Speaking of ignorant and unenlightened, SUZANNE has a new post up titled "This is what I mean when I say feminists don't get men" and it’s a winner. Let’s play, shall we?
On the face of it this campaign to discourage domestic violence is a good idea. The billboard promotes a message that is hard to disagree with:
Wow. That’s somewhat reasonable. I’m not really sure what I should ... ohmiGod! Is this one of the “Seven Signs” they kept harping on in Catholic school? Quick – somebody hold me.
It's all so very touchy-feely. The very man who is at risk to commit domestic violence will shut off as soon as he hears these messages. Why? Because they don't respect his masculinity.
Well, thank Christ ... SUZANNE brings the crazy. For a second there, I thought I was going to have to completely reassess my world view.
Sure, it says you can be strong. But it doesn't say you can be tough. It says you shouldn't be violent, but it doesn't say you can be physical and aggressive-- in the ways many young men like to be physical: playing football, pretend wrestling and horsing around. It all feels very emasculating.
And if there’s anyone who knows emasculating, I’m thinking it’s our gal SUZANNE.
Even the campaign itself might need reconsidering. When I was in college, I took a youth psychology and we had a speaker come in to talk about violence in adolescent relationships. The speaker-- who worked for Quebec's Departement de la protection de la jeuness-- child protection-- said that they had a program to get teens to talk about such violence. But they never started off by saying "okay, we're going to talk about dating violence." Otherwise, the boys would turn right off.
Yeah, 'cause the average teenage boy totally doesn’t want anyone getting all up in his grill telling him how he can treat his bitchez and hos, daaawwwggg. I’m a little concerned about the company SUZANNE keeps. Perhaps she was raised wrong.
Instead, they started off generally about dating in general, and about appropriate behaviour in general, and eventually the subject would turn to violence.
This is all very general – I think SUZANNE should provide some detail, don’t you?
Men in our society are constantly told they're the bad guys for being, well guys. I think the mass of people understand there's nothing wrong with being a guy-- liking monster trucks, wrestling, pro football, fixing stuff, taking stuff apart-- all the typical guy things.
There you go. Apparently, SUZANNE’s perfect man looks something like this.
Aren’t they the dreamiest? Who could possibly choose? Decisions, decisions ...
But the politically correct elites constantly tell them they're wrong. Men must be sensitive and show their feelings (even if they don't WANT to). Men must shun the things they really like so they can be really enlightened and break gender stereotypes. Men have can't think the way they think because it's unenlightened; they can't feel the way they feel because it's unenlightened. It's all patriarchal and oppressive to women. They have to be something that is against their grain to fulfill some ideological role. That's the impression I'm sure many men get when they read these kinds of messages.
That’s just 9 kinds of retarded. I don’t know about you but my poor brain can’t take much more of this.
And it's not that we shouldn't try to educate men about domestic violence. But I think we should think of the audience and what makes them tick.
That’s very big of you, SUZANNE. While we’re educating men about domestic violence, should we also touch on the statistics that state “that outside of medical complications, homicide is the leading cause of death among pregnant women”? Yeah, didn’t think so – getting a little too close to issues of “choice”, aren’t we? Moving right along.
Being a real man should be about respecting women. A man's strength should be used to protect those who are physically weaker, not to get one's way. The way to have a more fulfilling domestic life is to treat your woman like a lady, not a punching bag.
Those kinds of messages are far more appealing because they don't blame the man for being a guy-- I think they respect his ingrained masculinity.
Why, why, WHY do I do this to myself? Fuck. Now she has me doing it.
And I know I'm going to get comments saying that I think all men should be big hulky brutes, and that's not what I'm saying at all. I am simply saying that men should be respected in their masculinity. Gender stereotypes exist for a reason. Many men are comfortable with being typical guys and they don't want to change in the name of an ideology, and they shouldn't have to. They like themselves exactly the way they are. And that's okay.
When they start getting the message that being a guy is not okay, that's when they shut down. And that's all they get from the ambient politically correct culture of the elites.
And that's why most men don't take feminism too seriously.
Honey, I wouldn’t have one of those “most men” you describe if he was served on a platter with an apple in his mouth. I don’t know that I’ve ever even met one of these men. Obviously, we move in very different circles. You know – me here in the 21st century and you stuck in Victorian England.
So to conclude, SUZANNE thinks all men should act like big tough guys who are the king of the castle while taking care of the little woman who can neither take care of nor think for herself.
I hate to break it to you, SUZANNE, feminists understand men just fine – you on the other hand? Not so much.
Now this is hilarious. Pale at A Creative Revolution has decided to give SUZANNE a hand. Go. Laugh.
28 comments:
shorter SUZANNE: "women, like rugs, should be beaten regularly."
KEvron
I've always tried to be at least civil to SUZANNE. But this last series from her - in which this snotty, arrogant young ideologue and failed political candidate has the nerve to tell me that my wife of twenty five years, a woman and feminist who's spent her life fighting sexism and racism, "doesn't understand men" - fuck. I don't know what's most astonishing - her ignorance, or her presumption. In any case, I don't think I'll be able to exchange a polite word with her after this one.
Give lil' Suzie a break. Poor thing, up the duff, hormones raging, greasy hair and skin, worsening BO, thickening ankles...is just flush with these wonders of womanhood which, as with the wonders of manhood (spittin', cussin', semi-nude greco-roman wrestlin' and holdin' doors for m'lady)...celebrate the essence of what makes us all, each and every one of us, a special child of God...
...and not a scolding school marm who should worry about what her own husband and boys (if she has any) are doing and stop lecturing other people.
This backlash against feminism that embraces a cult of masculinity (which is a root element of fascism) by these little twits really unnerves me, mostly because it's so fucking ignorant. And it's really creepy when these women do it. A version of Stepford Wives in which the wives agree that being replaced by fembots is good for the guys.
Sorry, Suzanne. I don't want dumber or more obsequious/acquiescent women around me. Most men don't.
Men in our society are constantly told they're the bad guys for being, well guys. I think the mass of people understand there's nothing wrong with being a guy-- liking monster trucks, wrestling, pro football, fixing stuff, taking stuff apart-- all the typical guy things.
What the hell does any of that have to do with beating the shit out of a female, which is the whole point of the ad.
It doesn't say you can't play football or like monster trucks or wrestling. It doesn't emasculate anybody it just says "RESPECT WOMEN". Would it be better for men to piss on females and beat them with sticks?
Stop fucking reading into things you stupid cunt.
What the hell does any of that have to do with beating the shit out of a female, which is the whole point of the ad.
Well, y'know...back in the day...it was acceptable to swat the lil' woman (and the sissies too) to ensure compliance. That's what masculine men do and you're a swishy metrosexual with low sperm count contributing to the underbreeding of European peoples if you don't agree.
Bitch. I can't figure out who she hates more...men or women.
I see SOMEONE is typing out of HER ass again. Sheesh. If she wants to be in a relationship with some pig whose idea of masculinity is getting in a bar brawl every weekend, plugging the toilet, or beating her up in between bouts of treating her like a lady, go for it. Do his laundry, clean his house, raise his brats, (but don't suck that dick! Not ladylike! He can go to the men's room at the Mpls airport for that action), whatevah! Nobody cares about your relationship with your caveman. As with my uterus, just mind your own fucking business, M'LADY. Men should be respected for their masculinity...feh. Which is defined as, what, exactly, and by whom? YOU?
By the way, thanks for the news that I'm now an "elite" because of my views. When do I get servants and one of those velvety, puffy PhD graduation caps?
Bitch. I can't figure out who she hates more...men or women.
Women. Definitely women.
Personally, I'm glad she wants the beer-swillin', wife-beatin', "gentlemen", that'll keep 'em busy from bothering me!.
Give me a cool, intelligent, geeky guy (or girl) any day of the week.
I designed her a new PSA.
*blink*
http://www.acreativerevolution.ca/node/718
New PSA for REAL MENZ!
1. When you think you have to tell men, or boys, to “respect women,” it’s too late.
2. The emasculation doesn’t begin in church; it begins in school. I didn’t realize this until my daughter started school. School is everything my daughter likes. My son didn’t like anything about school until, in the sixth week of seventh grade, he tried out for the middle school wrestling team.
Public schools, at least in the United States, developed in the northern cities in the wake of the US Civil War. The point behind the public school was to prepare working class children to assume productive roles in the emerging industrial economy. We have toyed with the model, particularly after the Russians in 1957 launched the first satellite, but what the public schools teach, to this day, is to show up on time, sit down, speak only when spoken to, and not cause any problems. The point is to train the little boy’s natural and healthy aggression out of him, except possibly during the organized recess of high school athletics.
In other words, the public schools are authoritarian institutions that attempt to impose control over little boys by making them behave like little girls. The reason the public schools have survived in their current form is that this form serves the state well, and serves employers well.
Please do not try to tell me that a militaristic society is a masculine society. I went to Vietnam because I was afraid of being called a coward.
As an aside, one of the things English speakers never seemed to have understood is that the reason the English state was able to wring more wealth out of its population than the French state, despite the disparities in numbers, is that the English state was actually more effectively authoritarian than the French state. The British subject certainly had more procedural protections than the Frenchman, when his personal interests diverged from that of the crown, but it was always easier for the Frenchman to evade the demands of the haphazardly organized French state. Any historian will tell you that England never was a feudal society because the Normans and their successors were strong and determined enough to prohibit subinfeudation.
Everyone in England worked for the crown; few, if any, saw a means of escape.
3. The less self-respect a man has, the more likely he is to try to bolster his self-respect by striking out at anyone who appears in any sense to be even weaker than he is. The reason Lulu’s men do not find any satisfaction in pushing women and children around is that they are the ones who survived the public school and the state, to a greater or lesser extent, and have bigger things in mind. They literally see themselves as “movers & shakers” who can have an actual affect on society and on their own lives.
4. “Eat your vegetables,” “don’t play with matches” and “finish your homework” only compounds the message little boys are taught in the public schools. Some men, like Lulu’s men, may be able to rise above the authoritarian strictures of the state. Most will be subdued, and resentful.
5. The problem is neither little boys nor vegetables, matches and homework; it is the authoritarian state.
"Bitch. I can't figure out who she hates more...men or women.
"Women. Definitely women."
Absolutely.
And it's hate from jealousy. SHE sees other women, who are not tied to the religion-regulated life SHE leads, actuating their full potential as human beings, and SHE thinks to HERSELF: "Why them and not ME? Am I not following all the rules, as I was taught? Why do they have what I want, and why don't I have it?"
SHE can't blame herself; that's not acceptable. SHE always colors within the lines, so why don't people see her pictures as being art? SHE never breaks the rules, so why isn't HER life better than the lives of the rest of the people she sees around HER?
SHE does not understand; and in order to understand, SHE must "break a few rules," and SHE is unwilling to take that step, perhaps out of fear, perhaps out of laziness, perhaps out of being so battered by HER religious upbringing that HER mind literally cannot hold the thought that there is a different way to live, if only SHE'd make the effort. But, the choice is HERs to make, and if SHE won't make it, I'm not gonna lose any sleep over HER.
Like Balbulican, I used to treat HER with civility. Until SHE announced on HER blog that SHE was pregnant, and Ti-Guy's comment to HER on that thread was one of congratulations and friendlship. SHE turned on him like a cornered badger, snapping, snarling, and rejecting his good wishes on the grounds that he didn't know HER well enough to speak with such familiarity.
That was the deciding factor for me. If SHE doesn't want to be a member of the human race, okay by me.
And if SHE doesn't want to play the game, SHE doesn't get to set any of the rules, either. SHE is nothing more than a twisted sort of comic relief at which we all get to have a good belly laugh now and then.
My son didn’t like anything about school until, in the sixth week of seventh grade, he tried out for the middle school wrestling team.
Seer: Was that the first time he was involved in sports/physical activity? Did you encourage any yourself before that?
The reason I'm asking is because I've heard this before...mostly from parents who think the school is supposed to address every need the parents won't or can't.
Parents have got to stop blaming the schools. Either work to have better schools or stop having kids.
American public school teachers don't make nearly enough to be saddled with all the socialising functions parents can't or won't take on themselves.
and Ti-Guy's comment to HER on that thread was one of congratulations and friendlship. SHE turned on him like a cornered badger, snapping, snarling, and rejecting his good wishes on the grounds that he didn't know HER well enough to speak with such familiarity.
Did SHE? I didn't go back to check. I did call her a Ste-Nitouche which is kind of insulting if you have no sense of humour at all, which I kind of knew about her. But I was sincere about wishing her well during the period in which SHE becomes heavy with child.
But I wasn't really that nice. I don't much care for her, after all.
ti-guy:
1. Seventh grade was not the first time my son was involved in sports or physical activity. He started swimming at six months, body surfing in the Atlantic at three years, and started doing karate at the age of five. I never could get him interested in baseball.
2. I don't know what public school teachers are paid in Canada but ten years ago, which was the last time I was current on the issue, public school teachers in my state were making an average of $60,000 a year and were getting fringe benefits worth $20,000 to $30,000 a year, depending on the school district. In my jurisdiction, public school teachers work 940 hours a year, and don't tell me they work a lot outside the classroom because most of their labor agreements give them extra money for "work outside the classroom," even though that work is done, per the contract, during the regular school day. Teaching school is the only part-time job in the state that pays fringe benefits. In fact, in my jurisdiction, state classified employees took five percent pay cuts two years in a row, in 2003 and 2004, while the amount of state funds thrown at the public schools continued to grow, though at a lesser rate. Admittedly, state classified employees get the same kind of fringe benefits as school teachers, which means that the cost of the fringe benefit package for a new state classified employee often exceeds the wages. Literally. The actual cost of health insurance for public employees in my state now exceeds $11,000 a year, though most public employers budget a bit more than that as a way of hiding money and retaining earnings.
But you misread my post if you think I'm blaming the organization of the public schools on the teachers. Today's teachers had nothing to do with the organization of the public schools. The teachers are as regimented as the children. At least part of the reason teachers make so much money is that the employers give them money so they don't have to listen to the teachers complain about the way the schools are being run .
Nor can you really claim that school administrators organized the public schools. Most of them started out as teachers, and they are not interested in organizing anything except raising more money. The schools run on inertia.
The point I was trying to make is that when public schools were organized in the US, they were organized to render working class children fit for employment in America's factories. What the employers wanted was employees who would sit down, shut up and do what they're told. That's what the employers got 150 years ago and that is what we're still getting from the public schools today. The authoritarian mindset begins in the public schools and the authoritarian mindset is what produces bullies.
I don't know what public school teachers are paid in Canada but ten years ago, which was the last time I was current on the issue, public school teachers in my state were making an average of $60,000 a year and were getting fringe benefits worth $20,000 to $30,000 a year, depending on the school district.
I would really like to see a source for that. 10 years ago...60,000$ US? And fringe benefits up to 30,000$?
ty-guy
The basis of my claim is personal knowledge. I represented public employees outside the education sector but we used teacher contracts as "comparables" to show why our unions should do as well. We never succeeded. Full time cops were always $5,000 to $20,000 behind teachers in each town. In of medical, dental, & vision insurance, retirement & disability insurance, in the major cities at least, law enforcement did almost as well. But we never could get cops "longevity pay," much less extra money for filling out reports and stuff.
I will see if I can get some documentation but I can tell you on the basis of personal experience that you just about have to analyze each individual collective bargaining agreement to find the money. Teachers have made a religion about being under paid and over worked and the economics of teacher compensation are hidden in boilerplate. The table of contents won't tell you a thing unless you know what to look for.
http://www.aft.org/salary/2003/download/2003Table1.pdf
Us Teachers salaries, averages.
Canada:
http://resource.educationcanada.com/salaries.html
These are people who have gone to University, and have families to support just like you.
Some think that people should be paid properly to educate kids. Its kind of important to some of us that teaching doesn't become a sweatshop kind of job. Hard to attract good people that way isn't it?....
Fetus porn alert!!! Lulu, your link's been highjacked and flown into a wall of fetuses.
Shit, now I'm hungry!
"Gender stereotypes exist for a reason."
Yes, because they're imposed by society. School may train boys to sit still and do as they're told in class, but what about between classes? A boy gets beaten up at school, and what does he hear? "Fight back!" A boy doesn't want to partake in violent sports, and he faces mockery and censure. A boy who does behave in an aggressive or violent manner generally faces a slap on the wrist, combined with tacit approval - at the worst. More often, someone will say "boys will be boys" and move on.
Anthropologists have studied matriarchal societies (they're rare, but they do exist, usually on islands where no patriarchal tribes existed to bludgeon them to death.) In such societies, what kind of activities do you suppose men tend to partake in?
If you said sitting around gossiping, styling their hair, picking out nice clothes, and doing their makeup, you're spot on. Human nature is near infinitely flexible, but people tend to assume that whatever beliefs and behaviors their particular culture embraces are somehow biologically necessitated. People behave in the manner which brings them the most rewards, and aggressive behavior brings males the most reward in western society. As long as that is the case, a sizable proportion of men will grow up to be violent jerks, and many of those men will beat up their wives.
You want to stop violence against women? Stop treating it as a separate problem, and attack violence itself. As long as men are socialized to be aggressive, they will express that aggression, and some of them will do so against women.
Ti-Guy wrote:
"Well, y'know...back in the day...it was acceptable to swat the lil' woman (and the sissies too) to ensure compliance. That's what masculine men do and you're a swishy metrosexual with low sperm count contributing to the underbreeding of European peoples if you don't agree."
Suzanne wrote:
Being a real man should be about respecting women. A man's strength should be used to protect those who are physically weaker, not to get one's way. The way to have a more fulfilling domestic life is to treat your woman like a lady, not a punching bag.
OMFFSM, mark the day on the calendar -- I find I agree with Suzanne more than Ti-Guy on this one point.
Ti-Guy, we had a name for the "masculine men" who felt it was acceptable to swat anyone to ensure compliance. If memory serves, that name was "pin-dicked fuck-headed asshole". Smacking people around - especially those physically weaker than you - doesn't equal masculinity, it equally bullying insecurity and fear. It is the same instinct that drove Jim Crowe and lynch mobs.
As much as it pains me to say it, Suzanne is almost right, she just can't phrase things the right way because she's locked in sexist dumbassery. Being a good person is about respecting other people. Strength should be used to protect the weak. (Might for right, not might makes right as a certain Mr. Pendragon is alleged to have said)
After that she kinda slides downhill. The way to a fulfilling domestic life is to treat your partner as an equal, not a possession. That was no lady, that was my wife.
I'm not sure what part of "it isn't okay to go around hitting people" Suzanne thinks is emasculating, but it has nothing to do with drinking beer, monster trucks (coughphallicsubstitutecough), likeing the three stooges, chest hair, using a chain saw or otherwise being a "manly man" ---really, her fetishization of her misunderstanding of macho is a short step removed from holding up the Village People as the apex of masculinity.
The pin-dicked fucktards who beat up on their spouses and children do so because they feel the need to exert power over someone else, usually because they are or were getting pushed around and humiliated somewhere else in their live, at least in many cases. Some are born pin-dicked fucktards, others have pin-dicked fucktardery thrust upon them because they aren't strong enough to put up with not being the boss all the time.
I think a "real man" should use his strength to defend weak. So should a "real woman". I don't think most women (or men) need defending or doors opened for them etc etc, because I think most can look out for themselves.
Smacking people around - especially those physically weaker than you - doesn't equal masculinity, it equally bullying insecurity and fear.
Do you honestly think I was asserting otherwise?
Agreeing with SUZANNE more than me...why I've never been so insulted in my entire life.
...hmpf!
I see that seer has run off with his tail between his legs, whimpering that he was caught exaggerating (lying).
As well his diatribe against public schools emasculating his poor little boy screams more of a projection and less of an understanding of the actual end results of public education.
Just because your little sissy appears to have been emasculated by a public school system that encourages violence, bullying and physical sports doesn't mean that the rest of society views it the same way, nor that the reality of the situation is how you perceive it.
Re: my claim that school teachers get $60,00 a year in salary and $20,000 to $30,000 in fringe benefits:
Lets take the fringe benefits first because that’s easier to understand than the salary data. The main reason the cost of fringe benefits seems so high is that in the United States, employers pay for health care. For public employees in Michigan, the best medical care in the world had an actual cost, ten years ago, of about $9,600 a year, but most public employers budgeted $11,000 per employee. If you are a Detroit school teacher with your masters degree in education and ten years or more on the job making $63,059 a year, then $9,600 amounts to 15.2% of your wages. This insurance package gives you no deductibles, no co-pays, no exclusions from coverage for doctor visits, hospital and prescription drugs and, of course, no wait times to speak of. Dental care is not covered, unless surgery is involved. I cannot find figures for dental insurance from ten years ago. Teachers also get vision insurance, but the cost of that is negligible. Ten years ago, public employers paid roughly 12 % of payroll for retirement benefits, including health insurance for retirees. http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070510/SCHOOLS/705100442 The employer’s share of social security taxes is 7.62%. Workers’ compensation insurance in the public sector is about 1% for everyone but firefighters. Unemployment insurance is about 0.7%. At this point, we’re up to 36.5%. But we have no included disability insurance, longevity pay that kicks in after teachers have reached the highest step on the regular scale, or the nuisance benefits, like extra pay for correcting student work, even though they are given time during the regular school day to correct papers, extra pay for attending in-service training, though that takes place during the school day, parent-teacher conferences — held during the school day— etc. 36.5% of $63,059 is $23,000.
There are two reasons, by the way, that all this extra compensation is treated as a fringe benefit: 1) no one inside the public schools wants anyone outside the public schools to know how much money teachers actually make; and 2) if it’s a fringe benefit, it’s not subject to social security taxes.
For pay rates, see table II-1 of the American Federation of Teachers Research Report: http://www.aft.org/salary/2001/download/urban-salary.pdf. In 2000, Detroit started at 33,540 with a bachelor’s degrees; teachers with MA’s topped out at $63,059 at ten years. Grand Rapids teachers started at $31, 975 and maxed out on the regular salary scale at $56,880 at 11 years. Virtually all Michigan teachers have an MA in education by the start of their third year on the job. Al it takes is two summer schools. In Flint, the range is $36,650 to $79,880, http://www.citytowninfo.com/places/michigan/flint/work, though I’m assuming the high figure is for Ed D’s, which are uncommon, and the MA rate is intheneigborhood of the Detroit rate.
That’s the best I can do for now. I will keep looking.
So you think teachers should make what? $3.25 an hour and no benefits?
And then that will attract the BEST of the best for sure!
Make em starve. Teaching is a calling.(like the priesthood right?)
Lower the education requirements? No more student loans!
Why work at 7-11? Be a teacher! No healthcare! Sink or swim!
And keep paying those basketball and football stars millions! After all, its only about kids.
Its a good thing people like you are not the norm in Canada. Just a sad fringe.
Pale,
I am not saying teachers should make $3.25 an hour and no benefits, though I did opine that teaching school is the only part-time job in Michigan that pays full fringe benefits. I am saying that when you fund public schools to the extent that we do in Michigan you weaken every other program in the state because you don't have enough left.
Ten years ago, supervisory state classified employees topped out at $55,000 a year, unless they were lawyers, physicians or IT specialists. That was, as a general rule, $5,000 less than non-supervisory teachers, with more than five years in the classroom. Non-supervisory cops topped out at $45,000 to $50,000.
Nor am I saying that teachers are responsible for the sorry state of the public schools. Teachers have about as much influence on the operation of the public schools as auto workers have on the operation of the Big Three. In both cases, management bought them off so they would not have to listen to their complaints.
What I started out saying is that the public schools are organized today to turn working class children into automatons, suitable for employment in an essentially defunct industrial economy. I suggested that the public schools accomplish their mission by training children to show up on time, sit down, shut up and do what they're told. I said that this regimentation is particularly harmful to boys and, in turn, is the source of the frustration that ultimately leads to violence, against women, children and, let's not forget, other men.
While we're at it, let me add one other thought. In Europe, on the continent at least, violence is organized, often by radicals who today are described as extremists. In the United States, violence is private, rather than public, and retail, rather than wholesale. We're worried in the US about "street crime," not about violent minorities trying to start revolutions.
You seriously think it's public schools that make boys violent? Really? Not the oh, hundreds of thousands of violent images that they see every single day, hyper-sexualized advertising, desensitization, etc? It's having to sit still and pay attention to learn math and reading?!? And Europe has no private violence, only organized radical violent minorities. Oy. I have a headache.
schools are underfunded. END of story.
Class sizes are massive, no books, kids going to school HUNGRY. Lack of medical care, kids dying from infected teeth for crying out loud. Homeless children don't learn well either.
With the 'all children thrown into the dumpster act' and the concentration on test scores over an education that is well rounded...There is a HUGE problem. Is our children learning? No. Thats where they BECOME automitrons is the underfunded, undervalued and shameful education system in the US today.
Kids are underfunded. Period.
You can point and whine all you want but taking money FROM the schools is just another bad right wing idea.
Corporate welfare is a much larger problem. Odd how no one decries handing all their tax dollars to HUGE corporations. Isnt it?
Pale:
Kids are not underfunded in Michigan.
Information on school funding is not as accessible as you may think. But try this:
See the first page of
http://www.gaylordschools.com/documents/07-2-12%20NonHomestead%20Millage%20Renewal%20BOE%20Presentation.pdf.
The narrative at the top says that Michigan schools must levy 18 mills in local property taxes to qualify for full state aid, which is called a “Foundation Allowance.”) The narrative below the table discloses the following:
• Foundation allowances vary by School District – 9 of 11 districts in the Cheboygan-Otsego-Presque Isle Intermediate School District receive the minimum amount of $7,085. Johannesburg receives $7,603 per pupil and Mackinac City receives $8,067 per pupil.
• The State will pay the foundation allowance (up to $7,085 for GCS Students) if the district levies 18 mills on non-homestead properties each year.
• School Districts whose foundation was greater than $6500 in 1993/94 are allowed to levy a millage against residential property. GCS was not at that level of funding and cannot levy this type of millage. The only millage GCS can levy is non-homestead.
See also http://www.northville.k12.mi.us/district/pdfs/facts2007-2008.pdf,
which reflects under “Finance” on the far left that per pupil aid to the Northville Public Schools is $8,438 for fiscal 2007-2008. This same source reflects class size in the district at 22 to 27 students per teacher.
The amount of the foundation grant depends upon the amount the district is able to raise from local property taxes. The policy is to give each school district a total per pupil budget of$11,000 per pupil. Notes however that the $11,000 per pupil is for “operating expenses.” Capital expenditures are financed through separate property taxes.
You can find the foundation grants for each school district in Michigan at http://www.senate.michigan.gov/sfa/Departments/DepartmentPublications/FoundationHistory94to07.pdf.
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