Bipartisan reforms, Mike Bishop Remakes Himself at the 11th Hour

Response to Detroit News Op-Ed "Bipartisan reforms would strengthen state education" on  November 26, 2009 - Note: Bishop Running for Michigan Attorney General.

Mike Bishop's Make-over
Bishop's harsh partisanship has locked him out of any hope of becoming Michigan's next Attorney General. Now he wants his legislative legacy to be Mike Bishop "education reformer." To do so he will attempt to remake himself next week into the warm and fuzzy wonderkin of school salvation.

Quote: 

"Politics should stop at the classroom door when reforming education." Bishop Editorial, 11.26.09 in "Bipartisan reforms would strengthen state education" by Sen. Michael D. Bishop.

Politics are the stock and trade of Bishop et al. Has he stopped nasty politics at the classroom door? No. He's hyped partisanship up. Bishop's figuratively barged in and attacked the teacher, as she attempts to make the day's objectives in the curriculum and attend the ever-present social demands of "her" classroom children, entrusted to her special care. The childrens' parents are annoyed and angered by Bishop's tirades, smoke and mirrors, and give him and the state legislature failing grades for performance.

Bishop is after her job with part-timers. He's after her salary with vicious budget cuts, and "no new taxes." Mike is after her award of professional security for excellent performance in her chosen vocation-tenure, and her hard-earned future retirement is at risk under Bishop too.

Bishop is promoting deregulated completion to her classroom with faux public, but elitist charters and actual "private" and "ethnocentric" charters drain away "public moneys." In Holland, Grand Rapids and other places all across the state, charters are imploding the public systems. All to in direct response to GOP plans.

Bishop is generally roughing her up with a constant barrage of rude language about "reform and failure." Of course it's all her fault. She should just do more with less. She should succeed without his co-operation or the GOP's support-a throw back to the Engler Era.

Basics for Bishop
Mike, Let's start with a vocabulary lesson, there is a world of difference between "education reform" and "education revolt," between honest collaborative efforts to work with the public to improve their neighborhood schools and honest critics whose purpose is to preserve and improve public education. Reforms is not to do away with public education altogether. Bishop has thrown in with the much maligned Engleresque elements which are currently attempting a comeback here in Michigan.

Bishop is now trying to recast himself as the savior of the public system while still adamantly resisting any financial additions (new taxes) to augment the sharply cut state school budget. He's willing to sit on his hands while the state becomes a national spectacle again, with perhaps a dozen or more Kalkaska's, as in the early 1990's. Bishop will blame it all on Gov. Granholm, and that's a lie.

What is it Bishop is attempting?

"Reform" or "revolt" Bishop cannot and will not have it both ways.
Bishop lacks the cunning, the acquired knowledge of the intricate rules of the legislature, and the deeper anger that propelled a meanspirited John Engler throughout his "revolution." Bishop is not man enough to fill Enlger's hobnailed boots in this regard.

This statement of Bishop's concepts sounds a theme that perfectly parallels the positions of MEA. Bishop's quote: "When it comes to improving the education of our children, making sure they have top-quality schools and preparing them for 21st-century jobs, we must put politics aside and work together. Now is the time to make real, meaningful reforms to turn around failing schools and increase statewide student achievement."

Improving schools and full funding for the same, is and has been the underlying goal of MEA. But these goals are being countered by radical GOP'ers and the privatizers, and general malcontents-with greedy intent. The Association has been forced to rise to the defense of its embattled membership once again, as it had to oppose and defend the state's children and our neighborhood schools on so many earlier occasions through political means.

Bishop and Obama: The Odd Couple
"Senate Republicans continue to work on several key reforms that fulfill the requirements of President Barack Obama's Race to the Top plan, which makes our state eligible for up to $400 million in additional funding to improve Michigan schools," opines Mike.

Truthfully, Bishop knows the "gift" of Race to the Top fund is a crap shoot at best. It's that it is a gimmick, a cosmetic quick fix that off loads the very difficult work of addressing the real and urgent problems of our inner cities, the poor, and a failing economy with just one year's funding. If Michigan legislate to be in compliance with these R2T requirements there is no assurance we will get one penny, this year or ever. In that respect, its Leave No Child Behind all over again.

A Lansing Shocker
Bishop, the star Republican in the State Legislature, has been forced to throw in with the much maligned Obama Administration and with what GOP radicals on AM radio call the "gangster" elements of Chicago. Former Chicagoan education chief official, Arne Duncan's madcap attempt to trump the failed and rejected Leave No Child Behind fiasco, held over from the Bush era, is his R2T. Now this Duncan's new gimmick, becomes the same material, same page, the same goals for Bishop and State Republicans. A very queer alliance.

Two Men in a Tub: Bishop and Barack
The dangle of a short term, system disrupting, administrative boondoggling, Race to the Top, becomes the latest in PR designed "quick fixes." President Obama will socialize the country, we are told loudly and directly by the Teabaggers, who constitute the raucous peanut gallery for Bishop and his tax-hating friends in Michigan. National groups that have Bishop and company hostages to their ideology on "no taxes."

Now, ala kazam, Mike Bishop morphs himself into a bi-partisan and a collaborative Michigan "co-sponsor" of Obama criteria and programs. Why?

Bishop is Cornered, Out of Wiggle Room.
Between now and the Christmas Break, Bishop and Wayne Kuipers R-Holland-architect and proud instigator of the 2007 state budget shutdown-will join with Democrats to bring on revolutionary changes in the education community.

How are the GOP "reforms," in the spirit of anti-MEA reprisal, being rushed into law by Bishop? At the last possible moment, the old, old legislative trick. Just how are they going to actually save money? That remains to be seen and realized.

First of all, to begin 2010, there is far less money because of the shenanigans of Bishop and pack.

Pretty Boy Bishop Has a Change of Heart
In a Tartuffian stroke pretty boy Bishop says he "looks forward to continuing to work" with certain (until now despicable "tax and spend" house Democrats and even Gov. Granholm to "keep education a top priority and put our kids first." What a hoot !

The Mackinac Center is in full glory. At this moment they are the handbook/ playbook for both radical Republicans and now, glory be, disoriented Democrats. What a coup d'état!

Take a look at the radical proposals that are involved in "Bishop's Revolt:"
1. The "Texas 2 Step" (alternative methods to get a teaching position used in Texas perennially to off-set severe teacher shortages due to poor pay and conditions) proposed by Bishop. He attempts to bring into the classroom career professionals or others from specific fields where they have been prior to such things as retirement or lay-offs/unemployment, and give them fast tracked un-certified positions as instructors-replacing teachers certified and presently employed.

2. This lowering of professional standards expresses a total lack of understanding of modern instruction-it is a direct and unwarranted attack on the state's premier colleges and universities where aspiring teachers enroll, receive 5 years of costly and intensive training, undergo other testing, qualifying, and certification requirements to work for 4 years as probationary instructors before being accorded a secure teaching job.

These new teachers are saddled with large student loans(with hefty interest rates and payments) and are required to return for much further university training.

Now Bishop says let a math temp come in, part-time and take the class. It's cheaper. Bishop's bottom-line is to bump out that new teacher who will have tenure, a retirement, and benefits.

Where will that (teaching techniques and learning psychology, and methods-less, unprepared) part time teacher be after class is over? Rushing to his/her car to get to a class at another school in order to earn a living, far from mentoring or assisting the student after hours or after class, and non-participating in the over all environment of the school or the community activities centered there.

3. The idea of creating a new "chief educational officer" or "czar" with special powers to alter contracts or make judgment calls about what is at fault in a system labeled a "failing school" is likewise laced (deep in the details) with items intended to radically change the school environment-not necessarily for the good of kids or their teachers.

Save money: Save a Dime Spend a Dollar
These are but a few of the "revolutionary" concepts that abound in the minds of the Mackinac Center's robotrons in the state senate: Mike Bishop, Wayne Kuipers, and Alan Cropsey.

These coldhearted Lansing Republican pols intensely hope to push through reprisals and untested revisions as a counterweight to the strong and intelligent protests of educators, business people and parents across the state who are stunned by the impervious indifference they have shown to the public school. They are not working to fund the budget short-fall with all the tools in the box. How cleverly they attempt to deceive! They believe that they have worked a real money crisis into an "opportunity" to savage the teachers and diminish the environment and education of our precious children.

With the up-coming elections, MEA has a clear and urgent picture of Who's Who-committed to championing and supporting the public school and our children and who isn't. One out of every fifteen votes cast in statewide election comes from the MEA family of voters.

All of the major GOP candidates for governor have pledged themselves to advance "right-to-work-for-less" agendas. One, Mike Bouchard, has proudly declared that he is the "first" of the group to pledge/covenant with the national group, Americans for Tax Reforms, "Taxpayer Protection Pledge," swearing to fight "any or all efforts to increase taxes." It's expected all the others follow Bouchard's example.

The role of Governor Granholm in the current crisis remains yet to be clarified and confirmed. What result will come of her various efforts? Efforts which seem at this point ineffective, is uncertain at best.

Truth be told: Michigan Governance is in Disarray
However, just a dollar a day in new revenues from Michigan taxpayers would keep the schools afloat and give the legislature time to ferret out the kinds of experts and advice needed. They can call in from all quarters solid plans as to how, rationally and factually, we together can tackle the valid concerns about educational.

Original Post.

Legislature should ensure school districts allow taxpayers to sit in on labor negotiations & many other government functions too

Response to Detroit News Editorial "Legislature should ensure school districts allow taxpayers to sit in on labor negotiations" on November 23, 2009.

Intro of Detroit News Editorial:

"This fall, Michigan school districts are negotiating with teacher unions, trying to stave off budget deficits and even bankruptcies. Taxpayers should have a right to know what these talks include so they can make their wishes clear to school board members."

End of Editorial:

"Since the negotiations involve taxpayer money, they should be transparent. State lawmakers should amend the law to make sure taxpayers have an open window on contract talks between school districts and teachers."

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WHAT A GREAT IDEA !

Open teacher/school employee negotiations to the public in a local school district. That kind of transparency is totally worthy and sensible, or so the Detroit News Editorial staff professes.

I'll take the taxpayer's interest and their right to see exactly what is going on one tiny step further.

Let's open the caucus rooms of both political parties in both the state House and the Senate to the taxpaying public-no holds barred. In the spirit of total transparency let the taxpayers have "an open window" on how our legislation and lawmaking are really hatched here in Michigan. Don't forget to include any discussions between a lawmaker and their staff and/or aides, or other specialists in departments such as the Michigan Treasury.

And just for good measure, let's have the right to see and hear all the discussions and contacts between lobbyists and legislators-so that we can determine exactly whose interest is actually being served by the outcomes of these contacts and meetings.

And hey, that isn't going to be good enough; Let's enact legislation so the taxpayers have direct access behind the scenes-a "window" over at the Michigan Supreme Court, wouldn't that be a hoot!

Hell will become Hawaii before these things occur.

This Finley inspired editorial is just another in a long string of ill-will, obfuscations and sandbagging-proposed and promoted by a stoneheaded paper with a business-interest-only dogma spiked with aggressive intentions-to further take down, not only teachers and their professional organizations, but the entire public school system.

On the other hand readers, don't forget that the co-op that operates the combined Free Press/the Detroit News has a wretched record concerning staff and skilled trades negotiations with their in-house unions. Wouldn't we have liked to see what those long, protracted and bitter negotiations were like with C-Span style coverage-open public access to that bargaining table.

Wait a moment, those bargaining sessions are closed to the public because the paper management group is a "private" corporation.

Just because schools are run with contributions from citizens in a district and on their behalf does not mean that every business function of that district has to be exposed, without reserve, privacy and/or full confidence in its duly elected representatives-to operate with integrity in closed "work sessions" just as a township, a city council, or the state legislature conduct their closed meetings.

Imagine having to poll a "teabagger" audience to get a final mutually agreed decision pertaining to a contract.

Absurdity in the extreme.

Original Post.

The Root Causes of Educational Underachievement

Before we involve our state, Michigan, in the rigors of the "Race to the Top" federal program, let's take a long look at the environment from which student under achievement is most consistently drawn.

WE KNOW WHO MOST OF THE STUDENT UNDERACHIEVERS IN MICHIGAN SCHOOLS ARE:

*They are the poor.
*They live largely in urban ghettos.
*They live in high crime areas.
*They are exposed to constant gun violence.
*They are children in homes rife with abuse and neglect.
*They are hungry and go day-to-day without proper nourishment, staggering numbers qualify for free or reduced meals.
*They are the children of children, frequently the off spring of promiscuous mothers, often children themselves.
*They live in rundown, dangerous, or condemned housing.
*They go cold in the winter without proper outerwear.
*They are exposed everyday to the drug culture.
*They are harassed, threatened, and controlled, herded about by gangs. They live in constant despair, terrorized by street crime and shots in the night.
*They are those who have been neglected or abandoned by the houses of worship.
*They grow up in a jobless environment and have no real hope for an adequately paying occupation.
*They are in large numbers teenage boys of color who drop out of school.
*They are unhealthy, too many die as infants, get few vaccinations, no pre-natal or little post-natal care.
*They are culturally deprived: living in areas with few good public libraries or free or affordable cultural activities.
*They have very limited access to banner stores such as abound in the suburbs.
*They are often in foster care.
*They have little opportunity to investigate the natural beauty or the beauty and wonders of the out state areas of Michigan, many have never left their neighborhoods, have never seen the open countryside, the dunes, or the Mackinaw Bridge.
*They have juvenile criminal records, often numerous misdemeanors.
*They are truant, or frequently fail to come to school.
*They have few books or educational stimuli in the home.
*Their caregivers are unemployed or on welfare.
*They often lack the basic social skills, at age five cannot perform such simple tasks as tying their own shoes, may eat out of bowls without utensils.
*They are outside the profile sought by the "marketplace entrepreneurials," with the exception of drug pushers.
*They have not received the proper diets in the early critically formative years of mental development.
*They are victims of various kinds of political shams and disparaging debates, the flotsam and jetsom of Lansing debate and cynicism.
*They cannot move or play freely in their neighborhoods without fear and anxiety.

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN WHEN IT COMES TO EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT?

Everything, if we comprehend the depth of the problem and nothing, if we shift blame and refuse to do what we can to correct this deplorable situation through a sustained, collaborate effort.

In a moment of pure honesty Grand Rapids former Public Schools Superintendent Jeff Grotsky said some of the best teaching takes place in our inner cities, predominately minority elementary classrooms, it doesn't show up in high test scores, but taken from where these students start out, how far behind educationally they come to us, the persistent progress that is being made reflects some of the finest teaching in the district. The love and dedication of these teachers is outstanding.

Our public schools rooms are "nurseries of our future and their wanton neglect entails a kind of social suicide."
Why are we squandering hope and help for a school generation moving through the inner city public schools while we repeatedly make public education the object of criticism and scorn, as the editorial board of the Detroit News is prone to do with its habitual harangues. When does the News become collaborative with teachers and go pro-active?

When are we going to hold the tax-hating Lansing pols responsible for their cynicism and neglect?

In spite of the many attempts to portray themselves as the promoters of "education reform" in Michigan, the Detroit News and the Michigan Senate's civic and social blindness about life in the abandoned squalor of the state's dead and dying cities ignores the root causes of educational underachievement. In the their blame-laying fixations on test scores and measurements, that simply confirm the plight of our urban and poor rural area children, they have not become the answer, they have become enlargers of the problem.

Posted on November 21, 2009 to the Detroit News Newstalk Forum.

You Go Girl - "Don’t pit working families against school children in budget battle..."

Comments on Amber Arellano piece "Don’t pit working families against school children in budget battle" in the Detroit News November 16, 2009.

Amber Arellano has struck a firm mile marker in the budget ballyhoo:

"Pitting poor working families against school children is about as low as you can get in politics, but that's exactly what Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop is doing. This is a sign of how far we have fallen in Michigan".

The poor are not on the Republican radar (as they once were under Gov. Romney and Gov. Milliken,) as they should be.

Today's Michigan Republican legislator is largely a "Gault" guy or gal. From their actions the very thought of altruism is an ugly perversion. These are market fundamentalists; elected they believe to protect and promote business, first, last and always. In their minds business is the first and highest order of their legislative responsibility.

These hardhearted folk are not the free individuals, the stand alone heroes that Gault would inspire. They are cowering under the taxnut crazy quilt which forces them, by sworn covenant with the tax haters "not to raise taxes" not now, not never.

These individuals, fancying themselves "rugged individuals" and towers of moral principle, are in a practical political sense civically insane.

Of course there is a time and place to oppose certain taxes, given very well defined and vigorously defensible logic. But to hold to "no compromise" on taxes is akin to a tantrum prone infant in a fit of piqué . So to make a fool's promise and be forced by party discipline and those greatly feared national forces to which the "no taxes" pledge was made, then to doggedly keep that promise, means compromise is out. No compromise, no politics, no hope of consensus, no good outcomes. So it comes down to the Republicans versus the poor and the disadvantaged.

GOP gridlock. Mike Bishop would like to freeze the Michigan Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) as a method of raising revenue. If he does so he will put a vicious hit on the least able to pay. What must this man be thinking?

Arellano continues:

"The EITC is a tax break for working poor families. To understand how critical the EITC is to a working family today," writes Amber Arellan, Detroit News Columnist, "In recent years Michigan has become known as one of the worst states for working lower-income people. We heavily tax working poor folks, while letting Bloomfield Hills and Ann Arbor families (myself included) skate by in comparison. Until recently, Michigan had the nation's third-highest tax on a single parent of two children living in poverty."

Pretty Boy Bishop has to do something. His hopes of future statewide office are fast fading. He calculates the poor don't vote, wouldn't vote for him anyway, and are poor for reasons of personal defect or slack habits, no doubt. If they were otherwise, his appeals to shelter them from the present economic harm would be entirely different.

Republicans see the core city Detroit only from the freeway, they repeat the outstate myths which disassociate Detroit from "their" Michigan. Like Big John and Sisco (WIND AM, far right radio in Chicago) joked today, "Just fence in Detroit as a maximum prison." That's a totally specious and brutal way to dismiss our state's obligation and part in Detroit's plight, but it's real sentiment similarly shared by a boat load of outstate tax and government haters.

Enter the "where's-the-peanut" in the ageless shell game. It's true that, if GOP'ers are not going to raise revenues, then cuts, and sharp cuts at least, are going to be made. The trick for Bishop and company is to hold out on "no new revenue" and/or accuse the opposition of inflicting the cuts, and put the blame for the hurt on the other party.. Bishop wants cuts (not Granholm's cuts, but cuts under his control and at his discretion).

"He complains constantly about how unfair Granholm's cuts are to schools, acting as if he is the one who is getting hurt by state budget cuts, when he is the one proposing to damage people. THIS IS NUTS". [emphasis added] 

There are plenty of other fat cows to cut before gutting poor folks' grocery budgets, writes Ms Arellano.

Bishop believes he has the luxury of putting the blame on Gov. Granholm and the Democratic Party, even though everyone knows it's not the Governor's intention to rely on the current "cuts" without gaining new revenue to put together a budget that is fair and balanced as far as possible.

Ms. Arellano Concludes:

"So now when the going gets very tough, both sides want to do what's easiest: blame one another, whine like bratty children and work to undermine kids' classrooms and poor working families... Could these people get any lazier and more ridiculous? The budget crisis requires all of us to step up and make sacrifices"

Her suggestion: "Michigan's tax system, stuck in the 1950s, needs to move to a modern sales tax base and graduated income tax, and tax services such as pedicures and dry cleaning.

These taxes would disproportionately burden women (how many men get pedicures, really?. More from Arellano:

"So let's go for some gender balance here. The beer tax has not been adjusted in decades. In comparison to other solutions, protecting the Earned Income Tax Credit makes a lot of sense."

"Overwhelming research shows when poor and working-class families get a tax break, they spend the money immediately -- on food, children's clothes, real needs -- unlike wealthier families. Thus, such tax breaks are highly effective economic stimuli."

It's refreshing to read such insightful assessments and practical advice from the pages of the Detroit News.

Amber, you go girl!

Original Post.

Gov Granholm’s tax hike is the wrong or right thing?

Response to Nolan Finley "Gov’s (Governor Jennifer Granholm) tax hike ploy is reckless" in the Detroit News on November 15, 2009.

Intro of Finley piece:

"There's something Gov. Jennifer Granholm isn't mentioning as she barnstorms the state to leverage the deep cuts she orchestrated in school funding into the sales tax hike she's long coveted. The governor isn't telling angry and fearful parents that there's at least $1 billion, and perhaps more than $2 billion, in education money to be had if she'd stop obsessing over the fact that there's still a few dollars left in our wallets she hasn't taxed.

"She's absolutely looking for taxes and ignoring the low hanging fruit that could be had from reform if she had the leadership to pursue it," says Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, who's tired of Granholm blaming him for the cuts. "

Another Clip:

"House Speaker Andy Dillon has proposed placing all public employees into a single health insurance pool to save, he says, $900 million. But that's going nowhere, again because of the MEA's opposition and Granholm's indifference.

It's a reform that wouldn't cost a single teacher job. And as an added benefit it would make obsolete the MEA's insurance affiliate, MESSA. MESSA is sitting on an estimated $450 million reserve, money skimmed from the school districts it serves. It would be worth exploring whether the districts would have a claim on the money if MESSA was reformed out of business."

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Gov’s tax hike is the right thing

Would to God Nolan's neck were not so stiff and frozen in a naysayers nod. Perhaps he needs a therapeutic message, hopefully he could afford such.

One has to wonder if Finley can make a move without consulting with that hovering covey of cathouse ideologues at the Mackinac Center or the one-note, business first last and always, State Chamber of Commerce.

Just a quick review of the unfolding of the Mackinac Center’s  "50 fixes for Michigan" shows the real agenda that drives Nolan's thought patterns.

Looking back over years of clippings from the News and other papers plus reading and rereading those columns, statements, news items, releases and editorials from statewide sources, one realizes that for well-over 20 years the Detroit News has been hamstrung by repetitive and negative attitudes and has been short-sighted, if not a blind-sided ideologue paper trumpeting long-sought goals that do not embellish or improve the public square or the common good.

As much a negativist and as self-serving as John Engler was, he was always a pragmatist.

I recall observing first hand his going into the Republican State Senate Caucus for a desired purpose and coming away angry and empty handed. Did he huff and puff publicly, like the much weaker, milquetoast Michael Bishop? No. Engler simply sent into the GOP caucus Al Short, MEA's head of governmental affairs, and got the result he needed.

Sen. Bishop is tethered to an oath not to raise taxes and he is powerless, if not helpless to do anything but obstruct and obfuscate both the governor's leadership and the general public's desire, which polling shows, would support some tax increases to tide the state over this very difficult period of economic downturn.

To quote John Engler from his State of the State in 1997:

"Being for public education means making sure that every school, every classroom, every teacher, every student is safe."

"BEING FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION MEANS KEEPING EDUCATION OUR TOP PRIORITY!"

"One key to quality education is quality teachers. Proud, passionate -- these professional men and women are making a difference in the lives of students every day. That's why I was outraged to read in the Detroit News that in one high school this year nine teachers have been assaulted."

"When teachers are attacked in their own classrooms, academic performance is also a casualty. I may be old fashioned, but it seems to me, if a student lays a hand on a teacher, that student is gone."

And so what did Engler put forward? Confrontation and stalemate, No, never. He called for collaboration and cooperation from two well-known sources, the Federation of Teachers and the Michigan Education Association.

Here's the Engler quote:

"Further, I invite the leadership of the Michigan Federation of Teachers and the Michigan Education Association to join with us in developing and passing this legislation."

Finley's sour cynicism and harping has resulted in comments such as this from whyareyousoangry, Rochester, MI:

"(Finley's) logic--if there is any--is laughable, and I am SO tired of his hatred of teachers, state workers and anyone else who worked for any of the automakers, EXCEPT the company CEOs who mismanaged them into the ground. Finley loves company execs, even when they are proven incompetent. It's a viewpoint I can't wrap my head around, as the EDUCATED owner of a small business trying to make it in this state. He is a great example of why people like me cannot stomach the Republican Party anymore." And the comment concludes: "I am not the only one who thinks Nolan Finley is nothing but a worthless shill for a few SE Michigan moguls. Hope those moguls are ready to bail the Detroit News out when all the readers are gone."

Pretty Boy Bishop is running out of time and electability for any future statewide office. He must sense it now, and what can he do? He's lost control. Mike's caught in the timeless methodology and inertia of a state legislature that has gone "out to lunch" in terms of tackling the real problems of Michigan, or should we say "out to hunt?"

All the arguments and comment about how dire the situation is, and how desperate the legislature is to resolve it (with more taxes or without) are "blown away" by their craven self-indulgence and stoic indifference to the needs of children and families in this once great state. We say "get to work!" Get to work co-operatively right now.

In this crisis, which incidentally is just one of many from the past, relabeled "the 2009 budget crisis," has all the ingredients which are basically the same; repeated often in the last 20 years, the projected solution always includes some form of "reform" and as relates to education. The "crisis" always includes demanded give-backs or something punitive.

A lot of foul hot air goes into the rhetorical posturing, such as the recent You-Tube speech of Sen. Alan Cropsey, where he projects the blame wherever he likes (his favorite whipping object, MEA), but not at his own stiff-necked party of covenant-bound hostages, held to a foolhardy oath extracted by the out-of-state no-tax wingnuts the GOP has come to fear more than the state's economic collapse.

Many taxpayers would gladly give a $1 a day to move Michigan forward.

Original Post.

Don’t let propaganda and fear prevent Michigan from winning 600 million for state education

There is a timeless quandary: What is more important to a child's, heredity or environment?

When it comes to children and their achievement in education, how does this question apply? We are learning, but as of yet we don't fully understand. But one thinks the News must know, look how assertive they are on all things related to public schools.

The Detroit News has launched out again against both the Detroit Federation of Teachers and the Michigan Education Association in a hamfisted manner. To the members of the MEA it asserts, "Don't let propaganda and fear prevent Michigan from winning." Nov. 12, 2009. To the Federation it demands, "Make student performance not teacher protectionism the top priority" Sept.23, 2009.

The News picked up on the phrase: Teacher quality is the No. 1 predictor of student achievement.

That is a non-holistic and incomplete statement of fact concerning how students achieve and why. But it is a neat silver bullet for winning an argument or nailing down another plank in an anti-public school effort. Common sense tells the astute observer there's much more to student outcomes that whatever "teacher quality" is, as defined by the originator of that, or yet another survey or academic study. Is it heredity, the "bell curve" or environment "unionized schools"? If the study comes from one of so many harshly critical think thanks such as the Heartland Institute, then consider the source.

Both of these incidents of hectoring come from the same chum bucket. As of today, there are published 38 of the 50 News requirements to "Fix Michigan" displayed in the paper. Approximately 13 of these demands are related to public education, in some form, and there are 12 more suggestions to go.

It's obvious that the Detroit News is expecting the teachers to solve the basic and gargantuan problems of our time.

If only the teachers would tow under, and follow the will of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the tax limitation teabaggers, and the intrepid corporatist/insurance endowed Mackinac Center for Public Policy, then progress could all be made.

The News, for years holed up in its headquarters with its window lights, architectural arches bricked in for security following the riots of 1967. One feels that has deeply influenced its own cynical quasi-Libertarian mindset.

It's easy to understand why there is disillusionment and angst in the News' editorial suite...but not excusable.

Let the News walk a weekday, 6 blocks, in a pupil's shoes.

Think of ones self as an innocent young girl walking to the neighborhood school past all those empty and sometimes burnt out, abandoned houses and structures. Buildings filled at times with rapists, druggies or squatters. What frame of mind would she have when she arrived at the classroom door? What fears or dread would haunt her as she contemplates returning home, latch key to her house, passing once again that gauntlet of neglect and criminal possibilities tolerated by Detroiters?

It has been reported that in some cases, even the Catholic church owns these kinds of properties. There aren't a few dozens of these structural hazards scattered about, there are hundreds and hundreds.

Time and again, the News has gone ballistic over picayune issues they conjure up to wedge their demands against teachers and work to take away the basis of commitment by the erstwhile supportive public.

In this time of national crisis, in this epoch of monumental manufacturing and industrial outsourcing to other states and third world countries, the News editors cannot bring themselves to step back and take a harsh and mind-boggling look at "real Detroit"-a dead and dying city in so many respects. One or two of the signal Detroit moments, historically of note in this regard, were: the exit of Hudson's from downtown and the summary closing of over two dozen Detroit area parish churches by the Catholic Bishops.

It's with great self-satisfaction that the Detroit News finds a "slam dunk" criticism in the offering of stimulus money in the form of $600 million in federal taxpayer monies, the state may acquire by compiling with the official guidelines for the Race to the Top's. "It is one of President Barack Obama's most innovative tools to spur states," chortles the News without in depth reflection.

Remember the News doesn't actually like stimulus spending, and says so. Several Michigan jurisdictions are loudly announcing they won't apply for stimulus cash or take it, if offered. At least one GOP Governor refuses all stimulus money to his state, irregardless of need.

So why is the News so hot to trot with the nascent U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, and his "new" trends?   Duncan is that bureaucrat from what the wild right calls the "gangster" machine-run Chicago. In this case, if it suits the News' long range purposes, go with it. So it is with partisan politics. When a circumstance hits on an opponent, all prior principles are naught compared to the "kill." .

There are good and fundamental reasons to reject the U.S. Department of Education's current proposals, just as there were with the "Leave No Child Behind", that fiasco  was cobbled together by G.W. Bush and Sen. Ted Kennedy: LNCB  continues to create more disillusionment and harm than good. Just ask Rep. Pete Hoekstra.

There are innumerable devils in the fine print details. At this point, seed money for this program is only about a year's worth. Just like several federal title programs, LNCB mandates, and other items the feds propose, the states and locals provide the ultimate costs and bear the burden of implementation and/or are threatened with huge penalties.

Nolan and crew don't see the fine line details and don't really care about the bottomlines either. "Race to the Top's a anti-teacher union zinger, let's push it.

In these financially troubled times as in all others, haste to radically change makes waste and further delays in real classroom outcomes and in the lives of children, captives/hostages to our failed thinking and our decaying infrastructure.

Every day, thank God, your next door neighbor, your fellow club member, member of the church down the block, leaves home to re-enter her or his classroom to do a precious job. Her/His ambition is to provide for the every need of her/His  students, to keep them safe, on task, and learning in her room, sheltered for the day from the gunshots her/his students hear throughout the night and the carnage they see on local TV news nearly every night of the year.

Her/His task is oft overwhelming and without proper support and encouragement. If she/he wants to begin a day with a bright outlook, going in to school, she'll/he’ll  not pick up the News until she/he  needs to change the lining in her/his bird cage at the end of a long day.

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An Additional Dollar a Day...

Response to Nolan Finley in "House Dems won't face budget reality" Detroit News Blog on November 11, 2009.

Nolan:

What is the difference between your opinion and that of the standard Mackinac Center fare?

What would Michigan be like if the center had gotten 80% of all the things they lust after? (Most often, with your blessing, one might note.)

The MacCen sees this present economic hardship time as a precious opportunity to finish work they've been whittling at for decades. This "crisis" for them is a super "opportunity."

Just what would education quality and taxpayer responsibility for education be if MacCen got its every wish?

Those cardinal controling influences in the MacCen, who cheer for an end to MESSA (and its excellent Blue Cross health care packages for school employees),ask just what would other (Mackinac Center friendly) insurance companies provide?

Think inadequate. How long would it be before they used their influence and cunning to reduce the service provided to something, not equal to the private sector, what ever that means, but less than the best of private sector benefits. That new health plan sought by the MacCen wouldn't be more competitive or less expensive without reductions in services and coverages. And who, Nolan, has decent private sector health care and benefits, as of this Michigan moment? Don't look to the GM workers for a baseline, don't turn to the ubiquitous Wall-Mart for a adequate health care model.

The core of the Michigan GOP is held hostage to the tax-haters and groups like the brown-bagged-headed-unknowns, secret bundlers of cash used to bring national influence to bear on a rural district like that once held by former Rep. Joe Schwarz.

When the intrepid clod buster Jack Welborn wanted to stigmatize the "high spending" legislature he brought over to the capitol a giant cow with an enormous utter, then Welborn prattled on about his opponents sucking up for tax monies.

Then it was Leon Dorlet and his begged and borrowed pink hog, which lingered on Capitol square, hoping to chide and hector the legislature into refusing to raise revenue and taxes. Dorlet was just carrying swill for a well-known national organizer against taxes.

Then came the Beltway weasel, Grover Norquist, who smoozed on Mackinac Island with Sen. Nancy Cassis. "No new taxes, no new taxes." This year's entire proceedings in the Mackinac Island leadership sessions were sponsored, run by the no-taxes lobbies and the endless varieties of flat, fair, or no tax fanatics (including John Fund) who believe themselves the keepers of the holy grail. Starve the state's services into oblivion and all will be well.

A large number of the GOP legislature has given up their rights to outsiders, carpet baggers from DC, when they swear and take an oath never to raise new taxes. Thank God for term limits.

The hard-hearted, conjoined twins of no-tax legislation in the state senate are Mike Bishop and Alan Cropsey. What an odd couple, if ever. Both are ambitious and both have a shed full of axes they love to grind. Bishop loves embarrassing Gov. Granholm and Cropsey won't ever miss a swipe at the Michigan Education Association, ever since he threw in with the fearful home schoolers hoping to scotch maternity, creeping secularism, and of course, the teaching about evolution by holing up in the kitchen with course books designed to propagate the fanatic ideology and race relations teachings of Bob Jones University, Cropsey's alma mater.

So then, who's reality must a citizen chose between: . Democrats who are weakly trying to save the future for our kids against the entrenched GOP Senate, or the ranting GOP which sees no end of pleasure in tearing down Michigan and its children in their hour of need. They are holding out for the equivalent of a cup of less-than-Starbucks coffee a day.


You'd get the idea from Bishop and his clique that it would bankrupt our struggling personal budgets to give just an additional dollar a day (in miscellaneous taxes and closed loopholes) to save our public schools in this their hour of need.


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