It’s taken years of concerted effort but, at long last, Betsy DeVos and the Koch brothers can finally claim victory: Teachers in Michigan are now paid less today in both real and corrected-for-inflations dollars. In 2009, the average teacher salary in our state was $63,025. In 2017, the most recent year for which we have data, the average was only […]

The New York Post recently published an eye-catching headline (“Case closed: Charter schools deliver more education ‘bang’ for the buck“) about a new “research study” (more on that in a bit…) from Corey DeAngelis and Patrick Wolf, from the Walton Family Foundation-funded “Department of Education Reform”, not to be confused with an actual school or college of education, that…you know…prepares […]

Trump’s comments came during the period when he was most actively caging and orphaning kids This tweet resurfacing Donald Trump’s comments calling immigrants “animals” went viral this weekend: .@realDonaldTrump on people asking for asylum “These aren’t people. These are animals.” pic.twitter.com/pTKY08Obm2 — Mark Elliott (@markmobility) April 5, 2019 Yes, this actual comment was made on May 16, 2018. Members of […]

CNN reported today that presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke said, in 2012, that charter schools “were a good idea.” While this is a more definitive statement of support for charters than Mr. O’Rourke has been willing to make in his recent run for the White House, that’s not the sentence that caught my attention. It was this one: “Because remember, at […]

There they go again. This important essay was written by Mike Jackson, executive secretary treasurer of the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights union. Please contact your state legislator and ask them to vote NO on House Bill 4406. The Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), an anti-union organization, is hoping taxpayers further subsidize their failed training programs. This time, […]

INSERT PAINFUL EYEROLL HERE… The Republican Speaker of the House in Michigan’s legislature is Lee Chatfield, a 30-year old father of five and graduate of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University who attempted to bring a loaded handgun onto a commercial flight last summer. In a recent interview, Chatfield characterized Attorney General Dana Nessel and Governor Gretchen Whitmer as “driven purely by […]

Yes, our political opponents are worse. But we have to be better than THIS. In May of 2015, Sarah Studley was hired by the Michigan Senate Democrats into the position of Counsel and Senior Policy Adviser. For the first year, she loved the job and found it professionally fulfilling. A year later, however, that changed. After Andy Leavitt left as […]

The death cult v. democracy One of the most under-reported stories of 2018 was that we saw the highest voter turnout in a midterm election in a century, according to the United States Elections Project. This means that 2018 we saw the most voter activation since before only white males were guaranteed the vote. And you should expect the same […]

In light of Betsy DeVos’ comments on the benefits of large class sizes and hiring fewer teachers – “In fact, students may be better served by being in larger classes, if by hiring fewer teachers, a district or state can better compensate those who have demonstrated high ability and outstanding results…” – I wanted to share the following statistics from […]

One of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ favorite “talking points” is that public schools are not “innovative,” and that the solution to our problems in education is to invest public tax dollars in creating more charter schools and voucher programs for private and religious schools: “There’s still not enough innovation,” she said Tuesday, continuing her familiar focus on school choice […]

As Joe Biden famously said, “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” In the era of Donald Trump, it might be more apropos to say, “Don’t tell me what you don’t give a damn about. Show me your budget and I’ll tell you what you don’t give a damn about.” […]