MI law lets one man fire public officials, end contracts, privatize services, shut down schools.

madfloridian

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Sat Sep-10-11 05:03 PM
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MI law lets one man fire public officials, end contracts, privatize services, shut down schools.

Michigan's Emergency Manager Law

The Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act, also known as Public Act 4, or the Emergency Manager law, allows the governor’s appointees to remove public officials, throw out contracts, privatize services, and dissolve municipalities.

Emergency Manager law

If that is what Michigan wants to do, fine...my state is bad enough.

But it really becomes my business when Arne Duncan publicly praises this law as being good for education. Here's what it means for public education.

WHAT CAN THIS LAW DO?
The Emergency Manager has the power over ALL officers,employees,and local government officials that you elect and can SINGLE-HANDEDLY make decisions with little to no oversight. Emergency Managers can take over a school district and all the responsibilities of your school board and superintendent.

What does this mean?

They can design an academic plan EVEN THOUGH they may have NO BACKGROUND IN EDUCATION.
They can change curriculum,sell or transfer school buildings,and even CLOSE schools.
This power also means they can change,reject or TERMINATE already existing union agreements and contracts.
This will directly affect ALL unionized workers benefits and wages
Can even SUSPEND collective bargaining for up to 5 years.

Michigan's Public Act 4

So I am alarmed greatly when the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, appears to speak for this administration in praising this law in regards to education. It's shocking.

Detroit Public Schools making gains, U.S. education secretary Arne Duncan says

Duncan said he was encouraged by Michigan's leadership, including DPS emergency manager Roy Roberts, Mayor Dave Bing and state Superintendent Mike Flanagan.

"There's an alignment of talent at the highest levels that you haven't seen before," Duncan said.

In another interview he was asked more specifically about the power being given to one person.

Question: Last year, you encouraged an attempt to let voters decide whether Mayor Bing should assume control the district, and you've been very praise worthy of state-appointed emergency manager Roy Roberts. Do you believe a single accountable individual can be more effective than an elected school board in a district like Detroit?

Duncan: I think the governance structure is in a pretty good spot now. There's been some pretty significant changes. The mayor's stepped up, the governor's stepped up, and what I look for is courage and determination and a willingness to challenge the status quo. I see that. So for me the debate now is not about governance, it should strictly be about how we accelerate academic achievement. That has to be the focus of the conversation. I think Detroit and the state have put themselves in a very good position here. A lot has changed for the positive in the two years since my previous visit, and it's very, very encouraging.

Duncan interview

Not about governance? Not about governance when a governor can appoint one man to totally run a municipality and control the schools?

That is a scary thing he said.

Meanwhile people are fighting back against this one man rule.

Emergency Manager law opponents launch documentary

There is a video at the link.

The group that is coordinating an effort to repeal Michigan’s Emergency Manager law has launched an online documentary titled Dictators Over Communities of Color: Coming to a Town Near You. Michigan Forward, together with the Advancement Project and New Media Advocacy Project, has produced a seven minute documentary that features interviews with elected officials who have been stripped of power in Pontiac and Detroit.

In a message released along with the video Michigan Forward says:

Across Michigan voters have been disenfranchised in Detroit, Benton Harbor,Ecorse and Pontiac under this new legislation. More communities under the threat of Emergency Management are Flint, Highland Park and a potential 150 + school districts across Michigan.

Benton Harbor has seen the most extreme situation where an Emergency Manager has now seized total control of the entire. The order went into effect on April 14,2011 and has virtually stripped citizens of their voting power! In Pontiac,a past manager sold the treasured and historic Pontiac Silverdome stadium for only $583,000 when it cost over $55 million to build.

In Ecorse, emergency managers in both cities made major layoffs to the firefighter and police departments, outsourcing many of the jobs to neighboring cities. Lastly in Detroit,the emergency manager for the largest school system in Michigan has closed schools, and threatens to increase class sizes to 60 students,and completely ignored parent and student voices!

One group is filing a lawsuit against the state because of the law.

Plaintiff..‘This is not democracy, this is dictatorship'

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Ingham County court, citizens from across the state are asking that Michigan’s Emergency Manager law be declared unconstitutional.

The Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act allows the governor to appoint Emergency Managers to take over local units of government, fire elected officials, sell off or privatize community assets and even dissolve whole cities.

The measure was rushed through the Republican-controlled legislature this spring as a move to protect against widespread municipal bankruptcies, with some of its supporters referring to it as “financial martial law.”

But in legal arguments filed in court this morning more than two dozen plaintiffs say the right of citizens to elect their local officials is guaranteed in the state Constitution and financial stress is not a legitimate ground for scrapping the democratic process.

What really truly upsets me is who was on the education panel with Arne when he was in Detroit this week.

Duncan was part of a seven-member panel that talked about current reforms in Michigan during a forum at the Charles H. Wright Academy of Arts and Sciences, a DPS school. The discussion included the Education Achievement Authority, created by Snyder in June to turn around persistently low-performing schools.

...The panel of education leaders, which also included Detroit Federation of Teachers president Keith Johnson and Detroit Parent Network leader Sharlonda Buckman, spent an hour discussing the challenges of educating children in Detroit, including low attendance, poverty, illiteracy among families in the city and a low graduation rate among DPS high schools.

Duncan: Detroit can be the fastest improving urban school district

That would be THIS Sharlonda Buckman, who in 2009 called out loud for Detroit teachers to be put in jail for bad test scores.

And the video of her words.

Sharlonda Buckman, CEO of the Detroit Parent Network, says jail Detroit teachers.

Some parents think that teachers should be held accountable for failing Detroit's students, even suggesting jail time for school employees who don't meet their expectations. During a Saturday forum hosted by the Detroit Parent Network just after the test results were released, upset parents expressed such concerns to Bobb:

The Detroit News, Dec. 12: Sharlonda Buckman, CEO of the Detroit Parent Network, called for jailing and civil lawsuits against anyone in the city's educational system that is not doing his or her share to help properly educate children. "Somebody needs to go to jail," she said in a tearful address to 500 parents gathered Saturday for the organization's annual breakfast forum. "Somebody needs to pay for this. Somebody needs to go to jail, and it shouldn't be the kids."

Sometimes I wonder if Arne Duncan even knows what is going on around him. He seems unaware of education realities.

Then I wonder just how much his boss knows about what he is saying as he goes around the country. And I wonder if he would approve.