I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Detroit Public School’s emergency financial manager Robert Bobb lashed out at the DPS School Board for trying to block him from hiring academic consulting firms to work in high schools in an op-ed published Thursday.
In the op-ed featured in the Detroit News, Bobb accused the school board of failing to put education first and indicated that many high school standardized test scores are not meeting goals set by the No Child Left Behind Act.
Board members want to stop Bobb from hiring private consultants to work in high schools because they were not part of the decision and believe it is a step towards privatizing the district. They are seeking legal help to determine whether state law allows an emergency financial manager to take control over academics.
But Bobb, who was appointed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm under Public Act 72, sees the board’s resistance as obstructionism and notes that, the Public Act gives him complete control over district academics and finances.
“Public Act 72 gives the board control over nothing,” Bobb wrote in the Op-ed.
According to Bobb, the Detroit Public School system has an “academic deficit” as well as a fiscal one. “For far too long, actions and often inaction in this school district have centered on the adults and on which vendors are awarded contracts,” Bobb wrote.
In the Op-ed Bobb repeatedly stressed the importance of standardized test scores and linked the district’s poor academic performance to insufficient funding and steep deficit.
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