09.17.07
Posted in politics, life, education at 8:04 pm by Brandon
Okay, this is the last tax post for a while, I promise. But I did a little research and dug up some numbers which seem to really support my hypothesis that Michigan really is a low tax state in comparison with the rest of the country.
In Michigan in 2007, the federally defined level of poverty for a family of four was $20,650. If one lived in any of the 49 other states or Washington D.C., one would pay the following income tax rates based on that salary (please don’t let the lack of alphabetical order throw you):
State Tax Rate
Alabama 5%
Arizona 3.05%
California 4%
Connecticut 5%
Florida 0%
Hawaii 7.6%
Illinois 3%
Iowa 6.48%
Kentucky 5.8%
Maine 8.5%
Massachusetts 5.3%
Mississippi 5%
Montana 6.9%
Nevada 0%
New Jersey 1.75%
New York 6.85%
North Dakota 2.1%
Oklahoma 6.25%
Pennsylvania 3.07%
South Carolina 7%
Tennessee 6% (Taxes only on dividend and interest income)
Utah 6.98%
Virginia 5.75%
Wisconsin 6.5%
Washington D.C. 7%
Alaska 0%
Arkansas 4.5%
Colorado 4.63%
Delaware 5.2%
Georgia 6%
Idaho 7.4%
Indiana 3.4%
Kansas 6.25%
Louisiana 4%
Maryland 4.75%
Minnesota 5.35%
Missouri 6%
Nebraska 5.12%
New Hampshire 5%
New Mexico 5.3%
North Carolina 7%
Ohio 4.083%
Oregon 9%
Rhode Island 3.75%
South Dakota 0%
Texas 0%
Vermont 3.6%
West Virginia 4%
Wyoming 0%
Washington 0%
That’s right, at the poverty level, 34 other states (and Washington D.C.) are charging their residents MORE income taxes than Michigan.
Furthermore, at several states (who have graduated income tax rates) individuals earning median income levels pay more income taxes than we do here in Michigan! For example in Vermont, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Arizona one would pay a greater percentage of their income in income tax than in Michigan if one earned a median income for those states.
That makes 38 states and Washington D.C. that expect their residents to pay more than Michigan expects its residents to pay.
We are a low-tax state. It is catching up with us.
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09.13.07
Posted in education at 5:11 pm by Brandon
If you hadn’t heard, Michigan’s budget is currently in the crapper. If you live in Michigan, I’d encourage you to write your senator or representative and tell them to fix Michigan’s budget problem. Also, if you’re interested, here’s a countdown clock to the 2007-2008 fiscal year. Below is a letter I’ve written to my state senator. If you find it persuasive, I would encourage you to write in to your representative (if you’re a Michiganian) and ask that they solve the budget crisis without slashing funding to education.
Here’s how you can contact your state representative.
And here’s how you can contact your state senator.
Dear Senator Hardiman,
My name is Brandon. I am writing to you to urge you to do all in your power to ensure the passage of a balanced budget before October 1st.
As you are no doubt aware, the state of Michigan is facing massive budget shortfalls. And, as you are also no doubt aware, the state of Michigan has significantly cut funding to programs such as higher education as well as K-12 spending—even since Governer Granholm has taken office. Some estimates place the projected shortfall of Michigan’s budget at around 1.7 billion dollars for the upcoming fiscal year.
Who is to blame? Frankly, I think this question is pointless. The more pertinent question, now, is what do we do going forward? I am sure that you value education like I do; we cannot continue to cut educational spending and expect a long-term solution to our economic difficulties as a state if we do not set education for our citizens as a priority. The bottom line is this: One way or another we need more revenue.
I like to pay taxes just about as much as the next guy: Not at all. However, we face a crisis. Either we raise revenue in some way, shape, or form or we will face disaster. Unfortunately this disaster is not a nameless, faceless disaster. No, this disaster will be immediate, this disaster will be discriminatory (it will affect our poor and vulnerable with less impunity than it does our wealthy), and most ominous, this disaster is but a few short days in our future.
On September 30th, I will become a father for the first time. The next day, a budget must be in place. If you do not find some way to fund the state of Michigan my life will be impacted in the following ways. My wife is a teacher in the public school system. She teaches English and Journalism. She’s a good teacher and she cares about her students. My wife’s superintendent has already issued a warning that her school may not be able to make their October 21st payroll obligations if you do not pass a budget. This would leave my family (with less than a month-old child) to survive on my salary alone. I am a doctoral student at Michigan State University. I make approximately $17,000 in salary per year. Assuming that Michigan State could still afford to pay me (which is a big assumption given the loss of funding to education after a failure to pass a state budget) this leaves our family to subsist on about 1,300 dollars per month.
I have lived in Michigan for many years. I like it here. To be frank, my wife and I are highly educated and highly trained; I am pursuing a doctorate and my wife holds a Masters degree in education. If Michigan hopes to retain highly educated and highly trained people, it needs to start funding the things highly educated people care about. I find it highly unlikely that my wife and I would choose to raise my child in a state that slashes funding to K-12 education, cuts care to poor and aged populations, and otherwise puts our most vulnerable populations out to twist in the wind.
We have cut too much. The same classroom that my wife taught in 6 years ago which held 25 students now holds 35 students—although, there’s not enough money to get each student a place to sit. I wish I could say that I don’t care how you get a balanced budget, but the fact is I do. We need more taxes, we need them now. We can’t afford the cuts any longer.
Thanks for your time,
Brandon
Tags: michigan budget, letter to representative, politics, michigan politics, michigan, budget crisis, michigan budget crisis
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08.18.05
Posted in education at 8:51 pm by
Once again, the ‘No Child Left Behind’ act (aka the “Let’s Do Our Damndest To Ensure Every Student At An Underfunded School District Is Royally Fucked” act, or the LDODTEESAAUSDIRF act), has struck again.
It now has struck a bit closer to home, though. Jen’s school hasn’t met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). Why, you ask? Is it because of lazy teachers with blatant disregard of their position? Is it because no one cares about the students? No. It’s not because of that, though I’m sure there’s a teacher or two who could stand to refocus their attention, they’re not the reason Jen’s employer hasn’t met AYP.
My wife’s school didn’t meet AYP because they didn’t have a high enough graduation rate.
Let’s give that a moment to sink in.
Okay. Have you thought about it yet?
That’s right. They didn’t have a high enough graduation rate, therefore they didn’t meet adequate yearly progress. Beautiful. So, it’s not that students weren’t succeeding on standardized testing.
Jen’s school didn’t meet AYP because two things happened.
One thing that invariably happened was that enough seniors didn’t pass their classes. This group of mostly 18 year olds (who are, by the way, allowed to vote, serve in the military, and smoke cigarettes, but are, evidently, not held responsible to turn in their homework) were failed because they didn’t meet the expectations of the class. Jen’s school is, in this case, punished because they set a standard (which was pretty minimal to begin with) and stood by it.
Another thing that invariably happened is that some students who were over the age of 16 exercized their legal right to discontinue their secondary education. The school has no legal precedence to forcibly keep them in school. The school could eventually (if AYP isn’t met next year) get penalized because of some individuals executing their legal rights. Of course, no one’s pointing the finger at businesses that snap up 16 year old labor. There’re no government programs that actually give any impetus to the 16 year old to FINISH high school.
It’s time that people started blowing the whistle. Politicians in this country have positively paved a fucking five lane superhighway to the end of public education as we know it. They’ve set public education up to fail with the NCLB act, and then have succeeded in ensuring that it wouldn’t have the funds to even have a prayer.
If you asked me, and so far no one has, it seems like it might be prudent to reassess NCLB and see if it’s making a positive difference. Perhaps, and this is a groundbreaking suggestion, rather than asking politicians what the best educational move is on behalf of this nation’s children, maybe, just maybe we should be asking the teachers?
7/19 ADDENDUM: Speaking of education, today is a big day in mine. I’ll be defending my thesis proposal, so if you think of me at around 1:30 say a little prayer, or wish me luck if you’re not the prayin’ sort. Hopefully, everybody will think my ideas are good enough to go through with…so keep your fingers crossed!
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07.21.05
Posted in education at 1:21 pm by
I don’t know how much y’all know about the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB ). If you’ve been reading here for a while, you’ve probably guessed that I’m no big fan of the legislation. NCLB, the bi-partisan legislation Bush claims as excellent public school reform, is possibly the worst bit of legislation to have ever been enacted, in my opinion. I’ve written about NCLB before, even parodied it.
Jen and I have a friend who’s a teacher, and NCLB is becoming a bit more personal. I mean, it’s always been personal, to a degree. Under threat of firing, Jen’s teenage english students must meet ‘Adequate Yearly Progress.’ Yep, that’s right, even if a student chooses to NEVER do a shred of homework, even if a parent couldn’t give a shit whether her or his child passes any of their classes, the teacher is held responsible.
This friend of ours is trying desperately to get a job. And, frankly, west Michigan is a tough job market for a teacher to land a job. NCLB, now, makes it even harder. You see, it turns out that just because a teacher is ‘highly qualified’ (has a full college major) to teach ‘English’ they may not be ‘highly qualified’ to teach ‘language arts.’ Likewise, the teacher certified to teach ‘History’ is not necessarily certified to teach ’social studies.’
What that means is that if a teacher certified to teach history applies to teach an identical course with the course name ’social studies’ that teacher is no longer considered to be ‘highly qualified’ to teach the course–even though the course content hasn’t changed a lick. Now, in a school with a tight job market favoring schools, schools survive. Some teachers, like our friend, get screwed but in the end the schools don’t suffer as much as they might. However, in an area facing more financial hardship that has difficulty attracting teachers to begin with, such semantic bullshit may well sound the death bell for a school district.
I suppose schools could go about changing the names of their courses in order to meet the requirements of being ‘highly qualified.’ I think, though, that we need to be asking ourselves, “is this really what we want from legislation?” More beauraucracy? More red tape? More fussing over semantics?
How about we start holding parents somewhat responsible for their actions? Now, nobody wants a deadbeat teacher out there being a loser and not really doing their jobs. Deadbeat teachers should be reprimanded, and if that doesn’t do the job–fired. But legislation that expects that the fundamental problem with the US educational system IS THAT teachers are by and large deadbeats–and make no mistake, this is exactly what NCLB does–is terrible. NCLB puts the responsiblity on teachers to play the role of parent.
Then, if teachers don’t assume that role well enough and soon enough so that their students are able to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress, it gives parents a try at parenting…am I the only one who thinks that this is a little bass-akwards?
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05.22.05
Posted in education at 2:26 pm by
My alma mater welcomed their most high profile graduation speaker yet yesterday. Calvin played host to President Bush as their commencement speaker. I’ve kept pretty quiet about this matter, mostly because I have mixed feelings about it. I mean, it’s great for Calvin to have such a high profile graduation speaker. The admissions representative in me thinks, “What a great profile raising event!”
On the other hand, I’m frustrated because of the message that Calvin sends to the world. The message runs parallel to the ‘look what a high profile and excellent school we are.’ The other message that they sent was, ‘we’re just like EVERY other Christian college out there–republican Bush worshippers…it’s just that we have the influence to nab the attention of the President from time to time.’
So, for me, having a strong opinion was difficult. I saw benefits and detriments to having the President give the commencement speech. Lately, though, I’ve been leaning toward viewing this occurance as a bad thing. Not for the reasons that you’re thinking, though. My reasons for not having President Bush speak at graduation are not political. I just think Calvin graduates deserve more.
Calvin students spend 4 of the hardest years of their life enduring the rigors of one of the most challenging traditionally Christian higher educations one can find anywhere in the world. Each semester, there is a convocation. And, at the end of the year, there is a giant celebration: Commencement. At Calvin, due to its historically reformed roots, and the influence of turn of the century reformers like Kuyper and others, commencement is a celebration of a community of future scholars and practitioners who are being celebrated as they enter the workforce of the Kingdom of God; they’ve been prepared and will continue to prepare to be agents of renewal.
It seems fitting, then, that a commencement speaker would be able to clearly articulate and understand the mission and vision of the institution whose commencement was being celebrated. A person, oh, say, like Nicholas Wolterstorff, who would be able, arguably, to embody the spirit of excellence and renewal–and who, by the way, was bumped as this year’s commencement speaker by the President.
Calvin invited President Bush for commencement. But, that’s not the biggest problem, to me. The biggest problem, I feel, is that the focus was taken off of the graduates. You know, those folks who worked their asses of for four or so years. The focus became president Bush. Note, here, that had the president been John Kerry, there still would have been a problem–though I subscribe to his politics. Jen and I, on our way to the mall yesterday noticed that when Calvin invited the President to campus, they invited a lot of things to happen.
They invited news crews, and their telescoping satellite dishes.
They invited 50 or 60 police officers patrolling the campus on the day of graduation.
They invited a street full of protesters to litter the streetside with ‘fuck bush’ signs
They invited the guy with a football helmet and underware outside of his shorts to walk on the roadway outside of campus with his protest sign.
They invited wackos and left wing nut jobs alike to stand along the side of campus.
They put faculty into a position of needing to be able to express their disapproval of the President’s politics (lest the world perceive Calvin as ‘just another evangelical Christian College’–something that Calvin faculty take as the most personal of insults) rather than being able to celebrate the accomplishments of their students.
They then told the faculty not to protest. Thus inviting that very personal insult onto the faculty.
They invited dissention in their own ranks.
They invited the focus to be taken off the graduates and on to the President.
All of this to host a dubious political figure that has caused as much derision in the American populous as he has cooperation, and to ‘raise the public appearance of Calvin College.’
A fine job that did, in my opinion. People were forced into either a role of excitment about the president or disgust about the president. Either you were disgusted at his presence, or you were elated. You were either for him or against him. That’s just not fair to anyone–least of all to Calvin’s graduates.
I do hope that the majority of Calvin’s graduates were able to enjoy their commencement, the celebration of their becoming ‘full time’ agents of renewal. Hopefully, in the future Calvin remembers who commencement is for.
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03.07.05
Posted in education at 2:47 pm by
It occurs to me that some readers could have taken the No Child Left Behind post a bit differently than I intended for it to be taken. While it was sarcastic and satirical, it was not intended to belittle the opposition to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB ) bill.
Toni, a commenter on that particular post, raises an excellent point. She mentions that while a humorous point was made, it’s not always so funny for those teachers at ‘failing’ schools. In truth, they are entirely held responsible for their students’ performances.
Now, I also don’t pretend that ALL teachers are responsible wonderful human beings that should in no way be held accountable for the job they do. However, it also makes no sense to place the entirity of the responsibility to bring the children of this country up to some stellar sense of what is par.
Some teachers suck. Some teachers rock. No child left behind assumes that all teachers suck, and it’s up to them to prove that they don’t. Some of the teachers that rock have no problem proving that they rock. They simply do the job that they’ve been doing for so many years, and their students succeed.
However, some teachers that rock will keep rocking, and their students will ‘fail.’ No child left behind legislation says that because the students ‘fail’ the teacher sucks. And that, my friends, sucks.
I find it particularly suspicious that the teachers that have proven that they rock come from predominantly white, well-funded, and properly equipped school districts. Claiming that ALL the teachers at these economically challenged schools suck is a grossly racist concept.
I think my biggest problem with the legislation is the underlying belief that failing schools have a personnel problem. To me, this is VERY ignorant of problems of racism and classism.
So, in short, I don’t think that ALL teachers are doing a good job. Those teachers who are doing shitty work in well funded ‘passing’ schools, don’t deserve to get paid the salaries they do. But, it’s also true that teachers doing a good job in ‘failing’ schools don’t deserve the often relatively poor salaries and conditions that they have.
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03.02.05
Posted in education at 2:30 pm by
Kristen over at McCarty Musings posted about parody of NCLB being passed around at the school she works at about the revised March Madness rules in compliance with No Child Left Behind. I liked it a lot and started coming up some of my own rules, it was going to be a comment, but it got so long, I decided to take it over here.
This is being passed around my school district- the teachers love it, because the teachers aren’t thrilled about NCLB. I thought it was pretty funny myself…
1. All teams must advance to the Sweet 16, and all will win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.
2. All kids will be expected to have the same basketball skills at the same time and in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in basketball, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY BASKETBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL.
3. Talented players will be asked to practice on their own, without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren’t interested in basketball, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don’t like basketball.
4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th and 11th games.
5. This will create a New Age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals. If no child gets ahead, then no child will be left behind.
This list so inspired me that I decided to add a few rules of my own to the list:
6. Parents will in no way be held responsible for their children’s basketball ability. The child may or may not choose to practice freethrows at home, either way the coach is responsible.
7. Players will in no way be held responsible for their own basketball ability. They may or may not practice their freethrows at home, either way the coach is responsible.
8. If any teams fail to make it to the sweet 16 for three years in a row, all of the coaches and athletic directors for the team will be subject to firing. The team will be placed under the control of the parents (yes, the same parents who were in no way responsible to make sure that their child was practicing their freethrows.)
9. Success will be judged by your teams’ international performance against the selected individuals whom other nations designate as the ‘best basketball players their country has to offer.’ While countries outside the US are able to choose their all-stars, all teams in the US must bring our least talented players up to ‘all-star’ status.
10. Teams must take on and be judged on the basis of ALL performers on said team. This includes any individuals who are immigrants from other countries who are in no way farmiliar with the playbook, the language of the coach, or the nature of the game of basketball . These immigrant players will be expected to perform at or above the status of ‘all-star’ immediately.
11. Insufficient funding is not an excuse for poor performance. All teams will be expected to perform at the aforementioned ‘All Star’ level regardless of school income level. (i.e. teams from the Detroit Public Schools will be expected to perform at the level of teams from Grosse Point Public Schools (even though state funding per stu…oops, player at the Grosse Pointe Public Schools is in the realm of 3 or 4 thousand dollars more per player per year.)
12. All teams will be expected to perform on an equal level–this is the case regardless of whether or not teams are given equal access to uniforms, practice gymnasiums, nice basketball shoes, nutritionial supplements, etc.
13. In the unlikely event that the team makes the Sweet 16 and wins the ensuing championship, all the praise and glory goes to George W. Bush.
14. In the event that a team fails to make the Sweet 16 or fails to win the ensuing championship, George W. Bush will be able to publicly and personally declare the coaches of any of said teams ‘failures’ with no political ramifications.
I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea…Thanks, Kristen, for the post.
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01.26.05
Posted in education at 5:05 pm by
I was a college admissions counselor for 3 years. There were things I liked and things I didn’t like. All in all it was fun. One of my least favourite things was doing college fairs. There’s little I like less than parroting the same three lines of marketing over and over while parents and students are herded by your display like cattle. You start to feel like you’re one of those informational commercials that they turn on 13 inch tv’s at a homeshow…stuck on constant repeat.
Standing at one of these events, once the initial ‘woo hoo I’m a college recuriter’ stage wears off (after about 3 minutes) one starts to take notice of the spectacle that a college fair is. There are a number of types of college recruiter. There’s the sleezy ‘used car salesman’ college recruiter. This type of recruiter you can tell by their rumpled sportscoat–they’ll tell you anything you want to hear in order to get you to visit.
There’s the snotty ‘too cool to be social with other recruiters’ type of recruiter. Then there’s the bubbly/ditsy (could be male or female) Christian college recruiter…this type tries way too hard to get people to stop by their table. There are, of course, a small percentage of ‘normals.’ I’d like to think I fell into this category.
There are a number of other types of folks, the most prominent were the military recruiters. The problem I have with the military was that they didn’t play by the rules. At college fairs, there is a code of ethics to which college representatives are expected to adhere. For the most part people followed the rules.
For example, generally representatives are expected to stay behind their table, represtentatives were expected not to give away items, etc. Generally even apart from the uniforms, one could spot a military recruiter from a mile off. They’d be the ones breaking all the rules: giving away water bottles, physically making contact with kids to get them to sign up for more information at their tables.
The most troubling practice I saw these military recruiters engage in was to make promises to kids over and over that I knew they’d never be able to keep. If I had a nickle for every time some kid was told that he or she could fly an attack helicopter. It was really sad. I knew full well the kid would be scraping bird shit of a runway in Guam, but that wasn’t the story they were fed.
They’d arrive in their government issue Hummers creating quite a stir. Compared to going to college, this military was a much more entertaining proposition.
With all that said, the concept that I spoke of yesterday, of the military getting yet another leg up on the competition of college. I truly cannot fathom that the military would need more opportunity to have special rights and continue to be above the law. But, with W as commander-in-chief, I suppose this shouldn’t surprise me.
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01.25.05
Posted in education at 3:12 pm by
If you’ve been around this blog for any length of time, you probably know that I think the ‘No Child Left Behind’ Act is just about the worst piece of shit legislation this country has ever seen. Recently, I was listening to NPR and I heard about yet another provision of this bill. This one sent my blood pressure through the roof. I know at the outset that this is a topic I can’t cover in one short post. I’ll deal with some thoughts today, and a few more tomorrow.
It turns out that NCLB legislation has an allowance in it that makes available all the names and telephone numbers of any student that attends a high school funded by the government monies. Essentially, then, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine recruiters are given the names of every public school attending student in this country.
I won’t go into the tactics that these recruiters use to recruit individuals into the service (at least not until tomorrow) but suffice it to say, they don’t abide by the same rules that college recruiters abide by (I know it’s true, I’ve been both a student and a college recruiter.)
I don’t know if this seems strange to others, but it does to me. After all, this year many public high schools have been mandated to remove junk food dispensing machines or pop vending machines. Much of this comes at the behest of governmental agencies. Evidently, high school students shouldn’t have the choice of easily fattening foods or drinks. Why then, is it suddenly kosher to think that for some reason these students should be capable to make a decision about whether or not they want to step out onto the front lines with bullets whizzing by their heads.
When I was 18, I shouldn’t have been making that decision. I mean, the service never really appealed to me, BUT, I also probably shouldn’t have been allowed to vote…or probably drive. I wasn’t an adult. I was easily swayed by fanciful stories of glory…I didn’t even know what true glory was.
Why is it that we allow the military first dibs on our kids but a college that wants the name and number of a student must obtain that name and number through a voluntary source.
It’s something to think about. Tomorrow, more on the questionable ethicality of some military recruiting techniques.
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08.30.04
Posted in education at 9:31 pm by
Almsot exactly four years ago Republican Candidate George W. Bush touted himself as the education candidate. Bush was the candidate who would forever change education. Reform education he did, very badly. Unprecedented national control of public education is the main product of the No Child Left Behind act. (More on NCLB soon!)
The president prides himself in education. Imagine my surprise then, when I read in the magazine of the National Education Association, the NEA Today, that when choosing a candidate to support the NEA wasn’t able to choose President Bush. Now before y’all start screaming about the liberal NEA bastards, you should recognize that the NEA wasn’t able to select President Bush as an endorsed candidate because he didn’t even take the few moments necessary to fill out a survey sent to him by the NEA.
Are these the signs of a man who cares deeply about education? I think the truth is that W forgot about education. It’s impossible to tell what funding for education would’ve looked like had we not gotten mired in a war. Of course, it is his job to be able to do both–handle domestic AND international affairs. It doesn’t seem logical to me to completely ignore domestic affairs like education for the sake of safety–if even we are safer.
America isn’t unifocused as 43 would love to think. Yes, of course, I want to be safe. Safety, though, at the expense of education isn’t really safety at all. Our president would do well to remember that terrorism isn’t the only threat to our safety. I would argue that a rapidly growing void between classes is a much larger threat to the overall safety and wellbeing of this country.
For more from the NEA check out their website at nea.org
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