Proposal 5 on the Michigan ballot will increase funding for schools by about $565 million a year. It calls for annual school funding to increase equal to the rate of inflation. It is designed to help not only k-12 schools, but also public universities and even community colleges. Not only that but it states that school districts only have to pay so much into it's employees (not just teachers) pension funds, where the rest would be covered by the state. All in All this sounds like a big step in the correct direction. It would help to equalize the amount of money each school gets per kid (right now some school may only be getting something like $1300 per student while other schools could get $3000).
Right now I am wondering where this so called liberal media is because The Daily Telegram (Adrian's paper), The Detroit Free Press, The Lansing State Journal, The Michigan Catholic Conference, The Michigan Chamber of Commerce, and I'm sure a bunch more entities are opposing this bill. Google it, there are all sorts of articles in papers and newsletters against it.
There arguments against it are all over the place, most of them you can tell come from people who have spent very little time in public schools. The biggest argument seems to be that no where in the proposal does it come out and say that this will help education (That must mean it will be BAD for schools right?). Another argument is that the teachers are just trying to pad their accounts. Do any of these people know any teachers? Teachers get paid so little money it's not funny. Get this, they say that since there is no mention of improving test scores it won't make schools better. Oh yeah, they said this bill will take money away from emergency services. And this one just has to make you laugh, they say schools are over funded as they are. Clearly the people making these arguments are education experts to be able to make the case that funding schools is bad for education.
By the way, the school I went to college at, Michigan State University, gets so little money, it can hardly be called a public school. It got lessthan 30% of it's funding through state funds; and that was while I was there 2 years ago, before funding for schools has been cut more.
Here is a link to the Daily Telegram article, I couldn't get any of the other newspapers sites to work.
Right now I am wondering where this so called liberal media is because The Daily Telegram (Adrian's paper), The Detroit Free Press, The Lansing State Journal, The Michigan Catholic Conference, The Michigan Chamber of Commerce, and I'm sure a bunch more entities are opposing this bill. Google it, there are all sorts of articles in papers and newsletters against it.
There arguments against it are all over the place, most of them you can tell come from people who have spent very little time in public schools. The biggest argument seems to be that no where in the proposal does it come out and say that this will help education (That must mean it will be BAD for schools right?). Another argument is that the teachers are just trying to pad their accounts. Do any of these people know any teachers? Teachers get paid so little money it's not funny. Get this, they say that since there is no mention of improving test scores it won't make schools better. Oh yeah, they said this bill will take money away from emergency services. And this one just has to make you laugh, they say schools are over funded as they are. Clearly the people making these arguments are education experts to be able to make the case that funding schools is bad for education.
By the way, the school I went to college at, Michigan State University, gets so little money, it can hardly be called a public school. It got lessthan 30% of it's funding through state funds; and that was while I was there 2 years ago, before funding for schools has been cut more.
Here is a link to the Daily Telegram article, I couldn't get any of the other newspapers sites to work.
http://lenconnect.com/articles/2006/10/26/news/news09.txt
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