I try desperately to keep my anger in check. Systemic racial and educational discrimination is killing this country. You can’t address one without addressing the other.
Living in Michigan I am acutely aware of how serious the problem is. It’s about to take on a whole new level of urgency. Michigan’s educational budget is somewhere north of 12 billion dollars. Proposition A calls for the bulk of educational funding to be derived from Michigan’s sales tax. It also allows 50 of Michigan’s s hook districts to levy local milleages to support education. It’s not by coincidence that those 50 districts are primarily in higher income communities where black and Brown children are the exception rather than the rule.
Whether intentionally or not Proposition A guaranteed an educational system of haves and have not. Guess who the have nots are. Not a system that was woefully inadequate is about to be hit by a whirlwind. Remember that the highest percentage of Michigan public education dollars comes from sales tax revenue. We are in the middle of a national pandemic. That pandemic shut down schools and that was bad. The pandemic called for businesses to shutdown and put people out of work. When people aren’t working sales tax revenue goes down. How is the state going to makeup for the revenue shortfall?
Public education is going to suffer more in poor and marginal communities than it will in affluent communities. One of the biggest holes in Prop A was that it made no provision for educational infrastructure. That means that communities with aging infrastructure have no resources to repair or replace infrastructure.
This isn’t a discussion that a lot of caucasian people need to have however if you live in a Benton Harbor, Detroit, Flint, or Saginaw these are real world considerations.
Our state legislators need to be addressing this school financing issue right now. They need to be working hand in hand with our US Senators and Representatives to make up for revenue shortfalls directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Secondly it’s time to move beyond Prop A for public education funding. All of our children deserve the same chance for a future. Write your state Senator and Representative and let them know it’s time for a change. Tell them you are watching.
THINK!!
EYES WIDE OPEN!!!