Wanderings in Berrien County, Michigan.
A Baptist preacher and community activist, the Reverend Edward Pinkney, is under house arrest just twenty minutes up the road in Benton Harbor. “This is truly a miscarriage of justice,” said Michael Steinberg of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan “In a constitutional democracy a person cannot be imprisoned for criticizing a judge in a newspaper article or expressing his religious beliefs.” You haven’t read about this in the Chicago Tribune.
Herb Kohl, who wrote the wonderful 36 Children tries to explain to the Arne Duncan the difference between teaching and testing and between learning and scoring.
On Lobby Day last May, my local filled a bus to Springfield to talk to our legislators about funding, taxes and our pensions. While the legislature pulled back (at least for now) a plan to screw future teachers out of their pensions, they failed miserably to pass a tax and funding bill.
We brought our own T-shirts.
Somehow, Southtown Star columnist Kristen McQueary blames the failure of the legislature to fund social services, not just schools, on the IEA.
In a rabidly anti-union rant McQueary says, “Every year, it (the IEA) rounds up teachers, hands them coordinating T-shirts and instructs them to chant as they march around the Capitol rotunda calling for school funding reform.”
Let me make this clear. The IEA doesn’t give us T-shirts. Bad reporting, Kristin. The “Don’t Mess With My TRS” T-shirts were a local production. In fact, I designed them. They were a big hit. We could have sold hundreds.
The Arne Duncan will be speaking in Chicago Friday night to a, ahem, school reform group headed by former Republican Governor Jim Edgar and Bro of Da Mayor, William Daley. Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE) wants you to know you can join them outside the Hyatt Regency to greet the Arne at 7:30.
