Dear Friends:
I am offering myself as candidate for Michigan's State Board of Education. I want to help shape policy that will benefit all school-aged children in Michigan.
My experience is broad: I have taught/administered schools in Detroit for about 25 years. I helped organize a successful Detroit charter school (Old Redford Academy), and have served as president of another Detroit charter school (Woodward Academy) when it required redirection toward student achievement. Much of my professional work has been with Lutheran schools of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), but I have taught at public schools as well. I also serve as adjunct professor of education at Concordia University, Ann Arbor, and have published journal articles on school law and policy as well as curricula for Concordia Publishing House of St. Louis.
I hold graduate degrees in education from University of Michigan (MA) and Wayne State (Ed.Spec.), an MTS in Church History from Harvard and a Doctor of Ministry from Detroit Ecumenical Theological Seminary (writing on school closings in Detroit
I had the honor of speaking at Mitt Romney's announcement at the Henry Ford in Dearborn in 2007. As candidate for state representative in 2002, I received the endorsement of the Detroit News, which cited specifically my education credentials. The Detroit News endorsed me for State Board of Education in 2008, and Michigan Right to LIfe and Citizens for Traditional Values endorsed me for the same office in 2008 and 2010.
I would welcome the opportunity to articulate an inclusive vision of state education policy that recognizes partnership with, not control of, the private sphere, and the primacy of parental responsibility expressed in meaningful choice. Diversity of educational opportunity is imperative. Our State Board should embrace school choice, as advocated in the recent movie Waiting for Superman, instead of fighting it as they have of late. I discuss the limited thinking and ideas of our current Board (why they can't think "outside the box") in the following link.
Your support is solicited, and your suggestions as to other issues that need to be addressed by the State Board are desired.
Candidates for the State Board of Education are nominated by the state political parties in a summer convention. I was nominated unanimously by the MIchigan Republican Party in August, along with my respected colleague Eileen Weiser.
Cordially,
Dr. Richard Zeile, Headmaster, St. John's Lutheran Church & School, Taylor,MI
16800 Plainview, Detroit, MI 48219 (313.802.1146)
Email me at- FrZeile@Juno.com