Up North Progressive

One of the happiest days of 2019 was watching Governor Gretchen Whitmer on February 12 give her first State of the State address in Michigan’s capital in Lansing. After eight very long, difficult years of the Nerd and Republican policy gutting the wealth of Michigan, there’s the possibility Michigan will get back on track and be a state of prosperity for all Michiganians. Listening to Governor Whitmer speak, nodding in agreement with almost everything she said, there was one point of head shaking and heavy sighs.

The second crisis is harder to see, but we all know it exists: it’s the crisis in education and skills. And, like infrastructure, it impacts every one of us — our employers, our workers, and all of our children. Today, third graders in Michigan rank in the bottom ten in the country in reading. The bottom ten. Since 2014, among states measured every year, Michigan has experienced the worst decline in childhood literacy. And the decline has been consistent across every racial and economic group in our state.

ARGH! NOOOOOOO! Who did this? Who included the ALEC-manufactured literacy crisis in the governor’s speech? Why do so many intelligent people fall for this manufactured crisis?

Third grade literacy requirements are the brainchild of corporate-backed friend to Republican state legislators everywhere, the American Legislative Exchange Council. Just in case you forgot what ALEC is all about, they are a group of corporations spending millions of dollars to keep Republican state legislators in office in all 50 states. In “exchange” those Republican legislators introduce “model” bills for consideration, and if the checks are big enough, passage into state law. The bill that became PA 306 in Michigan was House Bill 4822 of 2016, a bill that paraphrases Chapter 7 of ALEC’s “A Plus Literacy Act.” so closely, it’s as if Michigan Republicans barely bothered to try and cover up the fact that HB 4822 was an ALEC model bill at all.

So with barely any time to collect enough data (because that is the main function of public school teachers now, collecting data and documenting their job leaving very little time for them to actually do their job), Michigan has been declared a failure according to Michigan Achieves, a project of the organization Education Trust – Midwest. Who are these people?

It’s Bill and Melinda Gates, of course! Education Trust is an organization heavily funded by the Gates Foundation. Every spring, newspapers across Michigan publish press releases of doom and gloom with full-color reports provided about how Michigan schools suck so much, they really need to pass more ALEC model bills to improve academic achievement. The report is always very light on any actual data on Michigan academic growth, but results are always the same: Michigan is doing a terrible job and must do better by passing ALEC model legislation to give teachers more data-collecting hoops to jump through. The 2018 report that everyone took to be gospel last spring proves absolutely nothing about the status of Michigan’s public schools.

What is the Bill Gates-ALEC connection? Nothing publicly since 2012 when the Gates Foundation donated $375,000 to ALEC for the purpose of making “a single grant, narrowly and specifically focused on providing information to ALEC-affiliated state legislators on teacher effectiveness and school finance.”

Education Trust is the whistleblower arm of the Bill Gates agenda to run public education in the way he thinks public education should be run: Scare legislators into adopting ALEC model legislation, then force public schools to punish teachers through the Center for Educational Leadership arm of the Bill Gates agenda.

Does Governor Whitmer agree with Bill Gates that more corporate-funded legislation and policy are needed to whip Michigan’s failing teachers into shape?

This is not happening because Michigan kids are less talented. It’s not happening because our kids are less motivated. It’s not happening because our educators are less dedicated. It is happening because generations of leadership have failed them. In the past 25 years, Michigan has seen the lowest growth in the K-12 education spending of any state in the nation. During that time, our per-pupil funding revenue has actually fallen by 15 percent. And in the last decade, as our literacy crisis has grown, our predecessors have repeatedly raided K-12 education funding to fill gaps elsewhere in the state budget.

Yes, Governor Whitmer, this part of your speech about public education is almost accurate.

There is no literacy crisis in Michigan. There is however a public education crisis in Michigan. Corporate meddling with our public schools has cost the Michigan taxpayers billions and the only achievement so far is making Michigan’s public schools worse. Michigan’s public schools were once the standard for the nation. We now allegedly rank dead last and the responsibility lies not with Michigan educators, but with deep pockets who have the ears of corporate-friendly politicians in Lansing.

Governor Whitmer, if you really want to see real, effective change in Michigan’s public schools, then put the authority back into the hands of the people who can really fix it. Not Bill Gates, Not the DeVos Crime Family, and not ALEC. Michigan’s education professionals are the people you need to entrust with bringing Michigan public schools back from decades of corporate ruination. Listen to teachers, and let them be your guides.

And in a matter of weeks when Education Trust issues another press release of totally dire woe about Michigan’s public schools, please remember the corporate-funded source of that news before including their agenda in your speech.