Ypsilanti Voters: Vote Yes Tuesday May 2nd, 2017

Did you know there was an election coming up this Tuesday, May 2nd? Well, there is. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Both Ann Arbor schools and Ypsilanti schools have proposals on the ballot. [So if you live in the school district, you need to vote. It's not about whether you live in the city.]

Find your polling place here.

If you are a voter living within the light purple boundaries, you need to vote!

Key Facts About the Ypsilanti Community Schools Proposal

1. Ypsilanti's proposal is really pretty simple. It is a renewal of a millage. It is basic maintenance of the status quo.

2. IF THE MILLAGE DOES NOT PASS, YCS will lose $2,370 per pupil each year.

3. 100% principal residential dwellings are not affected. This is a millage on what are called non-homestead uses. Non-homestead=industrial, business, second homes.

So please--vote yes.

This proposal will allow the school district to continue to levy the statutory rate of not to exceed 18 mills on all property, except principal residence and other property exempted by law, required for the school district to receive its revenue per pupil foundation allowance.  The remaining .5 mill is only available to be levied to restore millage lost as a result of a reduction required by the “Headlee” amendment to the Michigan Constitution of 1963, and will only be levied to the extent necessary to restore that reduction. 

Shall the currently authorized millage rate limitation on the amount of taxes which may be assessed against all property, except principal residence and other property exempted by law, in Ypsilanti Community Schools, Washtenaw County, Michigan, be renewed by 18 mills ($18.00 on each $1,000 of taxable valuation) and also be increased by .5 mill ($0.50 on each $1,000 of taxable valuation), for a period of 5 years, 2018 to 2022, inclusive, to provide funds for operating purposes; the estimate of the revenue the school district will collect if the millage is approved and 18 mills are levied in 2018 is approximately $25,816,000 (18 mills of the above is a renewal of millage that will expire with the 2017 levy and .5 mill is an increase in millage which will only be levied to the extent necessary to restore millage lost as a result of a reduction required by the Michigan Constitution of 1963)?

VOTE YES! PLEASE! 

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Voter Registration: With Schools, Every Vote Matters

Last week, the day after the election, I was helping a woman from Whitmore Lake complete a Medicaid application.

At the end of the application, there is a chance to register people to vote. 

Me: Are you registered to vote?
Her: No.
Me: Would you like to be?
Her: No. They're both a bunch of liars.

Here you see my internal struggle. On the one hand, I think, there's a good chance she wouldn't vote my way. [I'm with her...]
On the other hand, I really believe that more voters is better for the greater good, even if people don't vote "my way."

I sometimes use this moment with people to talk about how a former mayor of Ann Arbor (Albert Wheeler) and a current County Commissioner (Yousef Rabhi) only won their elections by one vote (ok, on the recount for Yousef, two votes).

So while one part of my brain is having this internal struggle, the other part of my brain (the one that goes with the "other hand") pipes up:

"The thing is, the presidential election is not the only thing on the ballot. There are lots of other things too."

And she says to me...
"You mean, I could vote on a school millage?"

Yes! Why yes, you can!
[I admit to being totally surprised by this question.]

"There's no law," I found myself saying, "that you have to vote for everything on the ballot."

"OK," she said, "I'll register."
And so we did.

You might, or might not know, but the Whitmore Lake sinking fund vote lost by six votes. SIX votes.

#votesmatter

#shewasadaylate

#nexttime

#hashtagsdonotmatter

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Election News: National and Local Developments

Note to Readers: Before I share any national or local news, I just want to say that I think that this (November) election is super important. [Don't forget, there is also an election August 2, 2016!] I'll be working on both national and local campaigns and I hope you will, too!

National News

It's no surprise that Hillary Clinton has picked Tim Kaine as her running mate, or that Donald Trump has picked Mike Pence.

Here is what Diane Ravitch has to say about Tim Kaine, in a post titled "Tim Kaine Loves Public Schools." By the way, his wife Anne is the Secretary of Education in Virginia, and by all accounts she is a friend to teachers and a foe to the education reform agenda. This sounds pretty good!

You can also read an op-ed he wrote a few years ago about what he learned as a parent in the Richmond Public Schools.

Here is what an Indiana teacher has to say about Mike Pence, in an article titled "A Negative Impact." For education, it's pretty bad.

In Indiana, small, rural schools are shutting down because funding has been cut, families are moving out of district, and whole communities are losing jobs where school corporations are the largest employers.
Inner-city schools, like Indianapolis Public Schools, are urban nightmares as charter schools take away public school funding, yet only meet the needs of a fraction of the population.

Local News

School board candidates need to turn in their petitions by Tuesday. In Ann Arbor, three school board positions are open. I believe current school board candidate Simone Lightfoot has already turned in her petition.

On Monday, at least one slate of candidates is turning in their petitions: Jeff Gaynor, Harmony Mitchell, and Hunter Van Valkenburgh.

You can read their full press release here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByviJiXLmGu6UnM2N0t4U056RGVjaWJELS1LYm04X3Vub0ow/view?usp=sharing

Their platform and principles:

All three candidates agree on the following principles: Our district should be focused on instructional opportunities in a broad variety of subjects, not just those emphasized in the standardized testing regime now in place. To the greatest extent possible, our Board should resist the push for school “reform” propounded by politicians whose real goal is to undermine public education and recapture education funds for private gain. Within the requirement to balance the district’s budget, the emphasis should be on lowering the student-teacher ratio to levels that maximize student-teacher interaction and allow teachers to reach all of their students effectively. Where adjustments to compensation must be made to balance the budget, we believe it should be done in an equitable and cooperative fashion rather than on the backs of the poorest-paid and least-powerful employee groups.
In addition to budgetary priorities, we want to emphasize the professional competence of our instructional staff in a number of ways. Teachers should be given academic freedom to design creative learning opportunities and not be shackled to the requirements of an externally-imposed standardized test and evaluation instruments. Students’ primary means of assessment should be teacher-generated, not imposed by for-profit testing companies. Teacher evaluation should be designed by a collaborative effort between teachers and administrators. Our current evaluation system wastes untold hours of teachers’ and administrators’ time in what amounts to a huge data-production effort, leaving little opportunity to actually address any needed areas of improvement.
We also want to improve the democratic process where Board decision-making is concerned. Too often, meetings extend past midnight, in violation of the Board’s own rules. This term, several controversial measures were voted in by unanimous votes, with little or no public discussion at the regular meeting. Public comment time is overly restrictive, and the lack of public dialogue on controversial issues is disturbing. We want to explore the possibility of setting aside meeting time to engage in public dialogue between Board members and representatives of community groups with a stake in major decisions.

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Please Vote Yes: Washtenaw County Special Ed. Millage May 3

Tuesday May 3d the county has a special education millage on the ballot. 

It's the only thing on the ballot, and it's critical that it passes. 

It will support special education services in all of our county districts--and since special education services are mandated and have to be supported whether funded or not--we also support general education by voting yes. All of the funds will stay local.

Students up to age 26 are eligible to receive special education services. Your YES vote means public schools in Washtenaw County can support the 6,500 students who count on these services without eliminating programs that benefit ALL students. 

Unfortunately, the Washtenaw County Republican Party voted to oppose this millage. 

Please don't let the "No" votes win.

For several of our districts, it is the difference between deficit budgets and break-even budgets.

Read more here.

Support our schools--join me in voting yes!




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Election Day: My High School's Polling Place

Here in Ann Arbor, we have the relatively simple and yet apparently not too likely to be tampered with paper ballots. They are easy to fill out, keep the lines moving, and there is a paper record if there ever needs to be a recount. Filling in the little circles today did kind of remind me of standardized testing, but that's not my complaint.

I went to a high school where the middle school was attached, and there was a polling place in a quiet corner of the high school. Of course (or maybe not of course--does it happen today?) visiting the polling place was definitely part of the grade 7-12 social studies curriculum.

Plus, if I would go with my parents, when I was little, to vote--there was a certain magic of going behind the private curtain (was it velvet? I think it might have been), pulling the private levers, and when you walked out of the booth, nobody knew who you were voting for.

And I know, rationally, that the system we have in Ann Arbor is much more secure than those old voting machines.

And I know, rationally, that these little booths are much easier for the clerks to move around from precinct to precinct.

And I know, rationally, that it is much easier to expand the number of booths in high volume elections.

But.

When I was a kid, those voting booths were magical, and even today, I miss them.

By Pauljoffe at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12796219

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Yes, I Am Supporting Proposal 1--Join Me!

Three reasons that I am supporting Proposal 1:

1. Roads--I'd rather pay to fix the roads, than I would to fix my car. I figure bent axles, busted tires--it will end up costing about the same.

2. Restoration of the 
Earned Income Tax Credit--this provides some relief from taxes to low income families struggling to get by.

3. School Aid Fund--the restrictions on the School Aid Fund mean it is less likely to get raided. People who know seem to think that if this passes, there will likely be some relief to schools via the school retirement funds (which currently suck a huge amount of money out of the per-pupil school funding).

Oh, and here is a fourth reason:

Although this is a very imperfect proposal, I am pretty convinced that whatever the legislature cooks up next may address the roads, but will be much, much worse for poor families and schools.

Read more on Ballotpedia (neutral information)

Follow more links and articles at the Michigan Association of School Administrators information page (they are supporting the proposal)

What else is on the ballot? In Ann Arbor, there is a schools bond renewal.

And yes, I am also supporting Ann Arbor's proposed bond renewal.

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Yes, I Am Supporting the May 5th Bond Proposal--Join Me!

The Ann Arbor Public Schools have a bond proposal on the ballot on May 5th. It's a renewal. I am supporting it.

Here's why:

1. The bond monies will be used to do things like buy new school buses, upgrade and add safety features to schools and school playgrounds, and replace school furniture. It can't be used for things like teacher salaries.

2. If we don't support the bond, necessary projects (like school buses) will have to be taken from the per-pupil operating funds, which would mean less money for students.

3. We cannot (thanks to Proposal A) ask for a levy for more monies for operating costs (unless we do a countywide millage)--so the best we can do is to keep those non-operating costs coming out of other revenue streams.

Read the AAPS information about the bond proposal here.

I hope you will 

join me in supporting this 

bond renewal 

on May 5th!

[And yes, I will also be supporting Proposal 1 on the ballot. I'll write about that later this week.]

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