Rob Glass and Mike McCready initiate new plan to consolidate services!!

BHSD School Superintendent Rob Glass and 40th District Mike McCready –here pictured at last night’s State of the State Address by Governor Snyder – have discovered a new way to consolidate services!

Here is the proposed plan: rather than having Mr. Glass send out legislative alerts to parents asking them to contact their state officials to stop harming public education – something he has had to do routinely since fall 2012 – he is going to have Mr. McCready send out the legislative alerts for him!

Indeed, the Representative will post them on his Facebook page – like this picture and his announcement that he was hosting Mr. Glass – just for the convenience of constituents.

This will cut out the middle man (in this case, Rob Glass) and save both the taxpayers  and the Districts time and money in communications.

Thanks Mike!

Now, it might seem a wee bit strange to some that Mr. McCready will be sending out alerts to stop anti-public education legislation he votes for and his party supports wholeheartedly (albeit we have moved in to a "piecemeal" and quieter form of altering public education as most of us know it), but when we are talking cutting public spending to save public schools no stone should be left unturned.

It would be easier, of course, if Mr. McCready (or any other elected Oakland County Republican) could just say in public, “Hey, I support geographically defined schools Districts like BHSD. They have served this area well for many years and, in fact, sustain the area in terms of building community – and keeping property values. Heck, when the housing bubble burst, Bloomfield and Birmingham stayed alive because so many people bought or rented there for ‘the schools.’ Even more, I went to public schools! Did fine by me. Here I am in Bloomfield raising my kids and serving the community. Those schools should continue to exist with adequate funding so parents and families and communities can plan for their future and live their lives without having to deal with goofy political notions like 'creative disruption'”

However, saying what most accept as simple common sense would put him at direct odds with Governor Snyder who still wants to “unbundle” or “dissolve” school Districts in Michigan because, in his words this September, that system is broken. The whole system -- Birmingham, Bloomfield, Troy -- no exceptions clause.

So the very best Mr. McCready can do right now in public is say, “I support our District!” – which might, or might not mean, he thinks they should continue to exist. Until he is able to talk directly, let's just hope the former.

The consolidation plan, while welcome to parents like me – as is any communication between a public education official and Lansing  – is off to something of a slow start. Mr. McCready, while posting this picture of Mr. Glass on his Facebook, should put back up the legislative alerts from Mr. Glass that were posted there and then removed.

That will give his constituents a more honest sense of what is happening to his neighbors and his community while he campaigns for 2014.

That said -- I sincerely hope you both can continue to find ways to work together to help your District and your constituents -- and not the abstract political ideologies that flow continuously from The Mackinac Center.