The bill’s only educational based supporters are the extreme right wing groups Student First (Michelle Rhee’s group) and Great Lakes Education Project (Dick DeVos’ group).  The groups against it include the State Board of Education, the Michigan Elementary and Middle School Principal’s Association, the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals, the Michigan Association of School Administrators, the Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators, the American Federation of Teachers-Michigan, the Michigan Education Association, and the group Michigan Parents for Schools.  In other words, all the groups who actually work with students oppose it.

Michigan Republicans made it a goal to “support Michigan teachers” this year.  I think  kids would use the term “epic fail” to describe how they are coming on that one.  What they are succeeding in is being the most vain (excessive belief in one’s own abilities)legislative body in Michigan’s history.

County Road Association of Michigan Deputy Director Ed Noyola set the tone for the meeting by saying “your roads stink.”  Kelly Bartlett from the Department of Transportation (MDOT) later shared a statistic that seemed to contradict Barlett’s statement.  He said 87% of our roads are rated as “good or fair.” This seems to show that our roads are not as bad as advertised, even if they don’t meet the 90% mark the legislature prefers.  The tactic of overselling a problem has worked for Republicans in the past, so they are applying that strategy to this problem as well.

Certainly, we need more road funding.  It is true that taking care of a problem early helps stave off a bigger problem later.   We see that in education where investing in early childhood programs and public schools can help lower the likelihood that we have to pay for those children to go to prison later in life.

Representative Wayne Schmidt, who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee, seems to be the legislature’s point man for fixing the roads.  He said there are as many as 13 different proposals out there for funding road repairs and he came to the meeting hoping to get more solutions.  It is pretty clear which proposal is likely to go forward though based on the events from the meeting.  Schmidt said “we’re going to go to a wholesale gas tax.” Then he corrected himself and said “a wholesale gas tax is what we are proposing.”  He wants to implement the wholesale tax for both automobiles and airplanes.

The wholesale gas tax would replace the sales tax.  Currently, about 73% of the taxes on gas go to schools.  According to Schmidt, over $800 million dollars would be lost from the school aid fund if a wholesale tax were used instead.  The plan to replace that money is to add 1 cent to the sales tax, a plan that the voters would be asked to approve.

Representative Schmidt wouldn’t use the word guarantee when asked about the likelihood that schools would not lose money in this plan.  He instead said it his “pledge” that the “schools are kept whole.”  Schmidt was unwilling to define “schools” as K-12 public schools alone.  The exact definition of schools is important because last year Republicans took money out of the K-12 school fund to help pay for colleges.  They did this because proposal A, which changed how schools were funded in 1994, allowed for it though many believe that was never the intent of the law.   Senator Darwin Booher said that Schmidt’s plan would actual increase aid to schools by over 300 million dollars.

Using schools as bait to get more road funding just might work.  People seem pretty fed up about the disinvestment in public schools lead by Republicans who have a stranglehold on all branches of Michigan’s government.  The Republican plan, should it pass, would fix our roads, help our schools, and create jobs (yes the government can create jobs).  It sounds like a win-win right?  Not so fast.  The gas tax and sales taxes are regressive taxes.  The poor and middle class will feel the estimated 8 cents hike at the pump and a 1 cent hike at the cash register more than the wealthy will.  Michigan’s poor and middle class have already been disproportionately harmed by Governor Snyder’s tax policy.

Representative Schmidt was offered a 14th proposal.  I suggested the state institute a graduated state income like most states have.  Then the wealthiest Michiganders, like the Governor himself, would be asked to pay a little bit more.  Representative Schmidt, who is willing to push a bill that would allow the voters to decide on the gas tax, said that the citizens would have to take that issue up themselves.  His response was typical of the current Republican regime.  They want your ideas as long as they are the same as theirs.

have an extra $1,000 per pupil, WMAA will have more money to spend per student than most schools districts in the state.

Even though Dick DeVos’ school voucher initiative was turned down by voters in the fall of 2000, he has used his money and political prowess to inch Michigan towards a de facto voucher system.  WMAA is a perfect example of the progress he has made.  The school, which was founded by DeVos himself, will utilize public money, plus money from wealthy donors, to give students at WMAA more resources than kids at traditional public schools.  Charters also have more freedom to operate because Republican legislators are not willing to hold charters to the same standards as public schools.  The only line in the sand left to erase between public charters and a full fledge voucher system is the public school charter acceptance policy.  Michigan charter school law requires an open enrollment policy and a lottery if there are more applicants than available slots.  However, the law already gives too much leeway in enrollment because it gives ”enrollment priority to siblings of existing students and to children of employees and board members.”  These types of enrollment policies are easily manipulated and have been shown to be more favorable to well connected applicants.  George Bush himself, likely used a similar system to get accepted into Yale.

We are on a slippery path with our public charter school system.  It is a path being cleared by the financial and political elite.  If the trend continues, we can expect to see the kind of disturbing income inequality in public schools that we see throughout the rest of society.  Some students will be sitting in dilapidated school buildings behind old rusty desks.  Others will be sitting in new schools behind expensive flight simulators. I guess we are pretty much already there.

Do Michigan Republican Legislators own these?

In 2011 Michigan Republican Legislators passed Public Act 152.  The law capped the amount of money a public employer can pay for its employee’s health insurance.  The law also impacted people who choose not to take the health insurance and instead take a cash amount in lieu of the insurance.  The cash in lieu amount is typically a lot less than the cost of insurance so the public employer saves money when an employee chooses this option.  The employee, who typically has coverage through a spouse, makes a few extra dollars.  This is truly a win-win situation.  Enter the Republican Legislature.

According to the Department of Treasury, PA 152 requires that the cash in lieu amount be counted in the insurance cap but that the contributor not be counted as being in the cap.  So this causes the average (I hate to use the word average because this is not an average and makes no sense mathematically) to be skewed and may cause some public employers to exceed the cap.  That forces districts to either raise the employee’s cost of the insurance, lower the cash in lieu amount, or a combination of both.  If the cash in lieu amount is less lucrative the employee may instead take the district’s insurance causing the employer to pay out as much as $10,000 more for each person who makes the switch.  Now, everyone looses.

These are the kinds of idiotic things that occur when the government comes between an employer and an employee trying to negotiate a fair contract.  Governor Snyder, who signed off on this legislation, previously said that  he will ensure that our “government is open, fair and accountable to the citizens.”  Not only has he failed on those three, he seems to be failing at making government smarter.  I wonder what 0-4 averages out to on his calculator?

Ben Franklin introduced Physical Education to America in 1749.

The Mackinac Center recently zeroed in on Wayne-Westland Community Schools to highlight the earth shattering problem that the average physical education teacher in that district makes more than the average math or science teacher in that district.  Certainly this was meant to criticize the seniority model that advances teachers pay based on their dedication to the school district.  However, it was also a slam against non-core teachers (anyone who doesn’t teach math, science, English, or social studies), and specifically physical educators, who have to meet all the same qualifications as the core teachers do in terms of schooling, testing, professional development, etc.  The Mackinac Center’s theory is that this disparity is keeping top science and math minds from entering the profession.

In the Mackinac Center’s research on this issue, they failed to look beyond the surface of the issue.  They could not identify how much of the physical educator’s pay was for teaching and how much was for extra curricular pay such as coaching, which physical educators often engage in.  They also did not look into the educational value of physical education classes.  Physical education has been shown to improve student’s academic performance, perhaps even more than taking an additional core class would.  The higher class sizes offered in classes like physical education also helps reduce class sizes in the core areas.  This is to say nothing of the importance of physical education in helping battle our nation’s obesity problem.

It seems that the Mackinac Center would like to convince us that it would be appropriate to have different classes of teachers.  One type of teacher, the non-core class could start out at less than the average starting salary of $34,000.  The high class group of math, science, and whoever else the Mackinac Center deems as important could start out a bit higher.  Certainly, paying people less to do the same jobs is a ”free market” solution that exists quit extensively in the private sector and the ”glass ceiling” is proof of that.

This argument could be moot anyway as Michigan’s Republican leadership has put schools in starvation mode forcing some to purge non-core teachers.  I’m sure once we have eliminated, or relegated non-core teachers to being second class citizens, that the best math and science minds will want to work in schools rather than at NASA or Google.  Then again, even this lowly old physical educator knows that there isn’t a shred of proof to support the Mackinac Center’s latest bright idea.  The Mackinac Center’s motto should be a takeoff of an old Mark Twain quote.  Why let facts get in the way of passing conservative legislation?

One  tweet said that students who need remedial college classes should be able to sue their high school for malpractice!  He does not say if employees should be able to sue previous employers if their previous failings, their fault or not, are hampering their present endeavors.

Studley asks countless times why we have 83 counties and over 500 school districts. He does not seem to care that we have about 545 McDonalds and 650 pay day lenders.   Also not an issue is that we have 141 elected representatives (110 Representatives plus 31 Senators).  He fails to identify which of your school districts we should close.

Studley wonders why there is dissatisfaction with this year’s 2% increase to schools plus “hundreds of millions in pension savings.”  Actually, the 2% includes those pensions savings.  The biggest savings though comes because employees now have to pay a lot more for the pensions they were already promised.  The problem is that current school funding is less than it was during the 2006-07 school year.  How many businesses would be happy with making less than they did  in 2006-07?

Studley is strongly anti-union and is not a supporter of collective bargaining.   He calls privatizing school services a “good idea.”  While he has been President of The Chamber of Commerce, they have made donations to the pro-school privatization group the Great Lakes Education Project.  Studly uses the inflammatory term”union bosses” at least 79 times in his tweets.  He calls the benefits of collective bargaining in schools “wishful thinking.”  He doesn’t just attack unions, he attacks anyone who agrees with unions on even a single issue.  He calls the Michigan Association of School Boards “anti-taxpayer” and “pro-union” seemingly suggesting those two terms are synonymous.

Studley’s wrath extends to anyone associated with schools besides students and parents.  He calls the Michigan Department of Education the “Michigan Department of Euphemisms.”  He calls school business officers “cowardly bureaucrats” and says they “gave the farm away on health care and retirement benefits.”  He is highly critical of the Michigan Education Association and suggest that they are perhaps more likely an “angry partisan mob.”  He calls the Michigan Association of School Administrators “apologists.”  He tells school boards to “stop whining” and that local control only delivers “excessive  overhead and poor results.”

In 2010 Studley tweeted “good schools are building blocks for better communities & a better state.”  So why does Studley continue to attack schools and those who have dedicated their lives to helping improve them?  Why would local Chamber of Commerce chapters turn a blind eye to Studley attacking the schools they support?  The answer is that people like Studley have managed to convince small businesses that to be successful they need the same things as big businesses like Wal-Mart.  Specifically, they need low taxes, low wages, and very little regulation.  In reality, those things push people to shop more at Wal-Mart rather than at local businesses.  They also starve public schools of adequate funding.  When small businesses and public schools are pitted against each other, the only winner is big business.

Note: Click HERE to see more of Studley’s anti-public school tweets.

There is a catch though.  Schools in Michigan that receive the minimum foundation allowance will get an increase of $34.  That brings the minimum foundation allowance to $7,000.  That is actually only a 1/2 percent increase.  Districts that already receive more than the $7,000 per-pupil foundation allowance will not receive an increase at all.  It appears that the much of the missing 1 1/2% promised amounts to retirement costs that the state is not passing onto schools.  It is a bit like saying something is on sale because you did not raise the price.  At the current rate of funding increases, public schools will reach the funding level of Governor Snyder’s daughter’s private school in the year 2068.

Click for larger image.

Courtesy of the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy

Governor Snyder’s plan to fix Michigan roads would add to the burden of the poor and middle class.  Snyder plans to add 19 cents onto the gasoline tax and increase vehicle registration fees by 60%.  It is hard to be in favor of new taxes such as these that would add to the poor and middle classes tax burden when the wealthy have been given tax breaks under the Snyder regime.  Take for instance his 1.8 billion dollar tax cut on business that allowed rich business owners like those that own Biggby Coffee to pay less in taxes.

If Governor Snyder wants additional money to fix the roads, he has some good options.  He can spend some of Michigan’s healthy rainy day fund, or he can reinstate the business tax for businesses who have a net profit of over say $200,000.  Michiganders should reject any new regressive tax increases.   The poor and the middle class are already paying more than their fair share.

Note: The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy favors a gas tax fix roads.  However, they believe the tax should be offset with a tax credit for the poor.  The problem in Michigan is that Governor Snyder has been reducing or eliminating such tax credits rather than increasing them.

1. Intermediate School Districts (ISDs) should be put in charge of school safety.  ISDs are supposed to serve the needs of local school districts.  However, many ISDs have millions of dollars in their fund balances that they could be using to help local school districts.  Republicans should pass a law putting each ISD in charge of school safety for the districts they serve.  ISDs should be required to hire at least one school liaison officer for every five school districts they serve so that each school has an officer in their district at least once a week.  These officers should do more than just provide an armed presence in schools.  They should be in charge of making sure safety protocol are being followed by school personnel.  They should lead professional development sessions on school safety in every district at least once a year.  They should be in charge of making sure that all safety drills (fire, tornado, lock-down, etc.) are carried out as required by state law.  The ISDs have the money, they just need the directive.  Every school district in the state should have at least a part time school liaison officer by next school year.

2. Every school in the state should have their front entrance upgraded to the latest safety standards.  Schools should have a waiting area where visitors can talk to school personnel without actually entering the building.  Only those people who have permission, and a valid reason, should be buzzed into the building during school hours.  The State of Michigan has 500 million dollars in its rainy day fund.  Michigan Budget Director John Nix wants to keep the money in the fund to protect our credit rating.  Forget credit ratings.  Let’s protect our kids from having bullets rain down on them, or from being abducted by parents who have lost their custodial rights.

3.  There is a lot of disagreement about how to stop school violence, especially when it comes to guns.  However, there seems to be a consensus that we need to do a better job of providing help for the mentally ill.  However, Michigan schools are failing miserably at providing those mental health services to students.  The school counselor-to-student ratio before many of the most recent budget cuts was at 638 to 1, 6th worst in the nation according to Bridge Magazine.  Unlike many states, Michigan does not have a law dictating the minimum counselor-to-student ratio so it is easy to cut counselors out when budgets get tight.  The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 250 to 1.   The legislature should immediately pass a law that sets a ratio at no more than 450 to 1, which is around the national average.  School districts should also free counselors of clerical work and administrative work so that they can perform the counseling services for which they are trained.  The funding for this initiative could be obtained by recapturing money originally meant for K-12 schools that is now being spend elsewhere.  Republicans should immediately pass a law that explicitly states that the school aid fund can only be used for K-12 education.  Dipping into it for any other use is literally stealing from our children future and jeopardizing their safety.

Everyone agrees that we cannot stop all school violence.  Legendary basketball coach John Wooden said “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”   I encourage you to sign this petition to encourage our state government to pass these safeguards into law.   Our children do not have a voice or a vote in Lansing.  Let yours speak for them.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They’ve compared teachers to whiny children who haven’t earned their allowance.  They are making them pay an additional 6% or more for benefits they were already promised.  They have raided the school aid fund causing their employers to freeze their wages and charge them more for health insurance.  The fiscal chaos they unnecessarily created has increased their work load and eliminated opportunities for their students.  Some of them have lost their jobs, and some of the best new teachers are being forced to leave the state.  Their school districts have been bogged down with more regulations while new competition with very little oversight has been created.  Republicans have done all this and more over the past two years.  Now they say they want to support teachers.

The House Republicans just released their 2013-14 “Action Plan.”  The Action Plan is a follow up to last year’s Guiding Principles.  The Action Plan plan lists the Republican’s goals for the upcoming year, and their self-defined successes for the past year.  It was not a surprise to find the usual Republican mumbo jumbo about reducing taxes and regulations on businesses.  What was surprising was that one of their goals was to “support Michigan’s teachers.”  The goal says “Michigan’s teachers need the support of their state and their community to make the most of their abilities and help our children thrive. We will explore new ways to reach out to the education community for ideas, give underperforming educators the support they need, and recognize our state’s best teachers for the amazing work they do.”  Last year’s tone was a lot different.  The Guiding Principle publication said “the education system should not be about the adults and their careers.”  It also stated that “teachers, administrators, parents, and students all agree that the (education) system needs significant reforms.”  Not only did teachers, administrators, and parent associations not “agree” about the need for these reforms, their input into the reform process went largely ignored.

Here is why Republicans have changed their tone.  They are using a tactic that can best be described as a domestic violence approach.  First, Republicans beat up teachers with faulty information in attempt to shatter their confidence.  Then they tried to isolate them by breaking their unions via right-to-work laws and other harmful legislation.  Now they want to be nice to teachers hoping they will forget about the last two years so they won’t challenge their control of Lansing and of our government.  Just like the perpetrator of domestic violence, Republican’s primary goal is to maintain control.  Let’s hope teachers, administrators, and parents are all wise enough to avoid that cycle of violence.  If Republicans maintain control beyond 2014, there is no doubt they will start attacking teachers again.  Teachers should remember what George Washington said: “It’s better to be alone than in bad company.”