Posted 12:24 PM by Susan Darst Williams

OPS OVERRIDE: IS IT REALLY ‘FOR THE KIDS’?

Recommendation: Vote "AGAINST" overriding the tax-levy lid in the Omaha Public Schools

1. OPS has total budget authority this year, including construction and other off-budget spending, of $705.9 million, or $15,419 apiece for the 45,782 students enrolled

2. Operations alone will cost $6,793 per pupil this year, a 44 percent increase over 10 years ago despite K-12 enrollment that has been essentially flat

3. OPS is already $322.3 million in debt

4. OPS projects that a lid override would bring it another $115 million over 5 years above what the Legislature set as the levy lid, yet state government faces a multimillion dollar budget deficit

5. Override is likely to cost the owner of a $100,000 home at least an extra $750 in property taxes over 5 years

6. OPS has 6,002 employees, which figures to one employee for every 7.6 students, but only half are regular classroom teachers; the rest work in special education, building and grounds, student support services, administration and so on, so nonteaching staff cuts are eminently possible

7. Health and dental insurance is free for full-time employees and after four years, they pay only 60% of family coverage, a valuable fringe benefit not often discussed; perhaps they could start paying a percentage

8. OPS has $88.7 million in its various cash funds that could be tapped; the cash cushion is too large

9. Taxpayers have funded the OPS Employee Retirement System that now has $774.6 million, and educators can now take early retirement with full pension at age 55 with 30 years of experience; it’s not like we’re stingy

10. OPS students do have more learning problems associated with poverty, including being more transient than suburban children, which sets back achievement. But recently-reported test scores are causing grave concern that the district may be failing our neediest students and reacting by just wanting to throw more money at the problem spent the wrong ways. There is ample documentation that with simple curricular changes that actually cost less, not more, learning would improve in the inner-city OPS schools. Look at the inner-city Catholic schools that are doing a better job than the public schools at less cost, the Marva Collins-style success stories, and the great results from shedding traditional bilingual education such as OPS has in favor of better, cheaper English immersion programs. There is no evidence that additional money given to schools improves academic achievement for any students, including those from disadvantaged homes.

---------------------------------------------

Sources:

1. 2002-03 Omaha Public Schools budget, www.ops.org, p. 3

2. Ibid, p. 7; $311 million general fund divided by 45,782 enrollment; note that enrollment includes 500 more pre-kindergarten students than in the past who technically shouldn’t be in a K-12 enrollment tally; 1992-93 figures from OPS’ past annual financial reports on file with the State Education Department: http://ess.nde.state.ne.us/SchoolFinance/AFR/search/afr.htm

3. State Auditor’s website, school districts, bonded indebtedness, OPS, 2001-02, http://www.auditors.nol.org

4. OPS projections of $23 million per year in extra taxes from the override, multiplied times five years, Omaha World-Herald, Sept. 29, p. 1

5. Ibid

6. Employment figures obtained by adding categorical subtotals on pp. 51-85 of the 2002-03 OPS budget, www.ops.org and dividing by 45,782 in total enrollment for the staff-to-child ratio

7. Employee Compensation and Benefits subpage, www.ops.org

8. Total obtained by adding the various cash balances for OPS funds listed in its 2000-01 annual financial report on:
http://ess.nde.state.ne.us/SchoolFinance/AFR/search/afr.htm

9. 2002-03 OPS budget, p. 141

10. “Report Card on Education,” American Legislative Exchange Council, www.alec.org . . . “They Have Overcome: High-Poverty, High-Performing Schools in California,” Pacific Research Institute, www.pacificresearch.org . . . demonstrations of the effectiveness of strong phonics-based curriculum, discipline and parental respect: www.noexcuses.org

Posted 12:13 PM by Susan Darst Williams

EDUCATION ELECTION PICKS, CONTINUED

Visit www.voterinformation.org for good background. Check back here Monday for a recap of ballot-marking recommendations for education-related races. Here are new picks:

BOND ISSUE

Elkhorn Public Schools, $9.9 million
(high school additions, land for future schools, and six smaller renovation projects)
FOR

Elkhorn Public Schools, $2.9 million
(indoor swimming pool)
AGAINST

City of Elkhorn, $4.5 million
(community recreation center with gym space, exercise space, a walking/jogging track and meeting rooms connected to the proposed pool)
AGAINST

Why: Growth in Elkhorn and solid economics justify shouldering additional debt for school expansion. But the other projects invade the private-sector arena, duplicate services, and are not good choices for government. The $4 million, 37,000-square-foot YMCA near the 275 expressway in nearby Valley is nearing completion with many of the same amenities. The Alegent health club’s pools nearby are rarely full. Elkhorn’s schools and library are empty at night when community members might want to have meetings. Lastly, Marian High School and others have won many state swimming championships without a pool, but have wisely shared pool facilities elsewhere. So should Elkhorn.


SCHOOL BOARDS

All these are good people with a record of fairness and fiscal responsibility:

Elkhorn:
KIM FASSE

Millard:
DEBRA ATTERSON

Papillion-LaVista:
DEBORAH BOYKIN

Omaha Public Schools
The only race with a significant difference in candidates is Subdistrict 7:
MARK MARTINEZ

Ralston:
MICHAEL D. BARKER
RONALD TIETGEN

Posted 11:57 AM by Susan Darst Williams

KATHYRN PILLER VS. HEAD EXAMINATIONS

I really hope people will vote for Kathryn Piller for the Omaha-area seat on the State Board of Education. She’s the incumbent, she puts kids first, she’s tough, she’s well-spoken, she’s fiscally conservative and she won my heart a few years ago when she stood up to the educrats over getting to the bottom of that South Omaha videotaped school beating.

But she’s taking a beating now on the campaign trail by one of the most heavily-funded union guys ever to run for public office in the State of Nebraska. In campaign documents filed this week, retired teacher and former Nebraska State Education Association president Joe Higgins reported campaign donations of $20,725.16 from the NSEA. That teachers’ union representing more than 20,000 people didn’t even interview Ms. Piller before they endorsed Higgins.

I wasn’t going to tell this. I really wasn’t. But now that Higgins is sending out campaign literature claiming that SHE’S an “extremist,” while HE gets things done “through an open, honest and civil discussion of the issues,” I have to come forward and say “Nuh unh UNHHH!”

I ran for the school board in District 66 five years ago. I was concerned about iffy curriculum, suspicious increases in the numbers of children labeled “learning disabled,” and materialistic overspending. I had come out strongly against the tax-lid override that the educrats in Westside wanted. Cash reserves were high and useable, and other tweaks in nonclassroom spending could have produced the same extra money as raising taxes.

I didn’t want to win the darn thing. I hate meetings and listening to puffed-up poohbahs of political correctness for hours. I just wanted to air the issues. One other candidate held my views, but everybody else was “Stepfording” . . . just parroting the pro-spending party line.

It was getting fairly ugly: garden-variety campaign dirty tricks. Assume the position! One woman proclaimed at a big party that I was an anti-Semite who didn’t think the Holocaust ever happened. That was fun. Another rumor had it that I was mentally ill.

Yeah, you really SHOULD have your head examined if you try to run for school board in your home district and represent the public instead of the education bureaucracy. What a concept!

Well, anyway, one day before the election, Joe Higgins called. I hadn’t had him as a social studies teacher when I rode my dinosaur to Westside many years ago, but I remembered him and had a certain fondness for him. He remembered me because I had been the newspaper editor and hung out in the Social Studies IMC to talk to my frien . . . uh, that is, study. I thought of him as a “freeze-dried hippie,” someone encased in a middle-aged body espousing the values of the 1960s.

Since 18-year-olds can vote, Mr. Higgins was inviting me to a candidates’ forum at Westside, with an auditorium full of seniors. I accepted with delight.

When I got there that day, I went up to Mr. Higgins. The very first thing he said was, “We got the ‘Rule of 85’ and not only that, we got the ‘COLA’!”

Hunhhh?

It so happens that Higgins, who in 1983 was president of the state teachers’ union and remained active in union affairs, had been a leader in the imposition of a tremendously expensive early-retirement program for educators. The Legislature had just granted it. At age 55, with 30 years of experience, an educator can retire with full pension, and then double-dip at taxpayer expense. It was going to drain our schools of our best, most experienced teachers, including some of the more famous ones at Westside.

At the same time, the union had obtained a 2 percent cost of living increase for retirees from the Legislature. According to the union’s website, www.nsea.org/legpol/retirement.htm, the changes in retirement benefits would be worth an extra $126,292 . . . per teacher. And who pays those retirement benefits? Taxpayers.

So we empty the schools of our best teachers at unbelievable expense to ourselves. And Higgins, a member of the Public Employees Retirement Board, was crowing about that.

It gets worse. We walked into the crowded auditorium of voting-age seniors, and Mr. Higgins immediately made the whole room SCOWL at me by introducing me as “one of the nay-sayers . . . a ‘No’ person.”

I guess it was his idea of a joke, referring to my stand on the spending-lid override. But when he introduced the four pro-spenders as “Yes” people and all the kids smiled radiantly at them and kept frowning over at me, my cheeks got bright red and my heart started pounding.

I really didn’t think it was fair to pigeonhole me as a bad guy because of that one issue among many, considering that many of them had Mr. Higgins in class and had to “suck up.”

But it got worse. Higgins had me speak first. He and other school officials sat and glared at me. Gulp. I got started, and was doing OK, when suddenly . . .

. . . the fire alarm went off! The kids all leaped up from their seats and left. In shock, I looked right at the school officials, including Mr. Higgins . . .

. . . and they immediately smiled down at me, nastily, savoring my predicament.

They had done that on purpose, to mess me up. Maybe it was a coincidence, but I don’t know. They smiled too fast.

I wonder if that was a dirty trick that Higgins picked up when he was the Nebraska union’s delegate to the National Education Association from 1996-99. That was right when they were making all kinds of icky decisions that had nothing to do with academics, and everything to do with left-wing politics.

The NEA is for extremist stuff I hate: forced preschool, compulsory “guidance” for pre-K through college, forced celebration in schools of homosexual behavior, condom distribution to children . . . and I knew they trained their people to discredit and disarm anybody who posed any kind of a threat to their agenda. Even if they’ve known them since they were a kid. Even if they’re their own taxpaying patrons, who pay their salaries and cushy retirement bennies.

I went home that night, and told my husband. Yes, I cried. He was rather unsympathetic.

“You should have had your HEAD EXAMINED to go up against people like that and run for school board,” he said.

What a sad commentary on the American political scene. When I lost, I was glad. We moved shortly thereafter.

So now Higgins is calling Ms. Piller names and saying HE’S the one who would be “open, honest and civil.” And SHE’S the “extremist,” while in fact HE has played politics in the schoolhouse, put the edu-cracy ahead of kids, and taken all that cash from that unbelievably extremist union.

Look. I don’t mean to trash the guy. I just think this needs to be said.

Our oldest daughter, Jordan, is one of the nicest kids you’d ever want to know. She was No. 2 in her class at Westside, a National Merit Scholar, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say a mean, critical remark about anybody in her entire life. She had Mr. Higgins for social studies at Westside. She thought his class was incredibly easy. She didn’t know what had happened to me with the fire alarm and all; we try to shield our kids from stuff that might tarnish their respect for their schools and authority figures. So any opinion she had formed about Mr. Higgins was her own.

Well, anyway, I called her at college a while ago and mentioned that Mr. Higgins was running for the State Board of Education.

Her disgusted reply:

“OH . . . MY . . . GOD!”

That was open. That was honest. Maybe it wasn’t very civil. But out of the mouths of babes . . . quite often comes the truth.

Posted 10:22 PM by Susan Darst Williams

MACTIER: PHONICS WORKS WITH INNER-CITY KIDS

When standardized test scores were released recently by the Omaha Public Schools, Ann Mactier’s eyes went right to the number listed for Central Park Academy, a school in one of the most impoverished parts of town.

Eureka! The same children who last year scored in the 39th percentile nationwide had zoomed up to the 56th percentile.

What made the difference? Not millions of extra dollars, as OPS is asking for from voters in Tuesday’s tax-lid override.

The answer was the method: systematic, intensive, explicit phonics instruction. It’s cheaper than what most public schools are doing now in the way of teaching reading, and, especially for disadvantaged children, it’s much, much better.

Mrs. Mactier, a former OPS board member and current member of the Nebraska State Board of Education, had privately donated the funds to get teachers trained in Spalding Phonics at Central Park and another inner-city school, Kellom.

At Kellom, test scores did not show such a marked improvement, but its student population is much more transient, with a high percentage of children who don’t speak English. Even so, Mrs. Mactier reports, Principal Jo Kubik says the Spalding method is working well.

Just another reason not to feel guilty about voting “NO” to the OPS override. Those cute inner-city kids don’t need more millions. THEY NEED PHONICS!

Posted 4:47 PM by Susan Darst Williams

DUELING SPECIAL-INTEREST GROUPS

(apologies to “Dueling Banjoes”)

A million special-interest groups
Fight for every dollar spent.
No one referees and . . . oops!
Taxpayers are impotent.
How much of our dough’s misspent?

Gimme more, more, more!
Gimme more, more, more!
Gimme more, more, more!

Goals 2000 is arousin’
Neverending school spending!
Is the goal an education?
Or school jobs for the whole nation?

Spend our money on sight-reading,
Though it gives kids’ brains a beating.
Cost-efficiency of phonics
Is so much better, it is comic.

High-falutin’ learning standards
Aren’t much more than propaganda.
Dumb ‘em down!
Been misled!
The whole dang country’s special ed!

Money, to the NEA,
Is what school’s about today.
Setting rules no one can read.
Federal programs feed the greed.
Bureaucrats sprout up like weeds.

Gimme more, more, more!
Gimme more, more, more!
Gimme more, more, more!

Multiculturalism’s a mystery.
Kids no longer learning history!
Why keep teaching them bilingually,
Just ‘cause it makes you feel tingly?

Junkets, trips and seminars?!?
Just teach kids the old 3 R’s.
Why employ this mass of creatures?
More than half aren’t even teachers.

School to work?
School you’ll skip
For your paid apprenticeship.
While you’re tiny, Uncle Sam
Plans your future.
Bam! Bam! Bam!

At-risk kids in charter schools
Merely learning to use tools.
Distance learning? It forebodes
No more thinking! Just download!
Corporate profits will explode.

Gimme more, more, more!
Gimme more, more, more!
Gimme more, more, more!

Get their cards out on the table:
They make money on the disabled!
Call your school board,
Sharply quiz ‘em,
‘Bout the graft and nepotism.

Teachers running out of paper
While bond issues build skyscrapers!?!
How much of per-pupil costs
Go for PUPILS? Applesauce!

Why should special interests rule?
Why not just let school be school?
Taxpayers, come unhinged:
Special-interest spending binge!

One way to end this . . . madness
Is to give ‘em less dough . . . lots less!

-- Dedicated to teachers and students, the only “special-interest groups” that really count. :>)

Posted 11:16 AM by Susan Darst Williams

THE BLOB IN OPS: ONE EMPLOYEE FOR EVERY 7.6 KIDS

A check of the 2002-03 budget of the Omaha Public Schools shows that there is one employee for every 7.6 students.

They call the nonteaching workforce in K-12 education "The Blob." That's because it's big . . . and it's growing.

The workforce within OPS topped the 6,000 mark for the first time this year, a 2.3 increase in staffing over the year before. Divide the 45,782 children enrolled, pre-K through grade 12, by the 6,002.7 employees, and you come up with a staff-to-child ratio of 7.6.

The 3,012 full-time equivalent employees in regular instruction form the largest employment category. But it's still just about half the total OPS workforce. That reflects a national trend in education, that barely half of a school district's staff are regular classroom teachers. The percentage used to be closer to 80 percent.

Other OPS employment subgroups are:

Special education: 788.3 full-time equivalent employees

Student support services: 535

Building and grounds: 455.9

School administration: 375.1

Transportation services: 352.9

Instructional support: 206.6

Early-childhood special-ed: 105.7

Business support services: 100.8

Board of education and general administration: 45.1

Early-childhood non-special ed: 18.6

Employee assistance: 3.5

Adult high school: 3.0

Total: 6,002.7

----------------------------

Source: 2002-03 budget, Omaha Public Schools, pp. 51-85, www.ops.org

Posted 12:14 AM by Susan Darst Williams

WHAT DO LINCOLN VOTERS KNOW THAT OPS VOTERS SHOULD FIND OUT?

Lincoln Public Schools has twice been turned down by capital city voters recently in its attempts to override the state-mandated lid on school tax levies.

The Omaha Public Schools, has that question on the Nov. 5 ballot in Omaha, and it'll be interesting to see if OPS voters follow the lead of LPS voters in turning thumbs down.

The November 2000 vote in Lincoln failed by a significant margin, 54-46 percent. In April 2001, opposition from the Lincoln Independent Business Association pointed out that property valuations and state aid had increased several times faster than enrollment, and the student-to-employee ratio in LPS was 7:1. That means for every class of 21 students, one LPS employee was in the classroom with the children . . . and two more were outside the classroom. That's approximately the same ratio within OPS.

LPS officials had predicted teacher layoffs and increased class sizes, but were able to adjust several budgetary funds and cut busing expenses to make ends meet.

Posted 12:05 AM by Susan Darst Williams

$115 MILLION AT STAKE IN OPS OVERRIDE

Property valuation within the Omaha Public Schools is reported as $13,404,229,713. That means if the OPS tax-limit override Nov. 5 is successful and OPS is allowed to tax another 15 cents per $100 valuation in each of the next five years, it'll bring about $23 million extra per year, or an additional $115 million, into OPS coffers.

Viewed another way, the owner of a house in OPS valued for tax purposes at $100,000 would have to pay an additional $150 a year, because you take the tax levy rate times the valuation of the property. So a $100,000 homeowner would be paying a minimum of an additional $750 over the next five years. A $200,000 homeowner would be out an extra $1,500. And so on. And that's if property valuations don't rise . . . which they will.

At least, they will based on the past in OPS. In the 1985-86 school year, valuations totaled $6,171,125,148, according to OPS budget documents. So they've more than doubled in less than 20 years.

Posted 6:46 PM by Susan Darst Williams

LET'S LOSE THE ESU'S

Ballot-marking recommendations for E.S.U. #3 Board (voters in all school districts in the greater Omaha area besides OPS, including Westside, Millard, Papillion-LaVista, Ralston, Bellevue, Elkhorn, and 13 smaller ones):

1. Vote for Alan F. Moore, an incumbent from Bellevue who has done a good job, has a lot of horse sense, and has an MBA from UNO among his credentials.

2. Vote for Ron Erlbacher, an educator for nearly 30 years (currently director of student services at a local community college) who . . . gasp! . . . is brave and honest enough to state that the “C” word – consolidation – might be a good idea for Nebraska’s 18 ESU’s.

Don’t use your other two votes in order to get these two on that board.

And then . . .

3. Start advocating for the abolition of the ESU’s in Nebraska, or, at a minimum, consolidating the 18 of them down to one each for Nebraska’s three congressional districts. Either way, we need to ban the collection and storage of individual student records outside the individual school walls, such as in an ESU databank.

We would save a whopping amount of money, and might be able to head off some bad things that I think are in store for the ESU’s. I’m talking about shifts in funding and operations associated with the continuing nationalization of public schools. These include what’s happening with the No Child Left Behind federal education law and the nationalized assessments coming our way that threaten to ruin what’s left of local control. I think the ESUs are poised to become the databanks here for a nationalized system.

If we “off” Nebraska’s ESU’s now and disperse their assets, or at least keep them out of the student-record processing business, the feds would have a lot harder time taking over our schools -- which they don’t even call “schools” any more. They call them “local education agencies.”

Ewwww!

A little history: ESU’s began in Nebraska in 1965 as a way for school districts to collaborate on such costly but specialized items as special education, inservice training, and technology infrastructure. Funding comes from federal, state and local tax sources. The idea was to collaborate to save money and hold the line on school-district staffing.

Ironically, look what has happened to school spending and staffing since then. According to the Nebraska Blue Book, in 1960 there were 13,316 teachers for 337,365 schoolchildren. By 2000-01, there were 20,785 teachers for FEWER kids, 329,445.

Hold the line, eh?

ESU’s have their own staffs, of course. Each of the 18 ESU’s in Nebraska also has an elected board. They do not draw salaries, but they do have expense accounts. More about that later.

Remember, computerization was like an old sci-fi movie in those days. Special ed was just getting started. A lot of the exciting things that only a collaboration like an ESU could do, then, are now being done routinely by districts, or should be, because of the advancements of ed-tech over the past nearly 40 years.

But the ESU’s have become sort of an out-of-sight, out-of-mind honey pot for educators. Even though taxes flow into them, they don’t have anywhere near the visibility of public school districts. Their accountability ratio as far as Joe and Joan Q. Public is concerned is almost zero.

But we’re talking big bucks here. ESU #3 spent $18,992,811 last fiscal year, about one-third of it from federal tax sources, plus a few million each in state-aid taxes and local property taxes.

You can visit their website at www.esu3.org for more on what they do. You can see their directors, all middle-aged white men; the ESU board is apparently a “perk” for retired school administrators, who get together to play golf and go on junkets ostensibly to learn amazing education facts that they couldn’t POSSIBLY get by reading a book in their own homes, but instead must obtain at those meccas of educational wisdom, LaJolla, Padre and Key West. Just kidding: but going on trips is a big part of board activities.

You also can get their budget information from the great online databanks prepared by State Auditor Kate Witek and staff at http://auditors.nol.org

I first became aware of ESU #3 a few years ago when I was president of our middle-school parents’ group. I asked our school office for a printout of all the kids enrolled in order to produce a student directory. I was told I had to get that information from the ESU. I thought that was pretty odd, considering that enrollment data would seem to be in the job description of school office staff.

But oh, well. I drove up to the ESU #3 complex, and literally gasped. Its stupendous building and grounds at 6949 S. 110th St., looks like a penitentiary for zillionaires.

As I walked inside the brand-new, high-class building, I marveled that you could shoot a cannon down the spacious halls and offices and not hit anybody. They’re that spacious. I couldn’t help comparing that to the halls of our public schools, where backpack-laden kids have to step sideways to get from class to class, and they’re sitting on the floors in study hall in some schools.

That day at the ESU, a whole lot of teachers were there, attending an all-day inservice on multiculturalism. It had a lavish display that went on for miles of some of the dumbest curriculum and “fun learning activities” you ever saw. Of course, I peeked: my tax dollars at work showing teachers how to skip math instruction and instead have each kid make 1,000 origami cranes to send to the Hiroshima Memorial in Japan because it was all OUR fault they got nuked . . . NOT!

Anyway, the large turnout of teachers made me wonder . . . who was back in their classrooms, caring and sharing and folding origami cranes with our children? Subs, of course: another double-dip day into the public trough, paying the regular teacher not to teach and the sub to take her place, compliments of today’s progressive education philosophy. Sigh.

All I wanted was a copy of the ESU budget. I was sent hither and yon to get it. I finally reached the right office, the swankest of the swank. Instead of the report, for a few minutes, I got the third degree. I think they might have even shined a high-powered lightbulb in my face, and believe me, it would have been the best wattage money could buy. “Who are you? Why do you want this information? What are you going to do with it?”

I felt as though I’d wandered into a private club, only instead of dancing girls, the floor show was an Educational Spendorama: unencumbered, unaccountable, undecipherable expenditures . . . but this show was different.

It was all taking place offstage.

People know nothing about ESU’s, and yet their budgets are bigger than most taxing authorities in the state.

Maybe there are good reasons the education bureaucrats don’t say much about the ESU’s. Maybe nobody knows anything about them because they’re an example of another idea in public education that might have made sense at the time it got started, and even though times have changed and it doesn’t make much sense anymore, it’s still there, sucking up cash from the poor, beleaguered, unsuspecting taxpayer.

They’ll let me have it for this. I know. If this is a bureaucratic boondoggle, it’s our fault for putting up with it. I’ve been a terrible watchdog. I’ve never shown my ugly mug at an ESU board. Mea culpa. But neither has anybody else, I expect . . . who didn’t have a hand out to get some money instead urging them to hold the line.

I’m sure many ESU employees do good work, especially those in greater Nebraska, who really do have to consolidate and share and drive inconvenient distances in order to make a go of it – just barely – in this cold, cruel world of declining enrollment in the rural areas.

But . . . there are many ways to skin a cat . . . and . . .

The ESU’s have to go, or at least be consolidated ‘way down to three instead of 18, and transfer and reduce or eliminate their functions, for the simple reason that we can’t afford this anymore . . . this notion that you can spend millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars with little or no public awareness or accountability.

I mean, down at the Omaha City Council meetings, people are MUD-WRESTLING over $2,000 decisions with reporters and cameras crawling all over every dime spent . . . and yet here’s little old ESU #3 in its gigantic building, spending nearly $19 million, sight unseen.

Well, it’s time we saw some things. For instance:

ESU #3 directors turned in $153,121 in reimbursement requests for travel, lodging, meals, conferences, rental cars, airline tickets and mileage claims in the fiscal year 2000-01. That’s according to State Auditor Kate Witek’s http://auditors.nol.org site. Read all about it, and weep. Some of the other ESU’s spent even more in this category: $170,471 in ESU #16, $163,204 in E.S.U. #9, and the grand champion, $248,954 in E.S.U. #10.

Think what that money could have bought for kids.

I’m not saying it’s wrong or it’s fraudulent or anything like that.

I am saying we can consolidate those boards into three instead of 18. And we can . . . and should . . . do a lot better job for both the kids and taxpayers who are supposed to be served.

Posted 5:13 PM by Susan Darst Williams

TAXPAYER RAP

Total spending, Omaha Public Schools, 2002-03: $705.9 million
Students: 45,782
Classrooms: 2,300
Schools: 81
Spending per pupil: $15,419.
Spending per classroom: $306,935
Spending per school: $8.7 million

(Source: ’02-’03 budget, www.ops.org)

People can vote “no” on the OPS spending-increase request Nov. 5 and still be “for the kids.”

Look again at the funding we’re already giving OPS. It’s not as if a “no” vote would be snatching chalk out of children’s hands and forcing classes to be held outside in tents. We’ve already been more than generous with OPS.

But recent test results are raising big questions about whether we’re getting the most out of our money and using the right methods of teaching reading, especially with regard to disadvantaged children. Too many inner-city OPS students are functionally illiterate despite high levels of school spending (World-Herald, Sept. 26).

It’s time OPS got the message that, while we support public education in general and we love kids, we’re not going to feel a bit guilty about saying “no” this time, and demanding more fiscal responsibility and accountability from them. That’s not being a Scrooge; that’s being smart.

You know, we taxpayers really are “for the kids.” But enough is enough. We’re for modeling good public policy and wise money management for them, too.

I feel so strongly about this, I feel a song coming on:

Taxpayers get a bad rap.
Schools treat us like a sap.
If more spending we forbid
They say we’re mean and we hate kids!

Yo! Bureaucrats!
That’s not fair. We’ve had enough.
We’re mad at you ‘cause kids aren’t reading up to snuff.

You’re so rigid;
So headstrong.
Could it be you’re teaching wrong?
The kids are fine,
But you nitwits
Turn ‘em into
Illiterates.

Now
You want
More of our dough
To
Go
Down
Your
B
o
t
t
o
m
l
e
s
s
Rathole?

No!

Wuzzup, bureaucracy?
You think money grows on trees?
Want us homies to pay MORE
Though your test scores hit the floor?

Get real!
First, you swing those budget axes.
Take that, bureaucrat.
We refuse to pay more taxes.

Millions are not what you need
To teach our children how to read.
‘Til you do your basic mission,
We aren’t raising your tuition.

Until
You make schools most cost-effective
We will
Keep our dough and stay objective.

You have
No excuse for kids not reading.
You hurt
The disadvantaged and the needy.

Kids learn
With inexpensive, simple phonics,
Whether
They’re rich or poor, black, white, or onyx.

Ding dong, the school bell rang;
Kids can’t read! Someone should hang!
‘Stead of more money, hey, you slobs,
Maybe YOU should lose your JOBS!

Just foolin’. Keep on your pants.
We just want good schoolin’.
And we’ll give you another chance.

Stop this academic bleeding.
Just teach our children proper reading!

Umh! Umhgawa!
Taxpayers got the power!

Wake up!
Get hot!
Get the lead out of your
You-know-what!

Help our schools out of this wreck.
Don’t just hand them a blank check!

---------------------------------------------

-- Dedicated to longtime tax activist Ed Jaksha, an 80-something Omahan with the moves of a teenager when it comes to public policy and good citizenship. Go Big Ed!

Posted 2:50 PM by Susan Darst Williams

WHO ARE YOU GOING TO VOTE FOR? HERE'S HELP

It can be a little scary to look at that ballot with dozens of decisions to be made. Get prepared to mark your ballot by visiting the Voter Information Packet website with all kinds of good information from and about candidates:

www.voterinformation.org

A great, big thank-you to Kathy Holkeboer of Bellevue and all her volunteers and friends for putting this together as a public service. You are appreciated!

For Go Big Ed, I've been asked to research school board and ESU candidates and make recommendations. I'll try to have those posted by the weekend, so be sure to check back.

Posted 2:46 PM by Susan Darst Williams

THANK YOU, KKAR AND STEVE BROWN

A Go Big Ed patron talked me in to going on the Steve Brown radio talk show on 1290AM KKAR this morning. I spoke about the $15,419.82 per pupil that OPS is spending this year and shared some other data.

It sure looks as though OPS has gotten generous tax support, but may not be spending our money in the most effective ways, especially for inner-city kids. I called for people to not feel guilty about voting "NO" on the OPS tax increase Nov. 5.

Thank you, Steve Brown, for being gracious with your time and helping to get the word out on what the facts really show about OPS.

And thank you, Go Big Ed patron, for alerting me to the opportunity. If anybody else knows of a way I can share this information with the public up through Nov. 5, please email me at swilliams1@cox.net

Go Big Ed!

Posted 2:41 PM by Susan Darst Williams

ONLY ELEVEN PERCENT GOES TO TEACHERS?

The average salary for a teacher in the Omaha Public Schools is something like $35,000 a year. But according to financial reports OPS made to the State of Nebraska, spending per OPS classroom totals $306,935.

So teacher pay is only about 11.4 percent of what OPS is spending.

The figures are influenced a great deal by the $230 million in construction spending OPS is doing, associated with its 1999 bond issue. But still . . . that percentage says a lot about what is really going on in OPS.

(Source:p. 50, '02-'03 budget, www.ops.org, $705,950,424 in total spending divided by the 2,300 classrooms OPS reports equals $306,935 per classroom, and an average per-pupil spending of $15,419.82.)

Posted 12:17 PM by Susan Darst Williams

TOP TEN WAYS TO SAVE MONEY AND IMPROVE LEARNING IN OPS

People may be reluctant to vote "NO" on the OPS tax increase Nov. 5 because they think it would be snatching chalk out of children's hands, unplugging their computers, and saddling teachers with class loads of 50 kids apiece.

NOT!

Here are 10 common-sense ways that OPS could, and should, adjust its spending patterns to save beaucoup bucks for taxpayers, and meet children's academic needs a whole lot better:

1. Performance audits.

Put together a star-studded committee of liberals and conservatives NOT employed by the school system to choose an objective, outside accounting firm to do a performance audit on the $705.9 million OPS is spending this year. Purpose: to spotlight wasteful spending, and disclose facts the public needs and deserves in order to tell whether OPS is being fiscally responsible. Let's have a hard look at the books!

2. Phonics.

Get rid of whole language instructional methods in kindergarten through third grade. They're OK after that. But if you don't teach K-3 with systematic, intensive, explicit phonics, the kids won't learn to read, write, spell and think properly. It's that simple. That's why the inner-city kids are doing so poorly. It's not the money spent on them; it's the method. The method OPS uses, whole language, is TEN TIMES more expensive than phonics. It uses disposable curriculum that is used once, then tossed. The books are not written, but "engineered" to contain the same few words that are added to the kids' vocabulary each year through memorization. A phonics reader has TEN TIMES the vocabulary of a whole-language reader, and vocabulary gain is the name of the game.

3. Traditional classroom style.

Get rid of "Developmentally Appropriate Practice" and "Child-Centered Education" for K-3, too. That's why there's no discipline in schools: schools aren't set up to be disciplined environments any more. Teachers are no longer supposed to be authority figures who direct the learning; instead, they're the "facilitators" who try to stay out of the way of the learning process. Desks aren't placed in rows, but in face-to-face groups, so the focal point is the other kids, not the teacher. Kids are moving around in tight quarters all day, from "center" to "center," and there's almost not a single minute of the school day where there's peace and quiet. No wonder it has flopped, and so many kids are acting out behaviorally. They're confused, frustrated and overstimulated, that's why. Kids can't focus, read, write, think and figure in those wild, chaotic classrooms. Kids are laying around on the floor with a pencil jammed in their fist, attempting to write with little or no penmanship instruction. They're sprawled in a beanbag chair with a book, but they're reading "in their own style" -- looking at the pictures, guessing at the words, looping their eyes all over the page -- instead of working from top to bottom, left to right, in an orderly fashion. The teacher is reduced to a "file server" just handing out learning materials and curriculum, instead of what a teacher should be: a wise, wonderful guide, coach and authority figure who plans the year based on the idea that adults DO know more than children and the only way to make a person competent is by teaching the skills, not hoping children "luck in" to them on their own. We would save an unbelievable amount of money and headaches, too, in reducing behavior problems when kids know the rules and see school staff as authority figures again.

4. Handwriting.

Handwriting should replace keyboarding in the grade schools as the communication method of choice. There's a lot more to it than just making your papers look nice, although that's a benefit. A child's brain becomes ordered and disciplined by staying on the lines, spelling words correctly, erasing what's not well-formed, and so on. OPS denies kids a lot of the natural brain development they need, by denying them handwriting lessons. Handwriting plays a significant role in the proper teaching of phonics because of the brain connections it helps kids make. It is the physical element that goes with hearing the sounds the letters make, saying them aloud, and writing them down properly. The best thing about phonics that is taught properly, such as the Spalding method, is that it is multisensory . . . using all of a child's senses. A child is on the threshhold of reading once he or she can write alphabet letters quickly and accurately. Since OPS does not teach penmanship, much less full-blown phonics, the kids are denied this gateway to reading. That's why so many of them are failing and struggling and winding up in costly reading remediation. OPS really should get rid of about 90 percent of the expensive social engineering it is doing in grade schools to try to help kids learn, and simply teach penmanship. Voila!

5. Reduce the influence of bad federal programs, mainly Title I.

Title I is the federal reading and math remediation program that draws millions and millions of dollars into OPS ostensibly to help reduce the achievement gap between disadvantaged children and the rest of the student body. The trouble is, the methods used in Title I programs are exactly the same failed methods that are used in the regular classroom . . . only the Title I teachers get a lot fewer children to work with at a time, and talk LOUDER and s - l - o - w - e - r. It's an enormous waste of time and money, and just makes the kids feel worse when it doesn't work any better than what the regular classroom teacher was doing. Once again, there's nothing wrong with the kids. There's a LOT wrong with the methods teachers are using, that Title I pays for. Either use Title I funds for systematic, intensive, explicit phonics . . . or quit taking it, because it's a "last resort" that actually destroys the hopes of our kids. Similarly, federally-funded English as a Second Language (ESL) programs have been shown to be inferior to the English immersion programs now in place in California and Arizona. Much better to use local funding and do it right.

6. Math basics.

Get rid of whole math textbooks, computers and calculators in the grade schools, and you'll save an enormous amount of money and space, plus improve the learning environment for math a great deal. You don't build math brain cells with a steady diet of computer games and the loud, colorful stimulation of technology. Kids need a classroom to be relatively peaceful and quiet in order to concentrate on math and think concepts through. They need the many benefits of copying a problem out of the book or from the blackboard or overhead slide, onto their own paper, and then working it out with a pencil and their heads . . . alone. You help kids get better at math with paper, pencil, a good textbook (OPS' curriculum choices are terrible; see www.mathematicallycorrect.com), maybe an overhead projector, and a teacher who knows that the best way to higher-order thinking skills in math is to help the kids master the basics first. Again, the building blocks for math achievement are just not there in the early grades in OPS.

7. Truth in Special Education.

OPS should reveal how many students are labeled "special education," and for what reasons. Report to the public how many dropouts and "ungraded" kids there are, who are not going to graduate at all, or on time. Report what percentage of kids labeled SPED for any reason ever leave SPED. Do even 10 percent? 20 percent? Doesn't the incentive seem to be to get struggling learners into SPED and leave them there, just because that label brings the school district more money? Shouldn't there be a DISINCENTIVE for nonmedical SPED labeling? A switch to proper phonics, K-3, would improve the children's skills and behavior patterns so much that they could go back to the regular classroom. We could probably reduce the SPED rolls by at least 50 percent over the next five years, making hundreds and hundreds of kids feel better about themselves and saving untold millions of dollars. Try it, OPS! You'll like it!

8. Reduce overstaffing.

OPS should identify and reduce its overstaffing, especially in nonclassroom jobs.

9. Repeal early retirement for school employees.

OPS and other districts around the state should 'fess up that the lavish teacher retirement law they got the Legislature to pass a few years ago is 'way too expensive and has driven most of the good, experienced teachers out of the classroom. Under the "Rule of 85," if you reach age 55 with 30 years of teaching experience, you can retire with full pension. Many people are choosing to resume teaching on a contract basis . . . so they are drawing, say, 75 percent of their salary in the form of their pension PLUS whatever they make as a private-contractor teacher or district employee. WUZZUP WITH DAT? OPS should reveal how much this change has cost taxpayers, work to get the law changed, and go back to full retirement at age 65.

10. Insurance.

Health insurance is significantly cheaper for school district employees than for those who work in private-sector jobs and pay the taxes to cover those skyrocketing costs of health care for our education workers. But the public has no idea about this perk. OPS should release a meaningful report on its coverages and costs so that the public can see a straight-up comparison. One reason school salaries are justifiably a little less is that the fringe benefits are so much better, and the difference is more than made up with cheaper health insurance. A change to more reasonable premiums and deductibles would save taxpayers substantial money and go a long way toward restoring the public trust in OPS' willingness to treat taxpayers fairly. They need to prove they recognize that our dollars mean as much to us as theirs do to them. That's the only healthy response, in today's economy.

Posted 11:20 AM by Susan Darst Williams

FIFTEEN GRAND PER PUPIL? UFF DA!

According to p. 50 of the 2002-03 budget of the Omaha Public Schools, posted online at www.ops.org:

-- OPS is spending $15,419.82 per pupil this year.

-- OPS is spending $306,935 per classroom.

-- OPS is spending $8.7 million per school.

The total OPS budget reported to the State of Nebraska comes to $705,950,424. Key pieces of that are the $331 million operating budget and $230 million in construction spending. The rest goes for everything from debt service to school lunches to contingencies. OPS reports 2,300 classrooms and 81 schools.

Also note that, according to financial reports OPS makes to the state, it has $88.7 million in its various cash funds.

The latest test scores from the 22 OPS schools that are in the lower-income neighborhoods of the city reveal some difficult truths about academic achievement, despite that level of spending. In some fifth and sixth grades, two-thirds of the children scored below the 23rd percentile in reading on the California Achievement Test. Black children in the inner city scored nearly 40 percentile points below the average of all white children within OPS.

The figures show, once again, that more spending does not translate into better learning. It's not the money; it's the method. By giving OPS more money, you perpetuate a method that clearly doesn't work. The test scores caused one of Omaha's most faithful and financially generous school supporters, Jerry Hoberman, to sigh: "It's unacceptable where we're at now. We're failing the children."

The truth hurts. Another tax increase would, too.

Does that put things in better perspective for the Nov. 5 decision on OPS' request for another property tax increase, and more money?

Don't feel guilty.
They've been greedy
For themselves,
And not the needy.

Vote "NO" to the OPS tax increase.

Posted 4:42 PM by Susan Darst Williams

Nebraskans: Technological Santa Clauses For Schools

Nebraska ranks 6th in the country in the number of students per Internet-connected computer, and 5th in the ratio of students per instructional computer.

We have only 5.1 students per Internet-connected computer and a mere 3.7 students per instructional computer. That has cost a whopping amount of money.

Technology, which is both capital- and staff-intensive in schools, is a key reason why K-12 education has exploded nationwide in spending from $250 billion to more than $310 billion in the past decade, in constant 1999 dollars, while enrollments really haven't increased very much.

These factoids are from Governing Magazine's 2002 statistical supplement, Source Book.

So if you vote "no" to the OPS tax increase, or any other increased spending in public schools, don't feel like Scrooge. The facts show Nebraska taxpayers have been a downright Santa Claus of generosity to schools. It's time to recognize that there's no room left under the tree. Enough is enough.

Ho, ho, ho!
Let's vote "no." :>)

Posted 10:23 AM by Susan Darst Williams

Education Short Takes

So many education stories, so little time: here’s what’s going on, short but sweet.

Be sure to visit http://www.GoBigEd.blogspot.com to mark the progress of the fight against the OPS tax increase that will be on the Nov. 5 ballot. Blocking it would inspire grassroots opposition to new taxes pushed by school districts across the state . . . and the fresh winds of fiscal accountability and a focus on cost-effective academics would sweep across the plains.

We hope. :>)

If I can use your name on a list of opposition to the OPS tax increase Nov. 5, please email me to that effect: swilliams1@cox.net

Please forward this to anyone interested in Nebraska education issues. Cheers!

-- Susan


Election Day Education Picks

Please consider last-minute donations to these worthy candidates in key education-related races. They will stand for children’s best interests and doing what’s right for all of us:

State Board of Education

Omaha area: Kathryn Piller (kkpiller@yahoo.com) faces a war chest of teachers’ union money given to her opponent, Joe Higgins, that totaled $8,288 as of May (see www.followthemoney.org). The Nebraska State Education Association didn’t even interview Ms. Piller, a highly-effective incumbent who made her mark as a courageous school leader who stood up to the educrats in the South High School student violence debacle a few years ago and has a distinguished voting record on the State Board of Ed. Why wouldn’t the union support such a strong incumbent? Because she won’t knuckle under to them, and Higgins, a past NSEA president and NEA official, always has and always will. He led the charge in the Legislature for the ill-advised and incredibly expensive early-retirement bill for educators. Our kids today are paying dearly in the classroom for the union’s “Rule of 55” (full pension at age 55 with 30 years of teaching) which caused an exodus of the state’s best teachers out of our schools and saddled taxpayers with enormous ongoing teacher retirement costs. His ideas are straight out of the 1960s, while Ms. Piller is young and an education professional who knows first-hand about today’s challenges. He’s the past, and she’s the future. Vote for KATHRYN PILLER.

Western Nebraska: Kathy Wilmot (kwilmot@swnebr.net and www.kathywilmot.com) is another great incumbent who should be kept on that board. She’s for local control, a focus on academics instead of socialized schooling, and fiscal accountability. Her opponent, Kandy Imes, also is union-backed, with $4,000 from the NSEA donated as of last May. Mrs. Wilmot’s able leadership about abstinence-only sex education was vindicated bigtime earlier this month by the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, www.medinstitute.org, in a report that proves that the way schools teach sex ed is anything but safe for kids. She also has been a leader in making sure schools practice the Americanism provisions in state law. Her leadership should be rewarded. Put KATHY WILMOT back in office.

State Legislature

District 10, northwest Omaha: Mike Friend (mfriend61@juno.com or www.mikefriend.net) is a good conservative who faces a heavily-financed, liberal opponent in Deb Suttle. She’s vice chairman of the Legislature’s Education Committee but has basically followed the union party line instead of making decisions that would improve learning for children. Put MIKE FRIEND in her place.

District 38, south-central Nebraska, Scott Scheierman (shy@inebraska.com and www.scottfordistrict38.com) is a highly-principled young farmer and father who is a fiscal conservative and would represent the best interests of individual voters rather than special-interest groups. The incumbent, Ed Schrock, has accepted the party line of the education establishment in the Legislature’s Education Committee. This would be a good chance to knock off a big spender from that key committee and put a true conservative in the Unicameral. Vote for SCOTT SCHEIERMAN.



OPS Cash Funds Total $88.7 Million

A check of the annual financial report posted online for the Omaha Public Schools at http://ess.nde.state.ne.us/SchoolFinance/AFR/search/afr.htm shows that the total amount held as cash in their various funds, including the operating fund, is $88.7 million.

You’d think a modest reduction in that would be enough to cover any extra spending over the next few years. With that amount of cash in hand, the demand by OPS for voters to let them override the Legislature’s reasonable spending lid for the next five years is puzzling.

An Omaha-area tax advocate looked at that $88.7 million figure in cash reserves, and said:

“Don’t just tax me to put it in the BANK!”


Lincoln Public Schools Grants Raises

According to the Oct. 9 Lincoln Journal (www.journalstar.com) the board of the Lincoln Public Schools has approved raises of 6.02 percent for its instructional staff this year and 6.25 percent for next year.

The board also approved equal percentage raises for its district executive team this year and a 4.5 percent raise for Superintendent Phil Schoo. His pay and benefits package total $160,301: a salary of $143,931, car allowance of $5,310, fringe benefit allowance of $5,310, tax-sheltered annuity of $11,500, and longevity stipend of $3,250.

Other top salaries:

Marilyn Moore, associate superintendent for instruction, $122,555; Dennis Van Horn, associate superintendent for business affairs, $103,261; Nancy Biggs, assistant superintendent for human resources, $105,161; Virgil Horne, administrative assistant to the superintendent, $108,042. All have additional benefits of car allowances, longevity stipends and fringe allowances; all but Horne have tax-sheltered annuities and life insurance policies.

According to the Lincoln Independent Business Association, over the past four years, inflation totaled 10.2 percent while LPS compensation grew by 27 percent. This year's teacher and administrator salary increases in LPS were roughly twice that of local private industry, a group spokesman said.


Are Educrats Acting . . . Adolescent?

State Auditor Kate Witek spoke to the Southwest Omaha Women’s Republican Club Wednesday and said, “Adolescence is becoming a norm in America, and it’s alarming.” Think of the educrats when you consider her definition of how adolescents act:

“They want to do what they want to do but they want you to pay for it.”

Now that the Omaha Public Schools’ budget tops a half-billion dollars and yet they’re coming back to voters Nov. 5 to override a reasonable lid on spending for even more . . . should we send some Clearasil and headphones for the OPS staff?

The Southwest Omaha Women’s GOP Club meets on the fourth Wednesday of the month at the Millard Library. To check the schedule and for more information, email Lisa Botkin, membership chairman, lisa@botkin.org


Be sure to visit http://www.GoBigEd.blogspot.com and read last week’s stories:

Go Big Ed: A Better Game Plan for Nebraska’s Children and Schools . . . Go Big Ed becomes a PAC; email me at swilliams1@cox.net to join, with or without a donation. Also let me know if I can use your name on a list in opposition to the OPS tax increase Nov. 5.

Repairing the Damage Schools Cause . . . Private tutor Rhonda Couch of Bennington is doing for kids what the public schools haven’t: teaching them to read.

The Lie About School Spending . . . Nebraska ranks 10th in academic achievement, but only 32nd in school spending, proving once again that giving schools more money does not correlate to improved learning for kids.

OPS Spending Tops a Half-Billion Dollars . . . $311 million in the operating fund plus $233 million in construction spending figures out to $13,500 in spending per pupil. Uff da!

Can OPS Avoid the Great Paradox of Education Spending? . . . see some great stats from the American Legislative Exchange Council, www.ALEC.org, which debunk the claims of the educrats by showing that some of the states that spend the least on education and have the largest class sizes have the highest student achievement.

Is OPS Making Kids ‘Special Ed’ On Purpose? . . . How much of that $47.5 million a year is for true special-needs kids with medically-diagnosable conditions, and how much goes for phony learning disabilities that weren’t there when the child started school and would be cured with proper teaching methods?

Have We Been Generous Or Stingy With OPS? . . . by the 2000-01 school year, total value of the buildings and contents within OPS had reached $246.3 million, a 45 percent increase in eight years. Don’t feel guilty about voting “no” on Nov. 5; you haven’t been Ebeneezer Scrooge, you’ve been Santa Claus!

OPS Spending Per Pupil Up 37% in 8 Years . . . operations alone reached $6,914.95 per pupil by the 2000-01 school year, and with increases since then and construction costs added on top, it comes to $13,500 per child.

OPS: Why It’s Your Fight, Too . . . it used to be that the lion’s share of school spending came from local sources, especially property taxes. Well, now property taxes make up less than one-half of the school spending honey pot. The rest comes from state and federal tax sources. If you pay state and federal taxes, you’re an OPS patron, and what happens there Nov. 5 will affect your pocketbook.

Let’s Roll! . . . that was the exhortation from an early contributor to the Go Big Ed campaign fund against the OPS tax increase. Things are rolling, all right . . . but please send a donation ASAP to cover ad buys and campaigning. The election is Nov. 5. Alert me at swilliams1@cox.net if your Go Big Ed contribution is coming to P.O. Box 995, Elkhorn, NE 68022. Thanks! And . . . Go Big Ed!

Posted 11:45 PM by Susan Darst Williams

GO BIG ED: A BETTER GAME PLAN FOR NEBRASKA'S CHILDREN AND SCHOOLS

GO BIG ED is now a Political Action Committee! I've opened a checking account and am filing a Statement of Organization with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission. Names of donors to the Go Big Ed campaign against the OPS tax increase on the Nov. 5 ballot still don't have to be disclosed.

The point is, Nebraska needs a network of parents, taxpayers, educators and others who care about our children and our schools and want the very best for them. This PAC, backed up by stories and information on this web log, can inform and unite us and influence public opinion in a positive way. So Go Big Ed will become an ongoing voice in the Nebraska education scene, and I hope you'll be a part of it.

If I may use your name in a list of Go Big Ed supporters, please email me at swilliams1@cox.net and let me know. I'd like to publish this list a few days before the Nov. 5 election.

Email me your story ideas and leads on sources, too.

Also, please share this web log address with friends and colleagues and add more names to our weekly email list.

You can support efforts to stop the multimillion dollar spending-lid override by the Omaha Public Schools that will be on the Nov. 5 ballot in OPS. Contribute TODAY to the campaign against it. Your confidential donation should be made out to Go Big Ed and sent to:

Go Big Ed
P. O. Box 995
Elkhorn, NE 68022

I would appreciate an email from you ASAP alerting me to how much you are sending so that we can plan our ad "buys" as soon as possible.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

=====================================================

Repairing the Damage Schools Cause

There’s a wonderful private tutor who has opened shop in Bennington and is doing what special education teachers with master’s degrees employed at great expense in the public schools have not been able to do:

She’s teaching them to read.

She’s Rhonda Couch, and her business, The Learning Center, 15316 S. 2nd St., 238-2600, is filled up with kids of all ages after school into the evenings. They’re kind of like boat people . . . refugees from failed public-school methods. They are filling up the classrooms of tutors like Mrs. Couch as a desperate last resort by parents who have realized that the public schools aren’t delivering what their children need in order to learn.

Instead of glitzy computer labs and high-priced edu-tech, the kids that Mrs. Couch tutors use simple cardboard phonogram cards, spiral notebooks and pencils. They sit at $1 desks and 50-cent chairs that Mrs. Couch bought, ironically, from a public school’s service center, saving them from the dumpster. The building is pretty old and tired.

“But do you know what?” Mrs. Couch said. “These kids are learning really, really well in this room.”

She doesn’t have a bunch of fancy education credentials, but she is something rare and precious in Nebraska: certified to teach the world’s best intensive, systematic, explicit phonics . . . Spalding. The secret is in how the kids are taught to “hear, see, say and write” the phonograms that make up words, instead of the silent sight reading in use in so many public-school classrooms today.

Phonics readers are taught to learn to read while writing and reciting the sounds out loud. They use all of their senses to get that crucial foundational skill with language that is denied them in public schools. Why don’t they get good language training there? Because most public schools use whole language reading instruction, which is unsystematic, haphazard, relies on guesses and subjective “cues” and denies kids proper phonics.

It’s sad, but true: you can’t learn to read properly in a public-school classroom that costs us $7,000 a year per pupil . . . but you CAN learn to read if you go to a private tutor and pay much, much less to learn much, much more in a lot less time.

Charging a modest $240 for 16 sessions of reading, math or both, Mrs. Couch cites success stories like these:

-- Two dropouts from the Omaha Public Schools who left in seventh and ninth grades, respectively, but are going to earn their GEDs because of her program.

-- A boy going into fifth grade in a local public school whose reading skills were so bad, the only word he could recognize accurately was “the.” After a summer with Mrs. Couch, he was working at grade level, all the way up to fifth grade . . . a five-year improvement after just a few dozen hours of instruction.

-- A third-grader who had been labeled “learning disabled” and had a major attitude problem, but within a few weeks, he was getting 100 percent on spelling tests. His mother marked the day he started working with Mrs. Couch as the day he quit crying and complaining about headaches and stomachaches every morning because he didn’t want to go to school.

No wonder he didn’t want to go to school, before: he knew he was smart, but because he couldn’t read and write very well, it looked like he was dumb. That would give anybody an attitude problem.

Mrs. Couch puts it this way: “These kids are not stupid. They’re anything but. All they need is a foundation. They’re not getting it in schools, and parents need to start demand accountability for the money schools are getting. By giving schools more and more money, we’re rewarding them for doing the wrong things.”

She said of the kids with reading problems: “They are not ‘learning disabled.’ They are being disabled by the curriculum and the instructional methods that simply do not work.”

She learned that truth from former Omahan Linda Weinmaster, also a Spalding tutor in Lawrence, Kan., who was a driving force behind the spread of phonics in Nebraska and led many desperate parents to tutors like Mrs. Couch and the best-known private school for transforming struggling learners into solid learners, the Phoenix Academy in west Omaha’s Rockbrook Village.

Mrs. Couch got started with Spalding after her own son was labeled “special ed” in the early grades in the Millard schools, reversed course after a year at the Millard Core Academy and homeschooling, and now is scoring in the 80th percentile in all subjects in public school . . . because his mother learned how to do the job that schools are supposed to, and taught him to read.

Mrs. Couch said she has met many public-school teachers who are angry and ashamed that they could be in the teaching profession for so many years, with advanced degrees and so forth, and yet not know something as basic as how to teach a child to read. Mrs. Couch tries to make them feel less guilty by pointing out that it’s the fault of the teachers’ colleges for not teaching them the skills they need, and of school district leadership for not insisting that the very best methods be used.

She tries to ease the guilt of parents by asking them one simple question, no matter how old the struggling student is who is brought to her for tutoring:

“The first question I ask is, ‘Before this child started school, ‘way back during preschool and before kindergarten, did you have any concerns at all about his or her ability to learn? Any concerns about gross motor skills, or any clues that there would be problems ahead?'”

She said, “The answer is always ‘no.’ The kids are OK when they start in public school. It’s the bad methods that are being used on them that are hurting so many of them and keeping them stuck in special ed, mainly because there’s money in it for the schools. The stigma of that is just horrendous.”

She said one mother used this analogy with the school officials who wanted to keep her son doing the same things this year in special ed that didn’t work for him last year:

“She said, ‘My son is in the ocean and he’s drowning, and you’re the only ones with a life preserver . . . but you’re not giving it to him.”

Mrs. Couch is, and at a fraction of the cost of public school instruction.

She’s a life saver . . . and she proves, once again, that it’s not the money that matters in the educational process, it’s the method that is used, and the loving hearts and hands that are making it happen for kids.

----------------------------------------

Tutor Rhonda Couch has a fresh way to respond to the request by OPS officials for a multimillion dollar spending-lid override in the Nov. 5 election. She said, “An average person cannot go to the employer and said, ‘You know, I have all these bills and I maxed out my credit cards. You have to give me more money.’ So why should the schools be doing that? We need to hold them accountable and until they are, we shouldn’t be giving them any more money.”

Posted 10:15 PM by Susan Darst Williams

The Lie About School Spending

It’s getting to be Election Eve, and the hot air is whooshing around from teachers’ unions and other pro-spenders that schools need more money, and they need it now.

But a big new study by the nation’s association of state legislators proves that there is no correlation between giving schools more money and improving student achievement.

Nebraska’s rankings published in the study prove that. The Cornhusker State was ranked 10th in a measure of academic achievement among states . . . and 32nd in per-pupil spending.

The data debunk the old claim that if you give the schools more money, the kids will get better educations. The states whose schools ranked near the top in academics were in the middle in terms of amount spent per pupil.

Because of the findings of its study, the American Legislative Exchange Council has joined the growing crowd of education advocates who are calling for a halt to the spending spree for K-12 education. They urge a return to the methods of schooling that will promote high student achievement, good discipline, and adequate accountability to parents and taxpayers.

“Report Card on American Education: A State-by-State Analysis 1976-2001” is available on http://www.ALEC.org

To demonstrate the folly of the proposed tax-lid override in the Omaha Public Schools, which would bring multimillions of new dollars into OPS coffers “for the kids,” I took a look at the top 10 states ranked by ALEC in terms of academic achievement and traced how they ranked in per-pupil expenditures.

If OPS is right, and more money creates smarter kids, then the top 10 in spending ought to be the top 10 in achievement.

But that’s not what the facts show.

Here are the top 10 states ranked academically based on SAT, ACT and National Assessment of Educational Progress math test scores, with their ranking for per-pupil expenditures:

State - academic rank & per-pupil spending rank

Wisconsin 1 & 11

Washington 2 & 20

Minnesota 3 & 14

Iowa 4 & 31

Montana 5 & 28

Kansas 6 & 23

New Hampshire 7 & 25

Massachusetts 8 & 5

Oregon 9 & 6

Nebraska 10 & 32

The average per-pupil spending rank for the top 10 academically was about 20th place.

One of the most telling statistics in the study was the ranking of the public schools in the District of Columbia. They ranked dead in academic achievement but eighth in per-pupil spending.

ALEC pointed out that, of the 10 states that increased per pupil expenditures the most over the past two decades (West Virginia, Kentucky, Connecticut, South Carolina, Maine, Hawaii, Tennessee, Vermont, Indiana, and Georgia), none ranked in the top ten in academic achievement.

One of the key reasons school districts ask for more money is to reduce the staff-to-child ratio, which the public believes will improve quality. But the ALEC study showed that of the 10 states that reduced class sizes the most over the past two decades (Maine, Alabama, Virginia, Hawaii, South Carolina, West Virginia, Wyoming, New York, Georgia and North Carolina) none ranked in the top ten in academic achievement.

So over the next couple of weeks, if OPS claims it needs more money to reduce class sizes and improve academic achievement, and that one follows another like night follows day, ask ‘em what planet that correlation comes from.

Answer: Planet Don’t Think, Just Give Us More Dough . . . “For the Kids.” :>)

Posted 6:27 PM by Susan Darst Williams

OPS Spending Tops a Half-Billion Dollars

The Omaha Public Schools has posted its 2002-03 budget on its website, http://www.ops.org

It's a 179-page book, but you can scroll around within it and get a better idea of where the money goes.

This budget year, OPS topped the half-billion dollar mark for the first time. The $582.9 million in total spending includes a 6.73 percent increase in the general fund to $311 million, plus $233.1 million in spending on construction. Those projects are associated with the $254 million bond issue that voters gave OPS in 1999 and other building and capital spending.

Total OPS spending now comes to more than $13,500 per pupil with the construction spending added in.

--------------------

It's almost incredible, but OPS is coming to voters Nov. 5 asking for MORE money. They are seeking voter approval of an override of the Legislature's spending lid on property taxes. To help fight this tax increase, send a confidential donation of any size to:

Susan Williams
P.O. Box 995
Elkhorn, NE 68022

Email me at swilliams1@cox.net with any questions or ideas.

Progress reports will be posted on Go Big Ed every few days. Please help: the "yes" team has a paid fund-raiser and reportedly has a $30,000 war chest. We have volunteers (how about you?) and a fund-raising goal of $4,999.99 so that we don't have to mess with any paperwork.

Won't you give $25 or $100 to help make a half-billion dollar school district hold the line on spending?

Thanks!

Posted 10:48 PM by Susan Darst Williams

Can OPS Avoid the Great Paradox of Education Spending?

Nebraska ranks 10th among the states in a ranking of academic achievement done by the American Legislative Exchange Council . . . but ranks just 32nd in per-pupil spending, according to the same group.

That's a typical example of the paradox of education spending: people believe that more money creates better schools, but when you look at the data, you see that it doesn't.

Most of the highest-spending states in the nation are nowhere near the top in the academic achievement rankings, the ALEC study showed. None of the 10 states that increased their spending the most over the past 20 years ranked in the top 10 in academic achievement. Neither did any of the 10 states that cut their pupil-to-teacher ratio the most.

More money and smaller class sizes may make good campaign rhetoric . . . but they don't really improve school quality or educational achievement, the facts show.

Are you listening, OPS voters? This is just one more reason to vote "no" to the spending-lid override that will be on your Nov. 5 ballot.

When you follow the money, you find that more of it doesn't produce better schools. Hope OPS voters recognize that and save themselves many millions of unnecessary dollars come Nov. 5.

--------------------------------------

Source: "Report Card on American Education: A State-by-State Analysis," downloadable from http://www.ALEC.org

Posted 12:36 PM by Susan Darst Williams

Is OPS Making Kids "Special Ed" On Purpose?

Let's see. How to put this nicely?

Indications are that officials of the Omaha Public Schools are inappropriately coding students as "learning disabled" to make up for, and mask the consequences of, regular education programs that are deficient, and also because designating more students as "special ed" brings more money into school district bank accounts.

Not clear enough? OK. Let's tell it like it is:

OPS is ripping off both students and taxpayers by getting paid for academically disabling a significant percentage of the next generation.

BIFF! BAM! POW!

The truth hurts. But there it is.

Spending on special ed instruction, transportation, Title I remediation and preschool programs in OPS cost $47.5 million in the 2000-01 school year, the most recent figures available on the State Education Department's financial reporting website, http://ess.nde.state.ne.us/SchoolFinance/AFR/search/afr.htm

A little under $1 out of every $5 OPS spent that year went for special education. Beyond that, there are enormous cascading consequences of the additional staff, facilities and indirect costs of the special ed program that aren't accounted for in the special ed funding categories.

SPED spending in OPS increased from $37.4 million in the 1992-93 school year, the online annual reports show. That's a 27 percent increase in eight years. Are that many more kids coming to school with birth defects and serious health problems compared to past years? Or are there some funky definitions going on with special ed in order to latch on to the partial federal reimbursement that is offered for the educations of the children who fit under the various SPED categories, including "learning disabilities."

Meanwhile, taxpayers pay the freight for SPED and feel good about it, thinking that the more money we spend on the poor little kids in wheelchairs, the better we're serving their needs.

But the lion's share of that money isn't going for truly disabled students. Think about it: are there that many students in OPS who start off in school with medical problems that interfere with their ability to learn? You know . . . mental retardation, speech problems, physical handicaps, mental illnesses. . . .

Of course not. Most of the special-ed kids have nothing wrong with them, at least not that which is medically diagnosable in an objective sense.

Most special-ed kids are labeled "learning disabled." But they weren't born that way.

They were MADE to be disabled by the wrong curriculum and instructional methods in OPS and the federally-funded preschool programs that feed into it. I'm talking about Head Start, Title I and the whole language / whole math / child-centered education philosophy that has OPS and most other public school districts in an intellectual chokehold.

The "cure" for dyslexia is to be taught to read with phonics.

The "cure" for attention deficit disorder is good curriculum, taught in an orderly way in a disciplined classroom by a teacher who cares very much about the children, but whose training and focus is on doing what is effective, not just enjoyable, and that which will develop them academically.

The "cure" for behavior disability and oppositional defiance disorder and all the other labels within the wacky world of learning disabilities is to teach the kids how to read, write and figure correctly in the first place, and then keep offering good curriculum and instructional methods with them as they grow.

Instead, especially with regard to disadvantaged students whose homes can't compensate for deficiencies at school for lack of money, OPS is dumbing them down, limiting their future options, depressing their achievement by denying them what they need from school, and literally driving some of them crazy.

How could this have happened, especially since we've spent so much money on education in the last generation?

There are a lot of reasons, chief among them the teacher's colleges, which have ignored reality for years.

OPS is certainly not alone in ignoring the clear results of the biggest educational research study ever done. The $1 billion Project Follow Through, launched to chart the best course for President Johnson's War On Poverty programs, clearly found that traditional schooling in the early grades, K-3 or so, worked best for disadvantaged kids, and all kids.

Preschool should be just that: preparation for school in age-appropriate ways, not the social service agency, group therapy and political correctness indoctrination holding tank that Head Start has become.

What Project Follow Through found to be best for grades K-3 is an orderly classroom with the teacher clearly in charge, kids paying attention to the teacher, and explicit, systematic, orderly delivery of instruction in phonics, penmanship, recitation, math computation and lots of reps in reading, writing and arithmetic.

Instead, OPS and most other districts went the completely opposite way, making the K-3 grades a lot like the child-centered Head Start and special ed models. Expectations are pretty low. Kids are sprawled around on the floor trying to write with their pencils jammed in their fists and paper willy-nilly. For the most part in the early grades, they are reading mindless, preprogrammed "readers" keyed to the 14 new words they are expected to learn per year.

A phonics reader's vocabulary totals about 50,000 words by the end of high school. A whole language reader's vocabulary tends to be a fraction of that . . . some put it as low as 5,000 words.

A phonics reader tends to read and write with close to 100 percent accuracy. A whole language reader tends to reverse letters within words and words within sentences, skips lines of text, can't comprehend text with unfamiliar words that haven't been memorized, and gets eye strain because of faulty visual perception habits that set in for lack of phonics, to the point where, for many kids, reading becomes a chore instead of a productive pleasure.

It goes on. A traditional math student's computation skills positions the student for abstract, higher-order math operations like algebra, trigonometry and calculus because the student has mastered the basics. But that's not how they're being taught in OPS. Their curriculum is the "whole math" approach. A whole math student's computation skills in high school are too weak for even grade-school level math because those basics weren't delivered properly in the early grades. Without the logic and analytical discipline that comes from mastering the basics, and without competent reading ability in the upper grades, the student can't handle higher-order science such as biology, chemistry and physics, either.

No wonder the 59 percent of the students within OPS whose family income is under the poverty line aren't doing very well in school, despite the fact that taxpayers are pouring more and more money into them.

They're being held back to the point where they can be labeled "special ed" and OPS can qualify for additional outside tax funding, beyond state aid and property taxes.

There's nothing wrong with the kids. Look at the accomplishments of many generations of Americans who came before them but grew up with much more poverty than we have today.

More and more people are waking up to the fact that schools weren't "rewarded" for having more and more special-ed kids in past generations, and that is is why past generations didn't have anywhere near as many kids with learning problems as we do today.

They're being set up to be learning disabled.

Follow the money, and you'll see it.

If people vote "yes" on Nov. 5 and give OPS still more money and the green light to keep on doing what they're doing, it's only going to get worse.

Posted 10:43 AM by Susan Darst Williams

Have We Been Generous or Stingy With OPS?

It would be easy to vote "yes" on the tax-lid override in the Omaha Public Schools on Nov. 5 if you believed that taxpayers have been mean and stingy with tax funding for school facilities.

You know: the poor little kiddies have to read by candlelight, school walls are fashioned out of hay bales and corncobs, and they have to write with chalk on slates because they can't afford computers.

Look at the facts:

In the 1992-93 school year, total value of the buildings and their contents within OPS was $169.6 million.

By the 2000-01 school year, that had grown to $246.3 million . . . a 45 percent increase in eight years.

Figures are from the OPS annual financial reports posted online by the State Department of Education at http://ess.nde.state.ne.us/SchoolFinance/AFR/search/afr.htm

Taxpayers who vote "no" to still more money for OPS shouldn't feel a bit guilty about it. We've been very generous. The question is, have they been good stewards of our money?

Posted 4:17 PM by Susan Darst Williams

OPS Spending Per Pupil Up 37% in Eight Years

The Omaha Public Schools increased its spending by $1,863.19 per pupil in eight years, a 37 percent increase, according to online financial records of the Nebraska State Department of Education.

In the 1992-93 school year, OPS was spending $5,051.76 per pupil based on average daily attendance.

In the 2000-01 school year, the most recent one posted online, that had increased to $6,914.95 per pupil.

See for yourself: http://ess.nde.state.ne.us/SchoolFinance/AFR/search/afr.htm

Enrollment during the eight-year period grew by a minimal amount, so substantially more students to serve isn't why spending increased.

Spending increased because nobody's putting the brakes on OPS. But voters will have a chance Nov. 5, with the multimillion dollar tax increase OPS has put on the ballot.

The evidence is clear: more spending does not equate to more learning. On the other hand, better-managed spending will produce better student achievement.

So what message should we send OPS on Nov. 5?

Spend more? Or spend what we're already giving you more wisely?


===================

Donate (confidentiality guaranteed) to Go Big Ed's ad campaign against the OPS tax increase:

Susan Williams
P.O. Box 995
Elkhorn, NE 68022

Thanks!

Posted 12:12 PM by Susan Darst Williams

OPS: Why It's Your Fight, Too

If you don't live within the borders of the Omaha Public Schools, you can't vote "yes" or "no" on the multimillion dollar tax-lid override coming up Nov. 5.

But it's still your fight.

That's because less than half of what OPS spends each year comes from local sources, chiefly local property taxes. The rest comes from taxes people pay to the state and federal governments.

According to the most-recent OPS annual reports on file online, OPS took in $300.1 million overall, and $146.2 million of that was from local receipts of all kinds. Of that, about 82 percent, or $120 million, was from taxes on homes, apartments and commercial buildings in the OPS taxing area.

The other funding sources included $124.3 million from state sources of all kinds. Note that that is more than the total from local property taxes. Chiefly, state income to OPS came in the form of $94 million in state aid to education, with another $20 million plus in various special education funding from the state.

Last, but not least, there's federal tax funding, which totaled $26.1 million, including about $10 million in Title I remediation funding targeted at disadvantaged kids, which has been controversial across the country because Title I methods appear to be making things worse, not better, for our neediest students, including in OPS.

See the OPS annual report at:

http://ess.nde.state.ne.us/SchoolFinance/AFR/search/afr.htm

Even if you don't live in OPS or own property there, it is, too, your business how they spend our money.

====================

Give to the Go Big Ed ad campaign to fight the OPS tax-levy override. Send confidential donations ASAP to:

Susan Williams
P.O. Box 995
Elkhorn, NE 68022

Posted 11:34 AM by Susan Darst Williams

Let's Roll!

That was the battle cry of one contributor to the Go Big Ed fund to fight the OPS tax levy override. It takes considerably less courage to send a check for $25 or $100 to an ad campaign than to try to stop crazed terrorists in mid-air.

But who's to say this fight isn't just as important? The outcome Nov. 5 will affect tens of thousands of children in Omaha and the surrounding state for years to come.

If we want better educations for those kids, we have to take back control of our public schools . . . now. And to do it, we have to take control of their spending, and direct it in the right ways, toward what kids really need.

Won't you help?

Donations are confidential for everyone in the universe except you and me. They stand at $550 with a goal of $4,999.99 so I don't have to fill out a bunch of forms, as is required once you hit the $5,000 mark. :>) Ads will begin appearing in print and on the radiowaves about a week before the Nov. 5 election.

Please tell your friends about this opportunity to draw the line on school spending, and forward the Go Big Ed blog address to them.

And send your check to "Susan Williams" just as soon as possible to:

Susan Williams
P.O. Box 995
Elkhorn, NE 68022

It would help if donors would email me at swilliams1@cox.net so that I know the money is coming.

Thanks!

LET'S ROLL!!!

Posted 12:51 PM by Susan Darst Williams

Want to Help Fight the OPS Tax Increase?

Go Big Ed has agreed to collect donations for a short but sweet advertising campaign to encourage voters within the Omaha Public Schools to vote against the spending-lid override that will be on the Nov. 5 ballot.

If the tax increase passes in OPS, the domino effect across Nebraska might raise school taxes significantly for years to come. But if OPS voters hold the line on spending, that would send a positive message across the state.

A campaign is planned combining humorous radio ads and print ads directing voters to http://www.GoBigEd.blogspot.com to learn more about the issue up to Election Day.

The ads are being designed by Iowa consultant Paul Dorr, who has won 10 of 11 spending-increase battles against school districts in Iowa and Minnesota in recent years. A feature story about Mr. Dorr that appeared in Go Big Ed and other publications earlier this month (see Oct. 9, below) sparked the campaign.

To keep things simple, Go Big Ed would like to collect $4,999.99 and not a penny more. That’s because $5,000 in donations is the threshold at which contributions must be reported to the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission. Donations of any size would be appreciated and names of donors would not be published.

Go Big Ed will post constant updates on the campaign’s progress and will issue a complete accounting after the Nov. 5 election.

To contribute, please send a check to:

Susan Darst Williams
P.O. Box 995
Elkhorn, NE 68022

Thank you, and please tell your friends.

Come on! Let’s go, fight, win! Go Big Ed!

Posted 11:53 AM by Susan Darst Williams

Nebraska Science Standards Making Us Look Like Goobers Again

I was happy to see that Ohio education officials "get it" in the science controversy over the teaching of evolution. The other day, their state board voted to allow academic freedom in Ohio's science classrooms. They are going to put in science standards that will enable local schools and teachers to teach kids about the theory of intelligent design, and to decide whether and when to teach all of the controversies and contradictions about traditional evolutionary theory.

It's called "critical thinking," sports fans.

Ohio's got it. Nebraska doesn't.

This past June, five Nebraska State Board of Education members voted to reject a similar, rational, common-sense change in Nebraska's science standards. It would have allowed evolution to still be taught, of course, only warts and all. Teachers would be encouraged to teach what makes sense about evolution alongside the many, many puzzles, misconceptions, myths and outright hoaxes involved in evolution, too. Assessments would be aligned with this new curricular freedom, instead of the evolution-only standards and assessments we now have.

Our standards now censor out all opposing research and indications that refute and debunk evolution. Kids are being denied the facts. It's really sad to be such goobers on this issue. But there you have it.

Those five people on the State Board misunderstood what is needed -- all sides of the story to be taught in the classroom. If you put all of the scientific theories about life's origins and development on a level playing field, there's no way evolution would win. It is, in the words of the ancient scholars, a goober.

But the other theories need a chance to get in the game. Nebraska isn't letting them in. I guess the five state board members who voted against academic freedom thought if they allowed Nebraska science teachers to prod students to explore the many reasons why evolution can't be true, it would amount to allowing religion in the classroom.

What were they thinking? That Nebraska science teachers would all have to get Big Hair, pound their Bibles and shout "Hallelujah, chillun!" ???

Balderdash.

Just let the kiddies learn science. Don't be afraid to teach them the truth. OK?

The Ohio vote is intelligent, modern, fair and correct.

We look like goobers.

The good news is, two Nebraska State Education Board directors did vote to improve the science standards last June. If you live in western Nebraska or the Omaha area, and your Nov. 5 ballot for the State Board of Ed contains the names of either Kathy Wilmot or Kathryn Piller, rejoice, and vote for their reelection. Tell your friends, too.

And if you live in any other district, ask your incumbents how THEY voted, last June, and new candidates how they WOULD have voted.

If they would have voted with Wilmot and Piller, you want them on your state board.

Get out the vote for those two on Nov. 5.

We need to try again to make Nebraska goober-free.

Posted 9:08 PM by Susan Darst Williams

What If Homeschoolers Hauled Us Into Court?

I have this friend, Rick Otto, who’s a sign designer and a wonderful Christian husband and father in the west-central Omaha area. His son Kenny is approaching age 13 and has been homeschooled since the end of first-grade.

Making the switch to homeschooling has significantly affected both parents’ ability to earn a living, their working hours and so forth. I’m always curious why people make such big decisions, and what’s behind the sacrifice parents make to homeschool their children.

At my request, Otto wrote down why they left public school . . . and why, now, they are thinking about filing a small-claims court case to try to retrieve the tax dollars that would have been spent on their son had they been able to leave him in public school.

I figured they have foregone something like $35,000 worth of tax-funded education by homeschooling their son.

It had never occurred to me that people like them might have a legal claim on that money. But the more I think about it, the more I think:

What a concept!

What if all homeschoolers and private-school families, too, for that matter, suddenly filed small-claims court cases seeking the tax money that would have been spent on their children had they in good conscience been able to leave them in public school?

How many million zillion dollars would we taxpayers be liable for?

If just one family collected, what might that mean?

Could it be . . . gasp! . . . the kind of breakthrough that would finally get the attention of the educators and the policymakers? Might they finally do an about-face and start delivering what we parents and taxpayers want for our children from our public schools?

We’ve tried everything else. Maybe it’s time to take the public schools to court.

It’s sad to say, but maybe we’ve come to that point where the only thing that people understand is money, and the only way to induce public schools to change their way is to threaten to take away their money.

Now, look. I have never been one to encourage lawsuits. I covered the courts for a newspaper for years and saw the misery and strife that goes on with legal wrangling, hearings and lawsuits.

But there also are justice issues at stake, a whole lot of families with values and standards to defend, and a whole lot of children’s futures.

Maybe it is time to use the leverage of the courts to get what we want.

What do YOU think?

You be the judge. Read their story. Should the Ottos get a refund for the five years they’ve homeschooled?

====================

Why the Ottos Left Public School
By Rick Otto

When Kenny was in first grade, he would come home bored to tears and frustrated from havin' to sit on his hands while kids his age were still learnin' to read. Susan Mackerell had helped us with him, as Kenny went to Sword Of The Spirit for kindergarten. Despite the frustration, I'm sure it was gratifying for Ken to see himself as above average. He led the class in their Christmas Show number, and was one of two RingMasters in their "3-Ring Circus Play Production.” But there came an "incident.”

One day when Kenny was standing in line for something, a little girl would not stop pestering him somehow about something, and finally his patience wore out, and he said, "STOP IT, you witch!"

Well, “everyone” thought for sure he said the "B" word, and he was pronounced guilty and sentenced to be punished.

I came home from work that day to find both him and my wife on the couch in anguish over it.

They told me they wanted to quit Public School and start homeschooling. I told them not to do it so quick. It would be better if Ken would take the punishment whether he deserved it or not. Meanwhile, my wife should do the homework necessary to make the transition to homeschooling if need be. That way it wouldn't look like we got mad and stomped off as soon as things didn't go our way.

They bit the bullet, and we waited it out a bit.

Come February, Kenny came home tellin' us about a little girl in his class who was makin' valentines for her TWO mommies.

He already knew it was wack, and why. He was used to hearing us discuss issues in terms of scriptural morality. He was used to being included in what mostly is reserved for "adult" conversation. We hadn't lied to him about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, and he knew the value of diplomacy in witnessing.

We advised him not to make an issue of it, but we soon after attended a Parent-Teacher conference.

At the conference, everything went pretty much as expected with Kenny gettin' mostly high praises for his work. At the end of it, though, she asked us if we had any questions. The last one I asked was about the little girl with the two mommies.

"What's that about?" I tried to say with idle curiosity, trying to be as mild and unthreatening as possible.

"Oh, that's ______,” the teacher replied, “and her mother is a single parent with her lesbian partner living with her."

She unhesitatingly offered that reply.

I kept it cool as I asked her, "Well, how do you handle that? Does it cause any awkward moments in the classroom?"

She said, "Well I was thinking about inviting the two women to class, so they could explain their relationship to the children themselves."

I just calmly nodded my head, and said, "I see. Well, thanks for the conference. I'm glad Kenny is doing well."

On the way out to the car I looked at my wife and said, "NOW you can start homeschooling!"

(Editor’s note: be advised that the Ottos have a number of friends who are homosexuals, and indeed, homosexuals were among the members of their wedding party. So don’t be thinking they are prejudiced or anything like that. Their objections had everything to do with the fact that these are innocent, vulnerable children in a captive, tax-paid situation. The indoctrination of moral choices that are against their family’s religion and standards are what made public-school enrollment intolerable, not the fact that it was homosexuality per se.)

A couple of years later, I managed to get a swing shift position at my job so I could help by teaching Language, Art, and Math in the mornings.

At the beginning of sixth grade (last year) Kenny complained he was bored with adding, subtracting, multiplying and division, even though he got to do it in decimals and fractions with story problems, etc. So I tested him a little by showing him this:

2A+3A=5A

He thought it was cool! So I got out an old Introductory Algebra workbook I had used at Metro Tech back in 1978.

A college textbook for a sixth-grader? He went through that last year, and did really well.

But at the end of the year he said his brain was toasted so this year he's just doing straight seventh-grade math.

I had become frustrated with the lack of real learning involved with the low level arts and crafts Art projects, so I brought out the Art History book that my brother used at Harvard.

We took turns readin' to each other and had fun distilling what we learned into memorable sayings:

"Paleolithic is CAVE Art, Neolithics decorated their HUTS."

We also would alternate with drawing lessons practicing perspective, and rendering the human form. I let him use superheroes, so he really enjoyed it.

====================

So what do you say? On principle, should they get any, some or all of the money back that they passed up to homeschool?