By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org
    
LANSING, Mich. – Details are beginning to emerge about the new round of education reforms Michigan lawmakers are planning for 2013, and they contain a little something for education reformers and public school apologists alike.
    
During the new legislative session, lawmakers will consider expanding the presence of charter schools and cyber schools, revising teacher retirement programs (to help school districts diffuse those ticking budget bombs) and revamping Michigan’s most dysfunctional school districts.
    
That part of the legislative agenda will put a smile on the faces of reformers.
    
Public school apologists, on the other hand, should be cheered by Gov. Rick Snyder’s call for increasing education spending (2 percent) and doubling the state’s preschool program for at-risk children, as reported by the Associated Press.
    
The education establishment should also be cheered by the governor’s spending plans, but it’s not.
    
Instead, the K-12 people are bellyaching that the governor and legislature’s plans for improving public education don’t mirror the wishes of Michigan residents, reports HomeTownLife.com.
    
Residents’ K-12 priorities were recorded in a new report by the Center for Michigan, a nonpartisan think tank.
    
According to the Center for Michigan, Michigan residents named “teacher training, mentoring and evaluation; stricter teacher certification standards; and expanding access to early-childhood education as their top education priorities,” reports HomeTownLife.com.
    
Some in the education establishment are highlighting the differing priorities in an attempt to delegitimize the lawmakers’ K-12 reform agenda.
    
One Michigan teacher complained in a letter to the editor that “our elected officials in Lansing … are not listening to the people they represent and show little respect for our opinions on educational reform.”
    
Another education official said there’s “a little bit of a disconnect” between Lansing and Michigan residents,” reports HomeTownLife.com.
    
Nonsense, says state Rep. Bill Rogers, Republican chairman of the House K-12 budget subcommittee.
    
“It’s all semantics to me. We’re really trying to do the same thing,” namely improve a 200-year-old system, Rogers told the news site.
    
Republican state Sen. Joe Hune noted that two of the residents’ reform priorities – merit pay and teacher mentoring – can be put into effect by school district leaders without any new legislative action.
    
It should also be noted that nothing is stopping lawmakers from taking an “all of the above” approach to K-12 reform. Increasing the number of cyber school options and beefing up teacher training are not mutually exclusive ideas.  
    
The bottom line is that members of the education establishment and teacher unions are still steaming mad over the state’s new right-to-work law. They’re more interested in pouting than cooperating.
    
That’s why they’re behaving like spoiled children who are determined to pitch a fit over anything the Republican-controlled legislature proposes.
    
By bumping up school funding and increasing pre-school access, Gov. Snyder appears to be offering them an olive branch.
    
If they’re too stubborn to take it, Snyder and the Republican legislative leaders should block out all the criticism and pursue their K-12 agenda without hesitation.