?” Why do I think when this boy shits his pants in class and denies it when my friend asks—the poor child who sits stewing in filth—why do I think the private Christian school Kasich’s children attend wouldn’t take him? 

Why do I think, Governor Kasich’s promise of merit pay will turn out to be a bait-and-switch move in the end? Probably because the state promised several years back to give any teacher who could go through a rigorous process and win National Board Certification a $25,000 bonus, paid out in ten annual installments. Does the Governor—do all the senators and representatives who voted for Senate Bill 5—even know this program was canceled due to a shortage of funds and many, many teachers never got paid? 

Why do I think a man who made $600,000 in one year at Lehman Brothers doesn’t care in the end about merit pay for regular workers? 

Why do I think all the poor devils who believe standardized testing will save us are deluded? Is it because we’ve been pushing standardized testing for almost ten years and SAT scores are still in decline?

Check it out at collegeboard.com if you don't believe me:

National average in 2002           2010               Gain/Loss in the Age of the Testing Fix

Reading       504                         501                 -3                                         

Math            516                         516                 even

Writing*      497                         492                 -5

Oh, and why do I think, that Kasich doesn’t know that in 2010, when the national average was 1509, Ohio students averaged 1608? 

Why do I think Senate Bill 5 is a bad idea? These are just a few of my favorite educational things.

*The Writing Subtest was first given in 2006