Up North Progressive
Politics and commentary for Northern MichiganTribal Injunction Against Graymont UP Land Deal Denied
Saturday , 18, April 2015 DNR, Environment, Upper Peninsula 8 Comments
An injunction to temporarily stop the sale of over 11,000 acres of state forest land in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to a foreign mining company was denied on April 16th. Several Native American tribes of the Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority, or CORA, filed the injunction in Grand Rapids immediately after Directer Keith Creagh made his decision to allow the sale of the land to go forward.
The injunction emphasized that the land deal violated the 1836 Treaty of Washington Ceded Land, a treaty that includes 37% of Michigan’s current land area. While the land came under the jurisdiction of the state, the treaty also stipulated that the Native American tribes would still have use of the land for hunting, fishing, gathering, and other activities tribal people used the land for to provide a living. Since most of this land is publicly owned forest, it has always been understood that the way the tribes interpreted the treaty in 1836 would remain the same for the future. The Consent Decree of 2007 is very thorough in describing access Native Americans living in the area are allowed to have. It not only includes fishing and hunting access, but also the ability to tap maple trees, gather vegetation, and even set up temporary buildings.
During the public comment period before Director Creagh made his decision, 90% of the comments submitted to the DNR were against the land deal. It appears the will of the public was not considered when the DNR ruled in favor of allowing the sale of the land to Graymont in March. Graymont has not offered much detail in how exactly the sale of the land will benefit the Upper Peninsula. No firm number on how many jobs the mine will create, but the largest number quoted is 45-50 at the most.
Despite the temporary injunction being denied, the case will be heard before a judge in court on Wednesday, April 29, 2015, at 3:00p.m., 174 Federal Building, 410 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, MI 49007. The plaintiffs argue that the sale will potentially prohibit them from using the land according to the 1836 treaty, and 2007 Consent Decree. Not only is this unconstitutional, but violates the treaty of 1836. Whatever recourse the tribal people have if the state of Michigan insists on breaking the treaty remains to be seen.
Tea Party Charter School Has A NEW Website (In Development Stages)
Friday , 17, April 2015 Section 16, Tea Party Charter School 2 Comments
Pasquale Battaglia was busy Wednesday afternoon helping Cindy Gamrat ban herself indefinitely from the Michigan House Republican Caucus after posting a status on facebook complaining the other people at the meeting don’t worship God the free market as much as she does. Battaglia has plenty of experience with using social media to expose himself as a bigoted right-wing religious fanatic. This is why he’s attempting to rebrand his for-profit charter school into something that remotely follows state laws, and throw people off track from what he actually had planned.
There’s even a slick new website complete with the most-frequently used stock images ever. At least Battaglia didn’t use this. The website draws heavily on Hillsdale College materials to make the website appear to have actual content. The blog has one article, something Battaglia linked to on his twitter account months ago. There are also about as many typos as the old website, which is always a ringing endorsement for the level of education your new school will provide.
At the bottom of the web page, in small print is this notice:
Which takes you to a form to fill out and even provides an upload tool for your resume. Battaglia’s new website stresses that only professional, certified teachers trained in classical education will be hired by LCA. Hillsdale College’s K-12 academy doesn’t hire certified teachers. So where does Battaglia plan on finding expertly trained classical education teachers?
Kelly Services, the temp employment agency, according to Battaglia has a vast education pool chock full of certified teachers who teach classical education – provided by his VP cousin. If you really want to work for Livingston Classical Academy, maybe you should wait before filling out that form on the website, and head over to Kelly Services.
Social media can be very tricky at times. It might get you kicked out of a political caucus, or exposed for being completely unfit to have anything to do with operating a school, classical or otherwise.
Superintendent of Pine River Area Schools Speaks The Truth: Lansing Must Listen
Wednesday , 15, April 2015 Section 16 12 Comments
The Up North Progressive Lives in the Pine River Area Schools District. Superintendent Matt Lukshaitis published this letter yesterday with the request to share everywhere.
Honorable Gentlemen,
So far, the M-STEP process is a painful invasion of teaching and learning and really, state testing has become an oxymoron. The testing process is not good for kids.
17 different days of testing for 11th grade students? Really? This is the best we can do? We “improve” the test by going from 3 days to 17? Have we collectively lost our minds?
At Pine River, our computer labs are tied up from April 13 to June 4 for testing. This is a good use of taxpayer dollars? I cannot fathom how many great minds it takes to change a state system from one day of juniors taking an ACT test on a Saturday morning in a high school cafeteria to a system testing K-12 students over a period of two months, but I’m pretty sure between the MDE and the legislature that we have discovered the formula. I’m saddened by this.
Education is not happening.
Principals and teachers are in high stress mode. Students are not learning, they are are in Sarcasm 101 mode–how hard they try is going to be a true turkey shoot.
Terri and I have five children. Number five is a senior. Looking at what we are doing to the students in our public schools, I am truly glad to know this fact.
How many people have to be in charge of the local school districts? It seems like the state and the fed have over M-STEPped their boundaries.
How about the growing resentment coming from parents who are starting to demand that we excuse their students from the testing process? And the onus of responsibility is on the LEA to make these kids test? The state is setting up public schools for imminent failure. There will be test cases in our courtrooms soon. This testing system is pushing public schools over a cliff. I am afraid there may be a long, terrifying drop into jagged rocks….
I know a lot of really smart people came up with this wonderful theory of testing. The practice of teaching and learning however, is the provenance of the LEAs. Perhaps we should all take a giant step back and allow the schools to answer the needs of their community with more freedom?
Please stem the tide of this testing. It is just too much. Listen to those of us in the schools. Sitting in an office in Lansing does not help you understand the issues. Come visit us at Pine River Area Schools. Visit every district. Go see the schools while the testing is happening and talk to the teachers and the principals. Help us help the kids.
Respectfully,Matt Lukshaitis, Superintendent
Pine River Area Schools
Go Bucks!
Michigan’s schools are being put through superfluous testing for the sole reason of padding the corporate bottom line. Parents, you can tell your school you don’t want your children going through this. The more of us that opt-out, the stronger our voice.
Betsy DeVos couldn’t write enough checks in 2002 to trash public education in Michigan with vouchers, but that didn’t stop her from working to spread school voucher cancer to other states. Today on her ironically named national organization’s website came the sad news that Nevada succumbed to the disease that will never provide better education for the state’s schoolchildren, but instead leach funds from Nevada’s public schools for corporate gain. Betsy DeVos had this to say about her right-wing hate campaign to destroy public education:
“Thanks to me, Betsy DeVos and my ALEC friends, school vouchers have spread like a malignant tumor School choice is growing in size and scope across the country, and we are excited to add Another notch on our state kill list Nevada to the growing list of school choice states. We would like to applaud Gov. Sandoval and the state of Nevada for taking DeVos money like the prostitutes they are its commitment to rob children of quality public education children and providing the means of for-profit corporations to eliminate access to well-funded public education every child access to quality educational options.”
American Federation for Children works with ALEC and the Alliance for School Choice to push school privatization on states through vouchers, for-profit charter schools, and scholarship tax credits. Convicted Felon Scott Jensen of Wisconsin is the advisor for ASC. Betsy DeVos is the wife of Dick DeVos, owner of the pyramid direct sales soap company Amway. Her brother, Erik Prince, was the founder and CEO of Blackwater.
School vouchers not being enough to starve public schools, AFC is also pushing another bill through the Nevada legislature that would allow parents to draw funds from their children’s per-pupil funding grant like it were a bank account to spend on whatever they want to call a “learning experience”.
The DeVos family has made it their life’s work to eradicate public education according to their Dominion theocratic religious beliefs. Today Nevada became another state to fall under their anti-public education crusade.
Happy Birthday Thomas Jefferson: Secular Champion of America
Monday , 13, April 2015 History Nerd Leave a comment
“It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself to resist invasions of it in the case of others, or their case, by change of circumstances, become his own. It behooves him too, in his own case, to give no example of concession, betraying the right of independent opinion by answering questions of faith, which the laws have left between God and himself.” –Thomas Jefferson, April 21, 1803
Thomas Jefferson was born on this day in 1743. He died on July 4, 1826, only hours before John Adams. He dedicated his life to education, the law, and envisioned a nation where people would rely on reason rather than faith to maintain it. He cut up six bibles to create one, eliminating any reference to supernatural phenomena, the virgin birth, or rising from the dead after being buried three days before. In fact, the Jefferson Bible ends with the death of Jesus on Good Friday. The purpose of Jefferson’s Bible was to eliminate any claim that Jesus was the son of God.
Thomas Jefferson grew up attending church and studying at church-run schools. Those were the only schools available in the colonies before the United States came into existence. That changed after the Revolution, and people like Jefferson worked to create a secular, publicly-funded school system in the nation. When he founded the University of Virginia, he established an institution of higher learning that was completely secular. The central building at the University of Virginia is the library. Unlike other western universities of the time, it was not connected to any church and students did not have religious studies.
Jefferson’s contributions to the founding of the United States includes penning the Declaration of Independence and serving in the Continental Congress. He also held office in the Virginia House of Burgesses and as Governor of the state. One of his noted accomplishments during this time was the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom.
Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities. And though we well know that this Assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of Legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare that the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.
The separation of church and state for Thomas Jefferson was so important, he considered coercion into belief in any religion an act of treason. A person’s relationship with the Creator was to never extend past that person’s own opinion or belief. Of the three things put on Jefferson’s tombstone, the House Statute of Religious Freedom is one of them. The other two are the writing of the Declaration of Independence, and the establishment of the University of Virginia.
Thomas Jefferson’s strong commitment to establishing the United States to be a nation ruled by law is a commitment all patriotic Americans needs to remember today. Jefferson’s understanding of American religious freedom resonates in his own words when he wrote in 1777, “That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions on physics or geometry.” On his birthday today, everyone needs to remember this man’s words and work to make sure the United States of America remains a secular nation ruled by law, and not by any religion or church.
Michigan Board of State Canvassers Will Hear Fracking Ban Petition Language On April 14
Saturday , 11, April 2015 Environment 2 Comments
The Michigan Board of State Canvassers revised their agenda for Tuesday, April 14, to include approval of petition language for a new ballot initiative to ban fracking in the state of Michigan. The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan will present language in Lansing, Michigan, at 10:30 a.m. in the Austin Building. If approved and 252,523 signatures are collected by June 1, 2016, the ballot measure will appear on the 2016 general election ballot.
The petition language addresses hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as well as processing, storing and disposing of the toxic chemical byproduct anywhere in the state of Michigan. The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan formed in 2012 as a political campaign to put a ban fracking ballot initiative up to a vote in the 2014 midterm election. They collected 70,000 signatures.
Fracking in the United States is extremely controversial as the chemicals that go into the fluid used to extract oil and gas are considered a “trade secret” and therefore protected from EPA regulations. There is now proof that storing spent fracking fluid underground causes earthquakes. Concerns that the chemicals in fracking fluid are toxic and that the earthquakes could release toxic chemicals, contaminating ground water, lakes, and streams are legitimate.
On May 4, 2015, the Michigan DNR will hold another oil and gas lease auction for 130,000 acres of public and privately owned land throughout Michigan, most of the counties listed are in Northern Michigan, and the lease will allow energy companies to frack that land for 5 years. It’s important for this proposal to appear on the 2016 ballot. Anyone wishing to address the board about this issue on April 14 is welcome to do so. Requests for a three-minute allotment to address the board must submit a written request before the meeting begins. To get involved, volunteer, or learn more, you can visit the committee’s website.
Before Michigan’s public school children left for Spring Break, State Superintendent Mike Flanagan sent out a letter to all parents informing them of the new standardized test their children would take when they came back from vacation. M-STEP testing will begin next week for grades three through eight, and juniors in high school. Unlike the MEAP, this test will be online, and require students not only answer questions correctly, but also develop computer skills requiring them to complete specific tasks. Schools without the necessary technology to take M-STEP online will take a paper test the school had to request in November.
M-STEP is an assessment put together in nine months after a law required the Michigan Department of Education to replace the 40+ year old MEAP. 2015 is the only year the current form of M-STEP will be used, as the law also required the MDE to outsource the state’s standardized testing. The MDE announced just before spring break that Michigan’s standardized test over the next three years will be managed by two out of state corporations at the cost of $104 million. Both of these companies are well-known for hiring temp employees for $11 per hour to score exams school district funding and teacher evaluations are riding on.
Another letter issued by the MDE claims the state must have 95% participation in the M-STEP assessment:
The student participation rate for all public districts and schools in Michigan is 95% of enrolled students in tested grades for each content area assessed. The 95% test participation rate ensures that Michigan public schools are in compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001, which requires that 95% of students enrolled are tested with the state’s assessment programs.
What this means is if your kids don’t take this test that is only being used this year, can’t be used to measure progress from last year, and will be even more useless next year when they take yet another test … well, the state would really like it if you wouldn’t opt your children out pretty please.
Parents of students that elect not to have their child take the state assessment program and students themselves that elect not to test may present certain challenges to their local school district. Districts and schools that do not meet the participation rate receive consequences of lowered Scorecard outcomes. Furthermore, schools that consecutively fail to meet the test participation requirement have potential to be named for interventions and supports.
Sounds scary, doesn’t it? The fact is, your school district won’t lose money or be penalized by the federal government if your kids don’t take the test.
You can learn more about opting out of M-STEP here and here. Keep in mind that these corporations administering and scoring M-STEP collect data on your children, and may be monitoring student social media even after school during testing time, as school districts and parents in New Jersey found out recently. As parents, you have the right to opt your children out of high-stakes standardized testing. Your school won’t get in trouble with the feds, and they won’t lose any money. Standardized testing is another excuse for corporate grift at taxpayer expense.
Michigan Participates In International Dark Sky Week
Thursday , 9, April 2015 Community, DNR, Environment 1 Comment
There will be opportunities for Michiganians to enjoy the stars next week as International Dark Sky Week kicks off in many of Michigan’s state parks. The event runs from April 13th to the 18th, and 29 Michigan state parks will be open with extended hours for astronomy enthusiasts to enjoy the night sky.
Started in 2003 by a high school student named Jennifer Barlow, International Dark Sky Week has over the past twelve years grown into an event coinciding with Global Astronomy Month. This year, the United Nations is even getting involved, by declaring 2015 The International Year of Light. This global initiative will raise awareness on light and light-based technology and how it affects the environment; offering sustainable solutions to energy use, education, health, climate change, and protecting the environment.
Awareness of the impact light pollution has on the environment is the focus of the first day of International Dark Sky Week. Each day of the week has it’s own topic dealing with light and it’s impact on the Earth. One way everyone can appreciate the importance of having dark skies is by going outside and enjoying the stars. Michigan state parks during the week will offer nights where people can come, look at the stars and talk about the importance of light in our world, and what we can do to improve our use of light for the betterment of the planet. Ludington State Park and Rockport State Recreation Area both will have astronomy programs available. Many other state parks will hold extended hours so people can come and enjoy the night sky.
A state recreation passport is required to enter Michigan’s state parks. They can be purchased at any Secretary of State’s office or ordered online.
With clear weather, next week will be the perfect time to go outdoors at night and look at the stars. Planets, the milky way, and constellations will all be visible. This event is also an important part of the global awareness of the impact of light on our environment, and how our energy consumption to create the light we use contributes to climate change. Take the time to enjoy the stars.
Michigan Outsources To Missouri Prison Supply Company: More Michigan Workers Lose Their Jobs
Wednesday , 8, April 2015 Community, Upper Peninsula Leave a comment
30 state prison employees were notified they will lose their jobs as Missouri-based Keefe Group takes over providing hygiene products to inmates. The jobs affected are in Jackson, Ionia and Kinross.
Inmates purchase toiletries through kiosks and the orders are processed at the three regional warehouses in Michigan before being shipped to the prisons. This new contract will eliminate the warehouses in Michigan and the products will be shipped directly from Keefe Group in Missouri. There are no cost savings for the state by signing this new three-year contract with Keefe Group.
The 30 employees will have the opportunity to apply for other positions in the prison system. AFSCME director Nick Ciarmitaro told the Detroit Free Press they were looking into the reason for the outsourcing, because the purchasing system currently operating for the prisons is in the black.
The state plans to sign the contract with Keefe Group very soon. Once that happens, a 90 day transition period will begin to close down the warehouse distribution in Michigan. Prison inmates will have to wait for their ordered goods to come from Missouri.
If the warehouse purchasing system was a financial drain on the state, it would make sense to close down the regional stores. The only reason for this new contract at the moment appears to be the opportunity to put more Michigan union employees out of work, and provide jobs Michigan needs to another state.
Keefe Group is owned by Centric Group, a St. Louis, Missouri, company that is part of the Jack Taylor Enterprise Rent-A-Car fortune.