Where we stand.

TL;DR

Education is more than job training. We agree to educate all our children so that they may become productive citizens who maintain our grand experiment in government of, by, and for the people. Recent events threaten to turn us away from this work:

• Our nation is founded on the principle that we are to be governed by laws and not the changing whims of a particular leader. All that we at MIPFS work for — a quality education for all children — depends on the rule of law and a commitment to see that the laws are faithfully executed. The current efforts of our national government to suborn the law must end.
• Our people will not long remain free if we are never taught the whole of our own history. Current efforts to sanitize that history by fiat impoverish our children and threaten our democracy.
• Our future is at risk if we turn our backs on the effort to make real the promise of our nation’s founding. The cruel and sneering effort to suppress discussions of diversity, of equity, and of inclusion mocks our ideals and stunts the education of our children. Cynically doing so in the name of fighting discrimination is an affront to everything for which our nation stands.

Rule of law

“The very definition of a Republic is ‘an Empire of laws and not of men.’” — John Adams, April 1776

“My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.” — Rep. Barbara Jordan (D-TX), House Judiciary Committee hearings on impeachment, July 1974

As a public interest organization which advocates for quality education for all children, Michigan Parents for Schools usually steers clear of larger political debates. Our focus is, and always has been, ensuring that every child in our state has access to strong, adequately and equitably funded, community governed public schools.

But our work is for nothing if we cannot count on the fact that our governments, at all levels, will abide by the laws enacted on behalf of the people. We are both angered and frightened to see how widely the rule of law is being undermined, including and especially in the sphere of education.

Public schools are local governments that all of us have agreed to create so we can ensure the education of all the children in our communities. Some of the first acts of our nation were to ensure funding was available for free public schools — including the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which set up the rules for creating territorial and state governments in the Great Lakes region, including Michigan. (The fact that there were native peoples already living on that land is part of another, less honorable, legacy with which we still contend.) A portion of each township was reserved to fund local schools. And this was before the ratification of the Constitution!

Much of our nation’s history consists of trying to live up to the bold promises of our founding documents. Nowhere has this been more true than in education, where we have a chance to mold new citizens as well as prepare them for work. Education was and remains primarily in the hands of local boards and state governments. But since the beginnings of the civil rights movement, our national government has played a role assisting schools with meeting the needs of all students and ensuring that the rights of all students were protected.

What we are seeing today is nothing less than a statement that our national government intends to renege on those promises. In committing to closing the US Department of Education (ED), the Trump Administration is doing much more than breaking up a bureaucracy. The mission of ED was created and funded by Congress over the years, and only Congress can decide to change or end that mission. However, no organization can function if there is no one there to do the work.

While many of ED’s core functions — including distributing Title I and IDEA funds to K-12 education and providing student aid for higher education — will in theory be moved to other departments, no provision seems to have been made to avoid the widespread chaos that will be the likely result. In the meantime, the Department has lost nearly half its employees, crippling its ability to function.

Even more telling are the functions which are being hit hardest and are not on the list for salvation. Notable among them are the Office of Civil Rights, which investigates cases of discrimination in schools (including against special education students), and the Office of English Language Acquisition, which supports and regulates programs for students learning English as a second language. One of the largest cuts in terms of personnel is the hollowing-out of the Institute for Education Sciences, which both performs research on best practices in education and, through the National Center for Education Statistics, monitors the state of schools across the nation. These offices were originally designed to combat racial and other discrimination in local schools and to ensure that Federal funds were being used to the benefit of all students. Even the testing mandate in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (administered by NCES) was originally included to ensure Federal funds would benefit Black and White students equally in states dismantling de jure school segregation.

If an organization’s budget speaks to what it values, the activities being eliminated speak to what it disdains.

Truthful history

“If you’re truly proud of your country, you’re not afraid to tell its whole story.” — Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), Network for Public Education conference, April 2025

If we as a nation are to continue striving “to form a more perfect Union,” then it stands to reason that we must be honest with ourselves about what needs changing and how our country came to be the way it is. If we are not honest with ourselves about the history of the country we love, then what we claim to love is a fiction, an illusion, rather than a living and breathing national community. Acknowledging the problematic parts of our history is not a condemnation but rather a measuring stick to gauge how much progress we have made (and the work which remains to be done).

These lessons are crucial in the education of our children. To become thoughtful citizens, they must understand their nation’s complete history and use that to chart a way forward. If our children are to understand and function within our contemporary society, they must learn the full breadth of our history — both the praiseworthy and the painful. The truth will out, and if the current generation of adults acquiesces to lying to our children about our history, they may never forgive us.

Forced uniformity, legal injustice, & cruel exclusion?

“Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.” — Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), in an op-ed written just before his death, 2020

“You can’t love thy neighbor if you don’t know thy neighbor.” — Rev. Charles Johnson (Pastors for Texas Children), Network for Public Education conference, April 2025

In our long journey on the way to building a better society, making our laws more just is only the beginning. For many decades now, our nation has been embarked on an effort to make a more just society in practice and not just in statute. That effort requires building new bridges and understanding rather than just ending unjust practices. But some, notably our current national leaders, evidently want to turn that effort around and reverse the progress made over the last seventy five years. That they are doing so in the name of fighting “discrimination” rivals the upside-down language of Orwell’s dystopian vision.

The current campaign against “DEI” conveniently avoids spelling out what those words mean. For who among us would be opposed to diverse communities and prefer an enforced sameness more reminiscent of dictatorial regimes? Our nation’s diversity has always been our strength, though not always an acknowledged one. Diversity of ideas, experiences, backgrounds, and beliefs has not only propelled a dynamic society forward but was responsible for the very commitment to the rule of law and democratic government embodied in our Constitution. Freedom is only necessary if members of a community have different perspectives, hopes, and dreams. A strong society learns to harness the power of its diversity and that effort begins with the values we agree to teach to all our children.

Equity might also be written as “fairness,” and is that not a quintessential American value? Is it fair to exclude some from the benefits of our society? In the field of education, fairness means meeting all students where they are and offering every opportunity for children to make the most of their potential. Inclusion means ensuring that no group of children is routinely denied these opportunities. Can a society be free if some members must carry heavy weights throughout their lives, or if some groups are denied the benefits of that society? Unfairness, inequity, and injustice impose costs on all of us.

Our stand

As parents and citizens, we are profoundly worried and angry about the current Administration’s campaign to erase the progress we have all made toward building a better society. The road we are currently traveling will only lead to strife and suffering. Our leaders must change course, and soon, lest the damage be too great to repair for the next generation.

For us, a quality education for all students cannot exist where the rule of law has been undermined. Arbitrary rule not only erodes institutions but teaches our children that there are no meaningful rules, that only “might makes right.” Lawlessness is incompatible with a free and prosperous society.

To understand our society and the rules which structure it, children must have a full understanding of their own history and that of their country. Today’s students cannot become tomorrow’s thoughtful citizens if they have been raised on a sanitized and distorted version of their history.

Finally, it is simply a fact that we live in a diverse society. It is crucial that we acknowledge and embrace that fact rather than try to suppress it. Our children must learn to live and prosper in such a society, and to neglect that learning impoverishes all children. Equity, fairness, and inclusion underlie a strong community, and those values need to be taught and modeled in our schools as well.