It was the goal of our founding fathers and of a functioning democracy that citizens should be able to read for themselves, think for themselves, and therefore vote for themselves, and public education is the vehicle where that happens.
HB 5859 would have required the state to use $500 million in federal funds to contract with private vendors, to supply students with educational supplies, opportunities, and services. Opponents criticized the Republican-introduced bill as a ploy to direct public money to private, for-profit institutions that aren’t accountable to parents or the public.
As part of our ongoing series of Q&As with Michiganders, we interviewed brothers Lionel and Michael Baldwin, students at Arthur Hill High School in Saginaw, and their mother, Arshen Baldwin, a teacher at Arthur Hill.