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.
Summer Football Safety
July 23, 2018
(This blog first appeared on MHSAA.com on June 23, 2017.)
Across the U.S. this summer, school-age football players are flocking to camps conducted by colleges and commercial interests. They get outfitted in full gear and launch themselves into drills and skills work.
Unlike the start of the interscholastic football season, the players usually do this without several days of acclimatization to avoid heat illness, and without limits on player-to-player contact to reduce head injuries.
Required precautions of the school season are generally ignored at non-school summer camps.
One notable exception to this foolish behavior is found in Michigan where the Michigan High School Athletic Association prohibits member schools’ student-athletes from using full equipment and participating in full-contact activities outside the high school football season. This is not a recent change; it’s been the MHSAA’s explicit policy for more than four decades.
And it’s a policy that has never been more in style and in favor than it is today.