Michigan's John Engler: The Judas who led the Public Away from Public Education and Civility

John Engler’s personal crusade to eliminate public schools has at its heart the weapon of “Faux Public School Academies” better known as “public school charters.” Charter Schools are direct descents of Neo-Jim Crow Segregation academies .  These are schools siphoned off taxpayer dollars for partisan and ideological purposes.

Charters are mainly privately-run , proprietary operations funded with tax dollars taken from traditional public schools funding sources - one clear major steppingstone in the take-down of traditional public education as we have known it.   The yellow pages of the Deep South are crammed with private and religious academies run to provide schooling for white parents’ children - with every intent to support and expand paid segregation via public tax dollars.

What a long awaited dream is being achieved via for-profit “charters!”  Using chartering and vouchers to fund these separatist operations (with public tax dollar creates a separate educational and social apartheid.  Using local and state tax dollars to re-segregate the south (and the entire nation) is a wholly unworthy accomplishment (Much MORE on Engler and Charter Schools below).

Decades Long War on Unions: Protesters hold "Stop Engler at Northwest
(Airlines)" signs and pass out John Engler Flyers in May of 2006

First Some History: Nasty was the virus infused into Michigan Politics by John Engler
No amount of sophistry or interpretation of the present "sorry state" of Michigan politics and/or its immediate future can ever factor out the corrupting cynicism and bone-ugly operations of John Engler.

Engler's revolutionary angst and bitter many years of partisanship has produced a maelstrom of civic negativity in his aftermath. Many "Englerites" (and there are plenty surrounding Rick Snyder) conditioned and trained in the "Englerisque" ways have continued and matured in "bad habits" with regard to how state government is run and how the legislature behaves-late night sessions, straight party voting, and verbal bullying. Engler's part in term limits has come to be a disaster undermining good government. His appointees and friends are still scattered around the workings of this state, unrepentant if not aggressive.

One of Engler's most visible undermining achievements was his part in creating the Mackinac Center for Public Policy - a perpetual negativist voice that has near unlimited access to both the Detroit News but many of the other newspapers and media outlets in the state. Mackinac Center's voice is an echo and a replay/update of that of Engler.

Engler planted this very bitter seeds of divisiveness in this state and also in the nation. It was Engler who, in full support of Newt Gingrich, encouraged the complete shut down of the federal government to embarrass Bill Clinton and the Democrats.

It was "Big John" who royally rewarded Engler cronies with highly placed state jobs and salaries which actually exceeded his income as governor. It was Engler who participated in and surfed off the effects of the 1983 recall efforts in the state.

The cruel and unthinking explosion of 89,000 singles from the welfare rolls and general assistance with one quarter being mentally ill and another quarter "unemployable" under heavy protests from the religious community. It was Engler who attacked the state's mental health programs in search of cost savings. Parents with children suffering with mental disorders had to take their children out of state for treatment because of Engler's revolt and ideology.

The stacking of the Michigan State Supreme Court with highly loyal and politically activist judges, one of whom telegraphed his opinion on a famous case, losing his probity for even-handedness. The amount of money raised and spent to elect the Engler Three to the state supreme court was patiently obscene.

The huge expansion of the Michigan prison system under Engler, as a state industry, has resulted in many of our current corrections imbalances and difficulties. The decline of the state started its momentous downhill, run-away pace under Engler. Jobs were being lost from 1990 on. Engler's replacement jobs, if you recall, were at McDonalds, WalMart, and Menards, hardly the living wage jobs required to live nominally in this great state.

Engler's sops to business were ineffective in building up the US manufacturing base and he was always ready to say more tax cuts would improve what in fact got worse-by projecting blame on some other entity or group.

The propensity of Engler to favor certain corporations and lower their taxes created structural deficits, many of which compounded the huge debt he left - to be covered by his successor, Jennifer Granholm. This was all at a time when the nation had a period of huge deficit reduction and surplus, and a booming economy.

Engler and George W. Bush deliberately and systematically ignored the need to bring General Motors to account for its ineptitude and disregard for sound business practices. Bush's right hand man, Andrew Card, knew the inner workings of the auto industry and was ineffective in making the difference which was required.

No one wants to remember G. W. Bush. Among Republicans is name is trash. Bush's will carry into history the burden of his ineptitude and an uber-cowboy attitude which took this nation and the world to the brink of economic disaster and disrepute. Engler's sticky fingers are all over the tarnished silver platter he used to deliver goodies to his insiders and cronies.

When it came to Engler's legacy, following his governorship, he was deemed unacceptable for a position in the Bush administration. Then as a highly visible and as the overpaid head of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) Engler compounded the mistakes John made in Michigan, inflicting them on the entire country.

Engler's part in the demise of Northwest Airlines and his perpetual support of outsourcing and manufacturing in Communist China over and against the pleas from such groups as the tool and die manufacturers in Southeast Michigan, who cry out for regress of such grievances. As one loyal and supportive Engler contemporary has stated, there are those who would like to have the "fat boy" back.

Engler's a mindsticker. Ask the state's teachers about Engler. He's well-remembered and still greatly-disliked. The entire state breathed a sigh of relief when Big John left the state, but he still makes his appearances like his latest visit to CMU.

John Engler as Corporate Thug: Union Bashing in Blood-sport Englerite Politics
(Original Cartoon in the MetroTimes Series on John Engler by Curt Guyette 1999-2002)

Engler dropped his proud proclamation of his Engler Revolution when it became obvious that the public was fed up with that term.  But his undercutting the stability and necessary functions of state and local government by revolutionary means continued to the end of his tenure.  Keep in mind a revolutionary TAKES FORCEFULLY FROM SOME to gift those takings to others he favors, there’s nothing civic-minded or healthy about that.

Engler’s role as a fire-breathing pugilist politician became well-known.  Porcine and in-your-face,  (Engler is literally the model of "Godfather Politics" adopted by Chris Christie of New Jersey)  Engler was side by side with (and devising) Newt Gingrich’s infamous and dangerous total shutdown of the federal government in the 1990’s.

At one point in Engler’s escalation of personal braggadocio, the then governor donned a leather Hell’s Angel-style black leather biker jacket and strutted about; proud of his new and expanding tough bully image.  Engler believed he had achieved his goal as the man who had made Michigan governance the throny nest of those whose mantra was “Death to Public Service.” To this day, John M. Engler is a man with a malevolent, indelible image and remains the perfect archetype for vulture politics.

Back to Charter Schools...

John Engler - Master of Predatory Politics - The Judas Who Led the Public Away From Support for Local Democracy in Education

Central Michigan University’s Center for Charter Schools was recently renamed to honor Engler, by some of the folks he appointed at CMU. At the renaming ceremony in Mt. Pleasant John Engler had this to tout:

"We can announce today charter schools are here to stay" ….“Competition and choice are here to stay."

The Detroit News account of this event noted on May 22, 2012:

“Monday's dedication festivities at CMU reflected on the legal, political and social struggles Engler and charter school proponents have endured while highlighting new laws allowing unlimited charter schools in Michigan after 2015 and an expansion of cyber charter schools.” 

And so the Engler Revolution slogs on!

Engler and Charters
Engler’s ensconcing of Charters at CMU was but one part of his personal “revolutionary” master plan. Engler announced at the Harvard University School of Education, May 3, 1995 (Box 123, Engler Records, Michigan Historical Collections, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI) and made himself crystal clear as to where his passion was and where his efforts were leading.   In ten years Engler hoped to render the education unions inoperable.  Destroying the professional associations for educators would then give him entre to an entire plethora of destructive legislation and ideological opportunities.  John M. Engler never reached that goal as governor, but his successors (with the ardent help of many Rad Right think tanks and civically subversive groups like the secretive Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Rick Snyder) never relented.

Currently under a CEO/Boss Rick Snyder (who sees himself the “executive hire” in sole command of Michigan) and with the help of American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) (A.L.E.C. in which Engler is an important, long time operator  and committed proponent /supporter) and the Tea Party Republicans or TeaPartisans (funded by such anti-public education mega bucks as Walmart, Amway / Dick & Betsy DeVos, and the Koch Brothers) the push is on to complete the felonious work of Engler. 

See Also the exhaustive article: "Public Money Finds Back Door to Private schools" in the New York Times on May 22, 2012.

Michigan Was Not the Earliest Leader of the Charter Movement, That Distinction Goes to Minnesota

It was not Engler and Michigan who were the leaders in the origins of the charter movement.  Historically “chartering” was a teacher envisioned concept for real improvement in education and schools utilizing less administration deadweight and over-regulation,  hoping that by ramping up autonomy and innovation they could do great things for kids.   It became apparent to the determined critics of public education that “charters” could be easily co-opted, and so they were.   “Chartering” as a competitive wedge, an anti-neighborhood public school device (incentivized by privatizing and appeal to long sought sectarian goals) could be used to undermine the entire taxpayer funded system.

Undermining public education had taken root in the radicalism of the Cult of Ronald Reagan and was fully expressed in Reagan’s anti-public union action: the PATCO Action - where the aircraft controllers of the nation were summarily fired.

CMU is a poor excuse for a Teacher Training Institution:  Why was it made Engler’s center for Charters?

Such schools as CMU fall into a category where “the schools that train our teachers are known to be "under performing." To illustrate, "fewer than 70 percent of graduates [of our schools of education] meet state licensing requirements.... Sandra Feldman, the [former] president of the American Federation of Teachers...acknowledges that the quality of teachers isn't high enough."

Central Michigan University has had since 1996 an opportunity to retool, become a premier and singularly outstanding teacher prep institution.   Instead, it chose to  take the easy path, accept the 3% management fee offered for overseeing the Englercentric faux public charters (CMU now loosely supervises over 50 charters with 30,000 students receiving the foundation grant at about $7,000 each).  Meanwhile the university remains a sub-standard venue for teacher prep.

For a powerful account of Engler's lachluster history and more on CMU's Charter School initiatives read Michael Hanley, Democratic Michigan State House Leader in 2000, in "The Political Brutality of John Engler Over the Issue of Charter Schools":

"Charter schools may be sponsored by a variety of governmental institutions. Unlike traditional public schools, their boards are not elected by the public (or even the parents of their students). Unlike private schools, they are financed by public tax dollars. Proponents claim that charter schools will make traditional public schools better by creating competition in the educational marketplace. Opponents argue that some Michigan charter schools have been poorly managed and have not delivered results in test scores. These claims are supported by several critical reports authored by Michigan universities and think tanks [Mackinac Center and others].

State law allows any local school district, intermediate school district, and most community colleges to sponsor an unlimited number of charter schools. However, state universities are limited to 150 overall. In his 1999 State-of-the-State message, Governor Engler called on the legislature to eliminate this cap on university charters. A united House Democratic Caucus and about nine House Republicans have resisted this initiative. This bipartisan coalition continues to believe that additional accountability measures, such as a certification requirement for teachers and expanded oversight of how public tax dollars are spent by the schools, should be in place before the university charter cap is raised. Of course, some legislators believe that charter schools are a generally bad idea, and do not support expansion under any circumstances.

It deserves to be noted that one of the reasons the Governor insists on removing the cap is that Central Michigan University - the state's most aggressive charter authorizing institution - has reached its limit for granting charters.

And who appoints the Board of CMU? John Engler."
{emphasis added)

Man Who Did Nothing Else Butt: A life-long Government Employee
and Politician (with 3 government pensions), John Engler Hates Government

John Mathias Engler is a Master at Utilizing Government to Undermine Government

Engler’s gamesmanship with various aspects of tricks and schemes devised to distort or control branches of Michigan government knew no bounds.   He shifted aspects of the Michigan State Board of Education to the State Treasury Department. He purposely under-funded the Michigan Public School Employee Retirement System (MPSER) retirement fund. According Michigan State Senator Glenn Anderson:

“Republicans want to blame our teachers and our school workers for the issues with the current retirement system, but the real problems started 15 years ago when Gov. John Engler made severe changes to how the system was operated. MPSERS had previously been prefunded, but Gov. Engler decided to take the lid off the cookie jar and start stealing money from the fund to fill other budget holes. Now, former, current and future school employees are being unfairly punished for the mistakes and financial mismanagement of their benefits by the state.”

Engler devised many other means to obfusticate and to purposefully undermine programs and organization(s) he wanted to REVOLUTIONIZE.

Source: "GOP's attacks on retirees must stop" by Glenn Anderson on DailyKos (May 2012)

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."

Just words to fill in the time looking back, fake whiskey talk used to gin up support for his major overhaul of not just education financing, but the whole public perception of Public Education.  Perhaps no single individual has done more, going out of their way to make the lives of Public School teachers in Michigan lives more miserable and more publicly attack teaching as a profession, that Johnny Mathias Engler.

NAM and Damn
John M. Engler coming off term limits, and failing at his short-lived, only private sector job at EDS, was hired to run the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) a very right of center, right-wing infested, anti-union amalgamation of interests working against American workers and as an aggressive partner with Communist China.  From its earliest days NAM has been a perfect match for Engler.

Even back in 1903 the then radical NAM President “David MacLean Parry  delivered a speech at its annual convention which argued that unions' goals would result in ‘despotism, tyranny, and slavery.’ Parry advocated the establishment of a great national anti-union federation under the control of the NAM, and NAM responded by initiating such an effort.”   Eight years later, “In an address at its 1911 convention, NAM president John Kirby, Jr. proclaimed, ‘The American Federation of Labor (AFL) is engaged in an open warfare against Jesus Christ and his cause.'”

Engler’s All About Power & Money
John M. Engler is reputed to have received a million dollars a year to pontificate and expound at his NAM post.  Not bad for a “kid from a family farm near Beal City,” a legislative loner who honed his command of government minutiae and insider operations to the point he was once hailed as the “Butcher from Beal City” for his savage and relentless attacks on the mentally ill, the homeless and many other aspects of Michigan’s infrastructure and operations using government-to-destroy government.

Go ahead rebrand Central Michigan’s Center for Charter Schools with the name “Engler,” but know full-well that such a label on the public university’s infrastructure has degraded, not enhanced, the image and mission of that state institution.  The Engler Center for Charter Schools would rather have been a perfect fit for Hillsdale College – well-fit to that rogue institution’s overall mission and purpose.

On the Reader:

• "The Real Engler Revolution" and Engler series by Curt Guyette (MetroTimes 1999-2002) (Note: On-line archive no longer availible - Use Lexis-Nexis to access).
• Read about Engler's Michigan "Virtual High School" history (page 24-25) and history of "Virtual Education" used to create defacto vounders system. 
• Engler as "Public Official of the Year" in right-wing, ALEC funded "Governing" magazine in "Remaking a State through Ideology and Determination" (2001), creating $1.3 Billion "Rainy Day Fund" and... 
• Then read how Engler depleted that fund and hacked State Revenues as he left office in 2002 in "Rick Snyder’s Michigan Data: Reversing Engler Mistakes by Reviving Them (Slash, Burn, Repeat…)" (February 2012).
• More history on the political fights between Dems and John Engler on Public School funding and Engler's appointment of the CMU Charter School Institute board in "The Political Brutality of John Engler Over the Issue of Charter Schools" by then Dem House Leader Michael Hanley in 1999.

Related Slates:
The Ugly History of Engler’s Attempt at What He Praised as “School Reform” During the Engler Revolution in Michigan (April 2011) - Nerd Snyder Goes Engler’s Mississippiafication of Michigan One Better: Rick’s Kicked Michigan’s Future Right Into the Crapper (April 2011) - Before Rick Snyder Removes the Michigan Public School Code, Step Back to the Engler Revolution: What  Will NO CODE Mean? (April 2011) - John Engler presided over the beginnings of the Mississippiafication of Michigan (March 2011) - The Governor (Granholm) Must Lean on the MEA to Accomplish the GOP Senate's Radical Goals (December 2009)

More on Michigan Public Education on the Gazette.

Original.

When Radical Tax Hatred & Vengeance Go Too Far: May 18, 1927 – Sweet Innocents & Loving Teachers Gone Forever - Michigan’s Bath School Massacre

85 years ago today, a maniacal tax-hater bent on vengeance nearly wiped out his entire Michigan community killing scores of children, teachers, and others, including the Bath School's superintendent. Only a part of his explosives ignited. This event remains the single most tragic loss of children's lives due to a school massacre in American history.

This sober and unforgettable heinous event should serve as a strong and present warning: There is a limit to what our society can allow when it comes to direct action and the purposeful stoking up of anger and resentment against taxes and public institutions.

Bath School Disaster Makes National Headlines (Baltimore News May 19, 1927)

Yes, Bath Consolidated School was a 'government school.' Bath School was a public school; operated and run by the local governing school board and supported by the means of democratic voting-majority rule. Bath Consolidated 1927 was a proud community school.

One man, having been elected to the Bath school board, designed to work against it; plotted and executed a diabolical, murderous plan to punish his own community for offending his personal ideology and hatred of taxes levied for progressive educational reform-consolidation of the area's rural one room schools into a new and modern building.

Across the Country People Sense the Ongoing Warning Revealed in the Bath School Disaster

"I realized that today (May 18, 2011) is the anniversary of a terrorist act in Michigan 84 years ago. Ironic and fitting that it happened in Michigan, the home state of Betsy DeVos (sister of Erik Prince and wife of Amway heir Dick DeVos), the rabid crusader for dismantling public education."

This was the troubling revelation and remonstration of U.S. Rep. Emma Berry, from Texas, on this date a year ago.

Today, 85 years after this horrific event, the single greatest domestic terror attack on innocent children in the history of America, we are rightfully reminded that there are radical forces still seeking to destroy, bring down our proud historic institution, the public school.

It may not be one stupendous blast of dynamite under the school house, it is a sustained and sinister series of local and state battles across the country pitched and fought by people with rage and anger at the public school and the teachers who mentor our children.

-----

The rise of the national TeaPartiasns (Republican Tea Party members) across America has given "legs" to the multi-millions of the Walton Family and the Amway Clan which have lit the fuse of mistrust and angst in the minds of the malleable public. Hating taxes, resenting the conditions of urban schools (abandoned by whites and cut off by business and corporations) as well as religious bias against the curriculum that includes a wide spectrum of free expression and critical thinking (dubbed by Fundamentalists and Christian Dominionists as a new religion: 'Secular Humanism') these mega-wealthy radicals (who have done so much to destroy the heart and soul of American communities with their plunder of dreams and usurpation of local merchants places on Main Street), now dane to take away that which is left, the neighborhood school.

-----

The vouchers and the charter school movements were born out of rabid reaction to the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960's and the forced federal integration of public schools. The segregation academy was the response to these revolutionary attacks on the "separate and equal" racial doctrines and the charade of Jim Crow Laws devised to enforce racial injustices, a quasi-pogrom that had ruled in America for far too long. In Michigan during the early 1920's there was a rapid rise in the activity and membership of the KKK. Churches and ministers, leading business men and citizens joined up as was discovered in Newaygo's cache of KKK member records and hidden memorabilia. This movement included religious individuals, mainly Protestant Fundamentalists, who like their counter parts in the Southern Baptist Convention, were rank racial and religious bigots with hatred for the "others" they despised in their society.

-----

The 1920's may have been "roaring" for bankers, speculators, and others on Wall Street and in large urban areas, but life on the farms and in the countryside at large was steadily declining, revealing the tell-tale signs of a economic and social rift. The gap between the wealth and income of the ordinary folk, many of them still on small family farms, was corrosively and aggressively taking hold and would result in, what we know now to be a widespread, deep national depression which lingered into the Second World War.

There are chilling parallels with the 1920's and today. The KKK is passé and in its place is the conspiracy of corporate backroom operators, the Koch Bros. et al, and The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), whose collaboration with FOX Cable News has ginned up a pseudo indigenous/astroturf amalgamation of hate and angst known loosely as the Tea Party movement. Their mantra: No new taxes, no collaboration, no helpful compromise, no bi-partisanship, no hand of fellowship: It's the enforcement wing of the Party of 'NO'.

This rise of a multiplicity of groups-skillfully manipulated and utilized to terrorize the Republican office holders of the nation-via the Karl Rovian tactic of TeaPartisan 'Primarying' of Moderates and Independents in the GOP-has given rise to a 'mob' of malcontents and anti-tax activists who feed on fear, anger, and personal greed. Their targets, much like that of the KKK, are immigrants, minorities, and other elements they envision as gnawing away at their own wealth, assets, and future security.

The Kehoe Malignancy
Andrew P. Kehoe, who was the mad bomber of Bath School May 18, 1927, would fit right in (during the lead up to his murderous act) with the TeaPartisan sentiment and share their anger and desire to radically alter the course of public education. He crossed the indelible line. Kehoe went far to the darkside. There is no way to excuse or diminish his aberrant act of blind rage and unhinged revenge against his own community-its children and teachers, none. There is here on this sad anniversary, however, sufficient and strong warning that the desire to perseverate and concentrate angst on government coercion and police powers to tax its citizens still inflames minds-some of which are unreasonable and unstable.

Squaring Off Against Political Vengeance & Reprisal That Goes Too Far
The current frame of mind in the Republican dominated Michigan Legislature includes a bull-headed determination to take down public schools and replace them with a zoological jungle of loosely-run charter schools, vouchers for religious/sectarian operations, on-line teaching schemes (virtual schools) and full-frontal attacks on the mentors who teach our children in the neighborhood school owned by everyone.

A miasma of delusion and reprisal is currently sweeping the Nation, and Michigan, replete with program cutting and give-aways, for-profit enterprises designed to undercut and replace the public schools. This is coup can only be classed as an updated campaign by some to resurrect the destruction and divisiveness of the KKK, benefit from the power of reprisal and greed, and offer private operators entree into billions of taxpayer dollars specifically set aside for publicly operated education and community acculturation.

Bath School Memorial Plaque Listing Victims (Bath, MI)

Never Again
It was out of such motives that anger and ideology drove Andrew P. Kehoe May 18, 1927 into an act arising out of public school hating, tax-resenting, a single man's act which is unparalleled for its murderous zeal to kill children. Kehoe is a tragic and powerful reminder of unilateral direct action and a ghastly and deviant design laid to takedown a community-centered on obliterating its children.

Communities are rapidly losing their control and oversight of their neighborhood schools. Just as WalMart, with its cheap Chinese goods and poverty wages, has brought down town after town, now the Waltons, Michelle Rhee, Jeb Bush, and others led by Amway and Betsy Prince DeVos (American Federation for Children or AFC) are determined to rifle the assets and plunder the funding sources of your public school for personal profit and their extreme ideological purposes.

If these Anti-Public School forces succeed, we will not have learned the harsh lesson of the Bath School Disaster: The public school will always remain the enduring heart and soul of any community. Public schooling is essential to sustaining American democracy.

A Powerful Afterthought:

Pres. Bill Clinton's Remonstration and Plea Against Domestic Terror, Dark Forces That Give Rise to Evil

"To all my fellow Americans beyond this hall, I say, one thing we owe those who have sacrificed is the duty to purge ourselves of the dark forces which gave rise to this evil. They are forces that threaten our common peace, our freedom, our way of life.

Let us teach our children that the God of comfort is also the God of righteousness. Those who trouble their own house will inherit the wind. Justice will prevail.

Let us let our own children know that we will stand against the forces of fear. When there is talk of hatred, let us stand up and talk against it. When there is talk of violence, let us stand up and talk against it.

In the face of death, let us honor life. As St. Paul admonished us, 'Let us not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.'"

Source: Speech Transcript of President Clinton in Oklahoma City, OK on April 23, 1995.

On the Reader:
Documentary "Bath School Disaster" by Lansing Community College (March 2012).

Contemporary, firsthand account and history of the Bath School District events by local resident M. J. Ellsworth (1927 5th Edition 1991), description of events on Wiki and a Rootsweb extensive list of historical sources and articles.

More recent coverage in "Survivors Recall 1927 Michigan School Massacre" a NPR story on April 17, 2009 and "Local residents recently discuss the future of the Bath School Memorial Park" and historical site - Story and video (May 14, 2012)

Related Slates:
More on Public Education and Michigan Public Schools on the Gazette.

Original.

Betsy DeVos & The Amway Clan’s Abject Failure to Reach High Moral Ground via “Corporate Social Responsibility”

Elizabeth Prince DeVos has gone the long distance to rip apart Michigan's public schools, as such, Betsy has shown her moral poverty and disregard for community. She knows noting of "permaculture" the need to protect and promote heart and soul of American Ideals and Institutions.

Perhaps Betsy could be forgiven her narrow minded anti-public bigotry; given her early life; isolated and steeped in a strong ethnic background skeptical of the validity of science and the rest of the religious world-but that was then; her early schooling and her matriculation from hypercalvinist Calvin College - Grand Rapids - and now forgiveness is not an option.

Betsy's religious tradition struggled long, hard, and tragically in holding on to its connections to South Africa's racial Apartheid. At an early-less mature time of muted, yet dangerous ideological commitment; Betsy and her husband, Dick Jr.,  stunningly defeated in his personally financed $34 million bid for Michigan's governorship - were supporting individual "scholarships" for children of color.

With immense deep pockets they could finance hundreds of children lifted by them out poverty and deprivation to attend Cranbrook or wherever they could find elite schools of their personal choice to accept their minority "scholars." Who would object if Dick & Betsy want to help or promote the academic achievement of needy students via their own or organized scholarship charity? But, no, that was not enough!

Betsy took on Michigan's historic institution of public education in a mean-spirited and aggressive manner - An enduring hissy fit.

Betsy's goal: secure taxpayer provided voucher monies for her own Dutch Reformed Christian Schools and parochiaid for any and all religions. Moving through a number of morphed organizations and political efforts with names such as the American Federation for Children she has run a rough and rude campaign to grind to dust any or all opposition - Care not they be Republican or Democrat!

Violations of the campaign finance laws and multimillion dollar fines thereto have not slowed her efforts. Joining with other aggressive elites with agendas intended to rob the public of its public school monies and support, Betsy presses ahead. She has great support from the anti-community/local business prosperity Waltons of Wal-Mart, and the mega-billions Cato creators and A.L.E.C. corporate bullies: Charles and David Koch.

Betsy's The Mega Rich Poster Girl for the Antithesis of CSR

Corporate Social Responsibility (or CSR) defined on Wikipedia as:

"CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY  is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. CSR policy functions as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby business monitors and ensures its active compliance with the spirit of the law, ethical standards, and international norms.

"The goal of CSR is to embrace responsibility for the company's actions and encourage a positive impact through its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere. Furthermore, CSR-focused businesses would proactively promote the public interest by encouraging community growth and development, and voluntarily eliminating practices that harm the public sphere, regardless of legality. CSR is the deliberate inclusion of public interest into corporate decision-making, and the honoring of a triple bottom line: people, planet, profit."

Note: "CSR" also called corporate conscience, citizenship, social performance, or sustainable responsible business.


The upshot of Betsy's vicious war on the public schools is the denigration and destruction of Michigan's once premiere Public Education Program run and fostered by its premiere/world class public universities. What happened in the Michigan TeaPublican 2011 Legislative session, that insulted, undercut, (Michigan's public schools were legislatively swindled of $1.2 billion due them) and soiled the profession of teaching(dishonest, partisan/ideological attacks on tenure), could NEVER have happened had Betsy disapproved. The blame is Betsy's to bear.

Keen observer and new political straight-shooter, reporter Chris Savage details the situation in Michigan under the dominance and dictates of Betsy DeVos:

"In Benton Harbor, the teachers union, the MEA, delivered a truckload of schools supplies to teachers who didn't even have pencils and paper for their students. School systems across the state face bankruptcy and the prospect of an Emergency Manager. This is blamed on corrupt administrators, greedy, parasitic teachers and budget-breaking unionized workers. It is never blamed on the fact that we are increasingly starving our public schools of the resources they need to exist and flourish.

"When someone tries to tell you that charter schools are the answer to our educational system's problems and that outsourcing the education of our children is going to help bring our most poverty-stricken public schools to the same level as the school systems in wealthy districts, ask them this. Ask them how they expect public school systems to compete after they took one billion dollars away from them during an economic recession."

"Ask them that."

Source: Chris Savage (aka Eclectablog) in "The Republican hypocrisy in Michigan’s charter school debate"  posted December 15, 2011 and also found on BloggingforMichigan.


Original.

Michissippi Madness: Educational Apartheid on the Rise/GOP Monopoly Corporatocracy Replaces Local Democracy

Yesterday's late night vote (December 14, 2011) to uncap profit making charters culminates in defeat A MORE THAN 30 YEAR BATTLE to protect the grand heritage of the publicly-funded, publicly-controlled, publicly-loved neighborhood public schools.

Unlimited Charter loosey-goosey Legislation now replaces that school with a plethora of profit-for-profit-sake wildcat operations designed to siphon off hundreds of millions of your tax dollars into the hands of a wide variety of unsavory and anti-democratic corporations, con men, and swindlers.
WHAT MICHISSIPPIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT WILL BE THE FIRST TO BE CONVERTED TO ALL FOR-PROFIT CHARTERS? HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE? THEN WHAT?

Here in Michigan it all began with Dick & Betsy parading academics Chubb and Moe around the state utilizing the Brookings Institution's book: "Politics, Markets, and America's Schools".

Wrote Al Shanker concerning Chubb and Moe:

"...(I)t's too bad that THE ONLY SOLUTION THEY OFFER IS TO END DEMOCRATIC CONTROL AND PUT SCHOOLS IN THE SAME CATEGORY AS TOOTHPASTE --THAT IS, UNDER MARKET CONTROL. But with this important difference " the individual would choose the "product," but the public would still pay."

"Under the scheme that Chubb and Moe favor, schools would be virtually unregulated. THE STATE WOULD ALLOW JUST ABOUT ANY GROUP OF PEOPLE TO START A SCHOOL. THEY WOULD SET THEIR OWN CRITERIA FOR STUDENT ADMISSIONS AND TEACH PRETTY MUCH WHAT THEY WANTED. PARENTS WOULD BE FREE TO CHOOSE THE SCHOOLS THAT ATTRACTED THEM, EACH SCHOOL WOULD RECEIVE PUBLIC MONEY ACCORDING TO THE NUMBER AND KIND OF STUDENTS ENROLLED AND KIDS WHOM NO ONE WANTED WOULD SOMEHOW BE FOUND A PLACE. The idea is that a wide variety of schools filling particular tastes would grow up. The ones that were satisfactory to consumers would flourish; the others would fail."

Original.

Tweetal Dee & Tweetal Dumb: Jacques & Olson - Putting a Strangle Hold on Michigan's Legislative Agenda

Ingrid Jacques & Kyle Olson, Dee and Dumb, are squawking about organized teachers. And what do they know? They're paid hacks for the anti-public school aggressors and the TeaPublican faction now with a stranglehold on the Michissippi legislative agenda.

In "Union Backlash" in the Michigan View on July 6, 2011, Ingrid references EAG ( Kyle Olson’s Education Action Group).Just a few mouths ago, Kyle Olson, kid brother to Dr. Ryan Olson, who headed up Mackinac Center's education division, came out of nowhere and helped form a "front group, EAG"; a not so clever shell operation for the raging ideological and Profitization forces in opposition to local schooling.

The EAG incorporator is closely associated with Betsy Prince DeVos, anti-public schools maven (SEE: EAGTruth.com) :

"EAG is a front group for the Michigan Republican groups that seek to expand the use of publicly funded vouchers for private and religious schools. A closer look reveals broad GOP leadership connections:

Eric Doster, EAG incorporator
"Eric Doster, a Lansing lawyer, has been General Counsel to the Michigan Republican Party for 15 years. Doster served on the advisory board for the Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP) PAC and his home address is listed as that of the group's treasurer. The GLEP PAC is a creation of Dick DeVos that advocates vouchers and charter schools."

"Doster represented U. S. Rep. Tim Walberg in his recall fight, represented Citizens for the Protection of Marriage in 2004, and was appointed to the Judges' Retirement Board in 1996 by former Governor John Engler. He is a member of the ultra-conservative Federalist Society."

Kyle Olson, EAG sole staff member
"Kyle Olson, a former Lansing lobbyist, was district director and campaign manager for Republican Gerald Van Woerkom's campaign for state Senate in 2002. He is also a member of the Republican State Committee. In September 2007, he joined other prominent Michigan Republican activists at a Grand Rapids airport during a visit with Vice President Dick Cheney.

Olson's brother Ryan is (was) the Director of Education Policy for the conservative Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Far from being a group of "citizens and school board leaders," Doster and Olson's passion is working to elect Republicans. That's okay, but don't try to hide behind a "nonpartisan" label."

Provocateur Betsy Prince DeVos apparently has developed an apparent need to show that the anti-public effort was more widespread and active than several others, produced by hundreds of millions spent with such efforts as Capitol Confidential, Ken Bruan, the Education Report, a "faux pro-public schools rag" that is sent to teachers (free of charge ala the MEA Voice-a house publication) in order to communicate a "false and misformation" messages directly to teachers; in hopes of breaking some of the teachers off from their preferred professional organizations-the effort's ultimate goal.

Kyle OIson was recently pictured in the far background at the of the AFP (Koch Brothers Americans for Prosperity) rally at the Capitol in Lansing, lonesome and alone, largely unknown. None-the-less Olson was a presenter and a participant a the podium, he also added in with his showing of Kids Aren't Cars video in a nearby meeting room. Kyle is a eager understudy to the nefarious, sex fedish addict-turned big moralizer and trash talker, the Koch' Bros. operative, Dick Morris of FOX fame.

Olson's group (essentially made up of just Olson and a Michigan GOP attorney) made it from secret formation of EAG (Olson's Education Action Group) out of nowhere, to the front pages of Booth papers; The EAG materials were published with Olson's facilitation to "shock" the public with an exhausting listing of salaries for teachers and for their association's staffs derived by efforts of the Mackinac Center, but attributed to EAG for expanded effect.

Undercover Olson: Misrepresenting Himself, as a Student, to Trap a Professor
Kyle Olson was also given to delusion that he could make the national news scene with his "gottcha interview" and video which he procured by going to NY city; falsifying his identity and purpose to a well-known, elderly professor, from whom he hoped to derive "shocking" revelations in the pursuit of his desperate need to rise to fame: utilizing the identical MO of the Acorn video gottcha deceptions and brouhaha of the year before.

EAG lacks transparency and openness according to EAGTruth.com:

"EAG's Thug Watch' is a launching pad for personal attacks against anyone who disagrees with its agenda."

"The EAG's Articles of Incorporation filed by Republican Party General Counsel Eric Doster give only vague details of the EAG's funding sources: 'The corporation is to be financed under the following general plan:CONTRIBUTIONS FROM CORPORATE FOUNDATIONS AND PRIVATE FOUNDATIONS."
(emphasis added)

More recently, Kyle Olson has been a frequent anti-public school "guest" commentator on Andrew Breitbart's "chop shop" website.

One wonders who really prompts these two, Kyle Olson & Ingrid Jacques. Are the ideas they espouse all their own or are they the convenient, underpaid, younger faces for older muck?

Original Post.

Déjà vu: It's Educational Apartheid All Over Again!

Commentary on the Michigan View on January 16, 2011.

SHUT DOWN ALL DETROIT NEIGHBORHOOD PUBLIC SCHOOLS - Quick Find a Charter School:

1. Charter School Administrative Services
2. Leona Group, LLC
3. Evans Solution Management Company
4. Professional Contract Management Inc
5. White Hat Management
6. Bardwell Group
7. National Heritage Academies
8. Schoolhouse Services and Staffing Inc
9. Solid Rock Management Company
10. Midwest Management Group Inc.
11. Nataki Talibah Schoolhouse
12. Black Star Educational Management
13. Education Management and Networks
14. Innovative Teaching Solutions
15. 777 Educational Management Company
16. Hamadeh Educational Services Inc
17. New Urban Learning

Here, for the public's first look, is a nearly complete list of proprietary owners of private educational for-profits, siphoning off public tax dollars for loosely regulated, privately administered, middle man, manpower-style academies.

The Detroit taxpayer cannot participate in the operations of these privatized education mills, the funding is public, the operations are strictly private.

The owner of National Heritage Academies appeared on national television bragging his faux public academies had returned him a 12% profit.

Chartering sponsors under Michigan law include a small, two feather upper peninsula Indian Tribe, perhaps better suited to running gambling casinos than educating our children with our tax monies: supervising charters schools for a 3% cut. The entire thing a phony Engeresque arrangement.

And this Mr. Finley is what you have been hankering to see come to pass!

Detroit, Michigan-to become the nation's first urban school district to shutter ALL its doors and TOTALLY SURRENDER ITS LIMITED TAX DOLLARS TO PRIVATE PROFITEERS AND IDEOLOGUES WITH UNKNOWN AGENDAS FOR CHILDREN; The Detroit/Mackinac News' ANTI-PUBLIC DREAM AGENDA/OBJECTIVE about to come true.

Déjà vu: It's Educational Apartheid All Over Again


Original Post.

Cato’s Not So Clever Charter School Contortions (ala Andrew J. Coulson)

Response to "Charters hold key to saving state big education dollars" by  Andrew J. Coulson in the Detroit News on December 17. 2009.

Cato says: "Charters hold key to saving state big education dollars"
This presentation by the Libertarian Cato Institute is very revealing, both for its content, its timing, and its distortions.

The assumption that Charter schools are the answer to the problems of achievement in academics is both wish-full thinking and deceptive. But the fact that the thrust of this appeal to the public and to the legislature appears in the News at the 11th hour the 59th minute, in the middle of this present "crisis," is very eye-opening and gives great insight as to the thinking of the local brand of radicalism that sees taxes in such a dim light. This piece lights up the dark corner of a class of ideologues who would eliminate the "burden of taxation" for the education of any child in a "public school."

The essential attitude of Cato is akin to the thought that is behind the choice over the use of a public toilet faculty. If an individual had a choice between a "public faculty" and a "private" one, the choice would always be for the private loo.

Let's look at what Cato's Andrew J. Coulson has revealed unto us.

1.) Cato: (I)f Michigan converted all its conventional public schools into charters (also known as public school academies), that tsunami would explode into a refreshing mist -- complete with fiscal surplus rainbow.

RESPONSE: Charters are operating in many areas where fine public schools exist. In fact many private schools simply converted to fit the "charter" designation in the early days of Michigan's charter school experiment. Many of those operations, even given public tax dollars have not survived. Charters exploit the atmosphere of created by the "manufactured crisis" over public schools encouraged and promoted by the Heartland Institute, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, WalMart heirs, and the radicalized national Republican Party. The GOP, over the years since Reagan and still today, has promoted and festered anti-public school sentiment as a special "wedge issue" headed up by such rogues as Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist. Religiously the GOP argument against public schooling has come from James Dobson and Jerry Falwell, both ardent foes and strong supporters of parents "pulling their children from public schools." The alternative for education monies, of course, is parochiaid a long sought and strongly defeated effort. Ask the Amway DeVos' about how easy it is to get a state like Utah to vote the voucher. Their well-funded effort there went down like it did in 2000 in Michigan by a whopping 2 to 1 margin. Does that tell you how the voter thinks?

2.) Cato: Based on the latest (2006-07) figures, the average charter school in Michigan spends $2,000 less in state and local tax dollars per pupil than the average district school. So the savings from a district-to-charter student exodus would add up to $3.5 billion annually.

RESPONSE: This overly simplistic assertion is only the tip of a dirty, acidic iceberg. Those savings are based in many ways on the fact that "truly public" neighborhood schools exist and continue to serve the charters as a safety net. The charters love to have a "full house" of coupon bearing children enrolled on head count day, after that they can eject the "bad apples" back into the public system.

Like cowbirds they don't see any problem in letting the other birds utilize their funding and facilities to educate their "rejects." The lower costs are built on the backs of many young teachers looking for any place to obtain a teaching job even if it doesn't pay well or provide adequate benefits, and even if it shorts their possibilities of a "public school retirement" down the years ahead.

The recent news from the News has actually pointed out that charters can be tiny "kingdoms," "fiefdoms" where operators and the proprietary interests hire and fire at-will, practice simony and placement of family members and fellow travelers in positions paid by tax dollars which have been siphoned off from the local, neighborhood school. Charter schools don't have to pack into the "foundation grant" the various mandates of Michigan law such as busing, including busing for private schools within their districts.

Charters also avoid wherever possible the high costs of physically and otherwise handicapped children (including blind children) and other students with special needs. Cherry picking for charters is a year around educating-for-profit activity.

3.) Cato: "...Michigan's charter schools not only spend 20 percent less than district schools, they also have 20 percent fewer pupils per teacher.

RESPONSE: One of the "boutique" draws of charters is the system's ability to cut personnel costs, other costs associated with a public school employee's benefits and retirement, the costs of a building built to a higher standard by far for a "public school" than the special zoning and building codes sought and obtained by the chartering industry, which has allowed them to build OSB, balloon trussed, and vinyl clad polebarns (akin to pig farm buildings) for their operations. God forbid one ever becomes engulfed in fire!

Get the facts: The faux public charter school owners have bragged in national media about making up to 12 percent profit from educating children in their privately operated and privately governed proprietary facilities. This means that chartering involves a middleman level of costs and control that must come from cutting something else in the operation and faculties of these completive experiments. So smaller classes, not always the standard, becomes a draw for parents.

It also helps that the parents are "coerced" into "contributing" hours of their labor and efforts into supplementing and off-loading the expenses of the charter's operations.  No compliance with mandatory service, no "free" taxpayer-funded charter schooling for your child.

4.) Cato: Thus far, the governor and state Legislature seem unaware of the vast savings to be had from universal charter schooling. But they have shown their willingness to promote charters in response to a far smaller financial inducement.

RESPONSE: The use of the charter movement based on the segregation academies of the south has been a pet project of a cornucopia of private and parochial interests. The heavy push from the Catholic hierarchy to achieve the voucher has been a major ingredient in this movement, privatizing for profit as Jonathan Kozol pointed out in Harpers Magazine is the "giant enchilada" for venture capitalists-so eager to break into the public schools lockbox.

The mantra, education is the sole responsibility of parents, has in it the thought that if you have a child the expense of educating that child is totally on you. That concept is specious, but it motivates a strong undercurrent in the anti-public school ranks. Right thinking citizens see a much larger and more important reason for excellence in public schools, for all children: the survival of our democracy.

One of the significant sources of the perennial "stink tank attacks" on public schools stems from the fact that all our children, from all our ethnic and racial groups, didn't sit in the same classrooms until into the 1970's. The residual fear and resentment over that occurrence has spawned a plethora of academies and private elitist religious school.

Just go the local library and look under the Yellow Pages for the listings of such schools in a city like Charlotte, North Carolina, there peruse the scores of such educational operations listings, the list will astound you.

5.) Cato: If legislators are willing to promote charter schools modestly in response to that modest and transitory incentive, they should be willing to promote charter schools much more intensively for a recurring annual savings that is eight times larger.

RESPONSE: The cost savings in a charter operation would be different if the playing field were level and identical with the local, neighborhood school. We have seen over 40 charters bite the dust this year alone. More will follow. Who gets the buildings, the computers, the equipment? The taxpaying public? Call your representative and ask. The answers will be weak and unrewarding. And then you have to ask yourself why is the Bay Mills Tribe in the tax-funded charter school business? Wouldn't it be more profitable and sensible for them to operate more casinos?

6.) Cato: (S)ignificant though it would be, charterizing the state's education system is not the best that Michiganians could do for their children. Opening the state's educational marketplace completely would be a better option. Some parents, for instance, prefer a religious education for their children, and religious (particularly Catholic) schools have repeatedly been found to be among the most effective and least expensive to operate.

RESPONSE: If a religious institution, say the branch run by Louis Farakahan, wants to run a "private" religious institution; what's the harm in throwing some of the "surplus" Michigan tax monies to them for that purpose?   If private sources like the Amway clan, WalMart, the Knights of Columbus, or the Michigan Militia want a "government free" academy let them fund it and operate it as they see fit. To ask the taxpayer to fund indoctrination and sectarian religious training is one bridge too far. Already we have seen a charter run as a Muslim school teaching Arabic and having over a 90 percent Muslim student population.

Let's see now, what other kinds of secular or religious groups should we endow with public tax dollars to educate to their own beliefs and standards?

Incidentally, Catholic schools are not schools-on average-that have just Catholic students or individuals with religious orders as instructors anymore. They are very diverse and eclectic.

During the 1960's Catholic schools slipped in their achievement and desirability, being a Catholic school has not always automatically proven to be a school of excellence, and how they are run; not democratic either. Problems with sexual abuse and physical abuse of students in Catholic schools is a topic worth exploring, but in another venue.

7.) Cato:(P)roviding free charter schools without providing easier access to private school options reduces families' access to both religious and secular private alternatives. The closure of many Michigan private schools during the past decade resoundingly attests to the fact that it's hard to compete with free or heavily subsidized public schools.

RESPONSE: Not every elitist or religious desire for one's children should be the responsibility of the public and the tax dollar. No group should be more certain of this than the Libertarians and their Cato Institute. Did Andrew J. Coulson simply skip-rock this essay across the water or did he get approval from the Cato high council?

8.) Cato: Michigan's Constitution bans giving all families an easy choice between district, charter and private schools. As a result, it is impossible for Michigan parents to give their children the best possible educational options and permanently rein in out-of-control school district spending.

RESPONSE: It all comes down to Cato and fellow travelers finding a way to breach the levees of separation of church and state. On one hand they want freedom, and lots of it. Libertarians want freedom for drug use.

They want to get out of taxes they don't like. Then they want a "government" endowment for religious and private education. How can these ardent proponents of "freedom" be so bifurcated and blind? Perhaps they need to check with Michigan Republicans in the legislature to see how they carry on in their dark night of anti-public school radicalism.

Original Post.

The Governor Must Lean on the MEA to Accomplish the GOP Senate's Radical Goals

Response to Detroit News article "Detroit parents want DPS teachers, officials jailed over low test scores" on December 12, 2009 and Detroit News Editorial "Michigan lawmakers must adopt reforms to liberate schools" December 2, 2009.

The Detroit News hectors the legislature to "liberate" schools and taxpayers from the teachers

Hobnailed "Liberation ideology" strikes again. Been here, done this. It's the "Engler Revolution" all over again.

The very queer nature of this effort to strip the teachers of their abilities to perform their duties and protect the professional education standards of the State of Michigan are being challenged in an even stranger alliance: Radical conservative tax-haters and the so-called "socialist" and "gangster politics" of Obama.

To see the sea change in the attitude of the Detroit News toward anything Obama, including the Obama Administration's Race to the Top's-latest and greatest attempt to grab the headlines and effect changes brought to U.S. education, is astonishing. R2T is another heavy-handed, top-down gimmick, another underfunded edict from the feds in DC impacting the local school district financially, and not much more.

This News and Obama collaboration is indeed a wild spectacle.

Arne Duncan is transposing his elements of his Chicago methodology and practice upon the national scene and using the promise-"bribe" of federal education dollars as the carrot to accomplish his goal. In light of the deep economic crisis in the country, Duncan may succeed. Especially if he can pull down Michigan's higher standards and force change by means of money offered in this time of extreme budget crisis. Pushing alternative certification to bring in outsider practitioners of certain math or physics skills sounds attractive, if there are no real certified teachers available (that may be universally true in low performing or anti-union states like Texas, but not Michigan), to place "non-educational methods trained outsiders" in the elementary schools is bizarre and serves no enhancing benefit for the students, in fact it is insulting to trained teachers and our state's premier teacher training programs.

Other concepts cut-back across the list of high accomplishments achieved by Michigan Schools and endanger our ability to serve under the strained conditions which now exist in the state.

Knowledgeable business people and informed citizens understand the externalities of culture, economy, family life (or the lack thereof) and a myriad of other factors which bear directly on the acculturation and development of children as determines or molds their educational achievement and moral development. Even liberals are near the end of theory as to the workable solutions for the very poor, the urban bound and the under-classes of Michigan.

The only reason that the Detroit News is toadying up to Arne Duncan's newest scheme is that it fits, hand in grove, with a more sinister and long-term goal of the Mackinac Center/Detroit News cabal's most pressing goal, defeat of the MEA as a power in the state. A quote from Thomas Bray, Detroit News, lays it all on the line: If the MEA can be broken here in Michigan then more of the conservative agenda for education can be pushed in the entire country. There it is. MEA is a major target as a political enemy, all discussions of reform or educational funding aside.

Sen. Wayne Kuipers told Rick Pluta, Michigan Public Radio, that the R2T changes being crammed through the Senate and the House are accomplishing the very personal goals that he has worked so long an hard to accomplish during his tenure. Kuipers serves a very right wing religious constituency and an ethnic religious minority that has long been at odds with public school financing going back decades. Kuiper's dream is now near reality, with the help of Lansing Democrats,, and even Gov. Jennifer Granholm-hamstrung because of economic necessity and unable to withstand the pressure from Washington.

The school employees and teachers have become the holders of the "OVERDRAFT ACCOUNT" once again for Michigan. It is with impunity that the legislature has turned to the state's education community to fund their problems in funding our children's' education. And they say education and educators are our top priority?

In the early 1980's is they took money from the school employees retirement fund to bail out Chrysler when it was near the brink, before Proposition A, in the early days of the so-called "Engler led Revolution", Engler found his budget in deep trouble. In 1996 following a heated court battle the Free Press reported, "In a decision hailed as a 'big win' for the Engler Administration, the Michigan Supreme Court said Monday that it would not require the state to repay more than $400 MILLION taken from a teacher's retirement health care fund in the early 1990's."

Gov. Granholm has adopted a "go-it-alone" style and has not been able to collaborate or work effectively with the ambitious Democratic Leader of the Michigan House and her stand offishness toward the MEA, which has been a good base of support for her, has not served her well, not in the 2007 state shutdown nor in the current impasse. Granholm is locked into the moves by the Obama Education Department-out of mandatory party loyalty. 

The welfare of Michigan education suffers, and suffers badly without its erstwhile "friends." Why otherwise would she agree to "alternative" methods of allowing individuals with little or no instructional or psychological training and methods to simply waltz into the role of teacher-in a school full of highly qualified teachers who are required to complete many more hours of training beyond certification.

The thought in Michigan was higher standards.

Gov. Granholm pushed for much higher graduation standards in subjects akin to college prep, why would she retreat on full certification and endorsements for all classroom instruction? Again, the News, Thomas Bray asks, "...And is everybody cut out for a core curriculum that is clearly aimed at college enrollment?" The obvious answer is "no."

The issue of "wildfire" charters comes up again.

This revival of the southern segregation academy is still the nocturnal dream of the hard right and the Christian Coalition. What we have seen in Michigan is the FAILURE OF OVER 40 CHARTER SCHOOLS funded with tax-payer dollars, schools closed and their publicly funded buildings and facilities in foreclosure. Where are the legislative attempts to salvage the lost tax moneys?

Charters run openly claiming to hire "only Christians" to promote their "national heritage" ideologies, charters self-segregated with over 90 percent of students the same race, a least one charter teaching in Islamic language and culture, these are the "love children" of those hard rightists and others who are purposefully attempting to dismantle our historic public school tradition and rich heritage. This kind of anti-neighborhood "revolt" is dangerous and offensive to our history of community and good citizenship. Again that old Detroit News sage, Thomas Bray: "...everybody "knows" that the entire GOP strategy depends on using "code words" as part of a "Southern strategy" to win elections." And "parental choice" and "charters" sounds better and sells better than "parochiaid" and "vouchers."

So hold your noises Lansing.

What you are doing is not a reform, it is not moving in a pro-active direction.

The things that need changing are going unchallenged, and teachers are being summarily locked out of the dialogue (there is none!). This kind of political shenanigans is bitter chocolate icing on a bar of political Decon.

The old bitterness and reprisals hatched by Engler are back and you, our communities representatives, are the lackluster lackeys to carry out the deadly deed.