Me and Mrs Brown: Who is the party of public education in Michigan (and elsewhere?)

When it comes to the politics of public education in Michigan my head has been spinning and spinning.

And spinning some more.

I am a Dad nearing 50 with 2 kids in public schools, and like many, habitually turn to the Democratic Party to support education when I see public education threatened as it is by the market based corporate "reforms" that have appeared here and elsewhere.

My gubernatorial 2014 voting choice, then, should be easy, right?

Democratic challenger Mark Schauer is running as the champion of public education and, in fact, to the surprise of many, has made a race out of virtually nothing (if you want to call a 7% gap in the polls and a 4.5 million gap in available spending a race).

Schauer's early ads, for example, challenged Snyder's supposed "1 billion" dollar spending cuts in public education and bolstered by parent groups, teachers, and remnants of the Democratic Party post "right-to-work" made at least a bit of a name for himself even on the east side of the state.

So far, so familiar. Cost cutting Republican v. generous Democrat. This looks like my father's Oldsmobile.

Here's the ugly rub of the new economic and political reality though.

My kids go to Bloomfield Hills Schools in L. Brooks Patterson's Oakland County. The public schools are fantastic. My daughter's Middle School something of a miracle. And while Snyder's reforms threatened my schools over the last few years I ultimately owe their continued existence in familiar form to Oakland County Republicans.

When legislation designed to "unbundle" geographically defined Districts called for in the 1963 state constitution only made it through Lansing "piecemeal" and in significantly degraded form Governor Snyder turned to the MDE and Superintendent Mike Flanagan to "dissolve and consolidate" Districts instead.

Different language, different methodology, but same ultimate goal. Superintendent Flanagan dissolved Saginaw Buena Vista and Inkster and had Pontiac (a community that borders mine) lined up.

Enter the backroom boys. Oakland County Republicans cut a special, "unprecedented" deal 10 year finance deal to keep Pontiac open.

Why is this important?

Many reasons, of course, but here is my, again, ugly angle: if Pontiac closed its 11,000 students, its teachers, and its buildings would be the responsibility of surrounding Districts. I wager my home that 50% of Bloomfield Hills parents would have fled the public schools in the first year alone. Amongst other things, the District had just consolidated high schools and was wrestling with all sorts of logistical issues. This move will never be popular or even possible but it certainly wasn't in the spring of 2013. Parents also would have withdrawn political support for such things as "Hold Harmless" millages, the lynchpin of Proposal A that allows certain districts to ask taxpayers for more money to supplement the state's standard per-pupil allowance.

Did I mention that 80% of the District doesn't have school age children and it already has a 12 year old organization determined to mess with the schools no matter what?

You get the point.

So: who cares? I am guy with the wrong politics living in the wrong place. What does it matter if I can't figure out whether to be grateful to local Republicans or look for Democrats?

Not much, I suppose.

It does seem too matter, however, that Mark Schauer's chosen running mate, Lisa Brown, and I have something in common. Her kids go to my kids' schools.


She is every bit the beneficiary of Oakland County Republicans as I am here. I was reminded of this when the BHSD school board mentioned here attendance at a meeting where they were, amongst other things, reviewing whether to "outsource" custodial, transportation, and food services in the name of "best" practices (even though no one knows why outsourcing is a best practice and since we have been doing it schools are worse off financially).

At any rate, if it is entirely unclear to me how to vote, she must have some similar reservations.

Who is the party of public education in Michigan (and elsewhere) right now?

The "unbundling" legislation of Gov. Snyder was made possible by President Obama's "Race to the Top" funding in 2009. So was the EAA. In a few days, the Democratic President may declare -- as he did with Washington state -- all schools in Michigan "underperforming" because they have not sorted out a testing system to rank schools and teachers. President Obama's good friend and Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, seems determined to privatize all schools and then condemn teacher ed programs in all across the country, too.

The way things are looking, the next Secretary of Education might be Education Nation's Chelsea Clinton who promised her child's education to DPS emergency manager Roy Roberts and the EAA's John Covington.

Talk about tough choices.

I need some guidance Candidate Brown. If President Obama tells me BHSD is failing in a few days do I believe him? Or do I vote to move that kind of fed intrusion out of my life? Candidate Brown, how do I vote? Do you and I get to keep our excellent School Districts? Or do you believe, like the national Democratic Party, that all schools are failing and need "reform"? Do you believe like Michigan's Bridge Magazine that Hold Harmless is a "quirk" of Proposal A? Or do you want to say what you know: it is the centerpiece of Proposal A.

And isn't it time to say President Obama is just plain wrong about education? You might close that 7 point gap just by talking to a few neighbors in Oakland County.