Marcie Lipsitt writes from Michigan that the public must wake up to what their governor and legislature are doing to destroy public education:
Finally the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News are reporting on Governor Rick “Nerd” (a disgrace to Dr. Seuss) Snyder and the Republican-led legislature’s plan to destroy public education in Michigan and in record time and virtually no transparency. Most frightening is that Michiganders still don’t understand the immediate crisis MI children face with HB 5323 and HB 6004 moving through our House and Senate in the dangerously waning hours of the lameduck session. Should these bills pass the Michigan Public Finance Education Act “draft” will be legislation waiting for this Governor’s desk in late January/early February. I am urging our Democratic leadership in our MI House and Senate to draft an op-ed and send it to the USA Today (Gannett owns the USA Today, Detroit Free Press, Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel and other newspapers) to shine a national spotlight on the destruction of public education in Michigan and what could be waiting for K-12 students in other states if there is not a state and national outcry. As an educational advocate across MI I have been posting about the Oxford Foundation and Governor Synder”s (nothing more than Englerites) plans to privatize education and turn our state into the haves and have nots. i have felt like Chicken LIttle on mute and wondering what it would take to wake up our sleeping dead-populace. I can only hope it is not to late to stop these bills and this gutting of public education and special education in Michigan.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The fact that this is all happening over the Thanksgiving holiday is intentional.
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Not only over Thanksgiving, but in a rush during the lame duck session. While control of the state legislature did not change in the elections, the current majority in the state House will have a much narrower advantage come January. So, why wait for tomorrow when you can shove stuff through today while you have a larger vote cushion and nearly no one is looking?
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Reminds me of how the national Democrat party shoved through the Affordable Care Act before anyone could read it and know what was in it.
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Right, the two situations are exactly alike because we didn’t spend nearly a year debating and discussing the ACA before it was passed. And because Americans weren’t overwhelmingly in favor of every provision of the ACA when it was broken down and explained and they didn’t just oppose it when it was labeled “Obamacare”. Oh, wait….
Please add “shameless” to my list of simply calling you by the correct description.
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Your facts are wrong here, Dienne. The ACA was NOT debated for a year. Pelosi pushed it through without giving anyone a chance to read it. It is NOT true that people overwhelmingly favor every provision of the ACA, even now. It was implemented by Chief Justice Roberts plainly misreading the mandate as a tax. It is the most corrupt display of misguided political partisanship in the history of America. I certainly get a sense of your “attitude” through your language, but you seem totally innocent of the function of words as denotation. I wonder, in your passion, whether you are even basically educated in logic and language. However, “shameless a**hole” is not an appellation that I would necessarily totally disavow, but, of course, it doesn’t move the discussion forward in the least. That’s why I don’t think you’re at all serious, just partisan and angry.
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Falstaff35, your comment has nothing to do with anything. If you think this blog is a mouthpiece of the Democratic party, you have not been paying attention. Maybe it would be a better use of your limited time on earth to find another blog to troll on.
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Yikes! Sorry everyone, I was typing this comment so quickly that I did not notice that I made note of the wrong bill in the MI House. I intended to type “HB 5923′ and not “HB 5323.” Hopefully anyone interested enough in understanding the education bills in our MI House and Senate intended to deconstruct public education in our state and replace it with a privatized form of educating only the those children deemed the fittest, will forgive my error and locate the correct legislation. There is a very good article on the front page of today’s Detroit Free Press that explains these dangerous pieces of legislation. If only the Detroit Free Press had been willing to write about these bills before November 6, 2012. Just maybe MI voters would have been smart enough to restore balance in our legislature by returning the House to the Democrats. The Republican one-party rule is destroying MI and we are no longer a state worthy of children.
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There was a release from our state department about our Commissioner of Education being named to the Board of CCSSO (Council of Chief State School Officers). In this release lists all of the of the current board members. Looking over the names, I’m terrified. I would never have known these people, or their agendas, without having read this blog and others.
I’m frightened about what may soon be happening in our state.
Click to access R080ccsso.pdf
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CCSSO used to bea mainstream organization, but the current lineup resembles Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change. Bennett serves on both.
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Diane – I hope I’m not being presumptuous, and farbeit for me to tell you how to run your blog, but I have to tell you that I’ve seen the likes of Falstaff ruin good blogs before. Its ilk are highly skilled at seeming to offer honest discussion and seeming to raise valid concerns and questions, but what they’re really doing, as I mentioned in another post, is pissing in the pool. They have no interest in honest discussion. They are experts in setting up strawmen, moving goalposts, and every other form of spinning designed specifically to get the discussion off-track and focused on their antics. Eric Zorn once described his similar troll as a “poo-flinging monkey” (which such troll continues to fling poo, but oh well).
Like you, I loathe anything that resembles censorship, but what Falstaff is doing is itself a form of censorship, as it’s trying to silence reasonable discussion. Again, not my place to make decisions, but I’d urge you to consider censoring it before it censors you. Once the troll takes over, adult readers begin to find it difficult to talk with the bratty child in the room and begin to drift away. I value your blog too much to see that happen.
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Diane is, of course, free to drop me. But then I will have a story to tell of her censorship, and hypocrisy. I would think you would care more for the spirit of the 1st amendment than to even propose this. If you would treat ME with a modicum of good manners, I would reciprocate, but calling me a shameless a**hole is mainly a reflection of your own superficiality of political thinking. if the purpose of this blog is to tell the Party members what to think, then perhaps I don’t belong here, because I WILL ask questions and characterize answers. At the moment you don’t have enough power to put my face to a cage of rats to scare me into loveless catatonia. I’ll be dead soon, anyway, and they you can run things your own way.
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Oh, please, can the martyrdom. Has anyone censored you? Not on this blog. You entertain the readership, most of whom are hardworking teachers or dedicated parents.
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I suggest you ignore him. I do. It beats censorship. He can’t poison this well.
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I have been trying to ignore, but the pix is scary. Looks like he wants a pity party. Sad 😦
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Amen. He has no power over us that we don’t give him — so if y’all don’t feel like reading his postings, then don’t.
Notwithstanding my support for Diane’s position, I would like to offer my own take on this issue. I actually found his kind of approach to be invaluable when I followed Diane’s discussions with Deborah Meier on Bridging Differences. There were many occasions when I found myself unsure about something. That changed. It was not simply that over several years I found steadier footing in complex dissections of education topics, but also that it struck me over time that Diane’s and Deborah’s most vociferous and steadfast critics had such weak arguments that [by comparison] the critics made them shine. Of course, their critics never intended to shoot themselves in the [pick your body part of choice] but that is what they did in an honest and open discussion. And they seemed oblivious to the harm they did their own cause when, bereft of anything new or convincing to say, they often ended their discussions of any topic by insulting the hosts and the vast majority of the readers of Bridging Differences. In other words, they were more interested in venting their spleen then winning others over to their point of view.
So Dienne, although I respect your contributions to this blog, I say if someone wants to discredit both himself and his ideas, let him. He will be doing a lot of us a big favor if he’s that desperate to make Diane shine.
🙂
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You mention Michigan HB 5323 and that bill deals with ALS disease. The bill you want to refer to is HB 5923 sponsored by state rep Lisa Lyons. She also sponsored HB 6004. Constituents will want to refer to the correct bill when they contact their State Rep and Senator.
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Mrs. Dianane, i read your story @New Yorker magazine under “Public Defender”. The Gov may be confused as you were. You were playing both side of political parties game in education. There are no one single solution for America public school broken problems. Let the Gov try something new and see if it works. In my opinion, parents have to take big responsibility for their children learning.We can’t blame teachers entirly for students lack of learning. Let’s give parents a test:-) Students are capable of learning, but for some unknown reason, they’re lazy. There’s some type of cultural changes is happening out there. We need to separate politics from Edu system.Real changes, reforms can’t happen as long as the left and right politics are in the system.
Growing up in a very poor countryi didn’t have a luxury to eat 3 meals a day or school materials. It was tough, but i made it K-12th. I’m also very thankful facing the American higher edu with cultural, language barriers, challenges and being sucessful at it. I hope enough American kids learn, be competitive with the world out there so, they won’t be a burden to the society.
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I haven’t been following Michigan too closely, but I did just learn this about Eli Broad’s involvement.
http://oxfordfoundationmi.com/2012/11/16/mclellan-to-pop-draft-school-aid-act-rewrite/
Excerpt:
“In his endeavor to advise Gov. Rick SNYDER, long-time Lansing attorney, political consultant and Chair of the Michigan Law Revision Commission, Richard McLELLAN told MIRS he expects to post a preliminary draft of a revised School Aid Act in the next few days…
“McLellan got involved in advising the Governor back in April of 2011 following Snyder’s education address.
“At the time, California billionaire Eli BROAD, who’s a graduate of Detroit Public Schools and Michigan State University, was asked to advise Snyder on how to help Motown schools. McLellan was asked to provide a Michigan legal and political roadmap to Broad.”
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A Message to all Supporters of Democracy
The people of 77 the 83 counties in Michigan voted successfully to repeal Michigan’s Emergency Manager Law. Governor Rick Snyder and the extremist-controlled Michigan legislature are now attempting to circumvent the will of the people by passing new legislation that is every bit as unconstitutional, anti-democratic and vile as the law the people have just rejected. The proposed bill, HB 6004 “Educational Achievement Authority”, violates our State Constitution and will substitute unelected bureaucrats with dictatorial powers for local, duly elected representatives of the people. Tell Governor Snyder and the Michigan Legislature to vote no on any legislation that attempts to circumvent the will of citizens who voted to repeal PA 4, the Emergency Manager Law.
That’s why I created a petition to The Michigan State House, The Michigan State Senate, and Governor Rick Snyder.
Will you sign this petition? Click here: http://signon.org/sign/stop-the-takeover-of-1?source=c.em.cp&r_by=562537.
Please forward this to your email address contacts and add to your Facebook page. It is important that this petition be circulated ASAP as the Michigan legislature is currently holding hearings on HB 6004. We have had over 1300 citizens add their names so far, but we need thousands of signers to sufficiently represent and reiterate the will of Michigan’s citizens.
Thanks for all you do.
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