As the father of two, I want the very best education for my two daughters. My mother was a school teacher in Detroit and raised us to understand the importance of education and lifelong learning. I want every parent to have the ability to provide their children the best education possible.
Yet Michigan schools continue to struggle with educational outcomes:
- Only 41.6% of third-graders are proficient in reading and Michigan ranks in the bottom 10 for reading proficiency.
- Michigan schools also currently rank are in the bottom 10 nationally in math proficiency and high school graduation rates.
- According to the U.S. News & World Report, Michigan ranked 31st in a comparison of states with the highest percentage of top-ranked public high schools, dropping five spots from its ranking last year of 26th.
Meanwhile, bureaucrats on the board of education and politicians in Lansing are pushing a political agenda into our schools instead of letting teachers teach. Our children’s classrooms are not the place for woke identity politics.
I want to get Lansing out of the way of our children’s education by ensuring that teachers have the resources that they need to succeed, protect and enhance parental rights in education, and ensure that every child has the best possible education regardless of their zip code.
As your representative, I will support:
- creating reading scholarships to improve literacy outcomes
- supporting teacher merit bonuses to help retain the best teachers in our schools
- holding schools systems accountable to parents for student outcomes
- promoting transparency and parental rights in education
- abolishing the state board of education
I firmly believe that it is the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children and determine the best education for them. I will work to protect parental rights in our schools and facilitate more cooperation, transparency, and choice in our schools for Michigan parents.
I have legislative experience needed to achieve results for our schools from my time working on education on the House Education & Workforce Committee with Congressman Mike Bishop and serving as Senator Theis’s education staffer on the Michigan Senate Education Committee. I have the experience to deliver results and hit the ground running on day one.
Do not use terms like WOKE if you want to have people understand your convictions. Double negatives are nonsense. Woke is a terribly misunderstood word, and to speak intelligently regarding learning, do not use “WOKE”. Please.
Well let’s define what wokeness is to clear up any confusion: wokeness is a world view that says that there are certain invisible social relationships between us, grounded on oppression or oppressor relationships, and status of people based on race, gender, and sexuality; that you’re either an oppressor or oppressed based on those genetic attributes; that there are invisible societal injustices resulting from them; and that we have to be awake, alert to those injustices and then correct for them.
I have no intention of dropping this issue because this wokeness is a societal disease undermining the foundation of our country. And where it inserts itself into our schools to impact the minds of our children, I think that’s flat out wrong.
A lot of this isn’t coming from teachers and local schools, it’s being pushed by bureaucrats at the state board of education. And actually, abolishing the state board and placing the department of education under the Governor’s control is not a partisan issue, it’s how many states do it. It leads to greater accountability instead of acting and operating like a rogue agency able to do whatever it would like.
Could you please define “woke identity politics” and give some examples of what you have observed in our schools that are “woke.”
what is your plan with abolishing the board of education? Who/what entity will manage the vast resources of the education board. How does education in the state operate without a board?
Are you in support of bibles and the 10 commandments posted in every classroom? Do you support the free school lunch program and would you vote to continue? Do you support universal Pre-K?
If you look at the other states, there are a variety of ways in which their respective department of education is governed. Out of 50 State superintendents, 21 are appointed by state boards of education (including Michigan), but 16 are appointed by the governor, 12 are elected, and one is appointed by the state executive-level secretary. In Oregon, the governor is the superintendent of education. I don’t think that the state board of education model has worked, I think the state superintendent should be appointed by the Governor.
To define wokeness: a world view that says that there are certain invisible social relationships between us, grounded on oppression or oppressor relationships, and status of people based on race, gender, and sexuality; that you’re either an oppressor or oppressed based on those genetic attributes; that there are invisible societal injustices resulting from them; and that we have to be awake, alert to those injustices and then correct for them. I think that this ideology is divisive and fundamentally antithetical to the belief that all people should be treated equally with respect and human dignity by elevating some, castigating others, and categorizing all on the basis of skin color, sexual interests, etc. While I disagree with this ideology vehemently, this is a debate to be had among adults. Leave the kids out of it. When schools like DeWitt start setting up programs to indoctrinate children with this ideology, I say enough is enough, that isn’t right. I have a 3 year old and a one year old, I will not be sending either to any school that is going to allow a radical minority impose their political agenda on my impressionable children.
The question over teaching the Bible in the classroom and posting the commandants is one I’ve heard a couple of times, it’s not something I’m advocating for. I certainly intend to teach my own children about our faith, I don’t think it’s the state’s role to require something like that in the classroom.
I support the school lunch program. I support increasing access to Pre-K, but I do not support the current legislation being pushed by the Democrats through Lansing which mandates that all parents send their children to public pre-k or report to the state what they intend do to for their children’s pre-k education, whether homeschool, private school, etc. Quite frankly, it’s not the state’s business and I don’t need big government looking over my shoulder on my children’s education, it’s the other way around. This government answers to us, not we to it. Our state is at the bottom of educational outcomes. It’s a quality of education issue, not a quantity. More hours of mediocre education in the classroom is not going to improve academic success. Instead of just throwing more hours of education at the problem, let’s improve the quality of the education for the time that kids are in school. I’d take 1 hour of quality education over two hours of poor education any day of the week.
I would never vote for Gretchen to be in control of our education!!!
I’m no fan of Gretchen Whitmer either. The reform to our school system is bigger than any one governor and it has to be tied to meaningful reforms that improve our schools and increase transparency and accountability and raise standards for schools to achieve better student outcomes.