The State of Michigan has just announced its plan to enforce the school accountability law by closing down the lowest-performing schools, a situation that has set off a flurry of protests. What’s your take?
Do you have a link to an article or statement? I’d like more details.
Perhaps the OP means this?
http://www.michigan.gov/sro/
http://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2017/01/20/michigan-schools-close-reform/96805844/
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/02/as_state_considers_closing_38.html
A quote from the second link above summarizes my views well:
“Simply closing schools and up-ending the lives of students won’t fix any problems if the root causes aren’t adequately addressed.”
I think it’s a good idea to close them if they can replace them with something better. That happened to our local high school back in 2004. Here’s an excerpt from an article describing what they did, and how it helped:
The San Diego High School Renewal Initiative is designed around the idea that students learn and perform better in smaller, more personalized learning environments. In 2004, as part of the initiative, the San Diego Unified School District closed three low-performing, large high schools and re-opened them as fourteen small schools within the three campuses. The two schools featured at this forum were two of the four schools that replaced Kearney High School. Each of the fourteen schools is designed to improve academic rigor, raise expectations for all students, increase the number of college-ready high school graduates, increase personalization and student engagement, and improve students’ connections to postsecondary and work opportunities.
There is nothing to replace these struggling schools unless you want to count unregulated private charter schools, a personal favorite of the new Secretary of Education. Michigan under Governor Snyder has for years put privatizing first, residents including children last. I have to say that this is pure politics and politics is not permitted on College Confidential! Closing schools that struggle because the children are low income and live in poor neighborhoods with unstable families and unstable housing - this is THE republican answer to poverty, at least in Michigan. Notably, the answer is simply to close the schools. There is no other policy response, nothing to deal with the underlying problems, nothing to help these kids achieve in the classroom. The charter schools that will replace these public schools will not face the same testing requirements. The underlying theme is anti-public schools, anti-public school teachers and a willingness to exploit the public’s frustration with real world complexities by offering simplistic solutions that are driven purely by ideology.
It has been happening for years … old news but oh so bad media to just now report about it. I am sick of the media
They close these schools, they just get funneled into other failing schools. This will literally leave whole areas without schools. For example:
There are no alternatives. Betsy DeVos & Co have been wrecking Michigan’s schools for decades. Have fun, America. We tried screaming at the top of our lungs to show you what years and years of being under her thumb has done.
Michigan simply does not care about the poor and minorities. It’s that simple.
But word out according to some FB friends and alternative news sites that she’s working hard to ensure a dinosaur for every child and a grizzly bear in every classroom.
The poorly performing districts in Michigan managed to wreck their schools all on their own. It has nothing to do with Betsy DeVos, who worked to provide alternate education for at risk kids. Schools in those districts have been going downhill for 50 years with a combination of incompetent management, high teacher salaries, and strong union rules. Michigan changed the funding mechanism of public schools several decades ago so schools are funded with a per-pupil grant, not by local taxes, so money is not the issue either.
Michigan charter schools have been delivering better outcomes at a lower cost than nearby public schools. They are not a panacea but they have done much better and parents are happier. 53% of Detroit children now attend charter schools.
The schools that are ‘failing’ have already failed. Students will be bused to other districts or the schools will receive new management. It’s just a bunch of whining by administrators and teachers who deserve to lose their jobs
The one I know the most about was closed by the state a number of years ago after attempts by the state to fix after a takeover and was beset with administrative corruption in addition to poor outcomes going back years and years. A lot of issues that are getting media attention today have been brewing for decades.
Although the basis of school funding in Michigan was shifted away from property tax onto state sales and use tax, and although the funding is nominally on a “per pupil” basis, there are still wide variations in the actual per pupil funding between districts.
Currently, the “minimum” per pupil funding is $7511. All schools are supposed to be brought to the “basic” per pupil funding level, which is $8229. However, there are 405 schools at the minimum and 81 between minimum and basic. There are 56 schools with per pupil funding between the “basic” level of $8229 and the maximum level, which is $12,064. On top of the rather extreme variation between the minimum level of $7511 and the maximum of $12,064, there are parent-added educational resources, which also vary quite widely from district to district.
There are “work-arounds” in the law that permit school districts to raise additional funds for capital improvements and other purposes.
It is true that there has been some corruption–partly in the form of kick-backs from suppliers–in some regions.
But some children grow up in environments with more parental investment in education, and parents who are better prepared to contribute to their educations. For a start, I would guess that the majority of CC parents read extensively to their children before the children started kindergarten. I think it is important to understand the socio-economic factors that limit some parent’s ability to enhance their children’s education, even when they are strongly interested in doing so. Aside from issues such as the number of books in the home, the utilization of local libraries (if they are within a reasonable distance), and travel within the US, I would estimate that at least 40% of the students in our local district had visited Europe at least once prior to graduating from high school.
My understanding is that Michigan charter schools on average are not out-performing the local public schools. In a few cases where the charter school is doing so, this may have more to do with parental emphasis on education than with the differential quality of teaching in the public schools vs. charter schools.
Financial information about Michigan school funding, dated February 2017, and supplied by Kathryn Summers, the Associate Director of the Senate Fiscal Agency is available as a pdf here: http://www.senate.michigan.gov/sfa/departments/datacharts/dck12_schoolfundingbasics.pdf
One of the major negatives about the charter schools in Michigan is their lack of transparency and accountability. The Detroit Free Press ran a major story two years ago about the egregious lack of oversight in the state’s charter schools:
Granted, this expose is over two years old, but I’m not sure that things have changed appreciably since then.
My chief concern with the current school closings is that the children currently attending those schools have no real alternatives. I heard an interview on the radio this morning with a Detroit parent whose child’s school is closing. The parent was told that there openings in schools in Ann Arbor: 45 minutes away, no bus service, no transportation options… really?
@QuantMech , Michigan charter schools have no access to capital funding sources, such as bonds for buildings and technology. Despite that, according to a Stanford study, charter schools provide 2 additional months per year of learning.
The idea that charter schools are not accountable is ridiculous. They are accountable to the parents, who will send their children elsewhere if they are not satisfied. If you want to look at lack of accountability, look at your local public school system. Our district shuffles bad teachers and administrators between schools rather than firing them. That is one of the reasons we sent our kids to private schools.
@scout59 , Michigan has a on-line HS program too.
“The idea that charter schools are not accountable is ridiculous. They are accountable to the parents, who will send their children elsewhere if they are not satisfied.”
That only works if the parents themselves are well versed in what is, and what isn’t, being offered, what the state standards are, and how their children compare to others. I doubt most parents have answers to those questions - and charter schools are glad of that fact.
When we say that charter schools are not accountable - this means that they often are not required, and therefore do not participate, in any of the standardized testing that the state is using to declare some schools “failures.”
Additionally, they have their own rules regarding admitting students and expelling students - they are not required to deal with everybody, regardless of individual needs. Public schools are responsible for admitting every single student.
There is virtually no evidence that parents can, on their own, properly evaluate school effectiveness.
The primary point is that establishing accountability is tough. Current procedures are not perfect. But the “solution” is a step backwards, relying on charter schools that make no effort from the very beginning at being held accountable in rigorous, measurable ways.
In Michigan, many charter schools have opened that do not include the high school grades, therefore pulling in that average state per student allotment that is larger because it incorporates the extra costs associated with educating high school aged students, while the charters restrict their enrollment to under high school. As a result, they are pulling in way more money than public schools that agree to educate Michigan’s children through high school.
In Michigan, state policy has focused on attacking “marginal” groups to implement policies driven by ideology. Right now that marginal constituency is low income students. If the legislators in Michigan truly cared about helping those students, they would search out the programs throughout this country that ARE working. But instead, driven purely by ideology, they are choosing a different path. But no worries, they are focusing their efforts on a constituency whose votes will be easy to repress later. No harm no foul. This is it - Purely Michigan!
Nothing the left enjoys more than failing public schools. I can’t recall a single instance in which they would want any sanctions on a failing school. The usual remedy would be “more resources” i.e. pump more of someone else’s money into something that does not work ad infinitum. Also, they would absolutely forbid parents in those school districts from having any choice in sending their children to other districts. Then, of course, accuse anyone who advocates for more assertive change of being an enemy of children and the poor.
Read this from above with a straight face: “There is virtually no evidence that parents can, on their own, properly evaluate school effectiveness.” Really. Then what is all this fuss about college admissions given the collective cluelessness of parents? A better way would be for the government to instruct us where to send our children to college.
According to what I read on these online forums, parents rely on a TON of actual data to evaluate prospective universities for their children. They do NOT just ask their neighbor - gosh did your kid like that school? They rely on evidence. That is what I’m talking about and I think I was clear. Charters are not in the business of collecting data that can be used in any objective way for parents to evaluate those schools.
As I mentioned in my very post for this thread - this is all politics. It is, however, not useful to tell me that you know how I think when you perceive me to be defending public schools. Yes I categorize myself as a liberal. FYI, liberals are as heterogeneous a group as are conservatives. Life is complicated.
I made a decision to keep sending my kids to public…it was a good school and highly regarded, however before they hit high school I wouldn’t have hesitated in a heartbeat to send them to one of several of our area charter schools. The bottom line is there are good and bad public systems and good and bad charter systems. I do, however, believe a good deal of “success” and “failure” of students lies on the parents. Parents come out of the woodwork when the hammer meets the nail and the failing school gets taken over by the state and in many cases closes. It’s a sad situation indeed. This is an article from 2014 about one school system on the western side of the state where I had an old friend who was a teacher, but it references the history of poor performing schools being taken over and closures. Again this is not a “new” thing.
My friend transferred to another public system when the school went charter for stability and to stay in the “public” system (of course) for pay and benefits. I also did a quick Google search to see what was happening to this school and unfortunately it appears the high school may not survive even as a charter and will be closed. But I think the story is all too familiar especially around the Detroit area.
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2017/02/muskegon_heights_calling_on_pa.html
The 2013-14 Michigan school rankings are available online as a pdf. Try googling 2013-14 Michigan School Rankings. The percentile scores are shown in the extreme right hand column. These are like SAT and ACT percentiles (high is good) and not like NIH grant proposal percentiles (inexplicably, there low is good).
Then you can search the pdf for “Charter” and for “Public” and draw your own conclusions. Some of the charter schools have “Academy” in the name, rather than “Charter.”
For 2011-12 there is an Excel spreadsheet with the schools rank-ordered top to bottom by percentile scores, which is somewhat more convenient for searching. It appears to me that more recent comprehensive data (more recent than 2013-14) will not be issued until this fall. The full lists are not produced every year. It is possible to search for an individual school’s performance in the most recent year, though.
The state’s percentile rankings tend to somewhat obscure the differences among the schools, because they are not based purely on the students’ performance on the statewide exams, but draw in other factors. I understand the rationale for this, but it may give parents false assurances about the performance by the students in their local schools.
Also, in the past at least, charter schools have been exempt from being scored until they have comparison data from the same school in previous years.
I am not saying that charter schools cannot perform very well–some of them do exceptionally well. Some of them do very well, relative to the public schools in the same area. I think that some charter schools in other states have out-performed the great majority of the charter schools in Michigan. Also, parochial and private schools do not participate in some of the state rankings. But if I were to offer one brief comment about the performance of existing charter schools in Michigan, it would be that the majority do not solve the problems in education for their students.