OEA opposes increase in teacher licensure fees; but where were they when YOUR MONEY was being squandered?

.........and what's their problem with criminal background checks?

From John Curry, February 29, 2008
Subject: educator licensing taking a sharp increase and the OEA needs to go back to school

It appears as though active educators will be facing a significant increase in licensing for future years. The OEA has apparently gone on record as opposing the placing of this increase on actives' backs. That I can understand.

Where was the OEA when their members dominated the STRS board while wining and dining on educators' monies and failing to properly plan ahead for rapidly increasing healthcare costs like OPERS did? Of course....that whole group of OEA-affiliated STRS Board members went on to get Ohio ethics convictions and we retirees went on to get a trashing of spousal subsidies, didn't we? Where was the OEA news release and appeal to educators when this occurred?

I also find an inaccuracy in one part of the OEA's statement which reads, "OEA asks the State Board of Education to eliminate potential redundancy in the dual FBI and BCI background checks and to urge the state to assume those costs as well." The OEA should be informed that a criminal background check through the Ohio B.C.I. & I. only reveals criminal history of persons who committed crimes in Ohio....guess they didn't believe that potential Ohio educators could have moved to this state after they committed a felony or serious misdemeanor in another state, did they? It wouldn't be the first time!

I do speak from experience as I have both arrested and/or booked in hundreds of prisoners into my county's jail as both a certified law enforcement officer and as a certified correction officer by the State of Ohio during and after retiring from my teaching career. Criminal arrest records and finger prints go to BOTH the Ohio B.C.I. & I. AND the FBI...just like all other states' law enforcement agencies do in this country. Ohio doesn't keep criminal records for those arrested in other states and the other states don't keep records of arrests made in Ohio....that's why arrest records have to be checked out in both the state and federal (FBI) data banks. This is not redundancy, this is reality! The article to which I refer can be viewed here.

John