Detroit children’s lives matter. Apparently, 46,000 students are getting emergency funding to the tune of 617,000,000 dollars. That’s $617 million, folks! I just wanted you to see the zeros involved. Every student will get over $13,000 in school funding from the state of Michigan. That does not count any federal, local or independent funds. Detroit students will be the most funded public school students in the nation. This is not a caring measure . . . it is a political one. It is aimed to cover the Democrats and Republicans follies in education by whitewashing the district in money. They are making it rain in Detroit!
This is not the first funding folly for Michigan education policy. For seven years the Detroit district has had a measure of state control, yet that did not stop corruption and scandal from Detroit school principals. Perhaps they are used to the endless pipeline of money, fueled and supported by the unions and the progressive rhetoric coming out of Lansing. Perhaps they think they are due, or that they are entitled. Cliché, I know, but what else could the problem be? Now the state wants to declare a bankruptcy, create a shadow district to hold the indebtedness, and tax the citizenry to cover for financial bedlam in the district.
Sounds like an Abbot and Costello routine. “Who gets paid first?”
“When?”
“No, he gets paid second.’
This is insane financial policy in order to finance insane education policy. Michigan is second to last in black student high school graduation rates, and we throw more money into the grinder. This is not fair to the citizens of Michigan, other public or private school students, and least of all the Detroit students and families. It is hush money to the highest degree. Detroit families, it is time to throw off the yoke of Democratic and Republican nonsense and take your city’s schools off the treadmill of politically correct slavery.
The Michigan Education Association is now paying for advertising on WJR radio to ask parents to talk to their students about academics. Where do they get the money to do that? They are getting it from teacher’s paychecks and thusly, from Lansing’s coffers. This means the taxpayer is now paying for radio ads too. This is not entirely the Governor’s fault, but he is pushing the problem down the road. Funding is not the problem. Out of a proposed budget of 38 billion dollars, 17 billion is going to education. The Citizens of Michigan are generous to their schools and always have been. Today’s funding percentages are not fixing the decades of problems caused by social engineering in schools. Almost half of Michigan tax revenues go to schools. This is a political rout. This money is not educating, it is indoctrinating.
Detroit teachers and unions are decrying, ‘It is not enough!” Mind you, this emergency funding is above and beyond regular funding. Feeding this monster is killing Michigan’s future. The funding folly has to stop at some point. Let the upside down pyramid fall on the head of it’s creators. Michigan funding, spending and responsibility for education should be local, local, local. Detroit is not asking for a little hand out in meager times. It is sucking Michigan dry to pay for its addiction to political indoctrination. The utopian society template is failing us. Replace the leadership, the vision, the fiscal policy, and the ultimate responsibility of taxing and spending. Something has got to give.
Cost analysis is working in other states. Targeted spending is a proper discipline.
Restrict unions. They are more dangerous to schools than automatic weapons.
Localize both spending and responsibility with the funds. Function with a surplus not a deficit.
Cut taxes. Stop the bleeding. Michigan citizen’s generosity cannot overcome their sensibility. We are being robbed.
Virtue . . . Christian virtue knows how to fix problems, be compassionate, act responsibly, and endure hard times with goodwill. When we remove virtue, we get folly, and it is expensive.