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Rethinking Choice
August 26, 2013
I’ve never been a member of a union, refusing to join even when I was the lowest paid teacher at a suburban Milwaukee school in 1970.
Nevertheless, I find that the results of a recent poll conducted by the American Federation of Teachers correspond closely with what I am hearing and seeing. AFT reports . . .
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Parents favor strong neighborhood schools over expanding school of choice, charter schools and vouchers.
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Parents oppose reductions in art, music and physical education.
Those who are advocating that we provide parents with “choices” for their child’s education need to be reminded to offer the choices parents really want - neighborhood schools where there are more performing arts and physical activity.
Destabilization of our most fragile communities – whether they are found in our most distressed urban areas or the most rural and remote crossroads of Michigan – is worsened when community-building educational programs are cancelled and neighborhood schools are closed. Those who advance such an agenda are making bad choices for our schools, communities and state.
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Big Ten TV
November 11, 2016
The Big Ten Conference likes to say it "appreciates" high school football within its footprint; but the evidence is otherwise.
First, in 2010 the Big Ten adopted a "bye week" to stretch its scheduling that pushed the final game of the Big Ten regular season – with its great rivalries, including Michigan v. Ohio State – to the day on which the high school Football Finals have been scheduled in Michigan for more than three decades. A periodic problem became an every-year plague.
Now the Big Ten has announced it will play and televise games on Friday nights; and in its first year of this new deal, Michigan State will play at Northwestern in a televised game on Friday night, Oct. 27 – the first night of the MHSAA Football Playoffs all across our state.
So, in 2017 we can thank the Big Ten for damaging the first as well as the last weekend of our high school Football Playoffs.
The Big Ten's reaction? "We are only playing six games on Friday nights. It could have been much worse."
I expect it will get worse. The greed of college sports knows no limits.