As we enter statewide standardized testing season, I find myself reflecting on this school year and the series of articles I have written about the Read by Grade Three Law. I think about the main point I wanted to make in sharing my experiences and concerns with the law. It’s this—that ultimately our voices need to be heard…
DetailsJeremy Frame has been a special education teacher in Farmington for 17 years. He recalls attending a new teacher orientation in 2003 with 80-100 new hires in which he only saw one other African-American man.“I remember those first few years, having issues and questions and nobody I could turn to and say, ‘Here’s my experience;…
DetailsCateisha Wardlaw is a paraeducator in Pontiac, working with high school students who have autism. She has worked in the district for 15 years; her dream is to be a preschool teacher. She has an associate’s degree in early childhood education, but she recently learned it would cost $50,000 to finish a bachelor’s degree and…
DetailsPhu Trieu has taught middle school social studies in Mattawan for 16 years. He loves the profession while acknowledging it has ups and downs. He came to the United States as a baby after his mom fled Vietnam with him and his siblings and they lived for a time in a refugee camp in Thailand.…
DetailsMiah Cooper is a second-year teacher in Essexville, which is a part of the Bay City community where she grew up. The Bay City Central High School graduate was honored by the NAACP during Black History Month in February for service to the community as one of the only black teachers born, raised, and teaching…
DetailsDaVasha Lobbins works as a secretary at Waverly Schools in Lansing, but she aspires to be a teacher. The 27-year-old was empowered by a high school class that taught personal finance and other life skills, so she earned a bachelor’s degree at Western Michigan University with a double major in Family and Consumer Sciences and…
DetailsBy Brenda Ortega MEA Voice Editor Growing up in a small farming community in west Michigan, MEA member Angela Pérez didn’t know what she would do with her life—but she wanted to do something. She was the first in her family to go to college when she started taking classes at Muskegon Community College. Pérez…
DetailsMEA member Jeff Kass was a mid-career English teacher when his take-home pay began going down each year. Amid rising costs of living, the Ann Arbor educator—like others—took on second and third jobs, including one year moonlighting as a pizza delivery driver. With a former student serving as his manager, Kass worked a few shifts…
DetailsBy Brenda Ortega MEA Voice Editor Ask MEA Economist Ruth Beier about her youth, and you might get a wry joke with a deadpan delivery: “I describe my childhood as Lord of the Flies in the suburbs. It was a pack of kids and some Cap’n Crunch.” Truth is—she’s not kidding. On the precipice of…
DetailsGov. Gretchen Whitmer got a close-up look at the work of a literacy specialist when she job shadowed MEA member Kristyn Cubitt at Troy’s Wass Elementary School in March. Whitmer observed Cubitt co-teaching a readers’ workshop lesson followed by a coaching session with a third-grade teacher. She also saw Cubitt run a Leveled Literacy Intervention…
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