Gov. Jennifer Granholm recently proposed Michigan’s K-12 schools should have a longer academic year, increasing the current roughly 165-day year to more than 180.

Tom Idema, Vowles Elementary school Parent Teacher Organization president said, some cash-strapped schools may question where the money will come from.

“There are people that would argue kids are in school longer, less vacation and less money being spent in the state,” said Idema, an assistant director of Student Life at CMU. “On the other hand, education is one of the most valuable things you could have.”

Michael Gilbert, chairman of the department of educational leadership at Central Michigan University, said education is important, but just extending the school year is not a simple answer.

“Just adding more hours and more days with doing nothing different may not necessarily accomplish anything,” Gilbert said.

He said longer school years will not necessarily help with competing in a global market.

Issues with the proposal could include schools needing to provide more transportation, energy costs and other factors, Gilbert said.

“It is hard to measure a cost benefit because the benefits aren’t going to be seen for years down the road,” Gilbert said.

Rogers City senior Heather Szumila is studying to be a preschool teacher. She said she thinks children should not have a longer school year.

“Kids should have some kind of break,” Szumila said. “If they are making more school days they are not going to have free time and they are not with their parents as much.”

Joseph Pius, superintendent of Mount Pleasant Public Schools, said some school districts could make good use of the extra time.

He said the issue he has with the proposition is the schools are not accommodated for hot weather and do not have air conditioning.

Pius said the expanded school year would serve to improve continuity of classes.

“We spend a lot of time getting students ready for that next school year,” he said. “I’m okay with the proposition but it is just question of accommodation.”

Granholm attempted in March to fill two term-limited seats — those of Trustee Gail Torreano and Trustee Stephanie Comai — but state officials are not about to accept the choices without further questioning.

Senators say they would rather see the next governor make the decisions since Granholm’s term ends in December.

We applaud the Michigan Senate for stepping up and approaching the nominations with caution.

A university’s board of trustees is extremely influential, dictating all major decisions.

From tuition rates to budget cuts to holding the university president accountable, no action goes into motion without the approval of the board.

To simply accept any nomination made by Granholm without a second guess would be irresponsible on the part of the Senate.

Keeping students in mind is crucial to improving the economic climate of this state.

Granholm appointed Ronald C. Edmonds and Kevin F. Kelley to the board.

The Senate would rather see the nominations made after the next governor is elected; it has nothing to do with the nominees’ lack of qualifications.

This logic makes perfect sense.

Why would students and lawmakers want trustees that weren’t appointed by a current governor?

Decisions made for the university would be more cohesive with current events in Michigan if the nominations were made after the gubernatorial election this fall.

Granholm’s nominations seem rushed, as if she’s trying to make choices for the simple sake of ensuring her say over who steps into the positions.

We can’t recall a time in the recent past when decisions on trustees were made this far in advance.

In fact, Granholm chose replacements for former trustees John Kulhavi and Jeffrey Caponigro in January 2009, almost a full month after their terms ended the previous December.

The next governor will need to take an extensive look at higher education funding, as it will continue to be an ongoing issue of concern.

It will take years for the state’s economy to emerge from the tangle it is currently in.

At the very least, the next governor should have a say in the people he will work with in leadership positions of the state’s public institutions.

CMU needs leaders interested in students getting the best education possible while making budget cuts that won’t lower academic standards.

The Senate should continue to be on guard and carefully think through the nomination process.

The board affects thousands of students who will eventually graduate and pour their talent into our economy.

Proceed wisely, and approve trustees that will keep students as a primary concern.

But for students who lost the funding last fall during the state’s budget crisis, it could be too little too late.

The proposal was one of several the governor revealed Thursday among her 2011 executive budget recommendations.

Michigan residents would be eligible for the tax credit after completing a degree from an in-state institution and working for at least one year in Michigan after graduation.

“It sounds nice, but it’s hard to think of something five years from now,” Clare freshman Tiffany Wilson said. “But it’s good she’s trying to get it to us somehow.”

Wilson was eligible for the Michigan Promise scholarship before it was taken out of the budget in October. She said it was unfortunate students such as herself will now have to re-qualify for the new version of the program.

The tax credit is designed to keep graduates working in the state and to stimulate the economy. Samantha Garthe does not think the economy is diverse enough for the new tax credit to make the desired impact.

“I’m going into education, and there are no teaching jobs in Michigan,” the Lake Leelanau senior said, explaining that she doubts she will qualify for the credit.

Impacts on business

Granholm also proposed a number of measures to help businesses save money.

She proposed eliminating a 22 percent surcharge on the Michigan Business Tax, cutting it in half in 2011 and eliminating it by 2012.

Changes to the MBT will impact local businesses’ ability to stimulate the economy, said Gigi Zavaglia, owner of Tavola Gigi’s, 437 S. Mission St.

“I would think that anything that lowers the burden small businesses face is more money they can put back into their business and growing their business, and putting it back into the economy,” she said.

Granholm also proposed a decrease in the Michigan sales tax to 5.5 percent from 6 percent.

The decrease would be offset by increasing the number of services that can be taxed across the board, excluding health care and business-to-business activities.

“Sales tax on services will be interesting,” said Mount Pleasant Mayor Jim Holton, who owns Mountain Town Station 506 W. Broadway St., and the Mount Pleasant Brewing Company, 614 W. Pickard St.  “A 5.5 percent tax of services is a tax increase to a lot of people.”

Granholm proposed new taxes would be levied on physicians to help finance Medicaid and a $2.50 tax could fall on airport rental cars to stimulate the Pure Michigan tourism campaign.

According to a budget summary from the governor’s office, all spending reductions, tax restructures and other reforms would rid the state of a $1.5 billion shortfall in the next fiscal year. Granholm’s suggestions will be sent to the legislature.

The speech was filled with generic political rhetoric and feel-good statements about bringing jobs to Michigan.
The theme of the speech was transitioning from “Old Michigan” — a Michigan dominated by the auto industry and manufacturing — to “New Michigan” — a Michigan with a diversified economy.

She talked about bringing new industries and jobs to Michigan in the coming years, especially green jobs. And that’s good — I would like to see green technology come to Michigan. Wind turbines, solar panels and nuclear plants would be great for Michigan.

But she was talking about bringing more jobs to Michigan last year. So where are they?
Most of her speech that talked about new industries did not talk about who was already in Michigan, but who she wanted to bring in (with the exception of the film industry and Hemlock Semiconductor, which are already here). If all we do is talk about new jobs, Michigan will never improve.

Granholm also said Michigan has relied too heavily on the auto industry. I wholeheartedly agree, but I was disappointed that she never mentioned that auto unions played a major role in putting the auto industry in the sad shape it is in. Autoworkers failed to give in to wage and benefit concessions at a time that auto companies could no longer afford high salaries and Cadillac insurance plans.

Granholm also promoted a constitutional amendment requiring the Legislature to have a budget passed by July 1, stressing the need for bipartisanship and a willingness to compromise. I support that amendment, but the governor should be stressing the need for a willingness to compromise to her own party.

It was House Speaker Andy Dillon who decided to wait until the last minute to get his chamber’s budget passed, when the Senate had its budget prepared weeks in advance.
Dillon even allowed for long weekends of vacation after he knew that passing a balanced budget would be difficult. It is the Democrats who really needed the lesson in bipartisanship and compromise.

Finally, one point of the speech that affects us here at CMU was the Michigan Promise. Granholm stated that she wanted to bring it back, appealing to the students.
But before students start thinking Granholm is on our side, remember she was the one who took it away. I would love to see the Michigan Promise reinstated, but only if the state has the money, and we cannot sacrifice K-12 education to restore the Promise.

Those were the basic points of the Governor’s last speech. It wasn’t anything special, just more of the same.
And that’s not what Michigan needs right now.

Despite reviewing all of the problems the state is facing, she failed to provide concrete solutions. It sounded just like the speech she gave last year. And the year before that.

Granholm’s speech accomplished nothing, save for reminding citizens of the failing economic climate Michigan can’t seem to get itself out of.

The economy is on the mind of the entire nation, and nowhere else is it more prevalent than in Michigan. The state saw an unemployment rate of 14.3 percent by the end of 2009, the highest in the nation. According to an article in the Washington Post, 632,000 jobs have been lost in Michigan since Granholm took office back in 2003.

The budget deficit is more than $1 billion. The state experienced government shutdowns twice in the last four years. Granholm may have inherited a slipping economy, but she has done little to improve it.

The blame doesn’t lay solely on her, though. Republicans and Democrats in Lansing haven’t been able to work together for years now. The government’s partisan politics have ruined the state. If Michigan is ever to return to its glory days, the leaders in Lansing are going to have to start focusing on what’s best for the citizens instead of worrying how they’ll get re-elected.

The failing auto industry may have not been Granholm’s fault, but her efforts in securing new jobs for the state has yielded little in results.

She swears she is committed to education, but has made record cuts in the state’s public schooling system. How does she expect Michigan to return to the state it was decades ago if the young aren’t given the chance to succeed?

In a world where employees need to have at least a college degree to work even the most menial of jobs, Michigan’s economic state is doing its part to erase any possible future for the youth in this state.

The biggest cut concerning college students has been the Michigan Promise Scholarship, which provided students $4,000 toward attending at least a two-year institution. Granholm claimed that she will bring the scholarship back next year, but it is doubtful that students will hold their breath.

Next January will end Granholm’s tenure. Whoever gets voted in — a Democrat or a Republican — will have their work cut out for them. As for her last year, Granholm should back up her State of the State address with results.

If successful, cyber schools will increase in number as an alternative to traditional public high schools. Central Michigan University’s Center for Charter Schools, the largest university authorizer of charter schools in the country, is qualified to authorize cyber schools.

The center’s executive director, Jim Goenner, said there is plenty of enthusiasm in the education community over the new legislation, but also many questions surrounding accountability of the prospective cyber schools.

“There’s also challenges because they’re so new to the field of public education that people are trying to figure, ‘Should the rules for accountability be different?’” Goenner said when comparing cyber schools to traditional public high schools.

Pilot cyber school authorizers will be required to report any kinks in the start-up process to the state legislature and the state Board of Education so lessons can be learned from a school’s errors before additional schools launch.

Cyber schools are like traditional schools in that they will cover the same subject matter, but teaching and learning is conducted over the Internet. Many anticipate that the two pilot cyber schools will be established and fully working by fall 2010.

Senate Education Committee Chair Sen. Wayne Kuipers, R-Holland, said cyber schools are beneficial in that students will be able to proceed at their own pace while working with an online instructor.

“(Cyber schools) open up a new avenue for instruction here in Michigan,” he said. “I believe it reflects where education is headed and where education will end up.”

Kuipers said entities wishing to start a cyber school will have to apply at one of the authorizing universities in Michigan, such as CMU. The schools will be run by institutions that oversee online learning programs.

Once a cyber school obtains a charter and enrolls students, the student will be given a computer and an access code to access the instructional materials, he said.

The idea is great in theory. Having the Governor put herself in front of students for an issue as important as this is always a plus.

The visit, however, was nothing more than shameless lobbying on Granholm’s part, as she failed to answer student questions or adequately describe how she would bring back the scholarship.

In the end, Granholm was “preaching to the choir” when she said the scholarship is important and did not accomplish much by coming to CMU.

The event was poorly planned from the beginning, as it was announced only days before Granholm came to campus. At 9:15 a.m., some students are on their way to class or work. The forum was held at the Charles V. Park Library Auditorium, one of the smallest venues on campus. And despite the forum being open to the public, students were turned away because there were too many people.

Only one question was answered, coming from a student who refused to sit down and be still.

The little talking Granholm did had no progress in bringing back the Promise. From the importance of higher education to families losing jobs, she delivered the same old rehash students have been hearing since the cut was proposed.

If Granholm really wanted to have an effective forum at CMU, she should have announced the visit further ahead of time. Plachta Auditorium at around 7 p.m. would have attracted a bigger crowd as opposed to a cramped auditorium early in the morning, even if she is busy.

Answering more questions from the audience would have made for progressive conversation. Instead, all she did was highlight the benefits of the Michigan Promise without giving a clear solution on how to bring it back.

And she spoke for 11 minutes.Too much time was spent on other speakers such as Student Government Association Vice President Brittany Mouzourakis which, as touching as her story might be, is the same sort of story we’ve heard from hundreds to thousands of other students. We want more higher ed funding; that’s nothing new.

Realistically, the forum itself was a useless idea. It’s a no-brainer that the governor will draw the most support to rally for scholarships at a college campus. But it’s not the students who make the laws and balance the budget. Granholm’s best advice was to get a hold of state representatives and let them know they want the Promise back.

As if no one already knew to do that.

Granholm would be much more productive rallying lawmakers in Lansing to ring the scholarship back and taking real action.

Leading by example will bring the scholarship back. Traveling from campus to campus and doing the same song and dance she did at CMU will not.

The scholarship was taken out of the 2009-10 state budget, when the Republican-controlled Senate and Democrat-controlled House of Representatives voted to remove the scholarship. Gov. Granholm vowed to fight for the Scholarship. Now she is traveling to colleges across the state, encouraging students to contact their representatives to support her plan.

The governor’s plan is to cut part of a future tax credit increase and use that money to pay for the scholarship.

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), at 10 percent, was scheduled to go up to 20 percent over the next few years, but Granholm is proposing that it only be increased to 12.5 percent and the remaining 7.5 percent that would be going back to taxpayers would be used to pay for the Michigan Promise.

The Governor’s plan is joined by some Republicans, such as Rep. Bill Caul, R-Mount Pleasant, a member of the Higher Education Appropriations Committee, who said he supports the plan because it would be “using existing dollars.” He went on to emphasize “the (state) government needs to tighten its belt, just like Michigan taxpayers have had to do.”

The Senate had approved the governor’s changes to the EITC last month; however, that money was going to go toward funding K-12 schools, not the Michigan Promise.

While I am glad the governor’s plan would not increase taxes, something that would be detrimental to Michigan’s economy, I am skeptical that cutting an income tax credit is the right thing to do. Michigan’s economy is suffering and, if the governor wants to spur the economy, she has to find a way to upstart spending, and a way to do that is to return money to the taxpayers.

If the state takes this money away from K-12 schools and moves it to fund the Michigan Promise, I think that hurts us more in the long run. The governor talked about a goal to double the number of college graduates in the state but, if she removes funding from the K-12 budget, that hurts Michigan’s future college students.
K-12 schools are struggling right now, especially in areas such as Detroit. Now is not the time to take funding from them.

Bringing back the Michigan Promise is an important issue, and I would love to see the state find the money to do it, but I fear that this proposal will hurt taxpayers as well as K-12 schools. But I will commend Granholm and Caul on one issue: at least this proposal uses money the government already has.

I am glad the governor realizes a tax increase is not the solution here.

I would encourage the state government to sit down and try to figure out a way to balance the funding for the Michigan Promise, K-12 schools and a tax credit for Michiganders.

Students are encouraged to attend the event and voice their opinions to the governor regarding the Promise.

The Michigan Promise Scholarship was cut from the state budget before the beginning of this semester, leaving many students without their $4,000 scholarship for passing the Michigan Merit Exam. The scholarship had to be cut from the state budget in order to keep the state running. Many students were depending on the scholarship to help pay for classes and living expenses. The cancellation has sparked fierce debate around campus without any direct action.

But meetings such as these could help change all that.

This is an opportune moment for students to get involved and tell Granholm directly how they feel about the cancellation of the Michigan Promise. Granholm has her hands full trying to balance the budget, boost the state economy and create jobs so people will stay in Michigan. Despite her busy schedule, Granholm is creating the time to come and talk to CMU. Students should try and show the governor the same courtesy.

An early 9:15 a.m. start time isn’t every student’s favorite time. Sleeping in and early classes will no doubt deter most students from showing up to the Park Library Auditorium.

But if students are truly as passionate about the Michigan Promise as they say they are, they’ll show up and listen to Granholm. Wake up and let her know that the scholarship is needed. Skip class and let your professor know ahead of time if need be and demand an explanation as to why students aren’t receiving the money they were expected to.

Speaking to the governor one-on-one in her office would be much more awkward than speaking to her on campus, where students are every day. The chance to speak to Granholm face to face in such a comfortable setting may not happen again for a long time.

The scholarship is more than just money for college students. It’s an incentive for young people to seek higher education in Michigan and make their home state better. It’s encouragement for high school students to do well on the Merit Exam, showing the state the strengths and weaknesses of our public school systems.

There’s been enough talk on campus about what Granholm should do with the Michigan Promise. Now it’s time to tell her directly. Don’t let the chance slip away.

But when the issue is the Michigan budget crisis, technical difficulties keeping the Senate from tallying votes last night just added insult to injury.

For the second time in three years, the Michigan government briefly shut down as a result of the yearly budget not being passed by Thursday’s deadline. For most states, passing a budget on time is no problem. Only two other states have had to shut down their government because of a budget crisis.

But how many states have had more than one government shutdown? Just one — Michigan. Why have we had to resort to shutting down part of the state government twice in the past two years?

The answer is that we have had the same failures in leadership for the past three years (and arguably longer than that). We are in the same scenario as we were in for the 2007 shutdown: an economically incompetent Democratic Governor, a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives with a Speaker who waits until it is too late to try to begin work on the budget, and a Republican-controlled Senate who tries to get the budget done, but is unable to overcome the incompetency of the House.

This year, the main problems are basically the same problem that we faced in the 2007 shutdown. Work on the budget started too late, and many state legislators lacked a sense of urgency to get the budget done on time.

While budgets were being passed in the Senate late into the night Tuesday, the House had already gone to recess until Wednesday. On Wednesday night, the Senate stayed in session for hours after the House had already recessed.

Michiganders saw the same thing in 2007: Speaker of the House Andy Dillon,D-Redford, exhibited a pattern of only having the House meet once or twice a week, and he even took a five-day weekend trip to Mackinac Island when he knew the state was facing a budget crisis.

On the other hand, Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, has been getting his budgets passed and sent over to the House faster than the House is getting budgets passed and sent to the Senate.

The second problem is the Democrats in the legislature have refused to accept that spending cuts are an inevitable result of the state’s deficit. Taxes can only be raised so much and, when you cannot raise taxes anymore, you have to cut spending.

Fortunately, a temporary budget extension of 30 days was passed by the state legislature late last night. Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed the bill, ending the shutdown only hours after it started.

But Michigan isn’t out of the woods yet. A full yearly budget still needs to be passed for the 2009-10 fiscal year. Unless the state legislature realizes that spending cuts are going to be necessary and that they have to crack down and get to work, Michigan will see a full-blown government shutdown.