In America, each of us is entitled to our opinion, and to express it in public. Bully for you, for being concerned enough and having gumption enough to exercise those rights.

As the parent of two current AAPS students, my experience has been that the bulk of my kid’s teachers are/have been pretty good instructors. You can make a strong case that the factory model of education has its limitations (including that an element of babysitting is one of the factory model’s inevitable results), but that is not in the teacher’s bailiwick: that’s the environment they are given. While I have my suspicions about the politics of my kids’ teachers, with two or three exceptions over 20 pupil-years, I have no actual knowledge of their politics. While I have seen teachers work to make potentially dry material interesting to students, on the whole my kids have not been given a song & dance by the AAPS.

I am sorry that (apparently) your experience has been different.

Hopefully AAPS in anything like its present form will not be around much longer. Most “teaching” will probably be via internet modules in a few years. The few students who actually want to learn will migrate to charters, private schools and home schooling.

The main current functions of AAPS, entertaining students, indoctrinating them in political correctness and providing day care for working parents will fortunately mostly cease.

I think what we have here, is the school district identifying anything that could be funded by another fund and asking voters to support it. Would I prefer to be asked directly for operating funds? Yes. I would rather fund teachers and school operating costs directly. Is that an option? No.

And at the same time, school funding has been cut significantly. (See this piece from Michigan Parents for Schools: [link]). Ann Arbor schools are trying to preserve funding in the classrooms, and a way to do that is by funding infrastructure and technology separately. You don’t have to agree with it, but I don’t think they’ve been sneaky about it–the school board has been quite explicit about it.

And by the way, the Ann Arbor Chronicle has also been explicit about why they cut back on schools coverage: [link]

Jane Lumm won the absentee ballots by a very wide margin but also did very well in precinct voting on Election Day. By the time all of the precincts had reported – the only issue was whether the absentee balloting – reported last – would make a difference – it did not, except to widen the margin of victory for Ms. Lumm.

Jack Eaton, Mike Anglin, Sumi Kailasapathy, Steve Kunselman, and Lumm were present and posed together for a snapshot after victory was confirmed.

A salient feature of the Lumm campaign party was the broad-based support of the electorate. GOP stalwarts such as John Floyd appeared as well as many Democratic Party activists – such as Dave DeVarti and Vivienne Armentrout.

Despite a sophisticated campaign organization and substantial financial support, this was another case of a Hieftje-endorsed candidate losing in a landslide in a City Council election in recent years; incumbent Steve Rapundalo only garnered 39% of the general election vote against Jane in 2011 and Marcia Higgins 35% of the vote in the Fourth Ward Democratic primary in 2013. Some speculated at the Lumm party that this was proof that the electorate had turned against the “Council Party” aligned with the mayor that has dominated Ann Arbor city government during the last dozen years.

The substantial Chip Smith Fifth Ward write-in showing was attributed largely to effective social media efforts. Some noted that the write-in votes percentage (32%) against Mike Anglin actually approached the 34% collected by Neal Elyakin in the 2011 Democratic Party primary against Mr. Anglin.