ISSUES
EDUCATION
Understands the importance of turning around struggling public schools. We will continue to strengthen all of our schools and work to expand public school options for low-income youth, including magnet schools, charter schools, teacher-led schools, and career academies. Because there is no substitute for a great teacher at the head of a classroom, having support and access to the materials is needed for students. We honor our nation's teachers. If we want high-quality education for all our kids, we must listen to the people who are on the front lines, lay out a plan to prevent more teacher layoffs while attracting and rewarding great teachers and addressing legacy costs. This includes raising standards for the programs that prepare our teachers, recognizing and rewarding good teaching, and retaining good teachers. We believe in carefully crafted evaluation systems that give struggling teachers a chance to succeed and protect due process. In a must-read Bridging Differences column published this week, Robert Pondiscio took forceful issue with reforms that prioritized standards and accountability above all else:
As long as we insist on attaching stakes to testing, for students and teachers alike, we are not merely incentivizing teaching to the test, but functionally requiring it. We simply do not have the luxury of blithely ignoring the classroom practices tests encourage or discourage. Those of us who consider ourselves reformers must own that.
PLACEMAKING
When it comes to the value of placemaking and how it ties to municipal financing in Michigan, Councilwoman Lisa Hicks-Clayton says: “The state’s current system of funding our communities is broken and change is essential to returning Michigan to prosperity. Cities and schools funding through the shared revenue stream has been severely cut by over $6 billion." This has caused local governments to run deficits resulting in cuts to services to our residents.
Serving on the Southeast Council of Governments Local Government Revenue Task Force, she is working to address desired changes to the state’s municipal finance system and why the concept of placemaking is so important to Michigan’s future. Learn more about the value of placemaking at placemaking.mml.org and view the League’s Partnership for Place (placemaking plan here). Recent surveys show that more local governments than ever before are utilizing placemaking as an economic development tool in their communities. Placemaking can bring jobs, economic development, educational opportunities and create viable communities.
VETERANS