Have you read Gretchen Whitmer’s Education Plan?

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Have you read Gretchen Whitmer’s Education Plan?

July 13, 2018

Much like Michigan’s roads, the state’s once-proud education system has been neglected over the past eight years as lawmakers pursued the Betsy DeVos agenda despite pleas from school professionals, says Gretchen Whitmer, MEA’s recommended candidate in the governor’s race.

That will change if she’s elected, Whitmer pledged at a press conference outlining her education plan—“Get It Done: Better Schools Now for Michigan Students”—to invest in public schools, support and respect educators, and expand opportunity for every child in the state.

MEA President Paula Herbart said Whitmer is following through on her promise to listen to and address the concerns of educators and support staff. “Three clear themes emerged from the input we received from about 1,000 members across the state—and all three are addressed directly in Gretchen’s plan,” Herbart said. Those three themes included respect for educators; reducing over-emphasis on standardized tests; and fixing our broken school funding system.

Have you seen Bill Schuette’s Education Plan?!?!

In contrast to Gretchen Whitmer’s education plan that is based on input from MEA members around the state, Attorney General Bill Schuette’s education plan is summed up in a few words on his website:

“Michigan’s school test scores are among the worst in the nation. Bill will change this by giving parents and students more choices, and ensuring all kids can read by the third grade. When we give parents a choice, we give children a chance. Bill will provide transportation scholarships for families that can’t afford the transportation costs for their children to escape failing schools and gain access to special programs.”

None of this should be a surprise, since it’s all out of the “school choice” playbook of one of his major political allies – Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, whose family has given Schuette more than $122,000 over the past eight years.

His website features a reading plan, in the press release for which Schuette says, “When I am governor, Michigan children will read.” This is despite his asserting, as the state’s attorney general, in the recently lost case about literacy for Detroit school children that “there is no fundamental right to literacy.”