6 GROUNDCOVER NEWS MAKING CHANGE STEVEN Groundcover vendor No. 668 Invest in MI Kids is a statewide ballot initiative aimed at amending the State’s Constitution beginning in 2027. This amendment will place a 5% income tax surcharge on people making up 1% of Michigan’s population. That revenue will be invested into children in Michigan's public schools: reducing class sizes, expanding career and technical education and also recruiting and retaining high quality educators. The 1% of the population that would be impacted are single tax filers with an annual incomes over $500,000, or joint filers making over $1 million in taxable income. It only applies to income over these sums. For example, a single filer’s surcharge if they made $500,001 in one year would be 5 cents. They would only pay tax on the one dollar over $500,000. Invest in MI Kids needs to collect 700,000 signatures over the course of 180 days to get on the ballot. This is ongoing as of this current edition of Groundcover News. Once that is accomplished, 2.8 million Michigan citizens voting YES in the November 2026 mid-term will place $1.8 billion into our public school system yearly: into the State School Aid Fund to be used for specific purposes with yearly audits, all clearly defined in the proposed amendment to the State’s Constitution. I was able to speak with John Weiss, a volunteer who was raising awareness and seeking signatures with other volunteers at Ypsilanti’s annual Holy Bones Festival and Artisan Market (which was awesome — 10/10, will go again). He pointed out to me that a change to the constitution as a ballot measure is much more difficult for the legislature to reverse than a typical amendment would be. He went on to say that, anecdotally, even some those who fall among that 1% are behind this measure and have signed it. Michigan ranks 44th in reading and 44th in graduation attainment rate in the United States. We’ve also been ranked 49th in school funding growth since 1995. Our state is dead last, 50th, in terms of teacher recruitment. Let that sink in. All other states are ahead of us on this important issue. Yes, even that one. The Michigan State School Board voted 5-2 to endorse the amendment. The Detroit Federation of Teachers, the Michigan PTA and dozens more, too many to list in the scope of this article (investinmikids.org/endorsements) have endorsed this amendment. Small business owners find it equitable as well. The average income of a small business owner in Michigan is $52,000 a year. The Fair Share Surcharge starts at $500,000 a year, focusing on a tiny slice of our population. The benefits of forcing the wealthiest in our communities to pay their fair share should be obvious, but since we have to create a ballot amendment to get these people to help our children, it seems to not be so obvious to them. I can’t imagine many of the wealthiest 1% send their kids to public schools so, why would they care? Still, they are a part of our communities, so let's vote to make them pay their fair share. The top 1% currently pay 5.7% in total taxes of family income with everyone else paying between 7.1% and 9.7%. Let's pay our teachers more. I have OCTOBER 31, 2025 Invest in MI Kids: ballot initiative to fund public schools never heard anyone suggest teachers make enough money, ever. Let's reduce class sizes, giving our students more focused attention from high-quality, long-term educators who don’t have to work second jobs. Let’s stop canceling art and band classes. Let's get our state back to work. Michigan is the fourth highest in unemployment. Let’s give our kids a chance to compete with the kids of the ultrawealthy and make their parents pay for some of it. You must be registered to vote in Michigan to sign this peition. Register to vote online at mvic.sos.state.mi.us/ RegisterVoter Peace be with you KEN PARKS Groundcover vendor No. 490 Once upon a time, Father John Nolan, who was the worker priest at St. Hilary Catholic Church in the western Detroit suburbs, offered me a room in the parish house. From 2000 to 2005, I lived there and went to Mass occasionally. Mass ended with community greetings of a kiss and the expression “PEACE BE WITH YOU.” I had been raised in the pietistic anabaptist tradition, which was still suspicious of Catholics because of historical memory rooted in the Inquisition. How many were burned at the stake? Father Nolan and my father the Rev. James K. Parks became friends in the peace and justice movement. As I moved into Cuba solidarity work in 1990, Father Nolan became an important friend and supporter. His timely invitation to live in community was an auspicious opportunity. It was a delight to be in a community which believed in the peace that Jesus taught with a kiss and the words PEACE BE WITH YOU. This conclusion to Mass helps to erase memories of the Inquisition which still live in the bones of Western Civilization. The genocide in Palestine is the latest example of the Inquisition mentality. I joined the Palestine solidarity vigil which gathers at the post office by Fifth and Liberty on Thursdays at 5 p.m. I chose a sign that said “ISRAEL KILLS A CLASSROOM FULL OF CHILDREN EVERY SINGLE DAY.” American exceptionalism, the ideology of American supremacism, continues a kind of Inquisition: it thrived in the neoliberal form that Ronald Reagan advanced, Bill Clinton perfected and Obama represented with his great oratory on American exceptionalism. The U.S.-based war machine has supplied Israeli Zionism from its beginning as a forward military base in the Middle East. In the days of apartheid, Israel and South Africa were encouraged to become nuclear powers. The war machine is global and NATO has been a major player, especially after the reunification of Germany. Alan Haber has one of the best leaflets on this topic titled “End the Whole War System. He is in his 90th year and you can meet him Friday at 6 p.m. at the weekly peace vigil by the Ann Arbor Post Office on Fifth and Liberty Streets. If you read the October 3 Groundcover News, you may have seen the “Make Peace With Yourself” piece. It is an introduction to the struggle for peace and justice in this phase of the American Revolution. Many of us are learning PEACE BE WITH YOU as the greeting and parting phrase of our time. The 400 million Arabic speakers in the world use the phrase “assalamu alykum,” many of them daily. Practice that with Arabic speakers until it flows. For veterans of Standing Rock and similar indigenous-centered awareness campaigns, that phrase is amended with “and all our relations.” If you can say those words to your MAGA fellow citizens, you are practicing Revolutionary Love, which is another article of mine in the Groundcover archives. As we learn to breathe the love that heals, we become mindful revolutionaries eager to do the work that is before us. Daily practice is strengthened by group practice, such as the one led by Khenpo Choephel at Karuna Buddhist Center at 423 S. Fourth Ave. on Parks with Bob and Linda Wan at the Trotter Multicultural Center. Saturdays at 10:30 a.m. May we come together and share in the work that connects. I hope to see you at the Veterans for Peace "Concert for Peace" at the Ark, Tuesday, November 11 (see event details page 4). PEACE BE WITH YOU AND ALL OUR RELATIONS.
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