LANSING — Today, House and Senate Democrats introduced the Teachers for Michigan bill package designed to prepare, attract and retain top teaching talent for Michigan. In response, state Rep. Tenisha Yancey (D-Harper Woods) issued the following response:
“Every child deserves a great education and that starts with great teachers. I am proud to sponsor a bill to encourage more of our veteran teachers to mentor new teachers in the first three years of their teaching careers and help them transition into their careers and learn how to handle students and situations they will encounter. Taking on this mentoring responsibility is an extra job for our veteran teachers, and we currently require teachers in their first three years of teaching to be mentored, so my bill would provide a small stipend to the veteran teachers who become mentors. Michigan is losing teachers who are leaving the state to teach elsewhere or leaving the profession entirely, and Republican leadership has passed bills taking more funding from our already underfunded public schools. My bill puts a little more money back into our classrooms to compensate teachers for the extra duties required of them.”