With friends and champions like this why should public education worry?

http://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,4615,7-140-37818_45256-315696--,00.html

It is still rather amazing to me that with so many parents supporting their own Districts -- if not the Districts of others -- the state legislature continues to move ahead with great success in its "piecemeal" efforts to unbundle Districts and take down public education in Michigan.

The primary drivers of this are obvious.

An ideological virus has seized the imaginations of many -- ranging from Arne Duncan to Governor Snyder -- that all public education is broken and needs to be replaced by "market" driven schools staffed by low paid, untrained staff such as those coming out of the Teach for America program. This effort is funded by the Gates Foundation amongst others. In Michigan, the Devos family has poured incredible resources into the attack on public education and has done so for some time.

The success of education reformers from 2010 could be explained, in large part, by this well co-ordinated, well funded effort that in the post housing bubble elections found a number of elected champions. Add to that the fact that so-called "reformers" put a relatively good face on this at the start.

Who doesn't want to improve education as they claimed they did? What is wrong with "choice"? (not saying, like Pres. Obama, that those who already had chosen by moving to District would lose their choice). And, in Michigan, reformers were able to cloak for a long time the ultimate aim (no more public education) by talking about such exciting things as opening up boundaries!

But in December 2012 the cat was let out of the bag. Oakland County Republicans -- with the notable exception of Chuck Moss who was torn between his altruistic interest in Highland Park and Districts like Birmingham -- balked. Most if not all Michigan parents now see the threat.

And yet the education reformer successes continue.

Lisa Lyons is on the verge of passing HB5112 that will institute an A-F grading system that will send many schools to the EAA and re-energize the "schools are failing claim" -- nothing concentrates the attention, I assure you, like an "F" on an exam or paper. HB5111 takes local control away completely for third graders who can't pass reading proficiency exams. If the state says they flunk, they flunk. Teacher, principal, social worker, parent, school board be damned!

How does this nuttiness still have political traction?

It is increasingly clear to me that parents and local Districts are suffering not just from well co-ordinated attacks but from less than stout defenders. Here is a clip of State Superintendent ostensibly objecting to HB5111 and HB112.
http://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,4615,7-140-37818_45256-315696--,00.html

Lincoln he isn't.

I don't mean to set unrealistic expectations.

But a State Superintendent of public education should be a full throated advocate for public education -- now more than ever. You will see in this clip someone who looks like he is trying to be a statesman, and unwilling to discuss what everyone now knows: there is a fierce political struggle for the very existence of public education. The legislative rep, Lisa Lyons, he is addressing most directly here has called school teachers "fattened hogs." If Mr. Flanagan doesn't want to talk about that -- or act publicly like it doesn't exist or that his supposed opponents haven't made their intentions clear -- it's perhaps time for him to have more time as a grandpa.

When you stop doing your job -- advocating for public education -- to keep your job, it is time for a change.

The context here that MDE friends of the Governor -- such as the Weatherspoon brothers now managing Highland Park, Muskegon Heights, and Pontiac -- do quite well by public education pay standards  is not encouraging.

Mr. Flanagan denies he is one of those who wants to be punitive. But, to date, his solutions seem to be 1) adopt the rhetoric and arguments of reformers 2) close school districts to help the Governor save face and 3) talk about district "consolidation" with no evidence whatsoever that such a plan will work.

That's no help, Mr. Flanagan, to a parent of a third grader or anyone else right now.