Code Red!! Code Red!! Make room for new EM on the way!!

There are times when governmental bureaucracy is just plain funny.

If you are a parent in Michigan with school age children or planning on having school age children this, unfortunately, isn't one of those times.

Perpetual states of emergency are like that.

In the state of Michigan -- pace Governor Snyder "piecemeal" efforts to "unbundle" school districts without a single constitutional debate or vote of any kind -- what might be funny in another context is horrific here.

The State of Michigan is set to release a color coded score card to "grade" schools. Top schools -- like Birmingham, Bloomfield, Troy, Forest Hills, etc. -- will receive a green color. This is in case parents who moved to these areas for the schools didn't fully understand their choice.

Second tier schools will be coded -- and I could not make this up -- "lime" green. I am bit nervous here as I have a tad bit of color blindness and really can't tell the difference between green and lime green like the Michigan Department of Education who seemingly could care less if there is an art class anywhere in the state of Michigan.

Such a course could only make one career ready for tough minded government work like shutting down the second grade.

You won't be surprised to hear the worst school will be coded red (as in "code red").

Here is the Detroit Free Press education reporter Lori Higgins giving you this "straight up," without a smirk. Kudos to her for tough minded journalism.

http://www.freep.com/article/20130819/NEWS06/308160176/State-to-debut-new-scorecard-for-Michigan-sch...

As our twin towers of academic achievement -- Lisa Lyons (chair of House Education Committee) and Phil Pavlov (chair of the Senate Education Committee) -- announced today, the agenda this fall is to deal with the 55 Districts on State Superintendent Mike Flanagan's unbundling or dissolution list. The color coding will surely help.

Surely Pontiac will get a Code Red. The Governor today gave his consent to free Pontiac city's EM from his duty. The move came as a "breaking news," in part because no one in the world -- other than Detroit -- knows what the rules are for a City EM and a School District EM.

Who reigns supreme? City EM or school EM? The Governor, again, needs all his legal ducks in a row before State Treasurer Andy Dillon can sign off on the eventual dissolution. What if the Pontiac EM said it was a bad idea to dissolve the District right now? He really can't afford too many more legal goofs with the EM laws.

Please, please take a look at the Detroit News photo of the Pontiac EM striding down the steps of Pontiac City Hall, a man amongst boys, having done his job well.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130819/METRO02/308190079/Pontiac-EM-recommends-city-returned-el...

It is really, again, a shame that the state is cutting without hesitation all art and music in Districts.

How will the future bureaucrats in Lansing come up with color charts? Take such telling photos of great white accountants solving problems with barely a wrinkle in the raincoat?