the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
May 4, 2026
As in many other states, Michigan’s public schools continue to be underfunded for what is really needed—for students, teachers, and other school employees and buildings.
Because, while it may be true that for two consecutive years schools have received increases in per pupil funding, these increases fall below the rate of inflation.
Are these increases enough to cover the higher costs of electricity, diesel fuel for buses, health care and supplies? The answer is no. And many teachers, and even administrators, will attest to this. Recently, a school superintendent in a district northeast of Detroit wrote, “Politicians will take credit for ‘record investments’ but when the increase doesn’t keep pace with rising costs … it’s a cut dressed up in a better language.”
“Kids Over Corporations” was the rallying cry at teacher union protests at May Day rallies—from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Madison, Wisconsin, to throughout the country.
And elsewhere, teachers are raising their voices, whether it’s in the recent teacher strike in southeast Los Angeles County; or in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where 96.8% of the members of the teachers’ union voted, and 99% of them voted “No!” to a contract that offered them a pitiful wage increase and proposals to increase class sizes!
“Because of budgetary concerns,” four schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community Districts are to be closed, as early as June 5. Four more schools … on top of the 200 school buildings that have closed in Detroit since 2000!
Yes, there are all sorts of reasons given for the need to close these schools: lower enrollment; federal funding cuts that have affected state money to the schools, inflation, yadda, yadda, yadda.
But ANYONE who really gives a damn about the future of our children, who in the vast majority are children of the working class, has to have this battle cry: “We’re sick and tired of being sick and tired!” Sick and tired of being told the money is not there, when anyone with two eyes and a brain can see that it is there in this wealthiest country in the world.