Saturday, April 07, 2012

CORE to meet April 19, 2012

From CORE, April 4, 2012

CORE (Concerned Ohio Retired Educators) will hold its April meeting on Thursday, April 19, at the STRS building, 275 East Broad Street, Columbus, OH. Parking is available (free) in the STRS parking garage located in the rear of the building, off E. Capital Street.

You are also encouraged to attend the STRS Retirement Board meeting on the same day. It usually begins around 9:00 a.m. in the Board Room on the 6th floor, though the time may vary from month to month. Frequently the meetings have been held most of the day on the following Friday as well as on Thursday. For this reason, we suggest you check the STRS website (www.strsoh.org) to confirm the time.

CORE meeting attendees usually leave the board meeting around 11:30 a.m. to go to the second floor cafeteria to get lunch. We eat in the small room adjacent to the cafeteria, behind the Sublett Room, where the CORE meeting begins promptly at 11:45.

A meeting agenda will be sent out via e-mail before the April 19 meeting. If you have additional suggestions for the agenda, please send them to John Curry at curryjo@watchtv.net.

Friday, April 06, 2012

Like Shakespeare? Read on!

From John Curry, April 5, 2012
(Click image to enlarge.)
Forsooth: Shakespeare Doth Explain School Reform!
By John J. Viall
I'm a retired teacher. So, it could be too much time doth rest upon my idle hands.
I admit I've been filling my days, of late, by setting out to read every single Shakespeare play. And it doesn't take long to see that the Bard still speaks to us today.
Politicians seem to put up new plans to fix America's public schools almost every week. They are stupid plans, in the main, and I believe at least one governor I might easily name fits perfectly this description from England's beloved poet: "He hath not so much brain as ear-wax."
Meanwhile, evidence builds to show that more and more state executives and legislators answer to the beck and call of deep-pocketed far-right conservatives like David and Charles Koch, and do the bidding of the American Legislative Exchange Council, which the two brothers so generously doth fund. Or, as Shakespeare might put it: "They say if money go before, all ways do lie open."
Even politicians who follow the Koch brothers in slavish fashion, and then turn and lash out at teachers, might sound cooler if they spoke in the cadences like the great playwright. Imagine, for example, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, saying to teachers of his state:
"Your hearts I’ll stamp out with my horse’s heels
And make a quagmire of your mingled brains."
IN ANY CASE, WE'VE BEEN HEARING how business methods and business leaders can bring great improvements to the schools. So, here's my idea. Why not apply the principles of No Child Left Behind to stores and factories and see what happens?
By 2014, under No Child Left Behind, every child in this country must be proficient in reading and math, or else schools will be declared "failing" and we can turn them over to business types to be made over in the image of unfettered capitalism.
Here is how the model might also apply to American business. Starting next year, every boss would be held responsible for the quality of the work of every worker. Businesses would run like real public schools. First, they would no longer be allowed to ask job-seekers to fill out applications. If a worker entered the factory gate, they would be required to hire him and turn him into a productive member of society.
Secondly--of course--they couldn't fire anyone. Schools like businesses; businesses like schools.
Imagine a better land, in a better future time and future place, where government measures how well Koch Industries is faring, and requires a company to increase production every year, without fail. Productivity will be measured according to work done by members of different racial categories and sub groups among workers and failure by one group will be proof of failure by the company as a whole, just as schools are judged under No Child Left Behind.
Imagine a conversation something like that which follows, if a company isn't meeting every production standard and benchmark:
Much Ado About School Reform: Act 1 Scene 1:
Falstaff, a fat government agent, visits the Koch plant and delivers the bad news to the billionaire brothers.
FALSTAFF: As I'm sure you doth know, after reading this year's standardized reports, production here at Koch Industries has been deemed "unsatisfactory." Thou must see, that workers with learning disabilities are faring poorly. Forsooth, we're going to have to fire thee both.
CHARLES KOCH: I do beseech thee! You have to understand. You're not letting us pick our workers! You dost expect us to insure that that poor autistic fellow can run a drilling press...but he can't do it, much as we'd like him to....
FALSTAFF: To? Don't you mean: "Too bad?" You have to raise production. You have to get the best out of every worker. Or you're failures.
DAVID KOCH: Ay, marry thee, I can't get that fellow, Claudio, to show up at all. He hath called in sick 49 times this year; and under No Worker Left Behind, you won't let me dispossess him of robust employ.
FALSTAFF: Oh sighs! Oh groans! If you had but created a more stimulating environment employees might have been more motivated to come to work.
CHARLES: Misdoubt me not; cans't thou not give us any breaks? What about that new girl, Juliet? She's drugged out half the time. Forsooth, yesterday she didst drive a forklift over the plant supervisor's foot.
FALSTAFF: Subtle as Sphinx, your arguments are. But we do expect improved production, not improved excuse.
CHARLES: Idle knave! I'm not making excuses. I'm trying to tell you that you must be realistic. What about that John of Gaunt fellow? He has a criminal record a mile long and half-a-mile wide. Last week the shift manager tried to tell him to get busy and Gaunt punched him and broke his jaw. Can't we fire him, at least?
FALSTAFF: No, no. No Worker Left Behind. Verily, he's covered by the Workers with Severe Emotional Disabilities Act. Thou art the boss and if the bees doth not gather nectar, and thy factory isn't functioning to capacity, if any worker doth not produce, who doth thou think we ought to blame?
DAVID: Gaunt, perchance?
FALSTAFF: Don't be absurd.
DAVID: I asketh thee thy understanding. What say thee of that poor homeless varlet who wandered in off the street but yesterday? Doubt not, he be touched in the head; schizophrenic he is, betimes. We tried to tell him how to run the stamping machine and he started talking to some imaginary co-worker or perhaps the Ghost of Christmas Past!
FALSTAFF: Odds bodkins! Thou doth confuse your famous English authors, sir! Dost thou not know what the law requires? Every worker must be productive by 2014. Or else you two brothers are going to get the ax.
CHARLES: Some workers are but lazy sots, you must know. You make us take them all and we can't fire them. How do you expect us to get that girl, Cressida, to do anything? I but turn my back ten minutes and she will disappear and we find her on yon factory roof an hour hence, sound asleepeth.
FALSTAFF: I care not for thine hollow wordlings! Thou art the motivator. It was your job to turn that worker round.
DAVID: Sometimes it seemeth the law is setting bosses up for failure. Six months past we had to take on that Moor, Othello, darkly doth he look, a man who speakest not a speck of English. He speaketh only that clicking language no one here has heretofore heard. We try to tell him what he needs to do but he utters naught but clicking noises.
FALSTAFF: A creative boss finds creative solutions. A creative boss knows language is no barrier. A creative boss sees it as a challenge.
CHARLES: Can't you give us another chance?
FALSTAFF: I'm sorry. We're going to have to let you go.
CHARLES: You whoreson cur!
DAVID: Your guts are made of puddings. I will beat thee into handsomeness.
Exit Falstaff Flying

Thursday, April 05, 2012

ALEC, I think the word is finally out about you!


From John Curry (click image to enlarge)

Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Here's your chance to support Richard Cordray.....I already voted!

From John Curry, April 3, 2012
Please share with a family member, educator, public servant and any other person who knows what Rich did for all public servants as our former Attorney General.
John
P.S. Rich is coming back to run against Kasich in a few years!
Please click on the link below to vote for Rich:

Monday, April 02, 2012

Sign on the wall at the ALEC headquarters?

From John Curry (Click to enlarge.)

Sunday, April 01, 2012

Do any of these Ohio Reps or Senators represent you?

From John Curry, April 1, 2012
If they do, you may want to see their relationship with ALEC. Click on this link for a very eye-opening experience. Maybe they will save you a seat at the next ALEC convention! This is an Adobe download of 88 pages so it took my system about 15 seconds to download.
John
Danny Bubp
Matt Huffman (the father of Ohio's school voucher bills)
Jarrod Martin (he will soon step down as he lost this year in the primary race, he was the shirtless Rep. who was popped by the Ohio Highway Patrol for DUI in southern Ohio...also he was found passed out on the hood of Batchelder's vehicle in the Ohio Statehouse garage)
Robert Mecklenborg (oops...he resigned due to a stripper in his car, viagra in his system and a DUI in Lawrenceburg, IN....all in the same night)
Shannon Jones (the mother of SB 5)
William Seitz
Gerald Stebelton
Lou Blessing
John Adams (ALEC's "go-to" guy in Ohio)
Todd Snitchler
Nan Baker
Jay Hottinger
Rex Damschroeder
Ron Amstutz
Jim Buchy
Dave Burke
STRS Board to meet Thursday, April 19, 2012
Details here.

Next CORE meeting: Thursday, April 19, 2012
Details here.
Larry KehresMount Union Collge
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