Proud to stand with @uaou.bsky.social faculty at Ohio University fighting for their first contract.
Posts by Melissa Cropper
Every seat full for labor meeting with Gov candidate Amy Acton in Mahoning Co. From healthcare to childcare to school funding to collective bargaining to affordability issues, Acton is clearly the candidate who understands the issues important to families and has solutions for how to address them.
Voters showed up in record numbers to send a message that they want leaders who will tackle the kitchen-table issues they face every day—from education to soaring housing and healthcare costs to the price of groceries, child care and college. www.aft.org/press-releas...
This is what happens when politicians recklessly pass laws to advance their own anti-public education agenda. Longstanding local working relationships are destroyed. Educators and students are harmed. matternews.org/voices/the-w...
Please read this story! Sen. Cirino’s comments would be comical if they were not so blatantly tone deaf! Was he not listening when over 1,000 people testified about the negative impacts of SB1? Or did he just not care?!
Budgets are about choices. The Republican legislators and Gov chose to give tax breaks to the wealthy and money for a stadium while underfunding public schools and libraries. Shame on them! They should never win another election.
OFT Pres. @mcropper.bsky.social on the Ohio Senate's budget & school funding:
“By gutting essential components of the Fair School Funding Plan & using outdated cost inputs, the budget released today by the Ohio Senate fails to deliver what our students, communities, and taxpayers need and deserve.”
Regardless of what you think about vouchers- which have been used to defund public schools- this version of is simply a redestribution of wealth -creating a new ideological tax cut for the wealthy while Trump is trying to strip not 4 profit status away from others. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/u...
Rural communities depend on strong connections between neighbors, local businesses, nonprofits and local government. Public schools are the glue that holds these connections together. We need to stand together to fight against voucher expansion that threatens funding to our public schools.
Rebecca Bihn, from Oregon City Schools, shares how the district makes career awareness a part of students’ education starting in K and continuing through graduation. Great conversation at the Career ConnectED Learning Policy Discussion.
Education is our kids future. Education is our country’s future. Mr. President, we will see you in court. www.aft.org/press-releas...
Opposition to SB1 (Higher Education Destruction Act)continues to grow. The Majority party in the legislature continues to shut out their voices.
Defunding libraries? Is this really why people voted for this administration?
OFT Pres. @mcropper.bsky.social responds to Trump's plan to dismantle IMLS:
"Funding for libraries of all types is 0.003% of the federal budget…Revoking this meager support doesn’t make an impact on the federal deficit, but it does put a financial strain on institutions on which Ohioans rely."
States & local school boards control schools but rely on federal funds:
🧑🦽 7.4M students with disabilities lose services
🎓 10M students lose federal aid for college/trades
🏫 26M low-income students lose Title I support
🌾 9.8M rural students lose critical funding
www.aft.org/column/robbi...
Huge crowd on OSU campus rallying against SB1. The Senate ignored the over 1000 pieces of opposition testimony. Let’s make sure the House listens. #StopSB1 #ProtectOurKids
I suspect no one who voted for Trump thought he would let Musk invade their privacy. Right now, inside the Dept of Ed, the world’s richest man is rifling through 45M people’s private student loan accounts and feeding the data into AI. www.aft.org/press-releas...
apnews.com/article/trum...
NEWS: Read our joint statement with @ohioea.bsky.social and Ohio Conference of @aaup.bsky.social calling for amendments to SB 1 (The Higher Education Destruction Act). These amendments will mitigate harm by protecting workers' rights and academic freedom and reducing bureaucracy.
"The worst effects [of private school vouchers] would be felt in Ohio’s rural communities because rural districts are more dependent on state funding and don’t have the density to support competing school systems." www.limaohio.com/columns/2025...
OFT President @mcropper.bsky.social in The Lima News:
"The worst effects [of private school vouchers] would be felt in Ohio’s rural communities because rural districts are more dependent on state funding and don’t have the density to support competing school systems."
The 28th amendment! Law of the land!
Millions of retirees and workers just got a raise in retirement income ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/01/16/m...
Our children deserve better! Ohio needs to fully and fairly fund public education instead of diverting 1B+ to private school vouchers.
A blue graphic reading "Log in to your www.studentaid.gov dashboard NOW and take screenshots of your payment history and loan forgiveness progress."
Have you saved all of your student loan financial records?
Please share widely to spread the word!
Chances are, you know someone impacted by the Social Security Fairness Act. This article mentions a few of the thousand Ohioans who are now going to get the retirement they earned. Thanks to @aftunion.bsky.social and all labor unions and activists who worked on this. And thank you Sherrod Brown!
” If the speaker thinks there isn’t enough education funding to go around, Ohio law is very clear. The legislature must fund public schools and make cuts to the costly and ineffective universal private school vouchers that were put in place…” bit.ly/409dkGo
Solidarity!!!
Breaking news! Welcome SEIU. Welcome back to the AFL-CIO. This is great news for our movement and for everyone who wants to form a union to make the goal of a better life and a better America a reality.
Senator Schumer said it best. The passage of the #SocialSecurityFairnessAct corrects a 50 year mistake, giving teachers, firefighters, law enforcement officers, and thousands of public employees dignity and fairness in retirement. www.cbsnews.com/news/social-...