ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced article. It is an editorial by the editor.
In the twilight of my autumn years, I have been plagued by horrible fear that our public education system is collapsing because of unfair pressure from outside forces.
It came to mind this week when I received e-mails from Wayland Schools Assistant Supt. for Finances and Operations Patricia Velie and from the Allegan Area Education Service Agency. I found both to be alarming, especially in light of developments over the past 40 years in Michigan and the United States. They seemed to offer more proof that privatization, religious education, charter schools and just plain old greed are drowning public education in the bathtub.
Ms. Velie sent me a heartfelt request to publicize a school-sponsored event from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday, Jan. 23, to invite people to a sort of “open house” in hopes of recruiting more sorely needed bus drivers.
The AAESA’s e-mail was about the launch of a new program attempting to recruit more teachers.
Both communications were sent to me in the wake of depressing information that teachers, school bus drivers and other educational support personnel are in short supply. Wages are indeed part of that issue, but so is something as simple as respect.
The AAESA’s e-mailed press release reported:
“A consortium of 40 Intermediate School Districts (ISDs) and Educational Service Agencies (ESAs) has formed an innovative partnership to address the teacher shortage crisis in Michigan. Dubbed ‘Talent Together,’ the partnership includes districts spanning 64 counties—from the Upper Peninsula to Southeast Michigan—that collectively serve over 1,030,000 students. To date, this is the largest education collaboration of its kind in state history…
“Michigan’s teacher pipeline has been challenged in recent years, exacerbated by the impact of the COVID pandemic. State data shows that from 2008-2016, enrollment in teacher preparation programs fell by more than 66%, and during that period Michigan also led the nation in attrition from those programs. Allegan County has seen a similar drop in applications for open teaching positions…
“Talent Together believes this program will produce hundreds more teachers in the next five years. The program is being built for sustainability, so that even when initial Grow Your Own grant dollars are exhausted, Talent Together can continue to provide opportunities for interested candidates to become teachers.”
My take is that some very powerful forces have set their sights on destroying public education as we have known it for nearly a half century. The reasons stem from a longtime effort to eliminate teachers’ unions and to weaken public schools under the guise of “competition,” with religious schools, charter schools and “schools of choice” programs.
I worry that these divisive forces have been winning a lot of battles and may be closing in on winning the war.
As a student of history, I maintain that when this great nation was founded, one of the principles associated with it was the concept of free public education for all children. Well, at first perhaps not for girls, people of color or indigenous populations, but democratizing events afterward eventually led to trying to meet that goal.
A huge part of a free education system was to tax all citizens to pay for the service.
Challenges to this system arose when religious-based schools began to spring up, particularly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that no school official may force any of the children to pray under their guidance. Fundamentalist, evangelical and Catholic schools emerged under the principles that they could insist their students receive religious instruction.
Things began to heat up in recent years when private, religious schools began to find ways to obtain public tax dollars formerly reserved only for public schools. One good example was Dick and Betsy DeVos’ voucher program proposal that was rejected by 70 percent of the voters in Michigan at the turn of the 21st century. That proposal has not gone away.
Under their plan from 20 years ago, all parents would get a voucher that would enable their children to go to the school of their own choosing. Sounds reasonable on the surface, but it results in the general public paying for religious instruction.
The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.”
However, religious schools have found allies in privatization, particularly from charter schools that actually aren’t different in practice than public schools except for their administration. Furthermore, there is no evidence that private and charter schools have improved education with competition, they have only drained money from the public education coffers.
Now comes the parental rights groups that align themselves with right-wing politicians who protest against mandates for wearing masks during a pandemic and rail against the non-existent “Critical Race Theory” that isn’t taught in these parts, but perhaps should be.
This is not to mention leftover efforts to ban books, to segregate schools, to avoid educating mentally, emotionally and physically challenged children, and most appallingly, to provide easier ways for athletically gifted students to attend other schools to get more attention and better chances for athletic scholarships.
Public education has been under a half century of assault from a variety of sources that only serve to divide and segregate students to the point where they grow up only with kids who look like them, think like them and live like them. To steal and revise an old Fox News phrase, it’s a “War on the Melting Pot.”
My personal sympathies go out to public educators, bus drivers, aides, crossing guards, lunch ladies and even administrators.
Wasn’t it Abraham Lincoln who once said, “A nation divided against itself cannot stand?”
Perhaps the public schools should stop funding sports and focus on education. Take a look at the funds wasted on stadiums and so on. If sports are desired, have the parents open the pocket books. It is time we focus on what our nation needs not what some want. Use the sports funds to increase staffs wages. Simple solution. My opinion, yes my choice.
I don’t see what is the problem with parents and students having a choice in their education!!!
Parents already have a choice. Every person in America is free to live within the school district of their choosing. I can’t believe you didn’t already know this.
Mr. Editor,
I agree with all the influences you have brought up that conspire against public education as we have known it in this country. And while each has had its own unique, detrimental effect, the bottom line is one you have mentioned many times over, where there is erosion in valued institutions, agencies, and ideas: follow the money.
The voucher scam has allowed millions, if not billions, of public school dollars to be diverted from their original purpose. While there are some groups who may be looking to divert funds for what they consider to be legitimate alternatives to public education, there are capitalist groups looking to make a quick buck by privatizing a formerly idealized concept intended to lift all citizens to a high standard level of education. The result, unfortunately, has been to undermine the financial base for public education, widen the divide between the privileged and underprivileged classes, and, ultimately, dumb down education in general by succumbing to those forces that ban books, ideas, and thought.
There has always been school choice. If someone wants to send their kids to a private/religious school, pay for it. I pay my taxes (unlike the past president), and for one year our son attended a private school due to the unacceptable choices afforded that year in the public school in our area. During that year, my wife worked, in part to pay for the Montessori school. Later, when our son became an accomplished athlete, we were approached by Catholic Central High School. He/we were offered tuition free education at GR Catholic Central. “But we’re not Catholic,” I replied. “Oh, that doesn’t matter,” we were told. It did to us, and he went to the public school.
George Snyder asks what’s wrong with school choice? There’s always been school choice. If a family doesn’t have the resources to pay the tuition to a private/religious school, there are usually scholarships available. This is especially true for those athletes.
Very true Mr Basura I can remember the school I went to we had a star running back who was black and leading the area schools for yards carried our school was headed to a division championship, then next thing you know he was gone, headed to Catholic Central not because of his religion but his athletic ability. And of course the football team never made the finals .
Skoal!!
Dave……you stated that you have received notice that public schools are experiencing a shortage of bus drivers and special education teachers. Then you (and others) placed the blame for that on Betsy Devos, St. Therese and Moline Christian and charter schools.
Are you serious?? Really?
In MI at least in Kent County,Caledonia Community Schools and the parochial schools in the district have bus service provided by Caledonia Community Schools busses. For example Dutton Christian Elementary and Dutton Christian Middle School students have the option of being picked up and taken to their respective schools.
Some school systems opted to outsource their transportation to save money in their budget to businesses like Dean Transportation. That reduced the district costs by removing bus driving positions from the MI public employee retirement program and more importantly took the drivers off the district’s health care rolls. Both those items gave schools a better chance of retaining bus drivers. Another issue there is competition for workers and a job that requires you to be at the bus garage at 6:00 AM to check your bus, start pickups aa early as 6:45, be back at the garage around 9:00 AM and return for another 3 hour shift six hours later when you can get a job at Target for 24 hours a week working 3 days.
“What’s wrong with choice?” Absolutely nothing. Here in MI every family has aa choice but while that choice has expanded to home schools and charter school which are paid for by state taxes like the public school system, choice doesn’t include my tax dollars paying for religious instruction in the curriculum.
That’s why a family has the choice to dip into the family budget for $6900 per child at Dutton Christian and $9200 per year if their child attends South Christian or send send their children to a public school. If parents see the benefit of spending over $75K per child for a parochial education I’m happy for them but that’s their “choice”.
We live in interesting times. We had a Secretary of Education who never attended a public school in her life who’s spent millions of her and her husband’s personal fortunes to wipe out public schools, first with charters and now pushing vouchers for everyone. Political candidates she and her husband have supported have made careers of demonizing public schools and their teachers.
For years I have heard the old saw, “Our school (parochial and more recently charter schools) doesn’t have the kind of problems with disruptive or hard to teach students that are in the public schools. Of course they don’t. If your child enrolled who is enrolled at a parochial or charter school is disruptive for any reason they can inform you your application for the following year is being rejected . If you are a verbal bomb throwing parent they politely tell you it’s better for you to find a school that better fits your family’s needs while giving you the boot.
Public schools don’t have those options. They can’t have parent contracts that have to be signed requiring parent participation and notifying you that if your child is disruptive or requires teachers with specialized training to educate them another school (public school) might be a better option for your child’s sake. Public schools have to accept anyone living in their districted part of the public school mandate is to provide education to EVERYONE. They can’t pick and choose.
Public education has been important providing opportunity and making it possible for social mobility. If you father was a farmer you weren’t doomed to be a gamer. If he worked at a manufacturing plant or drove a truck you weren’t going into the same job by default. Want to have a giant leap backward and have decision makers and politicians be RDK’s (Rich Dumb Kids) whose sole reason for their education has been their family’s wealth then maybe dismantling public K-12 is for you.
Pretty pathetic one-sided view. I guess only right wing fanatics care about their children’s education. Maybe if there was some accountability and standards for public education, it would be different but the unions will not allow
Aaron
Let me preface my question by letting you know I am not a public school teacher and have never been a member of any union.
Please tell us where teachers are not being held accountable in MI. The schools are measured and their state funding is tied to test results.Provide some links to regular media outlets like WOOD TV, WWMT TV websites or the GR Press, Holland Sentinel, Kalamazoo Gazette, Lansing State Journal, Detroit News or Detroit Free Press.
Too often here and other places commenters make claims about topics that are later discovered on Facebook, instagram or a tweet that whoever started it can’t be identified and claims aren’t based in truth.
Like the myth that the MI GOP Co-Chair Maddock retweeted about schools in MI being required to provide litter boxes in school bathrooms for students identifying themselves as “Furries” and dress up as animals. It was an URBAN MYTH. NEVER HAPPENED although even the GOP candidate for governor in MN repeated the myth because it had shock value. MI’s GOP Co-Chair admitted she had seen it on a post on social media and hadn’t checked to see if it was true before repeating the claim on social media.
Couchman, the problem with people like this is they’re victims of the illusionary truth effect.
DeVos group has withdrawn school of choice voucher program. https://detroit.chalkbeat.org/2023/1/9/23547548/michigan-devos-school-choice-private-schools-petitions-withdrawn-let-mi-kids-learn?_amp=true