Senator McBroom, under his constitutional right of protest (Art. 4, Sec. 18), protested against the passage of House Bill No. 5190 and moved that the statement he made during the discussion of the bill be printed as his reasons for voting “no.”
The motion prevailed.
Senator McBroom’s statement is as follows:
Mr. President, prior to 2004 the state of Michigan mandated that in order to graduate every student in our state take one semester of government and one credit — or one year—of Phys. Ed. After that, this date has selected—instead now—rather than trust our local school districts and the professionals that we employ there to determine what the needs of their students are to graduate. How they should pursue their career path. How their guidance counselors can work with them to determine what their aptitudes are best suited for.
We at the state level chose to create the Michigan Merit Curriculum, a restrictive and demanding curriculum that places every student in our state into the cookie-cutter format of everybody needs these classes particularly in order to be successful in life. A cookie-cutter that has made it difficult to impossible for many of our students to seek out the electives or the classes they need for their future career path. Fortunately, in 2014 we were able to play a few games with the Merit Curriculum, create a few little fictions where we allow one class to stand in for another; oh, we can have automotive classes and we’ll call that something else. It’s a lie that we tell ourselves so we don’t have to actually deal with the real problem, which was the adoption of the Merit Curriculum in the first place. It was the taking away of the professional abilities of our local schools, and the parents, and the students.
Now, we have a bill in front of us that seeks to add to that burden. As I’ve said earlier today, perhaps a worthy addition in the realm of what our students need to have, but at what cost? Now they can get out of a performing arts credit. Or they will have to, because it’s a mandate. They won’t have any choice. What about the student who’s pursuing music? And when somebody stands up and says, We’re dumbing this down by eliminating the Algebra II requirement in my amendment. Or any other time we talk about removing something from the Merit Curriculum, How dare you? Why don’t we mandate welding classes? Are we dumbing things down because not every person in our whole country knows how to weld? Are we dumbing it down because not every student gets out of high school and can read music? Oh, but thank goodness I can speak German. Wie gehts? Zum geburtstag viel glück! Wow, that’s really helpful to my everyday career path isn’t it?
I encourage members to reconsider supporting new mandates. Let’s return the power back to our local districts. Let’s return the power back to parents and students to seek out the classes that they need—that they want. Let our guidance counselors have the power again to guide students in what classes they should have. Don’t add mandates. Don’t take away the local control. Don’t pretend that we know better what’s best for every single student in this state than the people back at home.
The following bill was read a third time:
House Bill No. 5258, entitled
A bill to amend 1954 PA 116, entitled “Michigan election law,” by amending sections 565, 710, and 711 (MCL 168.565, 168.710, and 168.711), sections 565 and 711 as amended by 1984 PA 113.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: