RH Jones: An Alert to a Federal Danger to Our STRS Ohio

From RH Jones, December 15, 2006
Subject: An Alert to a Federal Danger to Our STRS Ohio

To all:

My SummitCRTA Legislative Chair, K. Fluke, PhD, phoned me of the following story in the Wall Street Journal, 12/15/06, Page A4. The byline is: Report calls for the overhaul of the American Education System eliminating local control and funding. The article is written by Robert Tomsho. I do not have a copy at the moment so this is a brief synopsis as Dr. Fluke told it to me: The federal group involved in this report is entitled: Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. The commission includes former governors and cabinet secretaries from both political parties. They want mandatory entrance exams for public colleges. And they call for attracting talented young teachers by increasing salaries while cutting pensions to retirees! And, further, they want to have private contractors to manage and run the American public schools. The Past President of the Toledo Federation of Teachers stated in the article that this would open the doors to entrepreneurial profiteers.

I, personally, applaud the commission on wanting to raise salaries of teachers, but not at the expense of cutting pensions to retirees. Young Americans are attracted not only by good pay, along with good Health Care and Prescription Insurance, but also by a strong Retirement System offering Health Care, Dental, Eye, and Prescription Insurance, while protecting retirees against dollar inflation.

And the commission should realize that mandatory entrance exams will severely hurt those intelligent Americans who happen to panic during tests of this nature. Or they may happen to have a culturally disadvantaged background, or language barrier, but want to better themselves in our American society --These folks pay taxes too, and deserve a try at a public supported college education. The private colleges can do what they want.

The commission is advocating some changes that will call for an host of Discrimination Law suits or for whatever reason. They should stick to the Bill of Rights and our Constitution of the United States. They should consider no changes that may negatively effect the public school system Pre-K-16 that has keep us free for over 200-years.

Robert Hudson Jones, A retired Ohio teacher,

Life member of ORTA, CORE, AEA, NEOEA,OEA/OFT, NEA/AFT

(The article is available to subscribers to the Wall Street Journal. Click here)