Commentary

Tue, 5 Feb 2013 — Steven Norton

What do we want from our schools?

At a meeting in Lansing last Tuesday morning, staffers from the Center for Michigan presented the results of their year-long series of “community conversations” about education, held all around the state.

Three panels of experts, officials and education policy specialists met to talk about the key questions facing public education in Michigan. Among the take-aways:

From the community conversations –
  • Michigan residents gave public schools a mixed review, though they were significantly more positive about their own schools than about Michigan public schools as a whole.
  • The public is willing to pay more for public education, if the money will be used in a concrete way to improve our schools.
  • Many key reform initiatives, like increasing educational “choice,” are not so high on the list of public priorities.
From the panels –
  • There’s broad agreement that preschool available to every child is an important goal – but the way to pay for it is less clear.
  • There’s agreement that it’s important for teachers get the schooling, job training, and job feedback they need to constantly improve, and that this task is harder than is often acknowledged.
  • There are serious and deep disagreements about what kinds of policy measures are needed to improve public schools and how much they should cost.

But most noticeable, perhaps, was the extent to which political operatives representing the current policy direction were out of step with the concerns expressed by Michigan citizens.

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Sun, 16 Dec 2012 — Steven Norton

"A la carte" school funding plan ignores basic purpose of public ed

MIPFS reaction to the Oxford Foundation school funding proposal, 14 December 2012

Earlier this year, Gov. Snyder asked Lansing attorney and longtime political operative Richard McLellan to lead an effort to re-write the School Aid Act, the basic law that spells out how K-12 education is funded in Michigan. The approach that emerged was a radical change in direction, one that put the focus on students acquiring bits of knowledge from multiple “providers” rather than helping communities build and govern their local schools. More information on the proposal can be found at the Oxford Foundation web site. We’ll cover this proposal in more detail in an upcoming article.

Public comment was requested on the proposal. Our conclusion was that the proposed legislation would take Michigan in precisely the opposite direction of where we need to go.

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Mon, 10 Dec 2012 — Steven Norton

How to help struggling schools: Do you believe in magic?

“Education is not complicated,” say some lawmakers. Really?

We keep hearing the same confident claim in Lansing: the way to fix struggling schools is to get rid of the adults keeping the kids back – the school administrators, the teachers’ unions, the incompetent or corrupt school boards. Sweep them aside, replace them with business-like management and inexperienced but enthusiastic teachers, mix in a little technology, and you will see a miracle. If only it were so. But it is not.

The same blind beliefs are behind the bills to expand the Education Achievement Authority statewide after only three months. Not only that, but the changes were forced on the local community rather than being built with them. We cannot rely on management magic or quick fixes to help kids. We need solid strategies, with good track records, and the resources to implement them for the long term. When will we finally have that conversation in Michigan?

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Thu, 6 Dec 2012 — Steven Norton

Destory public ed as we know it? "That's accurate."

“Critics often say ‘the governor is trying to destroy public education as we know it,’ [Lansing attorney Richard] McLellan said. ‘That’s accurate.’”


Well, there it is. Doesn’t get much more “straight from the horse’s mouth” than coming from Lansing attorney and longtime political operative Richard McLellan. As a leader of the obscure Oxford Foundation, Mr. McLellan led the effort to devise a radically altered way of funding K-12 education for Gov. Snyder. He is also the author of the controversial Education Achievement Authority bill now in the legislature, as well as a proposal to dramatically increase the types of charter school that would receive public funding in Michigan. Some twelve years ago, he also spearheaded a constitutional amendment that would have permitted school vouchers in Michigan, which was defeated handily by the voters.

This radical package of proposals is in danger of being overlooked in the wake of today’s protests over a “right to work” bill and the use of pepper spray by police to subdue protesters visiting the Capitol to express their anger at that proposal.

Click below to read more.

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Fri, 13 Jul 2012 — Steven Norton

Exchange with MAPSA over charter school segregation

In January 2012, we had an exchange of press releases with the Michigan Association of Public School Academies over the issue of segregation in charter schools. We remain concerned about this issue and will be reporting on it more in the coming months. In the meantime, we offer up copies of the press releases as an example of how important issues can be used to serve a political agenda.

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Legislative briefing on the "school choice" package - update

We’ve updated our legislative briefing on the “school choice” package of bills to reflect the passage of both SB 618 (charter caps) and SB 619 (“cyber” charters), as well as other legislative action.

The update document is in PDF format, and we will be updating it regularly as the bills make their way through the Legislature. The download link is at the end of the article.

The document is current as of 6/15/12, reflecting the bills as reported from committee or as passed by the Senate or House.

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Thu, 21 Jun 2012 — Steven Norton

Death watch for our public schools?

The Muskegon Heights “model,” where education is turned over to charter schools and the local district remains as a shell to pay off the district’s debt, looks to be spreading to Highland Park as well. Is this an omen? What can we do?

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Mon, 11 Jun 2012 — Steven Norton

MIPFS Legislative Update - curriculum changes (June 2012)

This message went out to our mailing list this morning. We’re reproducing it here for anyone who is not yet a subscriber to our list.

This newsletter focuses on the bills before the state House to make changes to the Michigan Merit Curriculum (the state’s high school graduation requirements). While the bills differ, they agree on eliminating the foreign language and arts requirements; they also reduce requirements in science, math, and social studies.

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Fri, 1 Jun 2012 — Steven Norton

End of the last illusions

Past commitments to school aid fade away

Updated with final conference report

None of the school aid budget proposals for next year offer significant help to our struggling local school districts. Overall funding is essentially flat, though the dollars are allocated differently in the various proposals. For a detailed breakdown of the final budget and the alternatives as passed by each chamber, please see this companion story.

Nevertheless, the budget bills do outline some major changes in how we fund our schools:
  • Use of the School Aid Fund to support community colleges and state universities is now a permanent feature (the final conference report includes intent language to change the name of the SAF to the “Comprehensive Education Fund”);
  • The commitment to maintaining the funding stream for K-12 education has been seriously eroded – for example, with the failure to replace earmarked revenue lost when the Michigan Business Tax was ended.
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Fri, 25 May 2012 — Steven Norton

Muskegon Heights schools to be replaced with charters?

Both MIRS News and the Grand Rapids Press are reporting that the emergency manager running schools in Muskegon Heights has proposed replacing the public school district with a network of charter schools.

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