Class, may I have your attention please? Republicans in Michigan are pushing forward with an effort to remove the cap on so-called “cyber schools” (also known as “virtual schools”) in our state. Already passed in the Senate as Senate Bill 619, it has been reported out of the House Education committee and will be voted on in the near future. […]

Improving education by attacking teachers? Michigan Republicans are not done with teachers yet, not by a long shot. Now they are going after their pensions and healthcare. Lawmakers and Michigan’s largest teachers’ union are locking horns over how to bring the state’s school employee retirement system — underfunded by some $44 billion — back into the black. The Michigan Public […]

Elitest vs. Out of Touch Last Saturday when LOLGOP and I attended the Americans for Prosperity forum in Troy, Michigan (liveblog HERE), GOP Presidential contender Rick Santorum spit upon the goal of giving every American boy and girl the chance to go to college. What’s more, instead of valuing a college education, he described it as “indoctrination” and President Obama […]

This doesn’t smell right Yesterday I reported that the state government employees were not going to be forced to take unpaid furlough days due to the state budget surplus. Later that afternoon, I received this press release from the House Democratic Caucus: House Dems Champion Restoration of School FundingExpect funds to be added in supplemental, next year’s budgetLANSING – The […]

Penalizing struggling schools solves what exactly? The Detroit Free Press has an article in today’s edition titled “Rick Snyder’s push to tie school funding to performance still needs a scale”. They quote Governor Rick Snyder from last April: “In my 2013 budget message, I will be proposing that school districts receive a bonus beyond the per-pupil state foundation allowance for […]

Not like we didn’t see it coming or anything… As predicted, Highland Park schools have been assigned an Emergency Manager LANSING – Gov. Rick Snyder on Friday confirmed an emergency manager in Highland Park Schools and appointed certified public accountant Jack Martin to take over the troubled district. Martin’s appointment is effective Monday. The move was not unexpected after a […]

Rick Snyder is the master of the “fake concession”. He takes money away from something, gives a little back and then paints it as a “concession”. It’s not. He did it on the Earned Income Tax credit in late April: Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s proposed budget eliminates the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) which helps the working poor, especially those […]

Much of the outrage about Public Act 4, the Emergency Manager law centers around its disparate impact on minority school districts and cities. But this law may be coming to city or school near you even if it’s not a so-called “majority minority” area. Take a look at the data that was assembled by Progress Michigan to see how obvious […]

I guess we’re supposed to be thankful for this? Michigan Governor Rick Snyder said this week that he’s done robbing from our children to balance the state’s books after he took $1 billion from the school fund to help pay for an 86% tax cut for businesses. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said Tuesday that his next budget proposal likely won’t […]

Back August I wrote about how the Snyder Administration had hired John Covington to run a new group called the Education Achievement Authority (EAA). The EAA was set up to help out failing schools in Michigan. This past week, John Covington was hired by the state of Michigan to oversee a collection of underperforming schools in the state. The new […]

Tonight, the school board of Muskegon Heights voted to ask the Snyder administration to assign an Emergency Manager to the district. Muskegon Heights school officials will ask the state to appoint an emergency financial manager to take over operations of the district after Superintendent Dana Bryant retires at the end of this month. The school board met Wednesday in a […]