Nose meet Face: Scapegoating of Public Ed Comes back to Oakland County

The relentlessly positive scapegoating of teachers and public education for all that ails Michigan finally has come home to Bloomfield, Birmingham and Troy in a particularly ugly way.

Local politicians and community leaders here have been as loud as any over the years in demonizing teachers and public education -- even though these Districts continually top out in test scores and, as everyone knows, sustain the communities and property values.

But having accepted the money and terminology and arguments of school reformers ("students first," "teacher unions stifle education," "academies", "education is failing all over," "lift the charter cap," "test" til you drop, we are "customers" rather than owners of public education, etc.), we have nothing to say, no argument to make, when  House Democratic Leader Tim Greimel (D-Auburn Hills) suggests it was largely "bigotry" and racism from our area that (temporarily) prevented the dissolution of Pontiac Schools.

According to Greimel, who spoke yesterday on the Craig Fahle radio show (http://wdet.org/shows/craig-fahle-show/episode/podcast-monday-august-5-2013/), these Districts, our Districts, the Districts where my children go to school, don't want less affluent -- and to borrow the disturbing words of the Hillsdale College President -- "dark ones" in our schools.

I think this couldn't be farther from the truth; I think Greimel is dead wrong in his characterization of this area.

But, again, having refused to stand up to the anti-public education forces in our own communities, and having refused to stand up for a proud, conservative tradition that says "move cautiously and maintain what works," and having refused the temptation to blame the most vulnerable targets (schools) we have no convincing retort for Mr. Greimel.

Instead, we are in fact relying on 1970s type back door political deals that hypocritically protect our own communities; we have seemingly decided that a disturbing quietism that uses schools, and teachers and children to fight the most vicious of  political battles is just fine with us.

Deals like this will have a shorter lifespan than Prop A 20j funds.

It is a more critical than ever that we insist Lansing and Governor Snyder cease the relentless attacks on public education and teachers and find a reasonable way to fund public education -- without destroying or ignoring what currently works extremely. To do that, however,  the whole community will have to look to other places than the second grade for a place to vent their anger.

Here is where we have left ourselves: if Gov. Snyder is re-elected in 2014 (having allowed us to keep our Districts for a year in his vaunted spirit of pragmatism) we will be "unbundled;" if the Democratic Contender wins we will face the political backlash of trying to survive on our own.

In communities that have thrived on education -- both in the form of its public schools -- and in the form of the professionals who live and work here, this is absurd. Tell the whole assortment of pundits that are making a living and name for themselves in education -- without teaching single student or running a school -- to hush.