Gov. Rick Snyder to appeal return of $550M to Michigan school employees

LANSING — A spokesman for Gov. Rick Snyder says his administration will appeal the ordered return of more than $550 million to Michigan school employees, despite Attorney General Bill Schuette’s refusal to provide state attorneys to fight the case.

“These payments are necessary for the long-term financial stability of the retirement system teachers rely on for health care benefits after their years of hard work come to a close,” Snyder spokeswoman Anna Heaton said Tuesday. “Keeping the money in the system will help their investments continue to grow and benefit Michigan educators for decades to come.”

David Hecker, Michigan president of the American Federation of Teachers, denounced Snyder’s decision as “appalling,” and “disrespectful to the women and men who dedicate their lives to educating our children.”

Heaton’s statement on behalf of the governor same shortly after Schuette issued a statement Tuesday saying his lawyers won’t be involved if Snyder appeals a ruling from the Michigan Court of Appeals that says the money was unlawfully taken through required 3% deductions from the pay checks of Michigan teachers and other school employees.

“The Attorney General is declining to provide counsel if the Governor wishes to appeal the 3% MPSERS (Michigan Public School Employees’ Retirement System) ruling,” Schuette spokeswoman Andrea Bitely said.

Instead, “the Department of Attorney General will provide an appointment for a Special Assistant Attorney General,” hired from outside Schuette’s office, she said.

Read the entire article here: Gov. Rick Snyder to appeal return of $550M to Michigan school employees

CURMUDGUCATION blog: Charter Villains

CURMUDGUCATION

---

Charter Villains Posted by Peter Greene: 05 Jul 2016 It is one of the reliable tropes of the ed debates (isn’t it fun that we’ve been at this so long we now have reliable tropes).  After some negative charter publicity, some reformsters will step up to offer a smattering of defense with a side order of “Why does the media pick on us?” Alexander Russo offers a weak-sauced rendition of this old standard at Washington Monthly, where he tries to defend Rocketship Academy againstthe NPR piece from Anya Kamenetz. He thinks that Kamenetz did not include enough happy talk from the Rocketship press kit, though most of his complaint is focused on Kamenetz’s use of the word “company” to describe Rocketship. He says this term is “controversial,” a term that is “extremely sensitive” in the education world, but which should really just be used for “private, non-profit businesses.” He notes that unnamed “defenders” of the piece say that non-profits “often rely on for-profit companies for services and materials and that the difference in tax status is unimportant” which is a bit of a mis-statement, as this defender would say that non-profit charters still function like businesses. They are non-profits like modern hospitals are non-profit, as in , non-profit technically by virtue of the fact that there are no stockholders. But Russo is far too savvy and informed not to know that many, many, many non-profit charters have found ways to make lots of people rich. But more importantly, we think of a charter school as a “company” or a business precisely because charter supporters have all along claimed that their business-focused nature is part of what makes them better. Eli Broad started his Faux Superintendent Academy precisely because he thinks that public education has a business problem, not an education problem. In short, it wasn’t the opponents of charters who brought up the idea of thinking of charters as businesses. They did that themselves. This is a frequent feature of the picked-on charter trope. Charter defenders pretend that the oppression they’re feeling just came out of the blue, and wasn’t the predictable outcome of actions they themselves took. Neerav Kingsland, charter champion on New Orleans, tries his hand at the genre with “Who is the Villain? Why?” which covers the NPR Rocketship piece as well as Kate Taylor’s NYT piece about a Brooklyn school being forced to co-locate and Kate Zernike’s brutal look at Detroit charters. He breaks each piece down, doing a nice job of parsing the language used to indicate that charters are the villains in these stories.  And this leads him to a question: Why do they  go out of their way to find a villain other than the very schools that are currently failing children? And there’s your problem right there, charter folks. Because the better question to ask is, “Why is nit necessary to create a narrative with villains in it?” And charter fans can find the person to ask by just looking in the mirror. I’ll get back to that. But first, Kingsland offers three possible explanations… follow the link below please…

Source: CURMUDGUCATION: Charter Villains

Group asks SCOTUS to overturn John Doe 2 ruling

The case was a criminal investigation into campaign coordination between Gov. Scott Walker’s recall campaign and groups that spent millions to help him.

“On June 29, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), the Brennan Center for Justice and Common Cause filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court urging the justices to overturn the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that shut down John Doe 2.

John Doe 2 was a criminal investigation into potentially illegal campaign coordination between Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign and groups that spent millions to help him survive the 2011–2012 recall elections.”

Read the full story here: Group asks SCOTUS to overturn John Doe 2 ruling

Steven Singer: The Pennsylvania Legislature Wants Taxpayers to Pay for Unlimited Charter Expansion

Diane Ravitch writes:
The arrogance of the charter industry is getting to be boundless. They want the authority to expand without limits, with no accountability or transparency. If the Democrats don’t stand up to this brazen effort to privatize public education, who will? Steven Singer writes here about the latest raid on the public treasury in Pennsylvania. Singer writes: Fund my charter school.

Diane Ravitch's blog

The arrogance of the charter industry is getting to be boundless. They want the authority to expand without limits, with no accountability or transparency.

If the Democrats don’t stand up to this brazen effort to privatize public education, who will?

Steven Singer writes here about the latest raid on the public treasury in Pennsylvania.

Singer writes:

Fund my charter school.

Come on, Pennsylvania.

Let me just swipe tax dollars you set aside to educate your children and put them into my personal bank account as profit.

Please!

I’ll be your best friend. Or at least I’ll be your legislator’s best friend.

Chances are, I already am.

That’s why lawmakers in Harrisburg are once again looking to pass a school code bill (House Bill 530) that would let charter schools expand exponentially almost completely unchecked and without having to do any of that nasty, sticky accountability stuff you demand of your…

View original post 400 more words