Education Conversation in Michigan Focuses on Family

Opinion by Stephen Boyle

The following comment was offered to the Free Press opinion article "Editorial: How Lansing can get in step with the people's agenda for public education". An additional story well worth reading is "Low-income Americans languish in jail because they can’t afford bail" at RawStory.com.

The War on the Poor being waged through cutting services, redlining, and preying on youth to drive felony charges upon them has to stop. Hope for bringing poor families together is being destroyed by several things. Taking care of these will change the opportunity for conversation about family involvement with our children's education.

Detroit Is Injustice Defined

Opinion post from Stephen Boyle
shared from Occupy Detroit Frontline. 

There is a single line from Martin Luther King Jr's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", written April 16, 1963 that has been quoted often. That quote is "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

When I looked further at the section of the letter it seemed that replacing Birmingham with Detroit seems to make sense in these times of struggle for the City of Detroit. This is how those paragraphs would read with a few replacements made (shown without italics), and I believe are words worth sharing far and wide.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in _my home_ and not be concerned about what happens in Detroit. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds. 

Detroit School Board Meeting - SUPPORT NEEDED

This morning a press conference was called by Detroit Public Schools yet Roy Roberts, Emergency Manager was not present. Those attending were LaMar Lemons (Board President), John Telford (Interim Superintendent Elect), George Washington (Legal Counsel), David Murray, and Tawanna Simpson (Board members at large).

Discussion for the meeting revolved around the changing hands of control over Detroit Public Schools. After 11 years out of the past 13 of ruling Detroit Public Schools the State of Michigan doesn't want to let go. They feel there still remains a financial emergency to be managed.

Public Act 4 - Emergency Manager Law Referendum

On August 2nd Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the Repeal of Public Act 4 should be placed on the Nov 6, 2012 ballot to be decided by the people of the State of Michigan. During that hearing questions to John Pirich, the attorney representing the Secretary of State asking if he understood that Public Act 72 was no longer a law in effect seemed not to sink in. Through the last few minutes of the hearing he seemed genuinely confused by what Justice Young was asking.

When Public Act 4 was placed into law in 2011 it repealed Public Act 72, at that time. (NOT IN THE FUTURE, OR EVEN NOW - Public Act 72 is no longer a law.) According to MCL 8.4 once a law has been repealed it cannot be revived by repeal of the subsequent law that had it repealed. We are currently sitting with suspension of Public Act 4, which isn't yet repealed - however Public Act 72 is repealed and has been since 2011. Attorney General Bill Schuette and the Governor's Press Secretary Sarah Wurfel have been saying that Public Act 72 is the law that we are now using - the problem is that was REPEALED.

So there you have it - the story that you aren't going to get from the mainstream press who are using the words of the officials, we have to dig in and get facts and report those findings to you.

Eviction Notice To Serve

 

Live Coverage of Meeting

http://bambuser.com/tag/DPSboard
1:18 Detroit Public Schools emergency manager press #sosmi @free_detroit #occupydetroit	33:10 Detroit Public Schools emergency manager press #sosmi @free_detroit #occupydetroit	7:51 Detroit Public Schools emergency manager press #sosmi #free_detroit #occupydetroit	0:35 Detroit Public Schools emergency manager press #sosmi #free_detroit #occupydetroit	3:21 Detroit Public Schools emergency manager press #sosmi #free_detroit #occupydetroit

School Board Meeting Tonight

Detroit Board of Education will meet tonight at 5pm at Fredrick Douglass Academy, 2001 W Warren, Detroit. A meeting of the committee will start the night. During the meeting Interim Superintendent John Telford will be announced.

The report from the Free Press indicates the Attorney General and Roy Roberts intend to remove the Board of Education through an injunction which will be heard tomorrow, and gives additional details from the meeting this morning.

City Employment Terms - 6-26-12 draft

City Council will be meeting at 10:00am today with Roy Roberts (DPS-EM) to discuss the plans for Detroit Public Schools 2012-13. Additional topics are on the agenda.

There will also be continued work on the City Employment Terms as initially presented by CFO Jack Martin, and Law Department's Labor Relations. [Click here for a draft copy of CET from June 26, we will provide updated copy when obtained.]

These employment changes were part of the work of the last two meetings of the Financial Advisory Board, which have appeared as semi-secret meetings since they are announced by the State Treasurer's office. All that we have heard have been whispered notice the day of or a day before the meeting with sketchy details on the location and time. Free Detroit has requested to be placed on the distribution list for announcements out of the Michigan Treasurer and have yet to receive a confirmation to that request.

We are also curious to see the billing of contract to Milliman for the work done with the CET. Mentioned during yesterday's long session (1:30pm-4:30pm) was that details of the document were not yet complete and available until the contract terms with Milliman were completed -- they want to be paid. That contract should come before City Counsel as it will likely be higher than $25,000. Additional legal counsel from Butzel Long, Miller Cohen, and Miller Canfield can be expected as well.

Southwest Detroit Freedom School NOW Open

Southwest Detroit Freedom School

School Starts: Friday April 25, 2012 @ 10:55 a.m.

On Friday, April 27, 2012 at 10:55 a.m., we students of Western International High School will be starting our first day of class at Southwest Detroit Freedom School at Clark Park, across from our beloved school which we were suspended from. After over 300 of us staged a student walkout on Wednesday April 25, 2012, over 150 of us were given 5-day suspensions. One of our fellow students, targeted as the “ring-leader” is being threatened with formal charges for helping organize the walkout. We were walking out in solidarity with our fellow students at Southwestern High School to save their school from closing. More importantly, we were also fighting for quality education for us at Western, and at ALL DPS schools.

Detroit Public schools are up for historical designation.

This video is from 2010, Detroit News - yet the story remains. These buildings are valuable assets to the city.