Gov. Rick Snyder is determined to prove that privatizing critical state services is a big money saver for the state. What his spreadsheets and dashboards fail to take into account are the unseen and unbudgeted prices paid when those private for-profit groups fail to act professionally. First it was Aramark who got busted for: Running out of food Making unauthorized […]

Two years ago, after privatizing Michigan’s prison food services to a company that then set out to prove what a fiasco this sort of thing is with scandal after scandal after scandal after scandal), Gov. Rick Snyder finally fired Aramark. He then hired another private firm, Trinity Services Group. Since that time, Trinity hasn’t fared much better, racking up $2.5 […]

A recent article from EdSurge.com unveiled the newly-enshrined members of the Forbes “30 under 30 Education Leaders to Learn From” Class of 2017. While I tend to believe that most of this genre of rankings articles (Best Colleges, Best Places to Live, Best Chicken Wings–spoiler alert: they’re from Buffalo!) aren’t worth the paper they are printed on–or the bytes they occupy in cyber-space, as the […]

In her recent write-up, lifelong activist and community journalist Shea Howell very clearly articulated the benefits of Proposal A and the lengths schemers will go through in order to get community members to vote it down in favor of Proposal B. Howell said, “… Detroiters are being flooded with high priced, deceptive appeals for our vote.  Expensive TV and radio commercials, slick […]

The charter school “debate” is no longer about charter schools vs. public schools (charters are not public schools — that myth has been exploded), or even about “for profit” vs. “not for profit” charters (the evidence HERE suggests this is really a difference without a distinction). No, the real issue here is about the true purpose of education, and whether […]

There are three things that should never be privatized and profitized. You don’t have to be an expert in public policy to know that when profits are on the line, the needs of those being served will be trumped by the desire to increase profits. The first of these things is healthcare. We’ve seen the tragic outcome of that in […]

The following essay was written by Mitchell Robinson and is cross-posted on his most-excellent blog at MitchellRobinson.net. Robinson is associate professor and chair of music education, and coordinator of the music student teaching program at Michigan State University. Follow Mitchell on Twitter at @mrobmsu. His essay is reposted here with permission. Enjoy. A new report from the Justice Department recommends […]

At 4:23 p.m. on April 25th of this year, Eastern Michigan University’s Director of Purchasing issued a request for proposals (RFP) for food campus food services. The RFP included a requirement to RSVP to a “mandatory” meeting by 5 p.m. the same day as the RFP came out. That mandatory meeting was scheduled for the following day. 37 minutes. Applicants […]

Michigan Attorney General has a long history of being on the wrong side of issues that matter most to the citizens of our state, something I have documented extensively here at Eclectablog (HERE and HERE, for example.) This week, he’s back in the news with more of his hypocrisy and wrong-headedness. First, Schuette issued a press release saying that he’s […]

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder is clearly not a man who ever concedes he has made a mistake. After his privatizing of state prison food services went horribly awry with Aramark employees having sex with prisoners, bringing in drugs, and the many and repeated cases of vermin in food, he finally fired them. You would think he’d admit it was a […]

NOTE: Big tip o’ the Eclectahat to Eclectablog reader D. Harvey D. who provided much of the background research and perspective for this post. I’ve already written about the scandal involving the mistreatment of elderly disabled veterans at the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans. A report released by the State Office of the Auditor General detailed a scathing laundry list […]