He’s a great example of how to shop for the right plan — and how the ACA gives people more choices than ever before. Jim worked 37 years for the same company, typically putting in 50-hour weeks that included travel and working weekends. It started taking a toll and he says his health began to decline. That’s why he decided […]

Welcome to Michigan under Republican rule Flint schools have been in financial trouble since 2011 when it first went into debt. In 2012, they eliminated 460 teachers and staff positions. In May of this year, they laid off 91 more teachers and staff and slashed benefits of the remaining teachers as an alternative to a 19% pay cut. Later in […]

Evolution is tough for bigots. They struggle as the world around them changes and evolves and becomes better, more accepting of people who are different than them. Chauvinists struggled with the women’s suffrage movement in the early part of the 20th Century and then again during the fight for equality in the latter half of the 20th Century. Racists struggled […]

No one’s religious liberty is at risk, but the Michigan Legislature wants to use religion to infringe on the rights of others anyway. That didn’t take long. Less than two weeks after the midterm elections, Michigan Republicans began pushing a bill that would make it legal to discriminate on religious grounds Given the Republican majority in the Michigan Legislature — […]

In the wake of the blistering multi-day expose by the Detroit Free Press detailing the failures of for-profit charters in Michigan and the astonishing lack of transparency and accountability they enjoy, the charter school industry is ramping up its propaganda machine. Just in the past few days, there have been two op-eds in The Detroit News promoting their for-profit-with-tax-dollars model […]

I have updated the post to give details on the EMU Board of Regents meeting. See the end of the post. Today’s guest post is from Eastern Michigan University College of Education faculty member professor Stephen Wellinski. Prof. Wellinski has been a leader in demanding that EMU end its partnership with Gov. Snyder’s failed education experiment on Detroit school kids […]

This Friday, November 21st, the Social Foundations of Education program at Eastern Michigan University will hold their 2nd annual fall Social Foundations of Education Conference. This year, the title is “The Assault on Common(s) Values: Imagining and Creating Collective Responses to Neoliberalism”. As part of the conference, there will be a panel discussion at 6 p.m. titled “EAA Storytelling and […]

It hasn’t happened since 1928. That’s the last time Republicans had a House majority this large. Since the drubbing of November 4, 2014, there’s been a lot of discussion about why the Democrats lost. This discussion takes for granted that Republicans don’t deserve to win. On the federal and state level, they’ve offered nothing but austerity and punishment for the […]

You’d do your homework before buying a car or even a coffee maker, right? Shopping for insurance isn’t much different. Here are some helpful hints. The time has come: Open enrollment through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance Marketplace runs from November 15th to February 15th, 2015. If you haven’t bought insurance before, or it’s been a while, it might […]

Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Earley is using his powers as a state-appointed overseer of the city to appoint two outgoing City Council members rather than permitting a special election as the City’s rules require: Emergency manager Darnell Earley says he will use his power under state law to appoint replacements for two departing City Council members, rather than allowing their […]

For years, maybe decades, Republicans have told us repeatedly that nothing our country does will have any impact whatsoever on global climate change because: China. In other words, because China would never agree to take action, we should sit on our hands and do nothing, as well, allowing expanding carbon emissions to heat up the planet. This week, all of […]