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Day 4: Buena Vista schools still closed due to lack of funds. Why hasn’t Governor Snyder acted?

By on May 10, 2013 in Education, Michigan Republicans, Rick Snyder

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 because it has no money to pay teachers and staff.

This is truly outrageous. Where is Governor Snyder in all of this? Why is he waiting and allowing this to go on?

It’s gotten so bad the Congressman Dan Kildee has weighed in (and not subtly):

Gov.…

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After stripping billions in school funding, Michigan GOP seeks to tie teacher pay primarily to student educational growth

By on May 9, 2013 in Education, GOPocrisy, Michigan Republicans, Teachers

Oh, I see how this works

Over the past two years, Michigan Republicans have stripped over a billion dollars from schools and are working to defund them another $825.1 million this year, as well. They’ve also reduced teachers’ benefits and made their ability to collectively bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions more difficult.

Now that they’ve done so much to make a teacher’s job so much more difficult, one Republican is ready to make their pay primarily based on student progress. Current law says that teacher pay should be using job performance and job accomplishments as a significant factor. House Bill 4625, introduced by Republican Pete Lund, would make teacher pay based primarily on these factors.

More after the jump.


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Michigan Republican legislation aims to make high school diplomas worth even less

By on May 8, 2013 in Education, Michigan Republicans

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 career and technical education program or curriculum” and eliminates the 2-credit foreign language requirement for some students. House Bill 4466 reduces the requirements for mathematics from 3½ credits to 3.

The bills will now head to the full House. All Republicans on the Education Committee voted for the two bills along with Democrat Theresa Abed voting with the Republicans on both.…


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Michigan Republicans celebrate National Teacher Appreciation Week by voting to strip more school funding

By on May 8, 2013 in Education, GOPocrisy, Michigan Republicans, Taxes

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.


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Buena Vista, Michigan school district closes doors, has no money despite teachers willing to work for free

By on May 7, 2013 in Education, Emergency Manager Law, Emergency Managers, Michigan Republicans

Yet somehow they’ll blame the teachers…

The Michigan township of Buena Vista, in the news recently for its racist Township Clerk, is back in the news today with the announcement that the school district has closed its doors over a month before the end of the school year. Why? Turns out the school district had taken $580,000 in state funding for a program for incarcerated youths that it no longer runs. With an outstanding bill of $400,000, the state cut off its funding and it now has no money.

The district’s 27 teachers had agreed to work without pay for a week while the district sorted out its mess but, this morning, the schools were closed.

Details after the jump.


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UPDATED: Michigan Republicans aiming to carve another $770 million from schools to pay for road/bridge repairs

By on May 7, 2013 in Education, GOPocrisy, Michigan Republicans, Taxes

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!


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Will a cyber school website ever be a champion for our students or make a difference in their lives?

By on May 6, 2013 in Corporatism, Education, Michigan Republicans, Rick Snyder, Teachers

That’s not a relationship built for education

Last year, Michigan’s Republican-dominated legislature passed a bill that was then signed into law by Governor Snyder that expands cyber schools in our state. Michigan already has nearly a quarter of the county’s charter schools and upwards of 80% of them are for-profit, run by corporations who make decisions based on their impact on the corporate profit statement.

I’ve been concerned about this ever since the law was passed because cyber schools rob our children of the human contact and relationships that are essential for helping them become happy, productive adults with the social skills needed to be successful. The bill was, ironically, part of a package of bills the Republicans, without a trace of irony, called Parent Empowerment Education Reform (PEER.) Except that kids who “attend” cyber schools won’t actually have any peers, at least not the kind of peer you can interact directly with.

Rita Pierson is an educator who feels deeply about this topic. A teacher for 40-years, she has come to see the essential value of the relationships teachers develop with their students. She gave a TED Talk recently where she speaks in direct terms about this topic and her message is one legislators in Michigan would benefit from hearing.

Watch it after the jump.


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UPDATED: Privatizing struggling schools: a cautionary tale of a corporate-backed, astroturf group strong-arming parents

By on May 2, 2013 in Education, Privatization

Coming soon to an Education Achievement Authority school near you?

Alternet has a frightening piece up this week about the experience of a small, impoverished California town that utilized a “parent trigger” to give its school system over to a private group. The piece, “Exposed: The Billionaire-Backed Group Strong-Arming Parents into Destroying Their Kids’ Public Schools” is worth your time to read.

The story is one of a corporate-funded drive to privatize schools in poor areas. What’s frightening is that there is legislation for doing the same here in Michigan and there is nothing in the bill that would prevent making these schools profit centers for for-profit corporate education companies. Funded by groups like the Walton Family Foundation, the Gates Foundation and the Broad foundation, a group called “Parent Revolution” used strong arm tactics and bullying to convince poor residents of Adelanto, California to privatize their school system.

Click through for more.


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Why does Sen. Pavlov want even MORE schools in the Educ. Achievement Authority? Because it’s a cash cow?

By on April 30, 2013 in Detroit, Education, Emergency Managers

Dude, slow down

It looks like expansion of the Education Achievement Authority (EAA) in Michigan is going to be put on hold, at least until this summer. Why? Because Republican Senator and Education Committee Chair Phil Pavlov is unhappy. Why is Phil Pavlov unhappy? Because the EAA legislation passed by the House only allows for FIFTY SCHOOLS to be taken over by the state and put into their “school district for wayward schools”. Apparently Sen. Pavlov wants to be able to take over even MORE schools than that.

Could it be because the EAA has become such a cash cow? I’ll explore this question after the jump.


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Secret school reform group works to design a for-profit school model with Governor Snyder’s blessing

By on April 20, 2013 in Corporatism, Education, Privatization, Rick Snyder

Okay, this stinks

Here’s the thing about the idea of giving Michigan parents vouchers to use at any school, public or private, to educate their kids: it’s unconstitutional. Twice in the past 35 years Michigan voters have shot down ballot proposals to allow the funneling of tax dollars into private, non-public schools. This, of course, doesn’t stop corporatist groups and individuals like the Mackinac Center or the DeVos family for pushing endlessly for a school voucher system and the shifting of tax money earmarked for education into for-profit corporations.

This past week the Detroit News did some fantastic investigative journalism and reported that a group of school reformers, a self-dubbed “skunk works”, has been meeting in secret with the Governor’s blessing to form a new sort of private school where kids will be educated on the cheap using a for-profit model and it will be paid for with vouchers. The best part? No educators are part of the group.

Details after the jump.


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