A reader reports:
“Big win for Arne Duncan and Rick Snyder on Eli Broad’s EAA experiment in Detroit:
“Democratic lawmakers said the bill is an attempt to prop up Snyder’s struggling EAA, which has been dogged by declining enrollment, financial problems and teacher turnover during its two years of running schools formerly operated by Detroit Public Schools.
“This isn’t about helping schoolchildren. This is about a politically and ideologically driven agenda to destroy public education as we know it,” said House Minority Leader Tim Greimel, D-Auburn Hills.”
“The EAA isn’t financially viable unless they keep packing in more kids. Now that they have 50 more Michigan (formerly) public schools, and the capacity to take over really as many as they want, they should be able to keep this failed experiment going for a while.
“Now it’s too big to fail, which of course was the point of expanding it.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Four members of the Michigan State Board of Education are speaking out against a proposal to expand the Education Achievement Authority outside of Detroit.
Vice President Casandra Ulbrich and members Michelle Fecteau, Lupe Ramos-Montigny and Kathleen Straus signed the statement, which calls on legislators to reject House Bill 4369.
The statement describes the four members as “deeply troubled” by the latest version of the bill under consideration in the House, saying the authority hasn’t proven it can improve schools and adding schools to the EAA would be “counter-productive.”
The EAA has focused on using computer-based learning to replace more traditional classroom instruction, a plan the board members say is not effective.
“The basic premise of the EAA teaching model is flawed. Putting mostly new, inexperienced teachers in schools whose students have had difficulty learning is not working. While the use of computers in teaching can be very effective, it is only if the teacher in the classroom is fully engaged with the students. Students learn best when they have positive relationships with their teachers,” the board members said.”
The computer-based learning component is key to the (purely) political pressure to expand the privatized district. Ed reformers are pushing blended learning hard, and the EAA was their blended learning experiment.
More reckless behavior from the “adults” in ed reform. There is no evidence that replacing teachers with screens benefits these kids at all, and in fact they may have been harmed (if test scores are the guide). But they’re bound and determined to sell “blended learning” so the the train keeps running on the track they set out, regardless of results.
Every high profile ed reform advocate in the country endorsed this EAA model, as usual there was no dissent, no one urging caution or care or thought (including Arne Duncan) and the fact is they had no earthly idea if it would benefit kids at all. The ed reform mob went careening off chasing “blended learning” like they’ve blindly followed every other “innovation”.
“Ed reformers are pushing. . . .”
Folks, we’ve got to quit using the edudeformers’, privatizers’, profiteers’ and/or the supposed ‘Ed reformers’ discourse/memes when discussing these nefarious schemes. They are not ‘reformers’ but anti-democratic unpatriotic thieves/deformers who certainly aren’t “pushing” top quality teaching and learning processes and environments for the poorest of our country.
It is important to note that this disaster passed not just with Republican assistance. John Austin (D), President of the State School Board, supported the EAA until the last day of the vote. State Superintendent Mike Flanagan has supported the EAA since its inception and, in fact, in December of 2013, said on the Michigan Department of Education’s web site that any one opposed should be “ashamed.” The passing vote was really a rogue Democrat in Detroit who was promised much and used the opportunity for a moment of self aggrandizement as someone “real” from the “hood.” Parents continue to owe a debt of gratitude to Ellen Lipton (D- of Huntington Woods) whose courage and intelligence are sustaining many in the fight to preserve public education in the state.
Great point. Thank you.
If anyone should be “ashamed”, it should be Flanagan. I don’t know how this man lives with himself. Who would expand this hideous charade????? The EAA lost 25% of its student body. You know they will lose more next year!!! Our democratic process is completely broken.
I know public schools are unfashionable right now, but it’s also worth mentioning what happens to existing public schools statewide under ed reform leadership.
They’re abandoned:
http://michiganradio.org/post/michigan-has-cut-spending-k-12-schools-9-2008
There’s two sides to ed reform. There’s the privatized schools and districts, and there’s the damage that is done to healthy public schools. Public schools are a system. When we hire leaders who promote privatized schools, existing public schools suffer. They get weaker.
If we want to reach parents of public school kids, who are, after all, the vast majority of parents, we would do well to tell them the damage ed reform has done to THEIR schools.
We can’t continue to hire people who don’t value public schools to run public schools, and public school parents should know that. They’re damaging stronger schools ALONG WITH privatizing weak schools.
I am a U of Mich Ed School grad and know current Dean Ball but our U has not lobbied against this. Silence from U of M. Shame. Please read this and follow what is happening in the State of Michigan to public schools under Gov. Snyder.
It is shameful. The EAA is a nightmare.
http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2014/03/ann_arbor_school_board_takes_s.html
“In a unanimous move, the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education publicly opposed pending legislation regarding a possible expansion of the Education Achievement Authority at its Wednesday night meeting.
It also is calling for Eastern Michigan University, the state’s founding partner in the takeover district for failing schools, to end its affiliation with the EAA.
“As an educational body, as a policy body, when we see the level of distress that programs are causing students…we have the moral obligation to step in and say something, particularly when it’s public education that’s we see under attack and is disturbing kids and students,” said Trustee Simone Lightfoot, author of the resolution.”
And here are backers of the EAA, at a policy conference, planning how Michigan public schools should be designed:
“Bloomberg Philanthropies, founded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, run by the noted philanthropists who both graduated from Detroit Public Schools, have each pledged $10 million in the form of challenge grants.
“This is a big deal folks, we’re changing the lives of kids,” Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who formed the EAA in June of 2011, said Thursday during a press conference at the 2013 Mackinac Policy Conference.”
http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/05/bloomberg_broads_throw_weight.html
“‘If they had done their job, we would not be here,’ said state Rep. Tom McMillin, R-Rochester Hills.”
No…If you (politicians) had done your job (addressing non-school factors that affect student achievement), you would not be there. Classic obfuscation to deflect blame from where it truly belongs.
yes, and they love to blame the unemployed for being unemployed.
Reblogged this on Dolphin.