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Richard D. McLellan is a Michigan lawyer and government policy specialist. He has been actively engaged in government service and was an important advocate in Michigan’s school choice movement. The collection documents his work with TEACH Michigan, an organization established to amend Michigan’s constitution to allow use of school vouchers and increase the number of charter schools in the state. Also material related to speeches and remarks made on various subjects.

The McLellan collection documents McLellan's work with TEACH Michigan, the organization established to support school choice measures in Michigan. These measures included a proposed amendment to Michigan's constitution to permit the use of school vouchers and to increase the number of charter schools operating in the state. The TEACH Michigan series has been arranged in the following subseries: Background, Charter Schools, Constitutional Amendment, Correspondence, Legislation, and Organizational Files.

Organization established in 1989 by Paul N. DeWeese and others to lobby for changes in state law and the state constitution to allow parents to choose between competing schools. The record group also contains records of the Michigan Center for Charter Schools, sister organization to TEACH Michigan, established to promote the development of charter schools in the state. The record group includes Informational materials detailing mission and goals of the TEACH Michigan organization; organizational files; topical files; correspondence; speeches and articles about school choice and the state charter school movement; and audio and video cassettes of TM presentations and appearances of Paul DeWeese on radio and television programs. Also included are the organizational records of the Michigan Center for Charter Schools.

This record group consists of two separate groupings (or subgroups) of records: the combined files of TEACH Michigan and TEACH Michigan Education Fund covering the period of 1989 to 1995, and files of the charter school support group, Michigan Center for Charter Schools covering the years 1994-1995. Both organizations operated out of the same office in Lansing and included some of the same individuals as board members. The TM/TMEF files consist in great part of papers of Dr. Paul N. DeWeese, a principal founder of the organization. The MCCS files are largely papers of executive director Barbara Barrett as well as DeWeese. Together, the record group contains correspondence, policy statements, organizational and activity files, collected materials, sound and video materials, all relating to the efforts of the two organizations first to educate and lobby for changes in the law, and second to provide assistance and support in the establishment of charter schools. The records date from the inception of the organization to 1995. The subsequent records of TEACH Michigan remain with the organization.