The Detroit Free Press published a series of deeply researched articles about the charter schools in the state, most of which operate for profit. The state spends $1 billion on charters but does not hold them accountable for financial practices or academic outcomes. Charter schools do NOT get better results educating students in poverty.
Will legislators or the governor care? Not as long as the charter lobby keeps sending in those campaign contributions.
Here is the summary: (Open the article for many links and videos)
A yearlong Free Press investigation of Michigan’s charter schools found wasteful spending, conflicts of interest, poor performing schools and a failure to close the worst of the worst. Among the findings:
Charter schools spend $1 billion per year in state taxpayer money, often with little transparency.
Some charter schools are innovative and have excellent academic outcomes — but those that don’t are allowed to stay open year after year.
A majority of the worst-ranked charter schools in Michigan have been open 10 years or more.
Charter schools as a whole fare no better than traditional schools in educating students in poverty.
Michigan has substantially more for-profit companies running schools than any other state.
Some charter school board members were forced out after demanding financial details from management companies.
State law does not prevent insider dealing and self-enrichment by those who operate schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well, it’s going to be tough to get any regulation or oversight. This is the Governor John Engler Center for Charter Schools at Central Michigan University:
http://cmucso.org/
Central Michigan is one of the authorizers in the series. The authorizers take 3% of per pupil funding.
Former Governor Engler is a national expert on ed reform. Here he is in an interview with the NYTimes recommending ed reform policy for the whole country:
“I sat down last week in Washington with Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, and Mitch Daniels, the former Indiana governor and current Purdue University president, after they had met with several dozen chief executives of big companies to talk about education. Their meeting was at the office of the Business Roundtable, the corporate lobbying group, and joining us for the conversation was John Engler, the former Michigan governor who runs the Business Roundtable.”
You’ll note some of the articles featured on the CMU charter website:
Michigan’s Model for Charter Schools Works
What Michigan Charter Schools can Teach the Country
New Report Confirms Charter School Quality in MI
You can also download an application to start a new charter school.
And here’s Eli Broad promoting the expansion of the Detroit EAA statewide, in the Detroit Free Press. It would have been nice if the Free Press had done some due diligence before they acted as cheerleaders for this:
“These successful results should not be limited to only Detroit schools. We support the smart expansion of the EAA when it has the capacity to add schools statewide that are failing the majority of their students.”
Michigan has some real national heavy-hitters in ed reform and the current governor has absolutely no interest in supporting, improving or even mentioning existing public schools. Nothing will change in Michigan unless Snyder loses his re-election bid (possible- he’s not real popular), and even then it will be an uphill battle to get anything thru. The Detroit Free Press endorsed Snyder in 2010.
http://www.freep.com/article/20130428/OPINION05/304280058/Education-Eli-and-Edythe-Broad-Michigan-Education-Acheivement-Authority
Here’s ed expert former Governor Engler:
“Engler: I think we need to keep data and academic performance the way we keep it on sports. I mean, we know everything about where we stand in the league in football, but we could be last in the league in mathematics for a decade, and we’d never know it. C.E.O.’s talk about the difficulty finding out graduation rates from a local school where they have a facility.”
So it’s the NYTimes and you have two former governors, one of whom is a lobbyist for a business group, and the current Secretary of Education. Two charter promoters and one “agnostic”, setting policy for the whole country. Is it any wonder existing public schools are doing so poorly under ed reform? They don’t have any advocates in government. It’s “agnostics” and “relinquishers” and then enthusiastic charter promoters. That’s the “debate”. What’s missing from this equation?
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/25/a-report-card-on-education-reform/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
This week, the Dayton Daily News (reporter-Laura Bischoff) and Dayton T.V. station, WDTN (reporter-Jill Drury) announced the indictment on federal charges of charter school board member, Christopher Martin of Springfield, Ohio. Drury reports “charges include conspiracy and aiding and abetting federal program bribery.”
Ms. Bischoff reported Martin’s employer, from Aug. 2013 to June 2014, was a nationally prominent politician.
This is a map of charter school distribution in the states. Look at Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, in the midwest and southeast, the states where there’s little or no regulation. That’s where the heaviest concentration of schools are.
http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2014/07/maps-where-the-charters-are.html#.U7VQlI1dVH0
Here’s former Michigan Governor John Engler (and paid advocate for the Business Roundtable) lobbying Congress for funds to build more charter schools :
“Last year, the Business Roundtable released a report titled “Taking Action on Education and Workforce Preparedness.” As part of this report, we recommended that federal, state, and local policymakers should increase the number of public school options, including charter schools, available to parents and students. This bipartisan legislation takes an important step toward achieving this goal.”
That sailed through the US House and will likely be rubber-stamped in the Senate. The goal is to build 500 new charter schools a year, according to prominent charter promoter and US Senator Landrieu. The schools will be run by national management organizations. Senator Landrieu did not see fit to tell us which states or cities or communities are getting these federally-funded “500 new charter schools a year” so I guess we’ll find that out when construction begins.
http://businessroundtable.org/resources/letter-supporting-expanding-opportunity-through-quality-charter-schools-act