Anyone who knows anything about school reform KNOWS this won’t work. There aren’t enough adjectives to describe the disdain I have for Rick Snyder.

He has absolutely no idea what he’s doing, while ruining the state along the way. Putting something normally run by the Dept. of Education into something he can control is going to kill us.

Remember No Child Left Behind? That’s what this is. It’s a blanket set of rules designed to fail our poorest schools, take their funding, and replace them with charter schools.

What it does is prevent us from taking each school individually and looking at the surrounding social problems in that area. Until you make sure little Johnny’s mom isn’t addicted to crack, it won’t matter where you send him to school.

And countless studies long before you or me or Snyder have shown this. Everyone gets self-righteous and wants to fix things, but the Republican quick-fix never works. Instead, it will have severe consequences.

He’s trying to right-to-work it, like “every child has a right to good education.” Well, doesn’t every kid deserve a proper home, formemost? Feed me, clothe me, then maybe I’ll study. Until then, nothing these religious types try will succeed.

But, admitting that would mean actually solving the problem, right? And that’s not what Republicans want. They’ll put on a nice front and “save the kids,” destroying another public school and putting up God’s Charters.

Actually helping their parents, who are suffering? That would mean welfare, giving poor people money, and admitting maybe they’re a victim of circumstances. You know, in a country founded with slaves that kept them rightless for over 3/4 of it’s history. BUT… admitting all this?

NO! Let’s cover that problem up.

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Here is what the state’s leaders have to say:

The move was criticized immediately by a number of people, including the president of the State Board of Education, John Austin. Austin said he shared the governor’s impatience with the pace of reform, saying “effective action is long overdue.”

But he said moving it from the MDE to the DTMB “is unfortunate and counterproductive.”

“Moving the authority to a state agency with no educational abilities nor mandate will make it harder, not easier to improve educational outcomes for children in chronically failing schools,” Austin said.

He said it would also undermine the ability of the board, the governor’s office and the next state superintendent to work together.

David Hecker, president of the American Federation of Teachers-Michigan, said the transfer ignores the voice of Michigan’s voters “by stripping the elected State Board of Education of its oversight authority,” of the reform office.

“Moving an office with an educational focus from the Department of Education, which understands education policy and has expertise, to a department focused on budgets is bad public policy,” Hecker said.

via Snyder yanks school reform office from Dept. of Education.