Great Opportunity to Support Michigan Parents for Schools

For the past five years, we've seen attack after attack on public schools in this state.

If the tide is ebbing even the tiniest little bit, in my opinion a good part of the credit goes to MIPFS Executive Director Steve Norton and the board of Michigan Parents for Schools.

They have tirelessly been harnessing and encouraging citizen action on education; rebutting simplistic legislation with thoughtful testimony; and even proposing ideas of their own [like this new piece of legislation--many thanks to Rep. Ellen Cogen Lipton].

Here is Steve Norton, Executive Director of MIPFS,
speaking at an education rally in Lansing, Michigan.

And for the last two years, I've been asking Steve, who has been a tremendous resource to this blog, as well as to the state's education community, "Can I make a contribution to MIPFS?"

And each time, the answer has been: Not Yet.
Now, finally, the answer is: Yes.

I am very happy about this because I believe in what MIPFS is doing. And that's why I'm putting a link to contribute to them right here in my blog.

I hope you will join me in making a donation to MIPFS, 

by clicking on this link.

By the way--Michigan Parents for Schools is an advocacy group [applying for 501(c)4 nonprofit status] and so your contribution is not tax-deductible. But then again, some of the best things in life are not.



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Contemplating Donating to Schools, and My Other 2013 Ann Arbor Chronicle Posts

I started writing for the Ann Arbor Chronicle, an important local online news source, earlier this year, in a column that appears approximately every other month.

Today I have another column in the Ann Arbor Chronicle. This one is about donating to public schools, and advocating for the public schools, as we close this year out and start another year.

Here's how I start out:

If you’re like me, then every January you think to yourself, “This year, I’m going to spread out my charitable giving over the course of twelve months. It would be so much better for my cash flow, and probably it would be better for the nonprofits as well.”
And then, come November and December, I realize that once again, I failed to spread out my giving – and I had better pull out my checkbook. Writing the bulk of these checks at the end of the year has a benefit, in that it allows me to look at all of my donations at once. But it also means that I’m in a rush and I don’t always take the time to reflect. So this is my opportunity.
Like many of you, we make donations to local, national, and international groups that focus on a wide range of issues. For us, those organizations do work related to health, the environment, politics, women’s issues, Jewish groups, social action, human services, and more.
Although I do give to some groups that, loosely speaking, fit the category of “education,” those entities do not make up a significant proportion of our donations. I confess to a certain ambivalence to giving to such groups – because, in many ways, I’m already a big contributor to public education. And it’s likely that you are, too.

Read the rest here.

If you are interested in the other articles I wrote for the Chronicle in 2013, here they are.

Taking a Long Look at Redistricting (November 9, 2013)

The Case for Free Public Schools (August 9, 2013)

Disparate Impact of AAPS Cuts? (June 7, 2013)



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School Supplies

I happened to be on line at one of our big box stores last week, and in front of me were some people buying school supplies. School supplies! In early July! I mean, really?! I'm usually the person at the store the day after school has started!

It reminded me of something that happened mid-year. I was cleaning out a shelf, and I found a surfeit of pencils. So I asked my son if he needed some for school.
"Oh no," he said.
"Really? You don't need them? You still have plenty of pencils from the ones I got at the beginning of the year?"
"No," he said.
"Then how do you get pencils?" I asked.
"Oh," he said, "I just find them on the floor!"

Perhaps your children are not quite as enterprising as my son.

Seriously, I do have money for school supplies. But not everybody does, and if you can't afford them, the beginning of school is stressful. Washtenaw County employees are trying to fill a school bus with school supplies. From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., July 30th-August 3, the school bus can be found in front of the Target store, 3749 Carpenter Road, Pittsfield Township. Supplies will be given to Washtenaw County kids who need them.

If you miss that drive, many of the local shelters collect school supplies (and other supplies too) year-round.