I have been writing about the Education Achievement Authority since August of 2011 when I first reported on then-Chancellor John Covington’s history at Kansas City schools. The EAA – Gov. Rick Snyder’s failed experiment with Detroit school children – has been a colossal failure rife with scandal, grift, corruption, and utterly terrible “leadership”. The other day as I was looking […]

I blame the economy. November’s jobs report confirmed that 2015 is likely to be the second best year of job creation this century, only trailing 2014. Instead of wrecking the economy, Obamacare has led us to more new jobs than we’ve seen all century. While the president’s signature health care reforms face real challenges that demand improvements, more than 17 […]

By all appearances, the wheels appear to have all but completely come off the catastrophe that is Michigan’s Education Achievement Authority, Gov. Rick Snyder’s failed experiment on Detroit school children. Following the departure-under-scandal of former EAA Chancellor John Covington, the new Chancellor Veronica Conforme set out to poach students from neighboring districts using deceptive letters sent to the community. She […]

There’s no easier way to let women’s healthcare clinics and abortion providers know they have your support. All of us who support a woman’s right to choose and access a full range of healthcare services without the threat of violence were horrified by the terrorist attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs on Friday. It’s now clear the […]

  “Now the poor guy, you gotta see this guy,” Donald Trump said before proceeding to risibly mock a disabled reporter. When the New York Times called him on his latest micro-abomination, Trump insisted that he didn’t remember the reporter he’d so vividly lampooned and demanded an apology. And, as the cliche now goes, this will only help him in […]

Idiocracy wasn’t a movie. It was a documentary. In June of this year, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published research in the peer-reviewed journal Science. Their research was based on improved and more accurate land and sea temperature data that showed that the warming of the earth continues apace. This flies in the face of claims […]

You know that earlier this week Michigan’s governor Rick Snyder helped lead the shameful charge against accepting Syrian refugees that Republicans have cravenly engineered in order to stoke fears in the aftermath of terrorist attacks in Paris last week. Now we know that he called for a pause in the program for no clear reason. In an interview on NPR Thursday, the […]

Today, November 20th, is International Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR). TDOR was started by transgender advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith as a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was killed in 1998. The day is intended to bring awareness to the violence experienced by the transgender community on a daily basis. The trans community faces […]

The teaching profession is steadily being transformed into a “gig job” on the model of Uber, Lyft and AirBnB wherein customers are paired with independent providers via Smart Phone apps. The model grew out of human desperation during the bleakest days of the Great Recession. As teacher shortages roll out across the nation we can count on Republican legislatures to […]

You have to give the group headed up by rabid tea partier Pasquale Battaglia credit; they are persistent. After having their request to charter their tea party charter school denied by Brighton Public Schools, they have turned their attention now to Whitmore Lake Public Schools. The WLPS voted on October 26th to put out a call soliciting a cyber charter […]

This guest post comes from Sean McElwee — a research associate at Demos and an excellent follow on Twitter. Find out more about Sean, his work and what his research into voting uncovered about Michigan by checking out his Eclectablog posts on how to make America more progressive and Michigan’s somewhat impressive voter turnout. In my latest Salon piece, I […]