Action alerts

Just a few days ago, a group of Democratic state lawmakers announced that they would introduce legislation to put a hold on the creation of new charter schools until the state developed a better system to oversee their finances. The draft bill, of course, was a reaction to the stunning investigative work by the Detroit Free Press in their June expose on the questionable financial dealings of private, for-profit charter schools in Michigan. (If you haven't read it, you really should.)

Now, as the minority party in both houses of the legislature, there is essentially zero chance that this Democratic bill would be passed as-is. It's an election year, when you tend to see a lot of this kind of thing. But they were also trying to make a point. Part of that point is to say that the people of Michigan want to make sure that public funds which are intended to educate our children are not siphoned off to line some private contractor's pockets.

Once again, we are asking for your help. Our state is on the verge of compounding a terrible mistake by making it even bigger. As you might guess, I'm referring to the so-called Education Achievement Authority, an agency engineered by the Governor and billionaire donors to take over struggling schools and wave a magic wand over them. It started with 15 schools in Detroit, and the Legislature is nearing a vote on whether to take it to the "big time" state wide.

Only we're too old to believe in magic, and the EAA's work in Detroit has been a disaster rather than a miracle. This experiment should be ended, for the sake of the children in those schools. We should not base our state's entire program for helping struggling schools on a failed experiment that many call "educational malpractice." There are real alternatives, which can produce constructive change. Our "Parent Proposal" is just such an alternative, and there is now pending legislation which would take our state in a better direction.

Well, it's back. Last Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Lisa Lyons introduced the new version of the "EAA bill" - that is, a bill which would make the Educational Achievement Authority a permanent state school district and expand its authority greatly. Rep. Lyons (R-Alto), who also chairs the House Education committee, then scheduled hearings on the bill (HB 4369) for the following day. As a result, those of us who hoped to speak up about the bill had less than 24 hours to read the 60 page document and draft our reactions.

But many of us, including MIPFS, did just that; I was fortunate to be able to actually testify on behalf of parent advocates across the state.

But why should all Michigan parents be concerned about the EAA? After all, it's only for those "failing" schools, right?

I think there are two important reasons.

1. If you think this won't affect you, think again. Expanding the EAA is a central part of a larger effort to undermine local public schools, as we saw last fall.
2. Most importantly, how can any of us stand by while state takeover, untested technology-driven "teaching" methods, and a laser-like focus on test scores are forced onto anybody's children?

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