Representative Geiss Condemns Mackinac Center Lawsuit

Representative Geiss condemns Mackinac Center Lawsuit

Taylor Teacher's Contract Bargained in Good Faith

LANSING — State Representative Douglas A. Geiss (D-Taylor) decried a lawsuit filed today by the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation against the Taylor School District and the Taylor Federation of Teachers because it will divert critical funding from its intended purpose of providing students in the Taylor School District with the quality education that they deserve.

“If we really want to put students first, we need to give them all of the resources they deserve. That starts with restoring the $2 billion that has been diverted from schools over the past two years,” Geiss said. “Rather than using our kids as pawns in a political agenda, we need to focus on reducing class sizes and providing modern textbooks and equipment - things we know will help our kids succeed.”

Geiss described the lawsuit as a frivolous, ideologically based ploy intending to undermine a contract that was bargained in good faith and agreed upon by a vast majority of the vested stakeholders on all sides. The Taylor School District, having negotiated contracts that eliminate a deficit directly caused by Republican lawmakers, will now have to cut services and increase class sizes to pay for defense lawyers. This diverted funding, along with the unnecessary cost to prepare testimony for Representative McMillin's House Oversight Committee hearing on the issue held earlier this week, only harms the children of the Taylor School District. "They are ostensibly stealing food from children's mouths and knowledge from their brains so that they can fund lecherously litigious lawyers" said Geiss, "They should be ashamed."

"The billionaire foundations that fund the Mackinac Center don't care about the children in my district, nor the rights of workers. Rather, their concern is to squeeze a profit from the destruction of public schools and unionized educators. The problem is not the duly elected representatives of the Taylor School District, nor is it the hardworking teachers who care for our children every day. The problem is the coalition of self-interested ideologues who seem determined to undermine the effectiveness of our public schools at every turn. The Lansing bureaucrats feel that they can control the Taylor School District, and all school districts in Michigan, through their micromanaging and interference with local control. I, for one, trust my local elected officials and teachers over Lansing politicians."

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