But it seems what people really want to talk about is the weather and, in particular, snow days and snow day cancellation. I am reminded of my mother's cry in the old days when the weather news only was available for 5 minutes or so on the evening newscasts. "The weather!" she would shriek, trying to stop us from changing the channel (by hand).
I can't really get anyone's attention about the wholesale elimination of teacher training, a teacher shortage, ridiculous tests, "edtech" corruption bilking public funds, attempts to create two-tiered education systems that have people talking in terms of "apartheid, etc." or the longstanding aim of the most powerful political family in the state (Devos, of Amway fame) to end public education entirely and move to a privatized system.
Nor can I get anyone's attention about how this ultimately will alter the country's most precious of resources: its university system. And that is because our university system remains so strangely disconnected from K-12 education.
Yet, a snow day cancellation decision inspires Shakespearean (my area of expertise, and more on that to follow...) passion!
The weather!
So: I am going to stop worrying and talk about the weather, too. Promise. Let's talk snow days! Snow, snow, and more snow.
It has been bad, the winter.
As Shakespeare's Richard III might say, this has been the winter of our discontent.
In Michigan, most School Districts -- a geographical organizational structure of public education called for in the 1963 State Constitution that most of us accept have come to accept as eternal -- have gone over the number of days they can cancel before scheduling either whole days of replacement instruction in the early summer or added minutes throughout the regular school year.
The Michigan Department of Education and its Superintendent, Mike Flanagan, in conjunction with the State Board of Education, and its President, John Austin, have issued this statement on the matter:
"The State Board of Education believes, and strongly encourages school districts to, replace additional lost days with full days of student instruction, not by adding on minutes to the existing days remaining in the school year."
Now, what is striking about this snow day statement -- outside of its otherworldly grammatical structure -- is that Mr. Flanagan has been busy for two years advocating schools and whole districts close -- not stay open. He has helped close two: Saginaw Buena Vista and Inkster and would have closed Pontiac, but was stopped by Oakland County Republicans (yay Republicans!). But when it comes to snow day cancellations he wants FULL DAYS OF INSTRUCTION.
Not replacing full school days, the elected and Democrat controlled State Board of Education says, could cost your kids' career and your community. Really. They said this. Here is their over the top, off the charts, we think in "reformee" language: "Full replacement days offer every student the full extent of quality instruction that they missed when the school was closed. This method allows teachers to complete their full lesson plans with integrity and provide students with the appropriate depth of instruction they need to meet their instructional goals for every class. This is the better strategy to ensure that students will be ready for career, college, and community."
Who talks like this? The extra day for many -- the privileged at least -- will simply mean more pizza and cupcakes.
This is the Board that rather than take up new funding options for Michigan schools delayed their efforts until after the November 2014 elections.
In short, they can't take the risk of suggesting ways to adequately fund schools to keep them open -- not through inclement weather but for good -- but they can proclaim in this kind of robust rhetoric that a loss of a day will hamper kids' career, college, and community readiness!
Please. Basta. Stop. Let's talk like grown-ups, not Devos managed automatons.
More to come: I am just getting warmed up from the snow!
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