Why would you hire a greedy parasite to watch and teach your children all day?

Teaching is a tough profession. It has always been, but lately it has become so much tougher thanks to the anti-union attacks teachers and other public employees. It’s becoming harder and harder to understand why anyone would want to be a public school teacher these days.

The anti-union attacks on teachers have been around for decades, starting with idea that teachers get paid a full-time salary but really don’t work full-time; that their cushy workdays end at 3:00 and they have summers off. This is a very shortsighted view and, if you know anyone who teaches, you know how hard they work and how much of that work goes well past 3:00 and the month of May. Often the lines between their personal life and professional life are blurred. To most teachers, teaching is really a calling more than a job.

And yet, we treat these treat these everyday heroes as if they are not worthy of our respect.

Much more after the jump.

Rushing through an ideological experiment because they can — not because it’s smart Michigan Republicans have embarked on what they are calling “reform” of our state’s K-12 school system. They are rushing to implement plans long proposed by conservative, anti-teacher groups like the Mackinac Center for Public Policy with laws that would increase the number of charter schools, impeded the […]

This is a Big Government takeover, Republican style. Period.

Although many of us here in Michigan have been fearful regarding what the Republicans in our state legislature would do during the lame duck session which lasts for the next three weeks, few of us envisioned the draconian steps they would take to hand over the education of our kids to private, for-profit corporations and destroy our public school system once and for all. That is, however, exactly what they plan to do.

A new package of bills is making its way through the legislature (there’s an Education Committee meeting on them today, in fact) that will all but end public education as we know it in Michigan. The bills, House Bill 6004 and Senate Bill 1358, House Bill 5923, and Senate Bill 620 are revolutionary and are so far-reaching/over-reaching that school superintendents and other administrators across the state are sounding alarm bells far and wide.

All the gruesome details after the jump.

“Being a teacher is not what I do, it’s who I am.” – Dr. Jill Biden

This past weekend, the American Federation of Teachers held what can only be described as an energizing, empowering and successful national convention in the Cobo Center in Detroit, Michigan. During the four-day event which concludes today featured such luminaries as Sandra Fluke (women’s reproductive rights activist) and Walmart plaintiff Betty Dukes (both of whom received AFT Women’s Rights awards), Diane Ravitch (education historian, writer), David Hecker (AFT Michigan), Charles Blow (New York Times op-ed columnist), Rev. Dr. Wendell Anthony (Detroit NAACP), Bob King (UAW), Karla Swift (Michigan AFL-CIO), Chris Michalakis (Metro Detroit AFL-CIO), U.S. Rep. Dale Kildee, Dr. Jill Biden and Vice President Joe Biden.

One of the highlights of the week was the keynote speech by AFT president Randi Weingarten who unveiled a new approach for AFT she dubbed “solution-driven unionism”. During her speech, Weingarten talked about the “new normal” facing Americans today in face of severe budget cuts jeopardizing public education, healthcare and other critical services; families losing more than 30 percent of their wealth during the economic crisis; and more than 100 bills introduced in state legislatures to demonize and attack public employees and undermine public services

Much more with lots of photos and quotes after the jump.

Elitest vs. Out of Touch Last Saturday when LOLGOP and I attended the Americans for Prosperity forum in Troy, Michigan (liveblog HERE), GOP Presidential contender Rick Santorum spit upon the goal of giving every American boy and girl the chance to go to college. What’s more, instead of valuing a college education, he described it as “indoctrination” and President Obama […]

This doesn’t smell right Yesterday I reported that the state government employees were not going to be forced to take unpaid furlough days due to the state budget surplus. Later that afternoon, I received this press release from the House Democratic Caucus: House Dems Champion Restoration of School FundingExpect funds to be added in supplemental, next year’s budgetLANSING – The […]

Penalizing struggling schools solves what exactly? The Detroit Free Press has an article in today’s edition titled “Rick Snyder’s push to tie school funding to performance still needs a scale”. They quote Governor Rick Snyder from last April: “In my 2013 budget message, I will be proposing that school districts receive a bonus beyond the per-pupil state foundation allowance for […]

Not like we didn’t see it coming or anything… As predicted, Highland Park schools have been assigned an Emergency Manager LANSING – Gov. Rick Snyder on Friday confirmed an emergency manager in Highland Park Schools and appointed certified public accountant Jack Martin to take over the troubled district. Martin’s appointment is effective Monday. The move was not unexpected after a […]

Rick Snyder is the master of the “fake concession”. He takes money away from something, gives a little back and then paints it as a “concession”. It’s not. He did it on the Earned Income Tax credit in late April: Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s proposed budget eliminates the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) which helps the working poor, especially those […]

Much of the outrage about Public Act 4, the Emergency Manager law centers around its disparate impact on minority school districts and cities. But this law may be coming to city or school near you even if it’s not a so-called “majority minority” area. Take a look at the data that was assembled by Progress Michigan to see how obvious […]

I guess we’re supposed to be thankful for this? Michigan Governor Rick Snyder said this week that he’s done robbing from our children to balance the state’s books after he took $1 billion from the school fund to help pay for an 86% tax cut for businesses. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said Tuesday that his next budget proposal likely won’t […]