NPE Action Endorses Mitchell Robinson for the Michigan State School Board

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The Network for Public Education Action is proud to endorse Mitchell Robinson for Michigan State School Board.  Mitchell is an Associate Professor of Music Education at Michigan State University and has been an educator for over 40 years. Mitchell has a Doctoral degree in music education and a certificate of advanced study in educational administration.  

As a policy scholar and author, Mitchell has conducted and published research on music teacher evaluation systems and school-college collaboration, served on the Editorial Boards of several research and policy journals, and as editor of two academic journals. He has contributed chapters to books on beginning teacher mentoring and induction, qualitative research methods, and music in higher education, and has presented paper sessions and keynote addresses at local, state, national, and international venues. Through his writing at Eclectablog, a Michigan political blog and website, he has  used his background as a teacher, teacher educator, and policy scholar to move his scholarship into the public arena, providing commentary on matters of educational and public policy. 

Mitchell’s positions on testing, charters, and vouchers are all in line with those of NPE Action. Here’s what Mitchell told us.

Testing: “Testing can be an excellent way for teachers to learn more about what their students know and can do, and to improve their own practice in the classroom. But for these things to happen, testing needs to be the responsibility of the teacher—not multinational corporations whose agendas focus more on market share and profits than on children, teachers, and learning. “

Charters:  “The original notion of charter schools as “laboratories of innovation” came from teacher unions; that original purpose has now been lost; lost to predatory charter management organizations, education “reformers,” and politically-motivated special interest groups. After studying the effects of the proliferation of charter schools in Michigan over the last 10+ years, I see no evidence of “innovation” in the charter sector, and would support not only a moratorium on the approval of new charters, but much stricter oversight and accountability measures for existing charter schools.”

Vouchers: “Vouchers are overwhelmingly unpopular with voters, contribute to school segregation, don’t help poor families attend the “school of their choice,” and the most recent research on vouchers suggests that the students who use them perform worse academically than their peers in public schools.”

NPE Action urges Michigan public education supporters to get out the vote for Mitchell Robinson in the primary on August 7, 2022.

No candidate authorized this ad. It is paid for by Network for Public Education Action, New York, New York.