LANSING — The House passed Senate Bill 574 today, which will allow charter schools to siphon off regional school millage dollars approved by voters. In response, House Democratic Leader Sam Singh (D-East Lansing) issued the following statement:
“When voters decide to pay more taxes on their houses to support local schools, they do so because they support neighborhood schools and they want their kids to get a great education. They don’t do that because they want their tax dollars to support for-profit charter school education management organizations and their wealthy CEOs that operate schools in distant counties — but that’s what Senate Bill 574 allows. SB 574 is nothing but a money grab that takes the dollars taxpayers wanted to send to local schools and directs it to the bank accounts of for-profit charter EMOs. That’s reprehensible, and there’s no way I could support that.”