Tomorrow night, the Leonard Kaplan Education Collaborative for Critical Urban Studies will host its innaugural event, a presentation by Dr. David E. Kirkland titled “The Practice of Freedom – Understanding the Complexities of Teaching and Learning in Urban Settings”. The Leonard Kaplan Education Collaborative is a newly-formed group and is headed up by the amazing Friend of the Blog Dr. […]

Senate Democrats, in a very weird bid to help Democrat Mary Landrieu’s reelection bid, allowed a vote on the mythologized Keystone XL pipeline yesterday. It failed by one vote. And that’s a very Good Thing. As I have written about before, the much-touted job creation promised by the pipeline’s ignorant or lying proponents, is wildly inflated: Let’s take the first […]

The teachers in the Chelsea Public Schools system have been working without a contract since June 30, 2014. Negotiations for a new contract began in the spring and continued throughout the spring and summer. However, the Chelsea Education Association (CEA) and the school board were unable to come to an agreement. As a next step, the CEA has requested a […]

I took this screenshot from the front page of The Detroit News this afternoon:

Click through for a larger version

That’s what we call irony, kids. Irony, pure and simple.

Welcome to Michigan under Republican rule Flint schools have been in financial trouble since 2011 when it first went into debt. In 2012, they eliminated 460 teachers and staff positions. In May of this year, they laid off 91 more teachers and staff and slashed benefits of the remaining teachers as an alternative to a 19% pay cut. Later in […]

Evolution is tough for bigots. They struggle as the world around them changes and evolves and becomes better, more accepting of people who are different than them. Chauvinists struggled with the women’s suffrage movement in the early part of the 20th Century and then again during the fight for equality in the latter half of the 20th Century. Racists struggled […]

In the wake of the blistering multi-day expose by the Detroit Free Press detailing the failures of for-profit charters in Michigan and the astonishing lack of transparency and accountability they enjoy, the charter school industry is ramping up its propaganda machine. Just in the past few days, there have been two op-eds in The Detroit News promoting their for-profit-with-tax-dollars model […]

I have updated the post to give details on the EMU Board of Regents meeting. See the end of the post. Today’s guest post is from Eastern Michigan University College of Education faculty member professor Stephen Wellinski. Prof. Wellinski has been a leader in demanding that EMU end its partnership with Gov. Snyder’s failed education experiment on Detroit school kids […]

This Friday, November 21st, the Social Foundations of Education program at Eastern Michigan University will hold their 2nd annual fall Social Foundations of Education Conference. This year, the title is “The Assault on Common(s) Values: Imagining and Creating Collective Responses to Neoliberalism”. As part of the conference, there will be a panel discussion at 6 p.m. titled “EAA Storytelling and […]

Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Earley is using his powers as a state-appointed overseer of the city to appoint two outgoing City Council members rather than permitting a special election as the City’s rules require: Emergency manager Darnell Earley says he will use his power under state law to appoint replacements for two departing City Council members, rather than allowing their […]

For years, maybe decades, Republicans have told us repeatedly that nothing our country does will have any impact whatsoever on global climate change because: China. In other words, because China would never agree to take action, we should sit on our hands and do nothing, as well, allowing expanding carbon emissions to heat up the planet. This week, all of […]