Michigan Proposal 2 - News Flashback: Gov Romney Supports Michigan Public Employees Right to Collectively Bargain

A little known fact: Gov. George W. Romney signed into law PERA – The Public Employees Rights Act in 1965 – that protected the right of collective bargaining in Michigan.

Michigan Govenor George W. Romney Signs the PERA Act in 1965 - Michigan Teachers Stand at His Side

The critical question for today on the eve of the 2012 Presidential election is: If you, Mitt Romney, are so committed a Moderate Republican like your father George, and as wife Ann has touted in these last weeks throughout Michigan and Ohio: Why are you not fully in support of your father’s legacy as a Collective Bargaining Rights statesman?

Young Teachers watch Gov. George Romney signs PERA into law (1965)

Representative s of Public Employee Unions look on as Gov. George Romney signs PERA (1965)

For more depth on George W. Romney “an example of ethical leadership” look up: DOCUMENTARY on George W. Romney by BYU-TV October 1, 2008.

PROVO, Utah – Oct 1, 2008 – "The Romney Code: The Life and Ethics of George W. Romney" will premiere on BYU Television Monday, Oct. 6, at 8 p.m. MDT. The premiere will include the 30-minute documentary followed by a special 30-minute discussion with Romney family members. An advanced preview of the documentary will air on Saturday, Oct. 4, at 12:30 p.m. between sessions of general conference.

Airing as part of "LDS Lives", a series on influential Mormons, "The Romney Code: The Life and Ethics of George W. Romney" takes viewers from Romney's childhood through his business and political careers to the volunteerism efforts that capped his life.

Director Ethan Vincent weaves interviews with Romney's children, colleagues and historians with photographs, video and voice recordings of the man to tell a visually compelling story. Vincent says the documentary will help audiences see Romney's diverse influence and unique approach to politics as three-term Michigan Governor.

"What he did supersedes the way politics are done today," Vincent says. "Now you are either a republican or a democrat, but he was able to collaborate effectively on both sides."

Brigham Young University's Romney Institute of Public Management, was named for George W. Romney in 1998. The Romney Institute offers a master's degree in public administration and seeks to prepare young people for careers in public service. (Emphasis added)

Source: “BYU-TV to Premiere George Romney Documentary” Brigham Young University - Marriott School (October 2008)

Reed Larson of the John Birch Society: Long History of Working with the LDS on "Right to Work (for Less)" Laws

   

Church of Latter Day Saints or Mormon Church and the John Birch Society A Perspective: Radical Counterpoint to George Romney: Mormon’s & the Rise of the John Birch Society in America Excerpted from "How Mormon Leaders Built the John Birch Society":

“The Mormon Church has always staked out positions among the political far right. In the 1920's Reed Smoot, the first Mormon senator and the most powerful LDS leader in politics at the time, was good friends with Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. By passing the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill, Hoover sent America into the Great Depression. The Mormon hierarchy sided with the most reactionary conservatives to oppose FDR and Democrats trying to pull America out of the economic abyss. Mormon president/prophet Heber J. Grant, "detested the Democrat's New Deal policies." (The Mormon Corporate Empire, p.37)”

(Break)

“When Joseph McCarthy went on his anti-communist crusade claiming communists had infested the State Department, his first stop was Salt Lake City, where he flew in and "participated in a Lincoln Day banquet held at the Newhouse Hotel." Presumably McCarthy met with First Counselor J. Reuben Clark Jr., the staunch anti-communist "whose many years of service in the State Department gave him a broad exposure to world politics." It was (during) his visit to Utah that McCarthy settled on the number 57 as the number of communists in the State Department.”

READ original posting “How Mormon Leaders Built the John Birch Society” by Baracks Backers (DailyKos October 2012)

In 1984 Reed Larson gave an exclusive interview to the John Birch Society publication, Review of the News. The interviewer was John Rees, who had been an editor for Western Goals Foundation publications.

Described as a “Fighter for Worker Rights,” Larson was asked about the power of labor unions. This additional anti-union information from the Mormon backed John Birch radicalism. From the interview of right-winger Reed Larson:

JBS: You are talking about political power.

[Reed] Larson: I think union officials should enjoy the same rights and freedoms as everyone else, but no more. That’s the problem. Today they are specially privileged individuals. In fact, as Nobel-laureate Friedrich Hayek has put it: “We have now reached a state where unions have become uniquely privileged institutions…. It cannot be stressed enough that the coercion that the unions have been permitted to exercise contrary to all principles of freedom under the law is primarily the coercion of fellow workers.” That’s the problem which our National Right to Work Committee is out to solve.

Tremendous political power has been put in the hands of union officials; and that power, almost without exception, is used on the side of collectivism, more government, less individual freedom, and greater control of the individual.

A look at the current positions of the nation’s largest union the National Education Association - shows that the union position in the philosophical spectrum has changed little.
(Emphasis added)

There you have it, a little history.

Related Slates:
George W. Romney’s Franken-Son: Mitt & His ‘Noble’ Lies (October 2012) - Middling Mitt Romney Not of His Fathers'Sterling Civic Michigan Mettle (Gaskell & George Romney) (June 2012) - For Mitt Romney, Billy Graham ‘Sells Out’ His Faith &Jesus for Political Advantage (October 2012) - The Crushing Blow to Mitt’s Quix-Toxic Quest: ‘Good Samaritan’or ‘Corporate Bandit’ (October 2012) or all posts on Mitt Romney or George Romney.

Cross-posted to Kos.

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.

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.

Fools All: It’s twilight time in the TeaPublican Michigan State Senate

"Confiscation Schools"! Has Pavlov's Ed Committee Lost It's Mind? Sowing the Seeds of Local Discontent & Destruction: More angry, bullheaded attempts to destroy public education as we know it.

Yesterday, if the senate schedule held, the Senate Education Committee headed up by Sen. Phil Pavlov, entertained and possibly passed to the full senate, a complete package of utter nonsense (So-called Conversion Schools). Damaging and destroying our communities, this radical, unheard of ignorant overreach is again based on raw revenge, demeans and exposes these TeaPublican Senators as fools- dangerous to Michigan children, the foundations of public education, all dangerous to our futures.

Let's look over the rail and examine the non-sense proposal:
Sen. David Robertson: SB620 (Robertson) Education; public school academies; conversion schools...

Convoluted/Simpleton Rules for Confiscation of Neighborhood School Operations by Outsiders & Privateers:

Revise "the School Code to provide for the organization and administration of conversion schools, which would be public schools previously operated by a school district and converted under a contract issued by an authorizing body."

1. -- Require a petition to convert a school to be signed by at least 51% of the teachers at that school or at least 51% of the parents or guardians of pupils at the school.

2. -- Require an application to convert a school to be submitted to the board of the school district that included the school and, if that board did not approve the application, allow it to be submitted to another authorizing body.

In a public small school with, let's say 10 teachers, 6 teachers could revolt and privatize the school, a small group of parents may do likewise.

The local school, previously belonging to and operated by the local public district, would be removed from public jurisdiction, supervision, and control. The neighborhood schools would be made into another faux public school: A private school funded with taxpayer moneys.

Charters are by law, in most cases, private schools -unless operated by directly by a college or a school or ISD district- schools that are funded with public tax dollars, but run willy nilly by private, for-profit operators. They are franchise schools or corporate schools. Faux Public Charters are private schools funded with public money, operating outside the control and purview of the local population.

The acrimony, destruction to student progress and education and accompanying disruption created by this Robertson "nonsense proposal" boarders on fantastical. It's just plain NUTS.

Mr. Robertson's proposal for "conversion schools" fronts for "the Republican-led effort (which) would throw all kinds of new powers to parents and charter schools. It would even let a district fill classrooms with teachers employed by private, for-profit companies."

What are these angry and aggressive TeaPublicans thinking? Rather, what are they doing out of rage?

Note: the local elected board of education can be leap-frogged and excluded from the control or loss of a school to the local public. 

Sen. David Robertson is so intent on doing harm, that he is willing to go wild in his anti-public, anti-community crusade.

Conversion schools are schools of destruction and disillusion of the right of local citizens to own and control their local schools. To simply create a questionable legal legislative mechanism to remove a school from the public to private hands is A THEFT OF THE COMMON PROPERTY OF A NEIGHBORHOOD.

This proposed act allows for the introduction of educational management companies (including out-state corporations) which will be involved in the conversion school's operations.

Addressing the very real problems of the politics of Conversion Schools the proposal inserts these caveats:

1.)" A requirement that the board prohibit specifically identified family relationships between board members, individuals with an ownership interest in an educational management organization involved in the school's operation, officers or employees of such an organization, and employees of the school."

2.)" A requirement that the board prohibit any individual from being employed by the school in more than one full-time position and simultaneously being compensated at a full-time rate for each of those positions."

A sampling of other Roberson concepts in his Proposal:

1.) Require a conversion school authorized by a school district to be located in the school that was converted and prohibit the district from charging rent, but make the school financially responsible for maintaining the facilities

2.) The bill also would include a school operated by a conversion school corporation in the Code's definition of "public school", and would include a conversion school in the definition of "public school academy".

3.) To obtain a contract to convert a public school operated by a school district to a conversion school, one or more people or a legal entity would have to apply to the school district and submit to the board of the district an application and a petition signed by at least 51% of the teachers employed by the school district at the school to be converted and/or at least 51% of the parents or legal guardian of the pupils enrolled in the school. The board would have to consider the petition and approve or deny it within 60 days. If the board denied the petition, it would have to issue a letter of denial to the applicant.

4.) Collective Bargaining: If a conversion school were authorized by the board of the school district that operated the school that was converted, the school district would be the employer of the employees regularly working at the conversion school, but the school and its employees would not be subject to collective bargaining agreements that applied to employees of the school district employed in similar classifications in schools that were not conversion schools.

If a "conversion"school were authorized by an authorizing body other than the board of the school district that had operated the school, the school district would not be the employer of employees regularly working at the conversion school and the school and those employees would not be subject to a collective bargaining agreement with the school district.

SOURCE: Senate Document "CONVERSION SCHOOLS S.B. 620: COMMITTEE SUMMARY"

Footnote: David Robertson is the self-same individual who has taken up Snyder style Socialism Central Control: usurpation of local and community voice in the locals own affairs. Its one horrednous step too far:

Mr. Robertson sez, ""We need to empower the top executive to appoint more people ;who will go deeper into the bureaucracy," Robertson said. "THE HEART OF THE ISSUE IS POLITICAL POWER."

Blogger Eclectoblog states:

"If his (Robertson's) proposal to let the governor appoint 1% of the state government employees moves forward it would increase the current number by a factor of 4.5. Again, this is all about political power and ROBERTSON HAS BECOME SO INTOXICATED WITH HIS PARTY'S UNBRIDLED OVERREACH IN MICHIGAN THAT HE DOESN'T FEEL ANY NEED TO HIDE IT."
(emphasis added)

SOURCE: "Republican state senator Robertson wants Governor to have MORE power"

Just what are Mr. Robertson and the 'rogue' TeaPublicans up to? Let Susan Demas explain:

"It's hard for Republicans to make the case that they haven't singled out schools and teachers' unions in a host of policies this year. Legislation mandating public employees to pay more for health insurance had an opt-out clause for municipalities -- but schools are forced to participate. Teacher tenure reform once again dictates to school districts how it deals with employees, whereas local governments don't get any such edicts."

"And even this week, the Senate passed legislation limiting school board elections to November of even-numbered years. That saves money. But the Senate wasn't interested in saving more money by applying it to municipalities. They can still hold elections four times a year, every year.

"Because the hope is that it will be easier for conservative school board members to get elected when there's more than just school issues on the ballot. Another goal is to make it harder for schools to pass millages -- even though schools have few options as the Legislature swiped $1 billion from the School Aid Fund this year and passed new business taxes specifically designed to give schools less money.

"REPUBLICANS MAY HAVE THE VOTES TO KEEP BEATING THE MEA AND TEACHERS' UNIONS LIKE A DRUM. BUT THEY SHOULDN'T INSULT OUR INTELLIGENCE BY CLAIMING THAT THEY'RE JUST THINKING OF THE CHILDREN."
(emphasis added) 

SOURCE: "With Right to Teach, Republicans' war with unions gets personal"

Why would Mr. Robertson do this?
"I look forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting to work in all these policy areas during the new year," Robertson said. "I'm confident we can make Michigan a place that businesses long to call home. I can't wait." 

Add in his comment: "The heart of the issue is POLITICAL POWER." There you have it.

Mr. Robertson-Legislating Recklessly
One source states:

"Antisocial behavior may not always be related to some form of physical ailment or illness. Some people are just comfortable with living recklessly and form a bad habit of living carelessly and irresponsibly. This involves their own freedom of choice." 

Being interpolated, Sen. Dave Roberson is more than comfortable with viewing himself as super important, and going to the limit and beyond in his anti-public crusade, he is anti-community and should be shunned and discredited-he is far too irresponsible to represent his own district, much less inflict such nonsense on the state via his exalted view of the power of his office as a extreme ideologically oriented state senator.


Original.

No Rights for Teacher Union Organization: Randy Richardville’s TeaPartisan Teacher Rights Libel Legislation

Randy Richardville's crude lawmaking revenge on Teacher's Professional Organizations is based on a specific TeaPartisan Teacher Rights Libel. Don't expect Richardville to accurately represent the role of teacher organizations in the school workplace. He's not well-informed as to the actual conditions in today's education.

Much of the rationale foisted on the public by Richardville libels the real facts and demeans a great profession. If you are a devoted teacher there is NOTHING BETTER YOU WILL EVER DO.

Richardville's vilification of Michigan Teachers en mass, in his high-handed, brutal fashion (faux-right to work regs,) is a complete verification of the untrustworthiness of this TeaPublican dominated Michigan Government-its small mindedness. It's actions fly in the face of the honorable actions of former Governors (e.g. Gov. George Romney - who signed into law the collective bargaining that ushered in a golden age of teaching and professionalism 1965-1990) and legislators; statespeople-who understood and accepted the right of teachers to act as professionals and have a defined voice in their day-to-day classroom efforts, entering the learning place day-after-day to nurture and mentor pupils in their educational journeys and meet their individual/special needs.

Those who demean this sacred vocation are unworthy of credulity or voracity.

Richardville's ongoing Rad Right assault on teachers; discriminates against them with his "Teacher-Right-to-Work" prevented-the-right-and-privileges-of-collective-bargaining-via-organizing-professionally." Richardville's targeted legislation is a frontal assault; summarily, arbitrarily, discriminating against a targeted set of professionals held to be political enemies of the TeaPublican coup. The coup attacks teachers in a spasm of meanspiritedness and unvarnished partisanship.

This anti-union action is the bottom of the loathsome profit-takers' chum bucket: just one of many attacks the TeaParty rabble has brought into the restored peoples' house, Michigan's historic Capitol. This is a dark and foreboding hour in those chambers.

Richard Studley and the tassel loafered lobbyists over at the Michigan Chamber of Commerce are in a state of heightened euphoria. This Richardville action fulfills one of their most coveted goals (SEE "Strategic Union Avoidance - How to Remain Union Free").
:

These malingering TeaPublicans, led by Richardville, are anathema to democracy, fair play, and local control. They are fringe dwellers who are in-fact out of control. They're totally out of step with the majority of the public-running wild in spasms of vituperative spiels and led about by the American Legislative Exchange Council (plug and play) control of the direction lawmaking in Michigan. Specific language is spooned fed to them by corporations, most based outside Michigan. A.L.E.C. members slip it into bill submission and press for its passage into law.

"Nerd" Snyder has, with the aid of over 90 past or present Michigan A.L.E.C. members, moved in a direction dictated by the top 1% of the nation's wealth holders, the mega-rich elites: Koch Bros, Walton Family, DeVos Family, Bradley Family, and a plethora of others - just as rich and influential-determined to profit/privatize at the expense of the middle class; of which TEACHERS are in integral and important part.

Richardville dutifully represents these vast monied interests with vigor. What about his local community? Those local teachers he has demeaned and attacked? How can Richardville claim to represent those who are his constituents?


Richardville Lays Out His Plan of Attack on OFF THE RECORD

HOST TIM SKUBICK TO RICHARDVILLE: Right to work?

RICHARDVILLE: Uh, not Right to Work. No, uh, I'm not a believer that that's going to transition the economy at this point. However, I will look at some other things, maybe a subset of that. If you pay dollars into a public school system, you send your kids there, you want to participate, I don't know that you necessarily need to be a part of a union in order to work or teach in the school district.

SKUBICK: So "Right to Work for Teachers".

RICHARDVILLE: I would call it the "Right to Teach" or "The Right to Participate" in the education system.

SKUBICK : Put that in a practical way. So that means that the MEA wouldn't get members or how would that work?

RICHARDVILLE: Well, they could still offer their membership but it, uh, it wouldn't be a forced membership. They would have to recruit and do their work off-campus.

DETROIT FREE PRESS REPORTER CHRIS CHRISTOFF: Why would single out schools for that? Public schools?

RICHARDVILLE: Well, because right now, the public schools are the one that are in dire straits and I believe that those unions and those workers that are out in the day-to-day, you know the teamsters, the engineers, the carpenters, the building trades, they've already had a significant effect from this economy. They're paying more for their health care, they have less hours, they're getting less pay.

They've had that effect directly.

What's happened in the public schools and, in some cases, the public government in general, is that that economic impact hasn't hit. And so we're making those adjustments for that reason.

SKUBICK: Is this an anti-MEA move?

RICHARDVILLE: No, no, not at all.

SKUBICK: An attempt to get even?

RICHARDVILLE: No, but we do have to "

SKUBICK: You're not trying to take on the MEA, right?

RICHARDVILLE: I don't think taking on any union has anything to do with what our agenda is.

SEE: 1. "Senate Majority Leader Richardville Takes Aim At MEA"

SEE 2. Off the Record, September 9, 2011.

The Off the Record transcript shows the shallow and uninformed mind-set of Richardville. His denial of the TeaPublican's obvious vindictive intent and obfuscation are affirmations of his own true motivation. He's a "tool" of forces so overwhelming, he cannot defend against their influence and survive.

Senator Richardville is a sell-out to the elites who are pulling down Michigan and also America. Cocksure of his devotion to corporate directed radical ideology, Sen. Richardville is profoundly wrong. Richardville will be well-remembered as an anti-education cutout lacking depth and dimension.

This dust-up; a spade of threatening, boorish, and angry anti-teacher legislation polluting the halls of lawmaking; and demeaning our premiere helping profession-those who are mentoring the young-rests with Richardville and his off-the-rails TeaPublican legislature.

Even though Rick Snyder may veto this Teacher/MEA/R2W legislation, if it's put on his desk, the damage done to these politicians will be long-lasting and with direct impact on the ability of these pols to retain or seek further office.

A Republican cannot go against the historic conservative tenets and time-honored standards of the GOP, local community, and the community's finest citizens and not suffer many serious repercussions of its own making.


Original.

Who Assigned Gentleman Joe (Haveman) TeaPublican Slop Jar Duty?

Getting Joe Haveman R-Holland to carry the TeaPublican slop jar is a real feat of denigration. Joe is a good guy; a congenial straight arrow. Now he's labeled himself as a kill-the-teachers-association-by-any means-possible meanie - The kind of kid who loves to be the heavy on the top in a brutal pig pile on the school yard.

Haveman is one of many ethnic Dutch-Hollanders-in the Holland area-who are the decedents of highly religious/ conservative immigrants to the area mid to late 19th Century. In earlier times when they were the broken English speaking common labor, they were for unions and for collective action. Over time, however that changed.

"How strong the opposition to union membership was in the Christian Reformed Church is evident from the fact that, despite the decision of 1916, synods of the Christian Reformed Church were forced to face the issue again and again until the relatively late date of 1954, when the matter was finally decided. Even at that late date, A SYNODICAL STUDY COMMITTEE RECOMMENDED THAT SYNOD DECLARE MEMBERSHIP IN THE CIO-AFL SINFUL. But, as Swierenga relates in (his book) Dutch Chicago, "so many church members in Chicago, Patterson, Detroit, and other big cities belonged to these unions that the synod rejected the committee report"
(Robert P. Swierenga, Dutch Chicago: A History of the Hollanders in the Windy City, Eerdmans, 2002,pp. 644, 645)

It is well to remember that there is also this historic, signal labor incident to recall:

"The good beginning of the Christian Reformed Church regarding labor union membership was in Chicago, always a stronghold of the Christian Reformed Church. IN 1886, ALL THREE HUNDRED DUTCH REFORMED WORKERS AT THE PULLMAN WORKS IN ROSELAND CROSSED PICKET LINES TO HELP BREAK THE STRIKE"
(Robert P. Swierenga,  pp. 640, 641).
(emphasis added -  See related article)

Sympathy for the working man was replaced by the clannishness and stick together efforts that worked to the advantage of many of the Dutch who become middle class successes such as Haveman - a project manager for a large construction firm prior to election to the Michigan House of Representatives.

What was done today, September 15, 2011 by the passage of Haveman's bill to curtail the ability of the teachers professional association to have access to payroll deduction of association dues is but one of many recent and so-to come bills passed to "pig pile" on the Michigan Education Association in an attempt to quell their ability to participate in the right to regress of grievances and the privileges accorded them in the signing of legislation by Gov. George Romney, giving educators a fair and responsible voice in their profession, the terms of employment and professional improvement so necessary to a progressive and effective teaching cadre and excellence for students.

In carrying the unsavory slop jar for the Mackinac Center and other teacher haters such as Betsy DeVos, Haveman has lowered his image. Many of us were convinced that a man like Joe Haveman might be the re-visitation of the kind of statesman we once had in Western Michigan, a Paul Henry. Joe may repent. But having led the charge for the Out-of-State Corporatists owing A.L.E.C. Joe has sold his honor for the miserable job of slop jar duty.

The hope of the Kill-the-M.E.A. crowd is that teachers will be silenced and their influence will be diluted by any means legislated, to the point that they will have no voice in Michigan lawmaking and elections, thus be at the mercy of the TeaPublican marauders who are "sacking" the state of its ability to provide service and education for the children of our future.

A Teapartisan crowd of rowdies are using government to push highly partisan advantages: Their M.O. - take from others all they can.

The list to "take from" is extensive: Nurses, Firefighters, Local Police, Social Workers, the Poor, State Classified Workers, Michigan State Police, M-DOT personnel, the retired, Teachers and Public School Employees, and many, many more.

Original.

A.L.E.C. Tool: Randy Richardville announces the next kamikaze attack on public schools

The clearly partisan and aggressive leader of the TeaPublican super majority in the Michigan Senate indicated that he would selectively attack collective bargaining by singling out MEA for a spiteful revenge, the so-called Right-to-Teach design to obfuscate and hinder the teachers from their right to freely associate with one another in a professional association where working conditions, hours, instruction, personal privileges and etc. are negotiated in "good faith" with their local school boards.

TeaPublican Randy Richardville's proclamation was so blunt and out of step with the normal sense of decency and good order that the panelists on Tim Skubick's Off the Record were visibly taken aback and attempted to reason with Richardville.

When the panel attempted to aid Richardville into a more honest, civil concept of what is needed in this present manufactured school funding crisis, to which they openly alluded (it is Gov. Rick Snyder and the TeaPublicans themselves who cut funding, combined the K-12 with higher education to defraud the K-12 system of some $600 million in surplus), Richardville seemed unscathed, he is on a pre-programmed jihad and there is little or nothing short of recall that will stop his radical evisceration of Michigan's public school system.

Nothing.

Absolutely Nothing!

In this same timeframe, Michigan observer and pundit Jack Lessenberry wrote this piece in light of an ongoing and an unrelenting multi-million dollar anti-public education disinformation campaign by Betsy DeVos and the Richard McLellan led hectoring via the Mackinac Center.

Jack Lessenberry:

"Nobody, it seems is happy with public education in the state - how it is working or what it costs. Those trying to run school systems are bitter over continuing state budgets - at the same time they are being held to higher standards and being asked to do more.

"To them, the legislature seems almost in a 'punishment mode,' as one school official put it, seemingly more concerned with reducing teachers' pensions and benefits than in education itself.

"Some school officials honestly believe there is a conspiracy in the legislature to destroy public education and replace it with a system of charter schools and vouchers.

"Lawmakers, or at least the GOP majority, talk as if the schools are in trouble because their employees are still getting "Cadillac benefits" that they can no longer afford in the post-automotive age.

"And members of the public are baffled. "Wasn't Proposal A supposed to fix all this?" asked Janet, a middle-aged woman standing in line at a pizza carry-out in the Detroit suburb of Berkley.

"What happened?"

Richardville Dove Into the Deep Muck
Quick to hop on any opening, former Ann Arbor news hound, Tom Gantert seized on Richardville's targeted vengeance: Right-to-Work-for-Teachers-legislation - designed to further hamper the ability of teachers to act in concert with one another for the good of public education and the children they teach-is vindictive. There will be any number of other "pig pile" legislative bills heaped on public teachers by Richardville and his hate filled TeaPublican legislative Super Majority.

Gantert's report from Capitol Confidential, Mackinac Center's news tabloid stated:

"Richardville also said he didn't support right-to-work for the entire state, saying he didn't think it would "transition the economy."

"Amber McCann, Richardville's spokeswoman, said he was in favor of right-to-work for teachers because teachers unions haven't dealt with the financial problems districts are facing.

"Richardville said any plans to implement right-to-teach was not about taking on the MEA."

"'I don't think taking on any union has anything to do with what our agenda is,' Richardville said.

"Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson called Richardville's comments 'another example of this relentless assault on public education and public educators and teachers' unions that is completely unwarranted.'

"Johnson said it was part of the GOP's strategy to privatize teachers and eliminate the teacher protections unions provide."

Among the comments posted to Gantert's piece "Senate Leader Supports Right to Work for Teachers" on Sept 9, 2011 is this insightful account:

"...(B)ased on my own experience as both a former union member and a former non-union administrator in public service, I strongly disagree with you. Many times I or other union members donated time and/or bent the contract rules because we/they knew the money wasn't there for overtime. Yet, since we/they lived in the community, and were consummate professionals who took pride in their profession, all knew things had to get done and in a timely fashion. As a matter of fact, we used to quip, "I bet you'd never see this in the private sector." Not to mention the active role in problem solving that we/they played that probably saved taxpayers ten of thousands."

Unaffected by schoolhouse reality, the Mackinac Center's Gantert projects and promotes the A.L.E.C./Mackinac Center line:

"Randy Richardville deserves credit for recognizing the damage that forced unionism has done to public schools."

Wholly directed and owned by the Mackinac Center (Heritage Foundation in Michigan) and the American Legislative Exchange Council, Betsy DeVos et. al., just a hapless small time sock puppet, Richardville has no choice.

No choice at all!

Original.

Dead End/Bad Trade Off: Profitazation or Abandonment of Detroit’s Public School Children

Specious envy surrounds the sacred role of a teacher at a low period when unjust criticisms are being hurled about, as they are so often now days.

The kinds of snide remarks popping up in this blog are typical of the anti-intellectualism which has haunted the country from long ago and consistently undercut its greatness. Much of the anti-public schools spiel has the dark undertow of Michigan's historic KKK.

With all the puffery about the public wanting only the "best and brightest" to enter teaching, and knowing the uncertainty and vicissitudes of the occupation; why would an extremely bright young person go into teaching? Especially, as teachers now know, that one major political party, Michigan's GOP, has dogged and derided the profession (coming from every level from the Reagan Presidency on down, over decades) with every sort of encumbrance, criticism, and financial or legislated penalty that could be devised or contrived. Literally they are attempting to undermine public schools to de-certify the teacher's unions; and convert public schooling to a profit making industry via charters and vouchers- a monstrous blunder tainted with educational apartheid.

People Love Their Public Schools, They Are the Heart and Soul of Many A Community Communities celebrate the sporting events, the homecomings, the high achievements of PS science clubs and other extra-curricular activities. They follow their graduates progress into all manner of successes and higher achievement. And, of course, many graduates become teachers themselves. So many so that, there are hundreds of applicants for a single opening in schools--when schools are hiring.

How proud a parent is to say or learn their daughter and/or son will take up teaching! 

How welcome a new teacher is at the mortgage department of the local bank or as a new member of a place of worship; or as so many eventually do, a teacher becomes an elected local official or civic board member. Kill that spirit at your own peril, you mumbling detractors!

After 20 years of fierce and unrelenting Republican and "Anti-Tax" Libertarian attacks, cuts, and trash talk, the public still loves the schools. They respect teachers world's better than the politicians and far-rightist pundits who perennially attack and purposefully undermine public schools as an institution. Who are these greedy and cynical hacks-whose feral skills are on the prowl to tear it down the PS?

So many people say, "I owe it all to my teacher." What a testament to teachers! Teachers are the true heart of historic social acculturation and the proud soul/mentors at the core of this venerated institution. Except for inner cities, some depressed rural areas or isolated small communities, the Michigan school facilities are much better than those I have closely observed in Virginia or any number of other states.

Across Michigan, we take pride in our local schools. We really do want our children to have the best opportunities possible. Until Engler, the one very fundamental axiom of classic Republican scripture was local school control, which in Michigan was taken from us, ripped away by rouge Republicans in a bold manner in 1993. Now we see and realize the danger and the error of that plot. State control of local school funding is undependable and subject to the nastiest of politics and very anti-student.

The sad thing in all of this is, Nolan Finley. Finley has had moments when he was an advocate, supporter, and even a collaborator with MEA and public education. An important fact considering his own immediate family members, his daughters are members of the teaching profession.

Albeit, Nolan works for newspaper tycoons who have a very aggressive and dangerous ideological attitude/slant against public education. Such an un-civic attitude doesn't build good will, it doesn't foster cooperation; it cuts to the heart of the promise of our nation--a free and excellent education--underwritten by the public at-large.

The long dismal decline of Detroit is a humiliating, humbling, and a sadly tragic blotch on the pride of all Michiganders. The city's public schools reflect the systemic decline and despair of its trapped population, rather than produce that state of affairs.

Now comes the lowest suggestion, depraved conclusion of one Nolan Finley, "DEMO" DETROIT'S PUBLIC SCHOOLS: "DPS can't be saved. It pushed beyond the tipping point years ago, and must be allowed to slide into oblivion."

Aggressive Profitazation of public schooling as a new "disaster" capitalist's scheme: Profit at the direct expense of Children and their mentors. Don't even dare to call it "good for kids."


Original Post.

A Political Marrigage from Hell: The Blonde and the Political Godfather

Response and commentary on series of articles on Michigan's being declined for "Ract to the Top" funding in the Oakland Press in "Fingers point over failure of Race to the Top application" which included comments from Republican Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson and the MEA and and AP Story "Gov, Granholm ‘disappointed’ at Michigan being shut out in 'Race to the Top' education funds" on March 5, 2010.

A failed Governor and a gnarly power-grabber make one last attempt to achieve their legacy moment-Pin Blame on the State's Teachers.

Nothing short of desperation and the full realization that circumstances created by G.W. Bush's Great Job Killing Recession has forced the shotgun marriage of a marginalized governor (seeking a promising position in politics outside Michigan) and an old grumpy frump of a "public payroller," man with delusions of power and control over his fiefdom of Oakland County (replete with Brook's long history of "shot calling" as the GOP Godfather of Eastern Michigan) would have the power to produce this god-awful blames laying tag team: Brooks and Jenny.

Previously, here's how it was. " L. Brooks Patterson just wants to know: Is Gov. Jennifer Granholm trying to upstage him -- again?

"The 71-year-old Oakland County executive issued a press release Tuesday pointing out that, for the second year in a row, Granholm has scheduled her State of the State address on the same night of his State of the County speech." That highly annoyed Brooks. So what brings about this highly irregular, ugly marriage of pols?

THE GODFATHER’S SLAPDOWN: DEFEAT THE MICHIGAN EDUCATION ASSOCIATION'S RIGHT TO DEFEND TRADITIONAL PUBLIC EDUCATION
The teachers of Michigan, more exactly the Michigan Education Association, have so far succeeded in getting across the point to current "the powers that be" in Michigan and to the state legislature and also to the now-powerless, lame duck governor, that individuals, parents, local business people, and children are right to defend and protect the traditional public school in their community.

This is a desperate hour. The over-all long term decline of Michigan, first seen as a slight trickle in the earthen dam (Michigan's economic health) which held back the outsourcing and Chinese completion-a flood building behind it-expanded under John Engler indicated big trouble ahead. Engler ignored the distinct warning signs of that small fissure and now the dam is about to breech sweeping away what is left of Michigan's struggling economies.

THE BIG FIGHT: THE LOCAL ECONOMY VERSUS THE SELFISH INTRANSIGENCE OF BOTH  BISHOP AND DILLON
Agriculture now takes a high place as Michigan's economic engine. Tourism is far more than a pastime part of the state's income. The local economic engine in every community across this great state is the public school. Forget the wingnuttery of the past, ignore the meanness of the Engler Revolution and the selfish intransigence of the politically hopeful "pretty boys" Bishop and Dillon. We consistently gain from our investment and returns drawn from traditional public schools' operations and purpose. It's blind economic ignorance to claim otherwise.

Never forget: Traditional education moves the local economy and consumes local supplies, education provides stable and dependable jobs and generates local dollars of great importance to our state's survival,  while at the same time public school delivers the highest hopes we have for our children into a better tomorrow.   It's our present local economic engine and our entire future promise for children. MEA and parents, local businesses, and informed citizenry support this fact. Back in September 2009 the Associated Press survey of the state showed that Michigan supported INCREASED TAXES FOR EDUCATION BY A 2 TO 1 MARGIN.

The deceptive politics and the chicanery connected to Proposition A of 1994 took a big part of the local authority that is needed to sanely run those local neighborhood schools and shipped it on a ladle to a huckster-bound Lansing. In Lansing school operations funding became a shuttle cock for the peacocks of the legislature and a "goodie bag" for the lobby corps.

ENGLER MADE ANTI-PUBLIC SCHOOLS HARANGUES FASHIONABLE : ENGLERISM STUCK.
Under Engler, local control was sold off. Like that biblical birthright local control was traded for a cold bowl of insider pap. This fact and the spirit it spawned is attested to by long-time observer, Tim Skubick: "Beating up on the MEA is a popular in-door sport in this town (Lansing). It was former Gov. John Engler who made it fashionable and others have picked up where he left off." One of those carrying on is Patterson: (Patterson said last Friday. "Of course it (RTTT funding) went under because the MEA opposed it, and one of the things they look for in Washington is collaboration, and we didn't have it here in Michigan... I'm holding the MEA strictly responsible for the loss of that money.") Patterson is senile or well off-his game. "Collaboration?" When did Patterson call for across-the-aisle cooperation during the last round of state budget quarrels? Brook's sentiment and attitude as historically been in line with that of former GOP/U.S. Rep. Dick Armey, who once characterized bipartisanship as a form of "date rape."

Please note, as a commentator on this topic has reported elsewhere: "Those (possible RTTT) funds weren't going to cover the long term costs of the program. The state would have simply spent all the money it got, and then be left funding yet another program.

"Brooks Patterson has addressed this many times, and that's why Oakland County won't fund programs once federal money runs dry. It's hit and run federal spending. They entice states to start programs by giving a large sum of money to get it started.

"Once that money is spent, where does the funding to keep these programs come from? This idea of spending money in order to receive partial funding from D.C. is a joke. It isn't just education either. The light rail system wreaks (sic) of this sort of thing. Wait until fed money runs out on that project."

COMMUNITIES WERE ROBBED OF THEIR RIGHT OF SELF-DETERMINATION
Communities, which would like to have the right to straight-line vote up or down on local operating millage to support and operate the traditional, historical schools in their jurisdiction, as they had for generations, possessed the privilege to decide, by voting, the future of their own schools. Now they stand like mendicants/ beggars, relegated to await the crumbs passed on to them by the panic-laced poppycockery of  Lansing's stupid "political dog and pony show"-late night sessions and shutdowns of the state government- (fueled by a ill-begotten restraint on democracy-term limits-which has stupefied and undermined our state's entire political system).

THE EDUCATION COMMUNITY'S SUCCESS IN RAISING SUPPORT IN DEFENSE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION HAS ANGERED THIS ODD COUPLE: BROOKS & JENNY
All this brings us to this moment. The MEA and other education groups have successfully kept the role and importance of traditional education before the people. This obviously has infuriated both Granholm and Brooks Patterson. In reprisal they are willing to come together in an arrangement that defies logic and all recent political standard practice-support of a new Democratic education program. Brooks would never normally commit support, much less advocate and champion, any Democratic device such as the so-called "Race-to-the-Top." RTTT is sponsored and created by Obama's Chicagoman, Erne Duncan. No right-minded Democratic governor would team up with the fire-breathing, super-partisan Patterson, knowing his cunning and ferocity in such MEA sentiments. Brooks is hopelessly addicted to spinning off political shenanigans and puffery-as he has for so long.

SO WHAT GIVES?

Both Brooks and Jenny are desperately needy. Thus all former partisan limitations or regard for former appearances or for either party's devices are canceled. If they can successfully project to the public that not they or theirs have created this funding crisis or hold any responsibility for it, they will succeed in protecting their own self-centered/fleeting ambitions, and those of that failed Lansing ring of duds.

THE "RACE TO THE TOP" IS A FRAUD & A MAJOR FEDERAL POWER GRAB
These two very different, very desperate individuals have married themselves into a relationship to attack one of the most important elements of local economy and an essential function in order to save some part of their own selfish interests. Jenny and Brooks are doing so in light of one of the greatest swindle/schemes of recent political history, the "Race-to-the-Top" lottery device. This Obama sponsored government program has coerced Michigan and other states into making major concessions and surrendering considerable state and local authority/powers of control to the federal government. What a queer arrangement!

There is no certainty in the "vague promise" of any real or "bail-out" cash. All these federally imposed demands (to which a harried Michigan legislature capitulated, which this highly panicked state legislature has rolled over for) are nothing other than a revenue "long shot" -indefinite, dangerous, and administratively garbled paperwork and red tape. As one common sense commenter has said, "Call it sabotage if you want, but I call it safe. It only makes sense to sign on to something if you know what it's going to be."

RTTT is an expensive gamble, hoping against hope. IT'S A PIDDLEY "FEDERAL BRIBE," ladled out arbitrarily as a "possible" source of funds in this time of the state's cash shortfall.

The budget imbroglio is a situation that was created and is already compounded and aggravated by Brooks Patterson's gang of fellow boneheads determined to prevent any new revenue sources.

Brooks will continue to "service starve" the state's richest county into compliance with his narrow idea of economic sanity, while having funded million dollar helicopters and doodads for his buddy Sheriff Bouchard.

So Brooks and Jenny: Do your voodoo dance over MEA's resistance to your political wills and watch your chances for self-aggrandizement and political prospects disappear.


Original Articles in the Oakland Press and AP.

Defense of Michigans Teacher Tenure Act

Response to "End K-12 Teacher Tenure" by the Detroit / Mackinac News on November 23. 2009.  

Listed Source: Tom Watkins, former State Superintendent of Public Instruction, 2001-05, and Mackinac Center for Public Policy.


How many pubic school teachers would the Detroit News have Michigan school boards fire if the Tenure Act were removed?

Coincidental with the sharp, unfounded criticisms the News has directed toward the right of Michigan's public school teachers to have tenure ("End K-12 Teacher Tenure", Detroit News, Nov. 23, 2009) has been the introduction of State Sen. Patricia Birkholz's bill to alter or strip the Act of protective provisions for teaching professionals. The anti-tenure argument always runs with the mantra, "tenure shields incompetence." In times when things are economically very difficult such legislation arises on a predicable and regular basis. Obviously one way to save money is to remove teachers, especially those most experienced and highest paid. This attack is always framed as some form of "reform."

The News and Sen. Birkholz mistakenly believe that such sweeping action is necessary to "get rid of" certain under-performing teachers. How short sighted and punitive!

Repeal of the Tenure Act or undertake a radical stripping of its provisions that will affect all teachers.
Good teachers will suffer-the high performing and stellar mentors as well as those targeted by the News and perennial public school critics. Consider the times, there are those rancorous individuals, whom some have called "busybodies," who have any number of private complaints and religious agendas with which they regularly besiege the local school board meetings.

Just who advised Patricia Birkholz, herself a former public schools employee, to take such action at this time? How many fine teachers will be made vulnerable by her drastic action and will be subsequently exposed to a field day of capricious accusations and charges-which many ultimately lead to administrative harassment, burn-out or out right dismissal? No one can predict. What is completely predictable was the legislature attacking organized teachers utilizing the budget crisis as a cover or excuse.

In the current tense and highly negative atmosphere surrounding the state's historic budget crunch, this kind of "claw back" and "push back" against the Michigan Education Association for its ardent and vigorous defense and support of excellence in education for our children is both deplorably predictable and a repeat of earlier attacks under the malicious John M. Engler.

Suggesting a radical change in tenure is always used as a "shot-over-the-bow" indicating the legislature is resentful and wearied by MEA's skills, logic, and success in conducting legislative negotiations which support and sustain the local communities, school districts, and our children--so much impacted by the draconian cuts which the national economy has dealt the state's finances. In the recent past, such notables as former House Speaker Paul Hillegonds and previous governor Engler had used this tactic to intimidate the MEA.

Surely the Detroit News, the Mackinac Center, or Sen. Birkholz herself have some solid, substantive and well-documented study or report which gives an indication of the actual number or a percentage of teachers thought by them to be replaceable or unproductive. Or is this push just another attempt to settle a long standing political score with MEA?

How many teacher's political or religious beliefs will form the basis of trumped-up charges under Birkholz's stripped Tenure Act? Exposed without statewide, objective protections under the Tenure Act, a provision which has a governance board, procedures for dismissal, and an appeal mechanism, what specific lifestyles and voice in public affairs will be permitted for continuing teachers without reprisals?

There are editorial arguments, which have cropped up over the years and in the past several weeks, which ride on certain conditions such as under FTA in Detroit schools (where existing abuses are possible under due to iron-clad provisions of the Federation's contract with Detroit schools) or some other carefully chosen cases.

It is useful to anti-tenure forces to focus on the extreme or exceptional cases decided in favor of the teacher, often rest on technical merits. The press has honed certain of the more bizarre of these cases to support their editorial anti-tenure positions. These "showcase" legal incidents, that are inflammatory in character, do arise and cause the general public to misunderstand or distrust the tenure procedures-given the known facts found at the level of a publicly printed, sensationalized or purposefully slanted press news story.

Recent polling of administrators shows that they have a high level of discomfort with the tenure process, kinds of evidential documentation, and the procedures they must follow to "prove the case" for dismissal or discipline of a tenured teacher. However hard it is, in some cases, to discipline or fire a teacher that you yourself may have hired, it must be done if proper cause is there.

Dismissing a Teacher is Necessarily Serious Business
Good administrators must do their jobs well and effectively when dealing with teachers who merit dismissal or demerits. That is part of their work and responsibility. When carried out within the current law, incompetence and malfeasance are dealt with in an effective, fair, and appropriate manner. When administrators attempt dismissals or discipline on insubstantial, flawed evidence and/or procedure, the outcomes reflect that deficiency.

Teachers, themselves, neither hire or fire, that is the sole realm of administration, pleasant or unpleasant, in terms of public scrutiny and press coverage, as their work may be.

Iris Salters, president of the MEA has been quoted as being very clear on the topic of criminal, unworthy or under-productive teachers. This week Salters is quoted as saying: "Let me make one thing completely clear, MEA does not have any interest in protecting bad teachers."

MEA is responsible for seeing to it that teacher rights are observed and upheld under the law (representation). When administration fails to do the proper job of dismissal or discipline, or when the filed complaints are false or inflated, the association does help with the defense of the teacher-if the teacher merits and asks for such assistance.

The persistent anti-public school teacher stance of the Detroit News (in and of itself) does not justify calling for the summative elimination of professional tenure for all of Michigan's well-over 110,000 teachers. This get tough attitude is all too characteristic of the "right of right" reactionaries who have come to occupy the Michigan Republican Party for too long. Some of these ideologues don't want the public, neighborhood schools to survive and will use every tool in their tool box to work toward that end.

Other elements are at work also in undermining the security of tenured public school teachers. In their galaxies wholesale dismissals would be a great way to reduce costs. The News, in joining in their hue-and-cry, has allowed itself to become a useful tool in this thinly veiled attempt to break the teacher associations.

Break the teacher unions!
Now there is a goal long sought by certain business interests. But for now they will content themselves with hyping Birkholz's changes in the Tenure law as a method to streamline dismissal of "deadwood."

Teachers are so numerous. They are found in every community large or small. Some fall short of professional standards, but what profession can you think of that doesn't have its persistent minority of under-productive? Almost everyone has heard of a dentist or attorney that others have strongly recommended we should avoid seeking their services.

Why is it so hard for critics to accept the teacher's right to associate with other teachers in a professional organization?

It is ludicrous to believe that teachers, to be credible, have to stand by themselves, alone.

We don't expect that of doctors, attorneys, Realtors or Chamber of Commerce members. Albeit, opposition to teacher associations continues to be a contentious bone to chew, the idea being that teachers, when they band together, are a great threat to society.

Turn on teachers and teacher tenure and then watch the "best and the brightest" lose all interest in a teaching career!


Original Post.