While educators work hard amid big challenges to provide all students a great public education, some politicians and groups are stoking fear and division with extreme rhetoric and proposals to restrict classroom speech and learning. In this series, MEA Voice Editor Brenda Ortega shares five powerful individual stories that together reveal the detrimental effects of […]
Click to view online. In this issue: Letter to Members: Vote like your profession depends on it MEA and Wayne State University Welcome Our Next Gen Teachers CTE is a silent victim of the teacher shortage See Educators Run: Bringing educator voice to the Legislature Redistricting presents opportunity The Toll of Attacks on LGBTQ Rights: […]
By Shana Saddler In high school, I ran cross country and track and field. After a long day of academics, my teammates and I would run for miles, lift weights, and start all over again the next day. Some days I was weary and others I ran for miles with minimal fatigue. On race days […]
By Brenda Ortega MEA Voice Editor When Sue Ziel returned to her classroom this school year, it was the Romeo Education Association president’s first time setting foot on school district property in 15 months. She didn’t know how it would feel to come back after spending that time fighting tenure charges her district had brought […]
By Brenda Ortega MEA Voice Editor Given all of the political upheaval of the past several years, Rochester Education Association President Doug Hill knows it has become cliché to say an upcoming election is the most important one in our lifetimes. But when it comes to local school board races that sentiment is true, Hill […]
For more than 20 years, Betsy DeVos has tried to enact school vouchers in Michigan to drain tax dollars away from public schools toward private and religious schools. The only problem was she couldn’t get her plan past voters, who shot it down by a 69-31 margin in 2000. Now DeVos thinks she’s figured out […]
By Brenda Ortega MEA Voice Editor Follow Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at campaign and speaking events, and you quickly notice one way she likes to introduce herself: “as a product of public schools and the mother of two daughters who attended public schools…” Whitmer makes clear in how she talks to and about educators that she’s […]
By Brenda Ortega MEA Voice Editor (Part 5 of our five-part series on how anti-LGBTQ political attacks are harming educators and students) For those who didn’t hear the important news in late July, MEA member Anthony Pennock wants it noted the Michigan Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that individuals cannot be fired, evicted or otherwise discriminated […]
by Brenda Ortega MEA Voice Editor (Part 4 of our five-part series on how anti-LGBTQ political attacks are harming educators and students) When veteran educator and local MEA leader Cathy Murray married her wife in December 2015, six months after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, she was surprised to learn several others from […]
