The grassroots making things happen in Michigan

The rally to support public education in Michigan that happens at the state Capitol on Wednesday (details with links, etc. HERE) is getting bigger by the day. In a major coup, organizer Rochelle Noel informed me over the weekend that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer is now scheduled to speak at the rally.

Details after the jump.

Draped in a flag, carrying a cross The funny thing about so-called “small government” Republicans is their hypocritical desire to pass more and more laws, many of them with no purpose (like the Senate resolution that was passed last week “to express support for the state of Michigan officially recognizing September 19, 2013, as International Talk Like a Pirate Day”.) […]

This MUST stop

The story of 22-year Cody Bailey being installed as president of a for-profit charter school in Michigan (posts are HERE and HERE) has rekindled my outrage about the demonization of teachers and the systematic kneecapping and dismantling of our public school system here in Michigan. Operating under the guise of “education reform”, corporatists like Cody Bailey, the Mackinac Center, and the DeVos family are engaging in an unsubtle effort to convert our nation’s schools into profit centers for corporate “education” businesses. Their approach has three primary components.

Click through for much, much more.

Good people are fighting every day for Michigan’s students. This organization is among them. Just when you begin to despair over the seemingly endless battles public education is facing in Michigan, you find a reason to feel optimistic. In Pontiac, one of the Michigan school districts that’s struggling the most, an organization called Bound Together is providing an environment where […]

Just not raining hard enough in Buena Vista Township, I guess… This is front page of the Buena Vista School District website this morning. While it says that school will be closed on Thursday, apparently nobody has been to work yet today, either, because the school is still closed today. This is the fourth day the school has been closed […]

No need to know math if you’re working at Walmart, I guess… Republican legislation was passed out of the House Education Committee yesterday that reduced graduation requirements by allowing students to graduate without learning a foreign language or taking mathematics through Algebra 2. House Bill 4465 would allow students to replace the Algebra 2 requirement with completion of a “formal […]

Make yourself heard

As I reported yesterday, the Michigan House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure voted to eliminate the sales tax on aviation fuel. This bill is in addition to House Bill 4539 which if passed, will eliminate the sales tax on gasoline sales in our state. My piece said that this would take $770.1 million out of the School Aid Fund (SAF). However, that amount is only for the repeal of the gasoline tax. According to a statement by State Rep. Brandon Dillon, yesterday’s repeal of the aviation fuel tax will remove another $55 million . That means if both bills are passed, $825.1 million more will be taken from our kids’ schools. This represents over two-thirds of the $1.2 billion Governor Snyder has asked for for road repair.

Click through for more including details on how you can make your voice heard on this issue.

This is getting ridiculous

Michigan Republicans are getting ready to inflict further catastrophic damage on our state’s schools with the passage of a package of bills designed to pay for road and bridge repair, a major priority of Governor Rick Snyder. The bills say nothing about education or the School Aid Fund but the impact is there to the tune of more than $770.1 million.

Click through for all the gory details and information on how you can take action TODAY!

Why doesn’t this make me feel any better?

Last week, I wrote about Lansing Public Schools firing all 50 of its elementary phys. ed., music and art teachers to save $6 million in their shrinking budget. The post has gone fairly viral getting over 30,000 views.

Apparently the school system got an earful from folks outraged that an essential part of kids’ education was being forfeited, in part to pay for corporate tax cuts. They have now responded.

Click through for details.

A generation of future entrepreneurs denied essential skills

To hear Governor Snyder tell it, Republicans haven’t reduced school funding. Everything is great for Michigan schools, he will tell you. If you want the real story, however, start attending your local school board meetings and listen to the decision-makers grappling with ever-shrinking budgets that have them choosing between offering our educators the wages and benefits they deserve and shutting down schools and eliminating programs. The reality is that our state government is starving our K-12 public schools and those chickens are beginning to come home to roost.

This past week, the Lansing Public School District announced that it is firing all 50 physical education, music and art teachers.

Details including the unintended long-term consequences of this action after the jump.

Draped in a flag, carrying a cross

With all of the struggles Michigan faces right now, it’s good to know that things aren’t so bad that religious zealots and “patriots” like Senator Patrick Colbeck have time to worry about censorship in the teaching of American History in our classrooms. This week, Colbeck introduced a bill to remedy this egregious (and essentially nonexistent) problem. The bill is modeled after legislation promoted and passed in 2001 by far-right conservative and tea party goddess Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. Bachmann’s bill copies a law passed in North Carolina in 1997.

Details after the jump.