Parents of school children might want to write this website, https://mdoe.state.mi.us , in their permanent address books. The 2008 school year has begun. The fourth Wednesday student count has occurred (for financial purposes) and once again classrooms are busy learning the tough new curricula approved by the Michigan Legislature a year ago. Hopefully, parents have gone to their child's school and obtained the full name and certification number of their child's teacher. I have no idea of what school systems outside of Detroit are experiencing. However, Detroit has managed to place uncertified persons, including school service assistants assumed by parents to be substitute teachers, in some classrooms this year while giving pink slips to certified teachers. Are there other districts experiencing this? If you have answers, I would like to hear them at evefor7@sbcglobal.net.
Virginia Cantrell, President of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, stated she has gone to the school district and subsequently to the Michigan Education Employment Relations Commission on behalf of students in several Detroit Schools who do not have certified teachers in several schools.
We cannot sit and allow the gate keepers of corrupt tradition to cheat a generation out of an education. Failure to fund the No Child Left Behind Law was bad enough. Could it be that downsizing lavish administrative offices to a refurbished school building, putting money into the classrooms of the students for whom the money is generated, and providing the needed human resource (certified teachers) for our children's classrooms is imperative? I suspect that nothing short of a parent revolution can do what no superintendent or school board has been able to accomplish for several decades.
If you have a child in school or know of someone who has a child in school in Michigan, ask them to check to be sure that their child has a teacher who can be found in the State of Michigan's website to be sure the person is a college graduate. Then, parents must keep up with what their child is doing in school to be sure the teacher is committed to educating their child. The educational system cannot move forward unless everyone is accountable (students, parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, communities, school boards, the legislators, and congresspersons).