Michigan Votes Forum

 The priority to protect the teacher's union above what is best for our children is so blatant that it's mind boggling that more parents don't come forward and protest.  Whether it is apathy, ignorance or just human nature to follow, it is certainly shameful.  Competition could save our schools.

 I would disagree.  If you look at the data provided on the Michigan Department of Education MEAP scores  charter schools have a poor record overall.  You might also look at the Michigan Department of Education 1014 Report.   What you will find are low expenses for special needs children because they will not accomodate for the needs.  If you want charter schools, offer them with private funding like many of the religous based schools in the State.

  What the data from the MDE does not tell you is that most charter schools get the lowest performers from the regular schools.  We are given kids who are kicked out, forced out or who are failing.  When we ask parents why they chose a charter school, it is because we take them from where they are performing and bring them up to grade level.  We also do it with less money.  As for special needs students, you are wrong again.  I know of many charter schools who have a full special education staff with a 30% special education population. 

 My children are in a charter school because the superintentant of the public school they were attending made it clear to me that there was nothing she could do about bad teachers due to their union and because teachers were being misplaced due to senority and tenure etc... However, the other side of the coin, I am finding, is that many teachers in my charter school (which tauts itself as cutting edge, progressive etc...) are afraid to be "creative" and progressive due to the fact that they can be fired easily. I've heard statements like: "I just do what they tell me to do" and "I've gotten tired of trying to make things better" and "I don't want to lose my job".

Senator Kuipers, under his constitutional right of protest (Art. 4, Sec. 18), protested against the adoption of the amendment offered by Senator Whitmer to Senate Bill No. 925 and moved that the statement he made during the discussion of the amendment be printed as his reasons for voting “no.”

The motion prevailed.

Senator Kuipers’ statement is as follows:

I have to disagree with the comments of the previous speaker. If this amendment is adopted, it essentially means that all of our cyber schools will have to operate within the four walls of the school building, which sort of defeats the purpose of having a cyber school. I would ask the members of this body to reject this amendment.

Senator Whitmer’s statement is as follows:

As I was reviewing Senate Bill No. 925, there was a glaring addition in this bill that is not related to the Race to the Top application and necessary. What it does is give the state superintendent the authority to waive law. Right now, the state superintendent has the ability to waive rules and work with these cyber schools that we are talking about that are new to this charter school bill. To give the state superintendent the authority to simply waive the laws of Michigan—laws that we’ve created to ensure that our kids are getting a proper education so that they can be competitive in the workplace—doesn’t make any sense to me.

It seems like an enormous amount of authority that we have placed into one person. It is completely out of character with all of the rest of this package, and we should strike it.