Brewed Fresh Daily

Sarah Alvarez

David Dolsen (l), Jason Gumenick (center) and Lila Howard (r) sit in Saline High School.

It’s been a tough few years for teachers. Classes are bigger. Pay is down. Benefits cost more. And, in the last year, teachers across the Midwest have been at the center of collective bargaining fights in Wisconsin and Ohio. With all that, we wanted to know what it’s like to be a teacher today. So, three generations assembled in Lila Howard’s classroom at Saline High School near Ann Arbor. Howard is about to retire after years teaching AP Psychology. Jason Gumenick teaches government and is in the middle of his career. Then, there’s David Dolsen, a college freshman, who had both of the others as teachers.

“They’re probably two of my favorite teachers in high school and also two of my mentors here as well,” he said as the three sat at a table in the classroom.

Now, he wants to become a teacher and looks to Lila Howard and Jason Gumenick for advice. He knows they love what they do, but he hears from Howard what they’re going through.

“Taking away your bargaining rights, taking away your job security, tenure, money, things like that. So, how do you feel about that, David?” Howard asked. “Are those concerns you’re mulling around in your mind?”
“Definitely,” Dolsen said. “The only reason I’m not 100% sure that I would want to be a teacher is essentially because of those issues. The pay for teachers even is not very good, obviously, and there’s just no real security now.”

Jason Gumenick and Lila Howard have already seen their pay cut, and benefit costs rise. Howard thinks she’ll need to get another job in retirement. Jason Gumenick, who’s 37 and newly married, is not running out the classroom door, but in the back of his mind, he’s thinking what he could do if he were to leave teaching.

Sarah Alvarez

Saline High School

“I think a lot of teachers need to start thinking about Plan B,” Gumenick said. “Administration, public policy, business, different opportunities that might be out there.”

Howard chimed in: “Overall morale has, I think, drastically changed as a result of what’s going on in education.”

As David Dolsen, the college freshman hears all this, he begins to realize there might not be opportunities for him at home.

“I don’t think I could get a job in Michigan in teaching probably, or even in the Midwest from what it sounds like,” he said.

And, he’s thinking about alternatives.

“I’ve started to look at engineering.”

But not so fast. There’s some good news for prospective teachers like Dolsen. Dr. Cathy Rosemary, who chairs the education department at John Carroll University, says we could soon need a lot of them in the classroom.

“In the next ten years I see a big shortage,” she said. “Because I think classrooms—schools in general—are populated largely by women in their 50s and 60s and there will be time in the next decade when these folks will be retiring.”

Not only that, Craig Brown, a lawyer who represents school boards, says the changes in teachers’ contracts can benefit those new teachers entering the field. Loosening seniority rules can help the young get ahead.

“We’ve all read and heard about that teacher of the year in Indiana who was laid off after that school year because she was a young, new, exciting teacher but she didn’t have the seniority to maintain her job when the district faced financial difficulties,” Brown said.
And, for all the angst among teachers and prospective teachers, Lila Howard says this is still a calling. She wouldn’t trade this job.

“The students are the best thing about teaching,” she said. “That’s the bottom line. Being with them every day. Working with incredibly wonderful young people. The future of our society!”

And, as Howard works her last few months in Saline before retiring, all the political focus on teachers has her thinking of running for school board.

Sarah Alvarez contributed to this story. It was informed by the Public Insight Network.

The 2009 bankruptcies at General Motors and Chrysler were a historic moment for the Midwest economy. But a new memo published this week by The New Yorker shows that they were in danger of happening even sooner.

The insight can be found starting on page 36 of a 57-page memo by Lawrence Summers, written to President-elect Barack Obama on Dec. 15, 2008. The memo provides an in-depth look at the thinking that went into drafting Obama’s economic recovery plan.

At the time of the memo, Congress was considering emergency financing for car companies, who had been unable to borrow money from the nation’s banks. The Bush administration also was considering whether to use money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, originally intended to rescue struggling banks.

Summers wrote, “Given GM and Chrysler’s current cash positions, it is overwhelmingly likely that one or both would be forced to file before or immediately after the New Year.” The Treasury Department, under President Bush, estimated the two companies would need $100 billion in bankruptcy financing.

“We believe that number to be wildly inflated,” Summers wrote.

In the end, the Obama administration provided $82 billion to finance the bankruptcies at GM and Chrysler, and pay for other assistance to dealers, suppliers and communities affected by the auto industry crisis.

Summers’ memo makes for interesting reading for anyone who’s followed the car companies’ bankruptcy and restructuring.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels got a lot of attention late last year when he finally came out in favor of a Right to Work law. Now, Daniels is suggesting that Volkswagen, in part, is the reason.

Speaking on Inside INdiana Business Television last week, Daniels said he was frustrated that his state was losing opportunities to compete for projects to other states that had Right to Work laws, which prevent unions from collecting mandatory dues.

Mitch Daniels Talks About Right to Work

One such project, according to the governor, was the assembly plant that Volkswagen recently opened in Chattanooga, Tenn. “I couldn’t get VW to return our call,” the governor said. “We’ve won on Honda, we won on Toyota, we’re clearly the fastest growing automotive state, and we couldn’t even get them to talk to us.”

Daniels. by the way, is giving the Republican response tonight to President Obama’s state of the union address.

Daniels was referring to Honda’s assembly plant in Greensburg, which opened in 2008, as well as Toyota’s two production sites. Toyota builds vehicles at its own plant in Princeton, and shares production with Subaru at its plant in Lafayette.

Tony Cervone, a spokesman for Volkswagen of America, declined comment via email.

Daniels’ decision to support a Right to Work law has caused an escalating debate in Indiana. Democratic lawmakers initially refused to attend hearings, even in the face of $1,000 a day fines.

Daniels said in the interview that their protests are justified. “Both sides ought to be heard from. I think the Democrats are within their rights to make a gesture of how strongly they felt, and to say let’s stretch this out a little further. It’s a good process and we’ll accept whatever outcome that comes.”

As the debate continues, companies like Remy International in Pendleton are weighing whether to invest in Indiana, or move elsewhere. Stateline.org looked at the situation for Indiana’s companies and its political future.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker

Wisconsin’s Republican governor, Scott Walker might have preferred to forget last week, when a truck filled with more than 1 million recall signatures showed up in Madison. But over the weekend, Walker got a pep talk from one of the state’s most fiery orators.

Former governor Tommy Thompson, a Republican who is running for the United States Senate, threw his enthusiastic support behind Walker and his efforts to curb collective bargaining rights for public employees, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported.

His pro-Walker comments came at a rally in Wauwatosa.

According to the paper,

“In the middle of the speech, Thompson took off his blue sportcoat to reveal a red Wisconsin coat with a large W. “We are a red state and we are not going to let them take it back to a blue state,” Thompson said.

“We are Wisconsin. We are Republicans. We’re taking our state back. The only thing better than Scott Walker winning the first time is Scott Walker winning the second time. We are going to show them once and for all that we are for real and we are not going back.”

Thompson concluded, “W is for Win, W is for Walker and W is for Wisconsin.”

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Web Cam, showing state accountability board staffers verifying the petition signatures, is getting bigger than ever. Its parody Twitter account now has 1,201 followers (although it’s still only following the Reverend Al Sharpton).

Signature verification in Wisconsin becomes a Web darling.

If you checked it out last week, here’s an explanation of what those staffers are doing.

Signature verification in Wisconsin becomes a Web darling.

Wisconsin Web Cam

Forget live streams watching the giant panda in Edinburgh, or the weather in Chicago. The newest Internet plaything is the Wisconsin Web Cam.

The camera shows members of the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, or GAB, verifying more than 1 million signatures delivered earlier this week by opponents of Gov. Scott Walker, seeking his recall in November.

Although the work is essentially repetitive, and the staffers solemn, the GAB cam has become an instant must-see for political junkies in Wisconsin and elsewhere. It has its own parody Twitter account — @recallcam — and some watchers keep track of their favorite verifiers.

That might seem the ultimate waste of time. But, given the high stakes involved, others see it as a civics lesson. As the Associated Press put it, “You know you live in a state consumed by politics when a webcam showing bureaucrats silently shuffling around a nondescript room feeding papers into a scanner attracts tens of thousands of viewers.

Our friends at NPR’s The Two-Way blog have more, if you’re as fascinated as we are.

So, click on the link above (not the photo, that’s a screen grab) and enjoy due process at work.

Michigan Film Incentives: In our very first story, Changing Gears told you about The Film Factory — the race between our states to attract movie productions. But last year, Michigan capped its film incentives, and the result was immediate, reports The Atlantic Cities. Only 84 productions applied for incentives in 2011, and just 22 were approved. That compares with 119 applications in 2010, when 66 were approved.

Ohio Police: Tiny Woodmere, Ohio, is known for having one of the highest ratios of police to residents — one officer for every 50 residents. But Woodmere now may shut its police force and hire protection from nearby Orange, Ohio, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Its mayor feels the half-square mile village can no longer afford the $1.2 million cost. Orange, which surrounds Woodmere, plans to charge $500,000, the mayor says.

Wisconsin Web Cam: Wisconsinites have been riveted by the debate over recalling Gov. Scott Walker. So much, that a Web Cam showing bureaucrats counting recall signatures has become a hit. The Associated Press reports that watchers have given nicknames to the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board who are reviewing the signatures, and the Web Cam has gotten its own Twitter account, @recallcam. (The account is following just one person: The Reverend Al Sharpton.)

The corruption trial of former Cuyahoga County commissioner Jimmy Dimora hasn’t gotten much mention outside of Ohio. But the subject of the trial in Akron does have a connection to the economic transformation of the Midwest.

Dimora was at the center of a number of construction projects in the Cleveland area. Those projects were sold as ways to help boost the local economy. Taxpayers invested tens of millions of dollars, but prosecutors allege the only ones who benefited in the end were Dimora and his friends.

WOIO TV

A puppet version of businessman Ferris Kleem pauses momentarily with his money, shortly before using that money to pay for a prostitute to visit former Cuyahoga County commissioner Jimmy Dimora in Las Vegas.

But this is all prologue to the real reason for mentioning the Dimora trial. One of the news organizations covering the trial. Cleveland’s WOIO-TV (19 Action News!) was not allowed to bring its cameras in to film the trial.

So the news team there made a courageous decision: they are re-enacting trial testimony with … puppets.

Yes, puppets.

We’ve talked before about people having to resort to Plan B. But this is something else entirely.

Flint Plan: Michael Brown, the emergency manager of Flint, Mich., unveiled his plan yesterday for reducing an $11.3 million deficit. Not surprisingly, one of his top priorities is to overhaul bargainingagreements with city unions, something an emergency manager is allowed to do under Public Act 4, passed last year by the Michigan Legislature. Brown also wants to reopen the city jail, which closed in 2008.

Wisconsin Candidates: Democrats are raising their hands for the opportunity to challenge Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who appears to face an almost certain recall election this fall. Former Dane County chief executive Kathleen Falk said the 1 million signatures submitted by opponents to Walker on Monday convinced her to run. State Senator Tim Cullen of Janesville also plans to enter the race.

Toyota Milestone: It may be hard for car buffs to believe, but Toyota’s plant in Princeton, Ind., will turn 14 years old this year. And this week, it built its 3 millionth vehicle. The factory, in southwest Indiana, makes the Sienna minivan, which was the best selling family van in the United States last year. It has 4,100 workers and an annual payroll of $288 million.

Rock Hall: Dead Heads, listen up: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland will celebrate the Grateful Dead this spring with an exhibit called The Long Strange Trip. It opens April 12, giving you plenty of time to launder your tie-dye t-shirts and get out your Jerry Garcia ties.

Many experts thought the Midwest states would never see Right to Work laws. After all, the modern union movement has deep roots here, and unions remain in force even as membership has dropped elsewhere.

Right to Work States/Source: Drscoundels.com

But Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is pushing hard for a Right to Work law, which would eliminate the requirement that people pay dues if a union is formed where they work. And, some lawmakers in Michigan want to push for it there, even though Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder says it is not a priority.

Jack Lessenberry, the political commentator for our partner station Michigan Radio, tackled the subject today. You can hear his commentary on their Web site, and read it here.

Jack writes,

Proponents of the drive to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker needed 540,208 signatures to put the issue on the November ballot. Yesterday, they arrived at the Government Accountability Board in Madison with more than 1 million signatures, virtually guaranteeing voters will consider the proposal.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker

If it gets on the ballot, the recall Walker initiative would be the first such vote in Wisconsin history, and only the third in the nation’s history. Voters kicked out California’s governor, Gray Davis, in 2003, and North Dakota governor Lynn Frazier in 1923.

The subject has riveted Wisconsin politics and means the debate over Walker’s push to eliminate collective bargaining rights for most public employee unions will continue through the fall.

But there are hurdles, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported. For one thing, no Democratic candidate has emerged as the leader to challenge Walker. The Wisconsin governor, meanwhile, has had plenty of time to prepare for a recall election, and has been raising funds around the country.

And, Republican party officials say they’ll scrutinize every signature, amid reports of people signing petitions multiple times.

Read up on Wisconsin and its turbulent year here. Then, tune in for our coverage Feb. 1 when Niala Boodhoo looks at Wisconsin a year after Walker took office.