Educators ask to be heard by Ohio governor, lawmakers

A friend in local school administration has expressed frustration over HB 512, a bill moving quickly through the Ohio General Assembly. It would give the governor’s office almost complete control over K-12 public education in Ohio and complete control over higher education and workforce development.

This friend believes that educators should regulate education, just as other licensed professionals such as physicians or attorneys regulate their professions. He fears this bill is a partisan power grab by the governor.

He pointed out that a teacher named Kevin Griffin from Dublin, Ohio, has written a letter to the editor of the Columbus Dispatch that articulates the frustration of some educators. Griffin cites “invalid” standardized tests and “misusing test data” to evaluate teachers as some of the recent efforts by government to regulate education. The letter gives you much to think about. The writer says, in part:

“There is not any industry that ignores professionals the way teachers are ignored. If Ohio is serious about helping children, we should listen to the professionals, the ones who actually interact with students every day.”

Here is a link to that letter, though you may have to sign up for a limited free subscription to the Dispatch in order to read it:

http://www.dispatch.com/article/20180320/OPINION/180329960

The Feb. 21 blog entry here offered the Legislative Service Commission analysis of this bill, which is a plain English description of what this law would do. Here is the link once again:

https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/download?key=8763&format=pdf

Why is the government constantly tinkering with education and constantly making mistakes, and constantly leaving educators frustrated? Isn’t there a better way?

Gibbs, Trump cite Obama policy in wake of Parkland slaughter

This headline appeared in my NY Times digital subscription last night:

Trump Finds Unlikely Culprit in School Shootings: Obama Discipline Policies

It sounded familiar. My congressman U.S. Rep. Bob Gibbs, R-Ohio 7th, pointed to the Obama administration when he replied on March 2 to an inquiry I made in late February. It was an inquiry about his views on the subjects of school gun violence and the NRA’s influence on government.

Gibbs, and the president, and, as it turns out, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., have cited an Obama administration program that discouraged school districts from sending minority students to police arrest instead of in-school discipline. You can read the NY Times story at the link below. You can form your own opinion about the Obama policy and whether it had a bearing on the most recent slaughter of school children and teachers in Florida.

I asked both Gibbs and his November opponent, Democrat Ken Harbaugh, to comment on school gun violence and the influence of the NRA on politics. Gibbs did not address the NRA inquiry but pointed out that he is a defender of the Second Amendment.

So am I. The Bill of Rights is the foundation of our citizen freedoms. Our freedoms come with appropriate limits, determined by law and the courts. One appropriate limit might be a limit on weapons of rapid human slaughter.

In Harbaugh’s reply to my inquiry, he stated that he will not take NRA money. The NRA has been a political funder of the congressman and the senator and the president.

Here is The NY Times story, which contains links to a similar argument made by U.S. Sen. Marco  Rubio, R-Florida:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/us/politics/trump-school-shootings-obama-discipline-policies.html

Thanks for reading.

Ignore president’s insults and keep reporting

TV political commentators spent lots of time on Monday expressing dismay that Donald Trump mocked the press at his Saturday rally in Pennsylvania. 

Why? 

We weren’t Washington, but back in my days at The Repository, when someone mocked our reporters for doing their jobs, they just shrugged, or laughed, and dug harder to do more.

It was sweet revenge.

Airbnb and the reason for zoning laws

A reader of  my Feb. 19 post, on potential restrictions to Airbnb rentals in Canton, sent an anonymous comment:

“So you want to protect people from themselves? To prevent people from making agreements between each other? Because some fool violated an Air BnB contract?

“Shouldn’t we focus our efforts on enforcing existing laws instead of making laws that violate personal property rights?”

In synopsis, the Canton Planning Commission (and I am a member) voted unanimously last month to recommend that Airbnb and similar rentals be limited to the R-4 multi family residential district. That recommendation eventually will be considered by City Council.

I think the issue raised in the comment, which I appreciate, is whether zoning laws violate personal property rights. I would say they restrict those rights, but for a good reason. Zoning protects the common welfare.

If you live in an R-1 residential district, as I do, you have the expectation that the properties in your neighborhood also will be single-family homes. The city’s zoning laws would prevent your next-door neighbor from tearing down his or her house and putting up a four-story apartment building, or an office building, or a drugstore or a manufacturing operation.

This does not violate the neighbor’s property rights, because he or she did choose to buy a home in a city with zoning laws. It does absolutely restrict his or her property rights — for a good reason.

Anybody who thinks that we on the Planning Commission made a bad recommendation to City Council can express that view when council takes up the proposal.

Thanks for reading.

Canton leaving Cirelli Center

Canton city government is moving out of the Arthur J. Cirelli Center at 626 30th St. NW. The information technology department has moved from Cirelli to the sixth floor of City Hall downtown. Police dispatching will move to a location yet to be chosen by Mayor Tom Bernabei. The utility billing department will move to the second floor of the former Sears Building in the 400 block of  Market Ave. N.

At least that’s what the Bernabei administration proposes, and City Council members reacted favorably Monday night. They gave second reading to an ordinance that would allow the administration to hire professional designers to plan for the remodeling of the second floor of old Sears. Once the space is remodeled, 24 employees of the utility billing department would leave Cirelli and go to work there. The major tenant of that building is the Canton City Health Department. Also in the building is the city Income Tax Depoartment.

These moves began after the city attempted last year to repair the roof at the Cirelli Center. It was planned as a $300,000 job, said Serrvice Director John Highman. As he described it, the city discovered that the building was practically coming apart. It would have cost more than $1 million to save it. The city made enough repairs to keep the workers there safe and began to make plans for their relocation.

The renovation of Sears to accommodate utility billling is roughly estimated at $873,000 — $700,000 for the remodeling and $173,000 for heating, ventilating and air conditioning renovations.

Arthur. J. Cirelli was a longtime Canton City Councilman from southwest Canton and served many years as majority leader. He died in October 2010 at the age of 85.

“Canton City School District is not a bank.”

John Rinaldi, president of the Canton City Board of Education, told about a half-dozen citizens and journalists Saturday morning that the school board’s involvement in a loan to the Pro Football Hall of Fame Village project did not mean the school district was loaning money to the village.

“The Canton City School District is not a bank,” Rinaldi said.

He went on to address a few related issues, which may have been meant to reassure skeptics.

“There are no active plans to move the high school,” he said.

“We will get a great football center (the former football practice locker rooms were torn down as part of the Tom Benson Stadium construction.)

“If someone dumped a whole lot of money onto the Canton City School District, we could consider building a new high school downtown. But for now, we have a fine high school. McKinley High School is the most expensive piece of property in Stark County, and we own it.

“We will make sure, that we get a baseball field and we get a football field,” Rinaldi said.

Both the varsity baseball field and football practice field adjacent to McKinley High School’s main campus, were sacrificed for the Hall of Fame’s youth sports fields.

These comments came after a closed-to-the-public executive session of the Board of Education Saturday morning. Following the executive session, the board chose to delay approval of a resolution that would help clear the way for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Village project to receive a $100 million loan. The board had called the special meeting for the purpose of approving the resolution. Members came back into public session, however, to say that other parties to the loan transaction were still studying the details, so the board had decided to wait for them.

The agreement appears to spell out limits on the obligations that the village has to the school district. The board is likely to meet again soon to consider the resolution.