Community Corner
Vote No on the Bonddoggle
Some of the 220 Million reasons to vote NO.
It is a plan bloated with wasteful spending to buy parental votes in a high cost special election paid for low voter turnout.
Addicted to Federal Funds with Federal Regulations that prohibit "unequal treatment" elsewhere known as holding students and their parents responsible for the students misbehavior, FPS is deaf, dumb, and blind on classroom discipline at the expense of the students who are behaved and come to class ready to learn. Discipline is the First Required Step in classroom effectiveness and student achievement. FPS has abandoned discipline in the chase of social engineering string laden Federal Dollars. Insist this wasteful disgrace is fixed before flushing more money at promises rendered empty by the dysfunctional Federal Regulations assigned to Federal "Education" Dollars.
The Facilities Committee started with the goal of redecrating the (3) high schools equally. This is a non-reform based extravagant waste. Decades of successful reform in place in Western Michigan should have informed the Committee to restructure the High Schools differently to support differentiated instruction taking advantage of the benefit of multiple high schools to meet the needs of all Farmington students and achieve higher levels of learning for all students.
FPS has
achieved and has consistently sustained real data driven and data verified educational reform within the District with a magnet school that, at best, had comparable facilities for over (2) decades. Yet for over (2) decades, though replication and implementation of those reforms apply to all levels K-12, staff implementation has been and remains optional. These are the very reforms that throughout our Nation have exposed the lie of the “Socio-Economic Achievement Gap” that both the District and County ISD uses to this very day to excuse its substandard performance and attack national educational reforms that include accountability for the lack of improvement. Demand the District change “Optional” to “Mandatory with Accountability” before throwing more money on improvements whose usage is optional and absent any accountability.
The closing of (5) elementary schools and the restructuring of (4) middle schools is still a recent event. It provided both the opportunity and the educational space to implement decades proven instructional reform. Real reform easily supported by annual funds supplemented, if and where necessary, with the bloated multi-year over-taxation equity fund. First things first! 100% of the 4th Grade Graduates certified as proficient at the 4th Grade Level and prepared to succeed in 5th Grade. 100% of 6th Grade Graduates certified as proficient at the 6th Grade Level and prepared to succeed in the 7th Grade. 100% of 8th Grade Graduates certified at the 8th Grade Level and prepared for High School without remediation. 100% of our High School Graduates certified as proficient in all of the graduation requirements and ready for Work, Community College, or a University without remediation for basic skills. A Bond issue is not required to achieve these results. Time to implement these reforms, an instructional commitment that is not optional and is backed with accountability, and learning validated by performance, not granted by seat time is required. This should be a first pre-requisite to a Bond Issue.
Make it so!
