In little Buena Vista, Michigan, the schools have been decimated by budget cuts and declining enrollments. Faced with the threat of bankruptcy, the teachers offered to work for free. The district laid them all off and is closing the schools.
Who says that Americans don’t care about education? Maybe Governor Snyder will send in an emergency manager to give the children to a for-profit charter chain that will rehire the teachers and cut their pay and benefits.
The schools close officially on Tuesday, which is Teacher Appreciation Day.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I read the story too…very interesting that even though the teachers volunteered to work a full week without pay the district declined citing liability issues. These are kids, and they only get one shot at their k-12 eduction. Why must politics be more important than that? Excellent post.
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So where are the kids in the defunct Buena Vista going to school?
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The DEFORMERS want SLAVES! Thus they don’t care about other people’s children. The DEFORMERS look at other people’s children as there to SERVE them.
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And, remember, this isn’t the first time teachers offered to work for free–didn’t that happen two years ago in a Pennsylvania community? And one of those teachers was cited as a hero by President Obama. Perhaps, before this week is over, he’ll choose some lucky Buena Vista teacher for a repeat, since this is, after all, Teacher Appreciation Week!
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It happened in Chester Upland district in Pennsylvania.
Then Governor Corbett sent in an emergency financial manager to push privatization.
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SIGH and YUCK. Amazing how the DEFORMERS get away with this stuff. Where are the parents?
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We teachers rock! And the DEFORMERS know this, thus they attack for GREED and CONTROL. And this is Teacher Appreciation Week, no less!
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Teachers are really their own worst enemies when they do something as utterly stupid as volunteering to work for free.
I guess these people have another income to rely on, but this just sets a horrible precedent.
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Just think: Can you imagine doctors, nurses, and lawyers volunteering to work for free?
No wonder many people don’t see teaching as a profession at all.
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No referring to pro bono requirements for lawyers, but just in general, especially those who are on the public dime.
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That sucks! Take that you greedy teachers, we want nothing to do with you, even if you work for free as in the charter schools.We want our own segregated schools that teach what we want them to teach instead of the truth.
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This is a little off topic but does involve Michigan. I heard from a vey reliable source that the Broad name was being taken off of the Mich. State school of Business. Does anyone on here know why?
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I doubt that. He basically owns the place. Do a Google search for “Eli Broad and Michigan School of Business” to see what I mean. If that is true it is major news.
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This is truly NUTS! THE MOST IDIOTIC, GUTLESS DECISION EVER WITH A STUPID COATING AND THE STUPIDEST, IDIOTIC FILLING CONCEIVABLE! Education is about the kids. It is not about the damn legal problems or the budget shortfalls, or the spinless wonders who sit on the school board and don’t care about their children. The teachers showed who has got their priorities straight. For all you silly people out there who don’t understand reality: educating our kids is the most important thing we do as a society. If we are so broke we can’t do that, stop payment on the government and keep the schools open. Recall the troops and quit paying the national guard. For goodness sake fire all the high paid lawyers starting with the state attorney general and his staff. FIND THE MONEY TO KEEP THE SCHOOLS GOING.
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I would sure like to see the financials on that district for the last 10 years as that is how I work to understand. You need the time to know. Next, how is a small district like that allowed to be self funded? That is insane. When you have over 550,000 it makes sense not about 450. This is a setup for failure carefully planned.
Want to stop this mess nationally? Well, get the “Privatizer in Chief” to put back in the real banking regulations which worked until Bill Clinton signed the 1999-2000 Banking Deregulation Acts. Look at who he put in as Sec. of Commerce, Penny Pritzer, who put him into the Senate and later paved the way for Prez. She is an heiress of the Hyatt fortune and hates unions. What do you think this means? It is time we cleaned up this mess as this is not capitalism. Capitalism is where you take risks. The banks did not take risks, they made us pay for their failures. How did they get so rich if they lost. This is 5th grade math. I bust school districts for lunch in fraud. LAUSD has over 117,000 students not come to school everyday last year and that cost LAUSD over $1.3 billion in just one year. The spend 2-3 times the going rate for school construction in L.A. County according to the Calif. Office of Public School Construction (OPSC). Figure that out over $27 billion. In 2010-11 the listed ADA for LAUSD in their budget is 74,000 different from what they reported to CDE on their website. How does that happen? In D.C. with 40% of the students in charter school, 20,800 of 52,000 and funding at $29,145 and charter schools receiving $13,000 less someone pocketed $274,000,000. 5th grade math again. Big money is what it is.
Get me the financials and I am willing to bet I can figure out what happened and it had to be planned. We really need the real banking regulations again as this is not capitalism. In capitalism if you fail you lose not win. I was in business for 37 years and finally the Chinese knocked me out.
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