Mary Anne Hering, Working Class Party candidate for Michigan State Board of Education, was invited to discuss her candidacy and a working class policy in a statement published on the Web site of WEMU radio. The text and audio of her statement are reproduced below.
My name is Mary Anne Hering and I am a candidate for State Board of Education with the Working Class Party.
I am a long time teacher, primarily at the community college level. As a long term teacher, I have been a steadfast advocate for students and their families, the support staff of the schools, as well as part-time teachers who make up the backbone of the teaching staff, at colleges and universities, with lower pay and most often, with no health care benefits. I have also organized in the working class for decades and can give voice to workers who see their children and grandchildren deprived of a decent education because the state cuts money from public education.
I am the person, along with my running mate, this year’s graduate from Cass Tech, Logan R. Smith, and 9 other workers running with Working Class party, to raise the banner that there are hundreds of thousands of people in Michigan who are fed up with business as usual in the political life of this society and that it is going to take more than elections to change things.
Our vote in 2016, is a reflection of this: nearly a quarter of million people voted for WCP.
I said that those of us who are active with Working Class Party are fed up with Business as usual in the political life of this society. And I use the word, Business, deliberately. For businesses, like Little Caesars’ Arena, or Ford in Corktown in Detroit, or Pfizer, in Michigan, continue to get tax breaks and tax incentives. And companies, that are in the “business” of education, make profits in charter schools by siphoning public monies away from public education.
The conditions of the public schools, in all of the working class communities and even some of the more middle class communities in Michigan, have continued to deteriorate because of those cuts. As members of the SBE we can raise the flag that this theft of public monies for private interests HAS TO stop. There’s more than enough wealth in this society to have excellent schools. There’s more than enough wealth in this state that students who seek to get a higher education shouldn’t be indebted into middle age to pay off the loans that it takes most working class and some middle class students to be able to go on to college.
I am running with Working Class Party because I firmly believe that it will take a working class fight to turn around these attacks.
Look for Congressional, Senate and SBE candidates with Working Class Party on your ballot on November 6, or if you are filling out an Absentee Ballot. Tell others about us.
If you agree with what I have just said, VOTE Working Class Party!