"Governor Snyder’s plan for education in Michigan sounds just like Romney’s and Bobby Jindal’s. The money should follow the student anywhere and everywhere, to any vendor of education services, regardless of who owns it or manages it.
So, students may take their money to private schools, to hawkers of services, to online courses, whatever. Welcome to anyone who wants to start a school and collect public money.
That is a plan to undermine public education, and the right-wing knows it. That’s their goal."
 |
| Nationally and State-by-State, From Mitt Romney to Rick Snyder: "Follow the Student" funding is an attempt to end the long tradition of Public Education and Community Schools across America - Why? For Profit. |
What is happening - what are the Facts?
LANSING – Michigan’s school finance system would be reshaped to allow money to more closely follow children and allow for a variety of choices for families under a plan being shaped by a panel assembled by Gov. Rick Snyder. (break) The group, headed by Richard McLellan, a former adviser to Gov. John Engler, promises a transparent process involving educators, lawmakers and union leaders with an eye toward a bill headed to Snyder in early 2013. (break) Speaking to reporters in a Monday conference call, McLellan said the goal is to create a plan replacing the 1979 School Aid Act….”
Source: “Gov. Rick Snyder assembles panel to plan for sweeping changes to school funding” MLive, July 16, 2012.
Back to Diane Ravitch, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education who is an historian of education, an educational policy analyst, and a research professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, on Snyder's Education Plan:
"Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has his own plan to hack away at the foundations of universal, free public education.
He is vying to be one of the national leaders of the education reform movement. Like (Loisianna Governor) Bobby Jindal, his Southern counterpart in the far-right of the Republican Party, Snyder would love to offer vouchers but the Michigan state constitution doesn’t permit it (neither does the Louisiana state constitution, but who cares when you are a reformer?).
Leaving constitutional niceties aside, Snyder wants to promote, encourage, expand, and fund with taxpayer dollars anything that is not a public school.
Governor Snyder wants to reshape the state’s school finance system so that public money “follows the child,” instead of just automatically going to public schools. This is part of the right-wing agenda to defund public education, cloaked in alluring terminology.
The governor has created a panel to figure out how to make this happen."Note: The terms "Follow the Child" or "Follow the Student" refer to what is also called "Student-weighted Funding" or other public funding and public education assets diversion schemes to replace voucher and "scholarship" strategies to support private and for-profit schools with both taxpayer financial support and facilities, was referenced to by Mitt Romney in the first Presidential Election Debate of 2012 on October 3, 2012.
(Emphasis Added)
What is the (Michigan) State School Aid Act of 1979?
Public Act 94 or the “School Aid Act” is the Michigan Law that controls the allocation and appropriation of all funding (payments, bonds, etc) for “public schools, the intermediate school districts, community colleges, and public universities.” Under the State Constitution there are certain restrictions and requirements on how and where public funds (i.e. taxpayer dollars) are spent on “public education”, and Act 94 is most recent legislation that determines how those public funds and assets are paid for and maintained. The School Aid Act also prescribes “the powers and duties of certain state departments, the state board of education, and certain other boards and officials” that control the funding/management of Michigan Public Education.
Education Funding in the Michigan (Snyder/Nixon) State Budget included over $900+ Million in cuts in 2011, and the State School Aid Act, the largest “strategic fund” in the state budget, allocated in HB 5376 ( 2012), is $14.1 Billion.
What is the Oxford Foundation Memo?
In a memorandum sent to “interested parities” entitled “Drafting a ‘Michigan Education Finance Act of 2013’ to Replace the School Aid Act of 1979” the Oxford Study Group provides a rationale to justify radical /revolutionary change is presented outlining a “Work Plan” with numerous goals and objectives to redefine and disenfranchise community public schools via the rewriting of the both the Strategic School Fund parameters and Michigan School Code.
 |
| Diane Ravitch has Flipped: a former Reagan education official, turned vocal anti-Privatization and informed defender of American Public Education |
Ravitch's informed conclusion on Oxford Project - “it reforms public education by funding everything other than public education.”
What is the Oxford Foundation?
The Oxford Foundation was formed in 1991 by the then new Gov. John Engler to “to lessen the financial burdens of the Government of the State of Michigan”. More than two dozen individuals have been identified as past and present officers of Oxford, which includes Richard McLellan, also a founder of the anti-union and anti-public education Mackinac Center for Public Policy. When asked at townhall meeting on his “Public Education Finance Project” on July 18, 2012 about “who is Oxford” and what their funding and membership was, McLellan, a Lansing lawyer/lobbyist, refused to answer. The Oxford Foundation is an IRS 501(c) 3 “charity” and does not disclosure it’s membership or funding sources, donors or recipients. However, internal Oxford documents show that the foundation’s funding has exceeded $1 Million from year to year.
Who is the American Legislative Exchange Council?
ALEC is a corporate funded Heritage Foundation/Mackinac Center associated national organization that has been recently “exposed” as being the organization behind the drafting, lobbying and sponsoring or hundreds of bills or “model legislation” passed in multiple US States including Michigan. ALEC has been identified as a key political organization behind: anti-union and collective bargaining campaigns and politicians, the support of for-profit education organizations and companies, and facilitator of legislation diverting billions in public education funding to its corporate members and for-profit education management organizations, including those operating in Michigan.
Sources: See the websites ALECexposed.org and VLTP.net for more on ALEC, or read the McGuffey piece "Rick Snyder & the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) Corporatist “Disaster Capitalism” on the Prowl in Michigan"
Monied interests represented by funders of the Mackinac Center, Heritage and Oxford Foundations, and like-minded organizations (American Federation for Children (Betsy DeVos), Students First, Mosiaca, Education Connections, Heritage Academies, etc) seek to “reform” public education for profit state-by-state in FL, TX, NJ, LA, TN, IN, OH, WI and now they want Michigan too.
Michigan politico Tim Skubick on McLellan in FoxDetroit on July 30, 2012:
“Mr. (Dick) McLellan is now one of the governor's (Rick Snyder’s) go-to guys on a variety of issues from the bridge to a re-do of the state's school aid act for education”.
Bottomline:
The current Snyder/McLellan’s “Oxford Project” is part of a well-funded and nationally organized campaign working state-by-state to divert public funding for community schools to for-profit education management businesses and organizations (EMOs) led by ALEC and Koch Brothers supported organizations (i.e. the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and related foundations) to “reform” public education and replace public sector union (Teacher & Employee Unions) and influence on the national debate on public education funding and “reform” from public control to privatized profit.
On the Reader:
READ the Oxford Memo (Alternate LINK) and the ANALYSIS by Diane Ravitch in "Michigan Plan to Defund Public Education" July 18, 2012.
Related Slates:
More on Richard McLellan on the Gazette.
No comments:
Post a Comment