Come Heller high water…
- Detroit teachers finally wrested a pay guarantee out of the city, which means the sick-out worked. Good for them. They should do it again if need be, and if you don’t agree ask yourself: Would I work for free? Oh, baloney, you would not. If your boss said he couldn’t pay, you wouldn’t just pretend to be sick, you’d tell him to take this job and shove it. And if you would, why shouldn’t they at least protest? And don’t give me this nonsense about “the kids.” They’ll be fine having missed two days
of school and may learn a civics lesson about standing up for what’s right. - Best sign held by a Detroit teacher at a protest: “If you don’t pay the teachers, who will buy all the school supplies?” That about says it all, doesn’t it? Schools – even wealthy districts – routinely rely on teachers to buy classroom supplies so taxpayers don’t have to. It’s a secret, almost mandatory tax on teachers, and most teachers pay it because otherwise their classrooms couldn’t operate. Teachers ought to protest that, too. It’s high time Michigan pays for schools like it used to – that means better pay for teachers, paving school parking lots, paying for school buses, paying for arts, eliminating pay-to-play, paying for janitorial and maintenance, and, yes, paying for school supplies and books. It also means fewer administrators with big salaries. This sliding by on the cheap nonsense has gotten old.
- Honestly, as a society we should be ashamed of how we treat teachers. The phony-baloney is unbelievable. We put them on a pedestal along with cops, firefighters and military then pay them like crap and criticize any effort they make to be treated better. (Once again, it’s the conservative right that’s responsible and their jiggly-eyed hatred for unions, which by the way essentially created the middle class in this country – how terrible, right?) Save me from being lionized by this society, please. The very people we supposedly hold dear are the ones we treat the worst.
- And by the way, yes, teachers do so subsidize the schools. According to an NPD Group survey, 91 percent use some of their pay to pay for school supplies, spending a total of $500 by the end of the school, half of which is their own money. I met a teacher years ago who bought books for her class because the district didn’t provide enough. Ridiculous.
- By the way, I agree with the Freep editorial on the sick-outs: It’s Lansing’s fault.
- Dear Indiana: Thank you for finally putting Ted Cruz out of our misery. Has a more repellent person ever gotten this close before?
- Before the Indiana primary, Trump accused Cruz’ dad of hanging out with Lee Harvey Oswald just before he shot JFK. I’ll bet even Oswald thought, “God, this guy is so unlikable.”
- In a way, we’ll all miss Cruz. It’s kinda like when the villain dies in the movie, you know? It’s all just falling action from there.
- Allow me to be the first to say the general election in November is going to be much closer than people think. This won’t be a Hillary blowout. It’ll probably be a 51-49 or 52-48 win, if that. Trump could win. Really. I’m not kidding. He could. Canada, be warned. If it happens, you’re getting a population spike.
- Of course, if my preferred candidate, None of the Above, is able to get on the ballot in all 50 states, this sucker is over. Boom. Instant winner, with at least 80 percent of the vote.
- They can’t possibly lock away that guy who was sprinkling rat poison on grocery store items for long enough, can they? I know no one was hurt but this guy’s gotta go.
- “In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” – Margaret Atwood.
“None of the Above” is my perfect candidate at this point as well. SMDH
You are my hero today! I taught for 40 years and loved every minute of my job! I spent my own money to supplement my classroom so my at risk students had many good books to read. I walked picket lines and took strike votes to fight for rights and protections in our contracts. Sad to say, most of those protections have been stripped by this anti-Union Legislature that seems hell-bent on punishing teachers. Who knows? Maybe they had teachers who held them to higher standards than they themselves wanted. Now they are holding DPS hostage by withholding funds until their union busting measures are added AND uncertified people can be hired to teach in DPS. Like that will work.
Bravo!! Well stated about the schools and problems in Michigan. It is a very sad state of affairs regarding Detroit and other school districts. When I was growing up in Pennsylvania, and then later, attending Adrian College and U of M, I remember that the Michigan schools were pretty high up there in ratings. What happened? And will it ever get better?
Yes, a more repellent candidate has gone this far. Two as a matter of fact. Hillary and Trump.
So sadly true!!
I would disagree on two things: 1.) Bernie will be the Democratic nominee AND…..he will be beat Trump handedly.
Feeling the Bern. It ain’t over till it’s over!
Have you seen pictures of the condition of those schools in Detroit? My God, they have mold, fungus growing on the walls, leaking ceilings, the bathrooms are so nasty, rats-it’s like a horror movie. These teachers are heros to go back day after day to teach kids that are supposed to learn in that nastiness. Another shame on the state of Michigan and the Snyder administration
Yes, once upon a time we had decent schools, and money most certainly kept the building, books, and supporting hardward flowing. When I was young and in school up in the U.P. we studied about the fall of Roman Empire, now this was a long time ago, The roads were good, the basic infrastructure of country was sound. And as I sat in that classroom as a young boy, I wondered, could the Roman Empire ever happen to us?
You should be canonized!! And teachers should have a one-way ticket to Heaven. Don’t you hear the collective sigh of relief when September comes and parents can send their children back to school. Please raise their children but do not instill any morals or, god forbid, any sex education!
Regarding opinions you expressed about teachers, l could not agree more…with all of what you said! My daughter taught Art in grades 4-12 for 5 years in K-zoo area & was tickled pink when her husband took a job out of state. She made a pitifully pathetic salary, much of which went to buying supplies for all her classrooms. She did NOT pursue a teaching job in her new state.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Andrew!
Every teacher is grateful for your comments. Although we need young,
Creative and inspired teachers more than ever. One has to wonder in this day and age why young people would choose the profession.
The personal rewards are many, but to this day the public thinks it is a cake walk, with 3 months off in the summer. The most unappreciated profession in our country.
“NONE OF THE ABOVE.” Is there any way we can get a Constitutional Amendment between now and November? I would add, that if “None of the Above” should win, we would rerun the election and NONE of those candidates on the first ballot would be allowed to run again.
I was raised in a semi-conservative republican family. I still tend to lean that way. However, this bunch of (insert your favorite derogatory vulgarity) so called republicans has so screwed up everything, they should all resign and go home. Apparently in order to call yourself a “serious republican” today you must first have a commonsenseectomy. You must also demonstrate you have an IQ somewhere below 50. Mr. Lincoln is probably blushing in his tomb.
End of Rant.
Well said.
I have a problem with how our schools are locally funded. Detroit and Flint had the best public schools at one time. Today a young family can live in the city, vote NO on any millage requests while saving money, then bail to the suburbs and a better district when their kids are school age.
My daughter’s best friend was a student English teacher at Northern High School about 6 or 7 years ago while she was completing her Bachelor’s Degree program at U of M-Flint.
She came over to my then-home in Flushing Twp to grade student papers once and I asked if I could read some of them. These kids were in 10th grade and I was appalled at the many atrocious spelling, grammar mistakes and lack of coherent thoughts in their essays! I asked if I could read the essays of her best students and she said that those were the ones she had given to me.
We just looked at each other and she gave me a tiny smile and said, “I know. It’s horrible, isn’t it?” I asked, “What kind of jobs will these kids be able to get with skills like this? How could they be now in the 10th grade with only 2 more years left to so radically improve their communications skills? Is this what our school systems are producing?”
She explained that so many of these kids don’t receive the kind of support and help they should be getting at home, that many of them come to school unfed and poorly clothed and that there are so many other problems that sometimes she thinks she’s just glad that they do manage to get to school at all and that they haven’t dropped out yet. I was also told that the Flint School District was too administrative-heavy and that the School Board was so contentious, she was surprised if any decisions good for the students were ever made.
So I asked, “So is it more or less like babysitting them, hoping they will learn something here and there?” And she said, “Yup, that’s just about what it’s like.” But she also said that she hopes that somehow she can always inspire them to enjoy reading, to enjoy putting their thoughts down, and that perhaps with increased reading, they will be able to pick up better ways to communicate.
I said that I admired her commitment to her kids and I hoped that they did learn a lot from her. But I’ve always pondered over those terrible essays and what we have, all of us, done to have these kinds of problems in our schools.
What kind of incentive is it for a kid to come from a crappy house to be in a disgusting, damp, mold and mildewed school for six hours five days a week and then expect that child to do well when so many adults around them are failing them?
Why should that kid respect anybody associated with school when the School Board and its administrators are skimming money from the supplies funds like what happened in Detroit? Or when school districts are so administrative-heavy that they always have money for so many out-of-town meetings, hotels and restaurant food yet they run out of money before the school year is over with to pay their teachers?
And yet teachers’ unions are bitched about for their political clout, teachers are constantly being told that they are the ones not performing well and the kids are tested to death! Teachers used to be respected but now they are the ones who are the bad guys. Their hands are tied, their budgets are slashed and they try so very hard to influence and and inspire every one of their students with a dedication that is beyond the best of the rest of us.
We have all failed these kids. We have failed by electing people who do not have the best interests of these kids at the top of their agendas, at the state level and at the local level in our individual school districts. We have failed as parents who do not, or cannot, motivate our children to do their very best work, no matter what. We have passed the buck of educating our kids onto the backs of the teachers and the school boards but we have also failed by not being more diligent about how our millage money is being spent. We have all failed these kids in some way, shape or form.
There has to be a better way to support education state-wide instead of in each separate school district. Each child, no matter if they live in the poorest part of Flint to the richest kid in Grosse Pointe, should each have the same and equal educational opportunity in the same well-kept school buildings with the same top-quality books and supplies. Local school districts can still maintain control over what is taught and who teaches but we should have equal state funding across the board rather than different rates of millages in each district.
We have to instill more respect for the very hard work that each teacher does and not demean them. That’s a job for parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.
We have to elect officials at both the state and local levels who will put educating all of our kids as a very important mission and then force them to mean it.
We have to begin to attend more and more school board meetings, become more involved in the education of our children and ask questions, questions, questions.
We can’t let this situation in Detroit and in Flint and in every poorly performing school district continue. Our kids’ futures, and ours as well, are in jeopardy.