More of Snyder's 'Shared Sacrifice' for School Head

Rick Snyder has delivered yet another lesson in what his "shared sacrifice" looks like with the hiring of the head of the statewide district for low performing schools.

The superintendent, John Covington, could earn up to $1.5 million over the next four years, according to the Detroit Free Press.

This level of pay, of course, is necessary to attract top talent, according to the governor's spokesperson.

Teachers across the state, meanwhile, are taking pay cuts and being forced to pay more for their health insurance, another form of a pay cut. Snyder isn't worried about whether top talent is attracted into the teaching positions, only into the jobs at the top.

So again, it's sacrifice for the people who do the work so that the people at the top can share in the savings. That's shared sacrifice.

So Where Are the Ideas for Helping Children Learn?

Bill Rogers wants everybody to know that he's been working through his summer vacation. That's good, since as a state lawmaker he's paid to work year round.

He's been working hard on making sure students learn more so that they'll be prepared for all the jobs that Rick Snyder said he would create in Michigan by slashing school funding by $470 per student and giving huge tax breaks to corporations.

So after weeks of work, listening to testimony from school officials, Bill Rogers and his bipartisan working group of lawmakers thinks it would be a great idea if all school districts in the state used the same software for accounting and payroll.

Thank Heavens! This unaddressed scandal has been haunting parents throughout Michigan for years now. The nerve of school officials to select software for schools here in Livingston County that isn't the same as the software used in the UP. I feel so much better now that I know lawmakers will tell all the school districts which software to use because they are such experts on that sort of thing. What a relief that we don't have big goverment telling us what to do because that's sure not what we voted for last November. Was it?

Mackinac Island Forum Offers Fantasy Island Education View

Michigan business and Republican leaders have been meeting on Mackinac Island for the last several days, congratulating themselves on their success in fattening their own wallets by cutting funding for local schools and higher education in this state.

Perhaps they really don't understand that that is a short-sighted approach to economic growth in Michigan. Or perhaps they do know it and realize how bad it looks. Either way, they decided they'd better act like they care about education and understand it's importance so they invited a few educators to speak at the conference.

And one of made them all feel better by just blaming teachers for everything that's wrong with public schools.

According to the Detroit Free Press:

"Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem Children's Zone, spoke at the conference and said public schools' success rests solely with teachers, who should be fired if their students don't go on to college.

"'If you get paid to educate a child and you cannot do it, then you should probably go into a different business,' he said."

Really? Every student must go to college, whether they want to or not? Does Canada live on a Fantasy Island where no one needs a plumber, an electrician, a carpenter, or a mechanic? No one has to draw blood, drive a school bus, stock shelves in grocery stores, pick up the trash, mow lawns, lay ashphalt on our roads, plow snow in the winter? And all the people who do these jobs are failures because they didn't go to college? So their teachers should be fired?

What poppycock. Michigan needs to send more of its students to college. Income tends to rise with education. Many of the best jobs of the future will require college degrees. But not all jobs will need that training. And not everyone likes school. That's just a simple fact. Not everyone has college-level ability -- even some who come from well-off families. And because of high tuition rates -- due to inadequate state support -- too many bright students from poor families can't afford to go to college.

But to label everyone who fails to go to college a failure and a sign of the system's failure is taking the lazy way out.

Republicans Not Done with Attacking Public Schools

The assault on public schools isn't over, just because Rick Snyder has stolen $470 per student from school budgets at a time when the school aid fund has a surplus and the state budget is taking in millions more than expected just a few months ago.

Now, it's time for Republicans to make it easier to fire teachers.

Right now, teachers receive tenure after a four-year probationary period. You would think that four years would be enough time for school superintendents to figure out that a teacher is or isn't doing the job. That's four years to do annual evaluations, observe the teacher in the classroom, examine lesson plans, and on and on. That's four years to decide if a teacher is making the grade and to document the lack of performance.

But apparently, it's not enough time. Four entire school years will pass without school superintendents being able to discern that a teacher isn't doing the job. Probably because the superintendents aren't doing theirs.

Only Some People Expected to Produce

The Republican-led Michigan House has approved Rick Snyder's tax-the-poor-and-elderly-and-spare-business budget but there is one thing missing.

Snyder has never said how many jobs Michigan can expect to reap from the windfall that is being handed to business at the expense of their customers. Now that many Michigan retirees and working poor will have less money to spend at Michigan businesses, how many jobs will these businesses create?

Snyder says he doesn't have to give us a projection on that. It'll just happen. There's no goal, no benchmark, for what this tax change will produce in the way of jobs, compared to what is going to happen anyway.

In other words, no standard for it to be measured against.

Teachers, on the other hand, need such standards. according to Snyder. They need to guarantee that their students will do better each year, no matter how hungry they are when they come to school, no matter how deprived they are, no matter how little money the district has to support the teacher with newer textbooks and other resources. Or they are at risk of losing their jobs.

Maybe we should take away the tax breaks of any business that doesn't create a job within a year. Wouldn't that be fair?

Who Will Work in Low-Performing Districts?

It's not enough to slash school budgets statewide with a $470 per student cut in school aid.

Now Rick Snyder wants to really stick it to poor districts, taking away more of their students, draining their budgets, and discouraging good teachers from wanting to work there.

Brilliant!

Snyder's plan will set up more charter schools to take more students and school aid dollars away from poorly performing districts. With less money, these districts will somehow magically get better.

Then, he will tell teachers in poor districts that 40 percent of their performance evaluation will be based on test scores. So you have a district where the students with the most financial means will be able to drive to another district which has to take them (if you can't afford to get to a neighboring district, you won't be able to transfer, let's face it), draining off the best students. Other students will leave for charter schools, whose test scores have proven no better than traditional public schools. The district will have fewer resources to educate the really poor students who are left behind. And the teachers will be faced with losing their jobs if they somehow don't create a miracle.

And oh, yeah, the students are going to be even poorer as a result of Snyder's proposal to shift more taxes to poor people by eliminating the Earned Income Tax Credit and giving parents $25 instead.

Who will take a job in a district like that? Won't the best teachers avoid those districts?

Snyder's speech was supposed to be about education. Was there one idea in it about teaching? One technique that would help children learn more?