Michigan Votes Forum

sole obligation of the teacher, it is the obligation of the parent as well. every child should be taught history, as his father, and those who lived it, taught it. children should not only be taught the dates and places of history, but the names of the people of history as well. the lessons of history are many, and there is much to be learned from it. it should not be left to those who would twist and distort history to their own ends to be the only ones trusted to teach it. we all know our own history, and our families place in it. pass that on to your children, as you have seen it. tell it as it is, warts and all, do not 'sugar coat' history, or you will be as guilty of 'revising' it as the teachers who fail so miserably to teach it now.

Some private schools are better than their neighboring public schools, some are worse and some are the same. Quality runs the gamut in both private and public situations. However, I would argue that public schools actually have to do a better job because they have to accept everyone regardless of skill level, parental involvement, etc. while private schools can, and do, cherry pick the students and families that they want to deal with. Show me a private school that accepts whomever shows up without excluding anyone and then a true comparison can be made.

Maybe if I type slowly, you people will get it. Spending and budget information is already available. You can get that information in several ways -- 1. Make a phone call to the district and ask for the annual report. (This will take you maybe 5 minutes). 2. Go online and Google (or whatever search engine you like) the name of the district and the words "annual report". (This will take you less than 5 minutes). 3. Go to the school board meeting where they are discussing the budget. (This will take 1-2 hours of your time). My point is that this bill is not needed because the information is already available.

show me a public school that operates by the simple principle of being a good enough school, without the added rules and regulations, for people to freely pay for with their own money. THAT would be a fair comparison.

you will quit fighting the inevitable. You have lost the trust of the public, you know, the guys who pay your salary with their hard earned money. The way that you fight making these numbers easier to get just reinforces our opinions that the schools have failed us and you know it. I know there are alot of useless parents so I don't want to hear your blah blah blah. The point is that you guys don't teach the basics. You don't teach anything that will make our kids question the creeping socialism. The only thing most of you are interested in is keeping all the teachers working and gobbling up more of OUR MONEY. Government "workers" seem to be the same no matter what job they have. Vouchers are coming, choice is coming. If you are one of the teachers that has a job because of the union I suggest that you start looking for gainful employment. If you are a good teacher why aren't you trying to change the system? After all, it's "for the children". That liberal mantra seems to work when they want to take more of our money to throw down the black hole of "education".

take anyone that can pay the tuition. If we had a choice we could take the ten grand per kid that gets wasted and send our kids to a good school. Just the fact that you don't want to make it any easier to see where OUR MONEY goes proves that there is a problem.

do NOT accept anyone who can pay the tuition. Your basic private school does not accept the emotionally impaired, the children with challenging behaviors, the children with challenging parents, etc. In addition, any child that the school feels isn't a "good fit" for the school can be tossed out at will.

school following a sound business plan. do the most education for the least amount of dollars, in other words, give good value to the 'customer'. you remember them, the ones who pay the money???

MUST take all comers, because it takes everyone's money. it CAN'T discriminate on students when it WON'T discriminate on taxpayers. that is a situation that the state got itself into, and can, with some legislative help, get itself out of. it wouldn't take much to find this state to be the first and only state to have a totally private education system. imagine the savings to the state if it didn't have to fund schools anymore. imagine the savings if the state didn't have to hire teachers,or pay unions anymore.

We aren't allowed to "teach the basics". Between the politicians, special interest groups, etc. the curriculum has been so mangled it is beyond belief. It is not the teachers who are saying "oh, please, add more to my plate" so stop blaming teachers for everything. Unfortunately, you and many like you are firmly on the voucher bandwagon because you have fallen for the private school myth without having all the facts. I actually would have no problem with vouchers under the following conditions: make private schools follow the same curriculum as the public schools (My public school elementary curriculum occupies 2 binders each of which is roughly 3 inches thick while my private school teacher friend does not have a curriculum of even half that), make the private schools accept everyone who shows up at the door and do not allow them to reject anyone, make the private schools have to follow all the same regulations as the public schools to expell a student (no more inviting a child not to return or telling a parent that after x number of suspensions their child must leave), make the private schools offer the same programs that the public schools do (example -- Guardian Angels in Clawson never had a pool when I was in school. Their kids were allowed to use the local high school's pool without costing GA anything. Also, a few years ago, they had no speech pathologist so the public schools had to provide one at public cost.), make every piece of legislation that is aimed at public schools also be aimed at private schools. Let's do all this and then compare public and private schools. Guess what you will find -- some private schools will outperform public, some will do exactly the same and some will do worse than public schools -- exactly the same as it is now.

We aren't allowed to "teach the basics". Between the politicians, special interest groups, etc. the curriculum has been so mangled it is beyond belief. It is not the teachers who are saying "oh, please, add more to my plate" so stop blaming teachers for everything. Unfortunately, you and many like you are firmly on the voucher bandwagon because you have fallen for the private school myth without having all the facts. I actually would have no problem with vouchers under the following conditions: make private schools follow the same curriculum as the public schools (My public school elementary curriculum occupies 2 binders each of which is roughly 3 inches thick while my private school teacher friend does not have a curriculum of even half that), make the private schools accept everyone who shows up at the door and do not allow them to reject anyone, make the private schools have to follow all the same regulations as the public schools to expell a student (no more inviting a child not to return or telling a parent that after x number of suspensions their child must leave), make the private schools offer the same programs that the public schools do (example -- Guardian Angels in Clawson never had a pool when I was in school. Their kids were allowed to use the local high school's pool without costing GA anything. Also, a few years ago, they had no speech pathologist so the public schools had to provide one at public cost.), make every piece of legislation that is aimed at public schools also be aimed at private schools. Let's do all this and then compare public and private schools. Guess what you will find -- some private schools will outperform public, some will do exactly the same and some will do worse than public schools -- exactly the same as it is now.

"private schools offer the same programs that the public schools do (example -- Guardian Angels in Clawson never had a pool when I was in school. Their kids were allowed to use the local high school's pool without costing GA anything." The way it is the parents are paying taxes and supporting a scholl that they don't think is good enought to send their kids to and you don't think they should be allowed to use the pool that THEY BOUGHT. You are a big part of the problem. "Also, a few years ago, they had no speech pathologist so the public schools had to provide one at public cost.)," See Above "my private school teacher friend does not have a curriculum of even half that" Why do their students come out smarter? Even if you could only use your voucher at one of your hallowed public schools it would create competition and make them better. The government sanctioned monopoly has done exactly what it was set up to do......It's time to end it.

I've never heard of a kid or his parents being tossed out. Lots of kids I grew up with that were too much for the government school teachers ended up in private schools and came out great.

i attended, and the one my daughter attended, put out kids who were at the top 10% of their graduating class at the public school they HAD to attend, or they wouldn't get a diploma. i was 45 out of 500 in my graduating class, and my daughter was 30 out of 850. i believe that it was the 10 years of SUPERIOR EDUCATION that made the difference. not only did we have to learn what the state made us learn, but we had to learn RELIGION in addition. we could not 'swap' a required class for religion, we had to take them along with our regular classes. so, while our friends in public school got 'study hall', we had religion. while our friends in public school got 'free electives', we got more required classes. i believe i got a superior education, and i KNOW my daughter did.

take every piece of legislation that has ALREADY RUINED the public school system and make it mandatory for the private schools? how about we do this? how about REMOVING ALL THE DO NOTHING LEGISLATION, and all the FEEL GOOD LEGISLATION, and all the MY DISTRICT IS BETTER THAN YOURS LEGISLATION, and let the schools compete on the only criteria that matters, who can give the best education. you will find that if you use that yardstick, instead of the legislative baseball bat, you might just turn out better students. allowing parents to spend their education dollars to choose schools based on educational performance would be much smarter than FORCING parents to spend their educational dollars on the public school that is closest/has the most openings. if parents are given a choice, then the SUPERIOR SCHOOLS WILL RECIEVE SUFFICIENT FUNDING, and the INFERIOR SCHOOLS will wither by the wayside, as they should.

an $80, 000 anything. After 3 degrees, lots of extra training through workshops and conferences (at my own expense) and 10 years with the same district, I don't make anywhere close to that much money.

I have a couple of questions for those who are claiming vouchers to be the end all and be all for education. Let's suppose that you get your way and we go to vouchers. You want your child to go to school A which is an excellent school. Too bad though, school A is full because lots of other parents want their kid to go there as well and they got their requests in before you did. So you choose school B which is not as good as school A but still ok. Sorry, that one is full too. You finally get your child a spot in school C, which is a mediocre school. What has your demand for vouchers just solved? What about the kids who suffer from parents who just don't give a darn? What happens to them when their neighborhood school is filled up with kids using vouchers and they get shuffled off to an inferior school? How are you going to react when all these supposedly hundreds of "inferior schools" are closed and your child is now sitting in a class of 40 kids because there aren't enough buildings and the kids have to go somewhere? Are you going to vote to increase your taxes to build a larger school? Rather than vouchers, I would prefer to see all members of the educational team (parents, teachers, students, politicians, community leaders) working together to fix what's broken instead of this finger pointing garbage we have now. The simple fact of the matter is that EVERY member of this team is responsible for the problems (and, yes, I would be the first to admit that we have them) in education. Here's my last question: Since you are a member of the team listed above, what would you be willing to do to solve things?

is that if school A is at capacity, and there are others who wish to go there, school A can now afford to build, as the capital is there waiting for them, all they have to do is invest in the school. the good get better, and the medicore go away. you ASSUME that no new construction will take place, to the contrary, LOTS of new construction will take place, and, if necessary, the superior school A will take over,and buy the buildings recently vacated by the mediocre schools. thus, the people DO get to choose school A after all, and school A will be able to do whatever it takes to stay superior, including building a bigger campus if necessary. THAT'S how vouchers work. stop ASSUMING that everything will be the same as it is now. it won't be.

if i were able to choose which school i wanted my child to attend based on EDUCATIONAL PERFORMANCE. it would solve things if all schools were rated by EDUCATIONAL PERFORMANCE. it would solve things if administrators quit trying to enforce social policy and started trying to IMPROVE EDUCATIONAL PERFORMANCE. in other words, the schools with the best, smartest students at graduation get the money. with vouchers, and the FREE ENTERPRISE SYSTEM, this would happen within two years. with the current system, this can NEVER happen. yes, there would be teachers unemployed, but they would be the WORST TEACHERS WITH THE WORST EDUCATIONAL PERFORMANCE. yes, there would be schools closed, but they would be the WORST SCHOOLS WITH THE WORST EDUCATIONAL PERFORMANCE. look at how much better PRIVATE COLLEGES fare than PUBLICLY OWNED COLLEGES. they even have alumni giving millions to their 'alma mater'. using this model, i believe that we can vastly improve our educational performance by letting the parents make educated decisions about where their kids go and who teaches them what.

But it does not work in real life. My local school district consistently is a net enrollment gainer on school of choice. But for years we have been unable to build and update facilities because our backers will not agree to make such an investment. So much for the idea that growing enrollment will automatically lead to a decision to make more room. One of the two K-5 schools in our Michigan district is one of the best academically (and however else you measure school quality) in our region -- if not in the entire state. Yet that model school struggles each year to fill its enrollment while the other elemntary school in the district (average at best) is overflowing. Clearly, academic and even general excellence are not determinant factors in which schools are student magnets. As another example, in my long ago youth I attended a very fine, academically superior private school. There had been updates and expansions to accommodate increased demand. That did not keep the school from struggling financially, to the extent that it eventually had to seek a merger with another school. That tells me excellence alone is no guarantee of success for a school. They all run on money. Finally, the private school model that always has worked best in acheiving academic and general excellence is the one that is based on a high degree of selectivity in respect to which kids are admitted to attend. A family's ability to pay well may not get a kid in the door if the kid falls short in meeting criteria for admission. Nor do excellent private schools have much tolerance for troublesome, malcontent parents. The poster who suggested that all members of the educating team -- parents, teachers, school administrators, school trustees, community leaders, taxpayers -- should be working together to resolve problems that vex the cause of education today has it right. Scrapping over issues like vouchers is neither productive nor constructive.

I used the school district published information. What does total staff mean to you? Have you ever attended a school board meeting? Public participation periods are one sided. They let you ask questions but don't answer them at the meeting. They say "we'll get back to you",and don't, "send us a letter", which gets no response, much like the public comment on special ed Rules. Parents speak when they are spoken to and there is no requirement for answering or even providing logical reasoning behind decisions. Is that really participation? Who works for who?

Schools work for the public. Get off your lazy tush and post the information on line. Is that too complicated for you? Do you not know how to publish a word document on your own web site? I have been to many many board meetings and they never discuss dollars. They approve total expenditures in groups. They SOMETIMES have written documents reguarding the expenditures available to the public on a table at the back of the room but it is not too detailed. Hey, how much does that paper cost? Would it be more cost efficient to publish the information online? Is this the real reason I have to send a ream of paper in to the schools at the beginning of every year? What did they spend that supply budget money on? Lunch?

Do you teach respect or EARN respect?

Clearly you are a disgruntled teacher. Get away from the children!!!!!!!!!!!

if you really are interested in your local school district's finances: 1) attend the annual budget hearing required by law and conducted by the school board 2) obtain a copy of the proposed budget before the hearing, and enter comments you may have in respect to the budget on the record during the hearing 3) attend the school board meeting at which board members receive a briefing on the annual financial audit that each school district is required by law to perform 4) obtain a copy of the annual audit, which school districts are required to perform and the results of which are a matter of public record -- this will enable you to comment intelligenly (perhaps) on the state of the district's finances

... if we would ever try it. We don't try something and then complain that it doesn't work in the real world. Your school attracts positive enrollment, but we don't have the funds coming from poor schools to grow your successful school. We keep taxes up for the poor school. Then we complain that there is no money for the good school to grow. Schools that grow and schools that fail are BOTH part of the solution. Try that for real and see if it works or not before complaining that free market schools don't work.

what most private schools do is weed out those students who do not already have good scores on the meap test and who have bad behavior. They do this by telling you there is a SCREENING process, and if they don't want your child all they do is tell you your on the waiting list. Did you all just think that the private school kids learn and are taught better? Poor things you really are sheltered aren't you? Take a look at the testing grades for this year, all schools left alot to be desired not just public.

quit making excuses for why the public schools stink. They're better because blah blah blah. Fix it. I haven't heard any ideas from you "educators" on how to fix this. It's always the same old talking points. The union is killing your jobs slowly, sadly they are taking our kids down with them.

fight so hard to keep hidden what you do with OUR MONEY?

information out of the mafia than the school district. Oop's, not much difference between the two. The union really doesn't want this information to be published, the teachers don't want folks to know how much they make and the administrators sure don't want you to know how they run their little monopoly.

This bill does not propose a mandate for disclosure of the speciified information. That disclosure already is required under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act. What this bill actually seeks to mandate is publication / broadcast of the information on school district internet web sites. In other words, it would require that public school districts in Michigan do another task that redirects staff effort and time and saps district money resources to provide what already is available, but in another form. And it has absolutely nothing to do with educating children or improving their educational opportunities. It is a totally unnecessary, unproductive mandate issued without provision for additional funds to implement it. That makes it counterproductive. For those concerned about efficiency and effectiveness of government operations – including public school operations – opposition to this bill is the natural and logical position to take.

"For those concerned about efficiency and effectiveness of government operations – including public school operations – opposition to this bill is the natural and logical position to take." what about ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE PUBLIC??? i believe that this bill would provide that accountability at a very reasonable cost. would you REALLY want every parent in a school district sitting at a budget meeting, wasting valuable time, getting ignored by the members, and possibly abused by the administrators? no, the questions they have could easily be answered if the information is posted for all to access. they do it with everything else, why not this?

"it would require that public school districts in Michigan do another task that redirects staff effort and time and saps district money resources to provide what already is available, but in another form" Poor poor overworked government worker. Bull It would take almost nothing and provide a service to THE PEOPLE WHO PAY YOUR SALARY. Again I Ask...Why are you trying to keep this information hidden? Could it be that if we sheeple knew how much it costs to keep you guys suckling at the public teat that we would go nuts?

CAN make those kinds of choices, just like businesses can make choices as to the quality of their employees, which makes an impact on the quality of their product. now, if you make every private school take every BAD STUDENT, then all you have created is a brand new PUBLIC SCHOOL. how about we HOLD PARENTS AND STUDENTS RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR BEHAVIOR and weed out the bad students from our PUBLIC SCHOOLS? it wasn't a problem when i was going to school. the schools were HAPPY to suspend and expell problem children, and only more than willing to leave them to their own devices to make their own place in the world. the parents of problem children couldn't just go to the principal's office and raise a fuss to get their problem child back into school. rules were rules and the problem children had to obey them too. we didn't have A.D.D. or A.D.H.D. back then, or if they did, teachers didn't let it bother them. we didn't have 'bad johnnie' continually disrupting the class. he was sent to the office and sent home. his mother and father did what they had to do to make sure 'bad johnnie' didn't disrupt the class again. yes, there were special education programs, and their should be, we just need to quit making excuses for all the 'bad johnnies' out there and treat them all like we aren't going to put up with their nonsense, in other words, like we EXPECT THEM TO LEARN.

The NEA lists its goals and the Democratic Party agrees By Phyllis Schlafly Monday, August 20, 2007 Some critics complain that the issue of education has been conspicuously absent from presidential television debates. But Democratic presidential candidates did sound off with their pro-federal government, pro-spending policies at the annual convention of the National Education Association, and the nation's largest teachers union liked what they heard. U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., told delegates that she will fight school vouchers "with every breath in my body." Reiterating the message of her book "It Takes a Village," she called for universal preschool for 4-year-olds. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., likewise inveighed against "passing out vouchers." Former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., also announced his opposition to vouchers and proposed that the federal government pay college tuition for all students who will work 10 hours a week. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson wants to "raise teacher's average minimum wage to $40,000 a year." Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, goes all out for "a universal prekindergarten system that will provide year-round day care for children age 3 to 5." All Democratic candidates look forward to increased federal control of and spending for public schools. And they all attacked President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind law for not appropriating more funds to implement it. After cheering the promises made by the candidates, NEA delegates buckled down to the serious business of spelling out their political goals, many of which have nothing whatever to do with giving schoolchildren a better education. The NEA demands a tax-supported, single-payer, health care plan for all residents, a word artfully chosen to include illegal immigrants. The NEA supports immigration "reform" that "includes (note: this is a change from last year's verb "may include") a path to permanent residency, citizenship, or asylum" for illegal immigrants. For many years, and again this year, the NEA urged a national holiday honoring Cesar Chavez. The NEA must have forgotten that Chavez, a strident advocate for farmworkers, vehemently opposed illegal immigration because he knew it depressed the wages of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants. The NEA supports a beefed-up federal hate crimes law with heavier penalties. The NEA wants federal legislation to confer special rights on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. The NEA passed at least a dozen resolutions supporting the "gay rights agenda" in public schools. These cover employment, curricula, textbooks, resource and instructional materials, school activities, role models, and language, with frequent use of terms such as sexual orientation, gender identification, and homophobia. The NEA enthusiastically supports all the goals of radical feminism, including abortion, the Equal Rights Amendment, school-based health clinics, wage control so the government can arbitrarily raise the pay of women but not men, the feminist pork called the Women's Educational Equity Act, and letting feminists rewrite textbooks to conform to feminist ideology. The NEA supports statehood for the District of Columbia. The NEA supports affirmative action. The NEA calls for repeal of right-to-work laws, which allow teachers in some states to decline joining the NEA. The NEA supports United Nations treaties, especially the U.N. Convention on Women, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Court of Justice. The NEA loves global education, which promotes world citizenship and taxing U.S. citizens to give away their wealth to other countries. Another NEA favorite is environmental education, which teaches that human activity is generally harmful to the environment and population should be reduced. Here are some things the NEA opposes: vouchers, tuition tax credits, parental choice programs, making English the official language of the U.S., the use of voter identification for elections, and the privatization of Social Security. High on the list of NEA policies that actually relate to education is opposition to the testing of teachers as a criterion for job retention, promotion, tenure, or salary. The NEA reiterated its support for pre-kindergarten for "all 3- and 4-year-old children," mandatory full-day kindergarten, and "early childhood education programs in the public schools for children from birth through age 8." The NEA demands that this "early" education have "diversity-based curricula" and "bias-free screening devices." The NEA wants the right to teach schoolchildren about sex without any interference from parents, but on the other hand wants its pals in the bureaucracy to regulate all home-schooling taught by parents. The NEA opposes allowing home-schoolers to participate in public school sports or extracurricular activities. Two of the NEA's favorite words in its resolutions and policies are "diversity," which means teaching that gay behavior is OK, and "multiculturalism," which means stressing negative things about the United States and positive things about non-Christian cultures. The exorbitant dues teachers pay to the NEA enable its well-paid staff to lobby Congress and state legislatures on behalf of all these goals.

Exactly what do you expect to accomplish by requiring that material already available to the public upon request be published on a school’s web site? Exactly how will this actually improve accountability on the part of school officials? Exactly how will this improve accounting procedures and accuracy in the public school districts? Exactly how will this improve education in public school districts? Exactly how will this perfect example of redundant spending help reduce wasteful spending in any school district? Exactly how does this perfect example of an unfunded mandate make schools – or government in general -- perform more efficiently? In other words, make a positive case for passing a bill that only mandates producing in yet another form what already is open to the public under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act. Make your positive case for another unfunded mandate: for a bill that only calls for spending staff time (and the dollars that time costs) on a redundant task that provides no additional value, which the state would require but provide no funding to pay for. Make a positive case for spending taxpayer dollars on a mandated school activity that has nothing to do with educating children. Bashing teachers and their union won’t do it. Bashing public schools in general won’t do it. Mislabeling and insulting people who sensibly oppose legislation like this – people who truly support the smaller and less government principle – will not do it. If you cannot clearly and specifically tell us what substantial value this wasteful bill would bring to the people of the state – the taxpayers whose money this bill would tap off from other school activities to provide what already is available and provided upon request – then you have failed to make a case for passing it.

"Exactly how will this actually improve accountability on the part of school officials?" The light of day does wonderful things. "Exactly how will this improve education in public school districts?" Hopefully when the folks that are PAYING THE BILL see all the waste there will be a push for more teaching and less boondoggles, waste fraud abuse theft cheating padding etc. "Exactly how does this perfect example of an unfunded mandate make schools – or government in general -- perform more efficiently?" Give it up, this will cost pennies at first and then almost nothing. What are you hiding? "In other words, make a positive case for passing a bill that only mandates producing in yet another form what already is open to the public under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act. " How about you make a case for us to have to jump through hoops to get information on how you are spending OUR MONEY. "Bashing teachers and their union won’t do it" The union is a corrupt state enforced monopoly and you know it. They protect the worst at the expense of our children. Hey as the libs say "it's for the children, how can you be against this". Seems that all you folks at the public teat are very very afraid that we will find out exactly where OUR MONEY is going. "In other words, make a positive case for passing a bill that only mandates producing in yet another form what already is open to the public under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act." The people that are PAYING YOUR SALARY don't have the time to jump through all the hoops you have erected to protect your giant fiefdom. Show us where OUR MONEY is spent. " the taxpayers whose money this bill would tap off from other school activities" Oh, so now you're worried about us taxpayers? BULL! This will cost almost nothing and will be a great improvement. If you are one of the good ones you will rise to the top, if not...good luck.

Makes the most noise. (Old bit of folk wisdom.) So far, supporters of tis bill are empty barrels. They have made no affirmative case for passing this unfunded, wasteful, and redundant mandate. (That most likely is because there is no such case to be made.)

This does sound good to me accountability is a good thing but who is doing the figuring and posting information the same bunch of people who there trying to catch with their hands in the cookie jar? If that"s the case then there a bunch of idiots which would be about right when you're dealing with the state.

lil teacher....the sheeple are awakening. Anyone spending OUR MONEY that doesn't want to make it as easy as possible for us to see the books is guilty of something.