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Searching For A Scapegoat
The Michigan Education Association is taking some hits for allegedly derailing the state's effort to secure $400 million in badly needed extra cash for the state's battered school system.
It didn't take long for the boo-birds to go after the MEA when it was revealed last week that Michigan did not make the cut for the Race to the Top bonanza being doled out by the Obama folks.
It is true that MEA balked at many of the so-called reforms. It wanted to see everything in writing but got a 12-page summary instead.
It is true that that the Obama folks were looking for states where all the special interests were on the same page and obviously Michigan did not fit that criterion.
So conservative columnist are lashing out at the union and even the governor sort of hinted the other day that the MEA may have been part of the problem. "I worry about that. I don't know for sure," was her tepid response.
And to make matters worse the Lansing State Journal popped a story the other day by pointing out that while rank and file teachers around the state were taking pay hits or measly pay increases that barely reached a half a percent, the leadership at the giant teacher's union was hauling down annual raises between seven and nine percent. In fact since 2005 those increases approached 19%.
In other words it has not been a good week for the union.
The spokesperson for the MEA defended the staff increases under the rubric that to keep good talent, you have to pay good wages.
But it rings hallow because the teachers in the trenches could make the same argument and probably with more veracity since they actually teach children, while the leadership at the union oversees the teachers who do the teaching.
Beating up on the MEA is a popular in-door sport in this town. It was former Gov. John Engler who made it fashionable and others have picked up where he left off.
The union will get another chance to flex its muscles when lawmakers and the governor take another shot at round two of RTTT money. Rep. Tim Melton who runs the House Education committee says he wants to review the federal critique of the state's plan, to see if improvements can be made.
"We'll have to see if we have the political will to make the changes," he warns.
MEA are ya listening?
posted by Tim Skubick at
3:23 AM
3 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nolan Finley is partisan hack and a disgrace to the field of journalism. As is ANYONE who publicly puts "the" blame for RTTT on the MEA. The State cobbled together a basketfull of new laws and unfunded mandates in the span of about two weeks and half-assed it through.
God, what immoral incompetence these "journalists" have in writing such bs. They can't possibly--can't possibly--be that incompetent, so the only conclusion that can be drawn is that they are purposely lying to fit an agenda.
The failure of our state to not be an initial recipient of the federal funding to reform educational systems in our country is a teachable lesson on a number of levels. It reveals how impotent our congressional clout is and it illuminates how the politics of education will always contaminate the education of our children in our state and our nation.
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> It is offensive that our federal government would even engaged in a contest to improve the educational foundations of our nation's students. Our future as a nation should not be subject to a national contest. The truth is this backward proposition was never questioned or challenged but actually embraced by our state leaders . This tragic cheerleading was in full bloom when Robert Bobb the designated DPS savior genuflected and remain silent when our nation's educational czar demonize the DPS as the worst in the country.
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> Our state leaders role in this saga is shameful instead of being motivated to design new long overdue educational reforms in the state our legislators created a series of hollow reforms that were not only impotent but revealed a desperate leadership unable to even understand and confront its own educational shortcomings.
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> One hopes this set back will slap our state leaders into reality instead of chasing down prizes behind the curtains of the federal contests. Our state legislature needs to create our own transformative reforms here in Michigan. The citizens of Michigan cannot afford to lose this race.
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