What are these Michigan legislators thinking?
The biggest news in Michigan in recent months has been the severe crisis over the lead-contaminated water in Flint that has poisoned residents, but the Detroit public school district has generated some of its own.
Detroit teachers have been staging a series of sickouts to call attention to the appalling conditions of the public schools, and the teachers union recently filed a lawsuit which says that conditions inside the schools are so unhealthy that the rights of students — who are predominately African American and poor — are being violated.
Darnell Earley, who was appointed emergency manager of the Detroit public schools by Gov. Rick Snyder a year ago (after Earley served as the emergency manager of Flint) is stepping down at the end of the month, and there is a package of school “reform” bills introduced by Republicans in the state House which, among other things, would cut educators’ collective bargaining rights, reduce retirement benefits for new teachers and link teacher pay to questionable performance standards.
The bills are supposedly meant to improve the troubled Detroit school district, but “supposedly” is the key word here, at least according to the editorial board of the Detroit Free Press, which wrote an editorial as blistering as any I can remember reading. The editorial aims its vitriol at House Republicans in Michigan, but disregard toward the well-being of children is common among some school reformers around the country who have long ignored the conditions in which kids live and attend school while pushing standardized test-based “accountability” systems to improve student achievement. This is the kind of thinking that has driven school reform for years.
The newspaper’s editorial board chief, Stephen Henderson, gave meWhat are these Michigan legislators thinking? - The Washington Post:
