James O’Keefe, the “film” producer who spends his life trying to take down any organization valued by progressives with heavily-edited videos of “stings” he orchestrates has been spending time in Michigan this year trying to bring down the American Federation of Teachers. Fortunately, a combination of an O’Keefe operative’s stupidity and the intelligence of the AFT’s staff resulted O’Keefe’s crew […]

The bad news is that Betsy DeVos and her corporate pals are spending incredible amounts of money to convince parents that public schools are “failing”. The good news is that it’s not working. A new poll out this week shows that, despite efforts by corporatists like Sec. of Education Betsy DeVos and others to push for-profit charter schools under the […]

Letter represents the voices of more than 10 million people asking the president-elect to speak out against hateful acts and ideology. Labor, civil rights and faith leaders, along with many others, called on President-elect Donald Trump to take a much stronger stance against hate-fueled acts of harassment, vandalism, property destruction and assault that have happened since his election. More than […]

Hallelujah It’s no secret that the for-profit charter school industry is like the Wild West when it comes to being able to do just about anything they want. Michigan is one of the most permissive states in the country when it comes to oversight of charter schools and there are miscreants out there taking full advantage of that in order […]

From our fine friends at the Michigan Education Association (MEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT): MEA and AFT Michigan members will gather together at 10 sites across the state tomorrow (Wednesday, August 3rd) to protest Gov. Rick Snyder’s frivolous appeal of a court ruling that school employees are owed 3% of their salary that the state illegally stole […]

Three weeks ago, I wrote about a major legal victory for teachers in Michigan. For the second time, an Appeals Court judge ruled that a law requiring teachers to give up 3% of their paycheck to fund their retirement account was unconstitutional. Despite this, of course, there was always the possibility that the Snyder administration would appeal to the Michigan […]

Late in the Granholm administration as Michigan’s economy was at its worst thanks to the Bush recession, the state legislature passed a law requiring teachers to give up 3% of their paycheck to fund their retirement account, something they had never had to do in the past. The America Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the Michigan Education Association (MEA) sued […]

Yesterday, Tony wrote about the racist impacts of Michigan House Republicans’ so-called plan to resolve the devastation caused by years of disinvestment in the Detroit Public Schools (DPS). I thought it would be worth a deeper look to reveal just how odious the plan is. There are several elements that show that House Republicans have no intention of making DPS […]

Over the past few months, teachers in the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) have had to resort to “sick outs” to get attention to the egregious working and teaching conditions they and their students are being forced to contend with. From black mold, rats, and cockroaches to warped gym floors and, this past week, the threat that they would not be […]

The Detroit News published an op-ed yesterday by a man so well-known for being a corporatist shill and profiteer that running it must have been a decision made by the News‘ advertising department. The piece was penned by a Richard Berman and attempts to lay the entire blame for the poor quality of Detroit Public schools at the feet of […]

Score one for the good guys Today a United States District Court ruled that Republican legislation signed into law by Governor Snyder in March of 2012 is unconstitutional. The ruling says the law prohibiting Graduate Student Research Assistants (GSRA) from forming labor organizations was invalid because it was adopted in violation of the Michigan Constitution. The decision will open the […]