Curt Guyette, an investigative reporter for the ACLU of Michigan, here recounts the series of disasters associated with Governor Rick Snyder’s Education Achievement Authority.
The EAA enrolled children from the state’s lowest performing schools, all located in Detroit. It experimented with an unproven software program called BUZZ that was rife with glitches. Inexperienced teachers came and went. The governor boasted of the EAA’s successes, but enrollment dropped from 10,000 to about 7,000.
Why were these children used in an experiment?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Article Missing or Link Broken …
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Some of the EAA teachers were central to letting the public know what a complete and utter rip-off BUZZ was, though.
We never would have found out if the people who were working in the classrooms hadn’t told a blogger that BUZZ was an empty platform that didn’t work and that they were expected to fill it with content.
http://www.eclectablog.com/2014/09/explosive-education-achievement-authority-expose-pulls-back-curtain-on-who-profits-from-expansion-the-software-vendor.html
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Compare what EAA teachers said about BUZZ with what this well-respected ed reform leader says about it:
“The EAA has built a blended professional development course for teachers inside of Buzz that uses a variety of resources to help teachers learn how to build a strong learning environment through fostering relationships, creating a common language, developing a shared classroom vision and establishing rituals and routines. Other training modules in the course include planning for instruction, assessing mastery, and using data to drive performance. As the teachers learn how to facilitate a blended, student-centered classroom, their learning parallels how students learn including the cycles of learn, practice, apply, assess as they are expected to demonstrate mastery of learning targets from each module and provide evidence of that mastery. The teachers learn the technology tools that support students by experiencing the technology as students themselves.”
I don’t know where he got this. Did he see this himself or is he just regurgitating marketing?
Because teachers in the EAA said something completely different. Either the teachers are lying or he made this whole piece up.
http://gettingsmart.com/2013/09/building-buzz-detroit/
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Detroit has ben a problem for a long time, well before the EAA. Incidentally, the new director is a graduate of a NYC Public School, and has worked in the NYC public schools. It will be interesting to see what she decides to do.
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Cami Anderson’s approaches in Newark, NJ, can serve as a lesson what not to try. If you’ve read Bob Braun’s Ledger recently, you saw his post re Anderson’s “Renew Schools.” Wow, C Christie complains about pouring money into Newark … and the EAA is paying $325K for 7,000 students?
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Joe it’s true that DPS has a long history of problems, but that pales when considering how the Emergency Manager has screwed things up for the past 15 years, including building fiscal deficits every single year. Chancellor Conforme at the EAA has no classroom experience and her only public school employment was managing part of the NYC schools. I’m not confident that she understands teaching and learning and how to turn-around the 12 school buildings she runs. BTW the salary she is paid is higher than any other school Superintenant in MI, with schools surging only 6K students. It smells of hucksterism to me.
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Steve, what would you recommend that EAA do? (I’m interested, definitely not an expert on Detroit).
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I challenge you to find a new and more descriptive challenge for the Emergency Manager. “Turn-around” is a flat term, rattled off without much thought and therein lies part of the problem.
Education reform gets a poor grade in vocabulary, in my opinion.
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Oops, pardon my spelling mistakes!
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Close this experiment and save the children.
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It’s all in a name. Their name is presumptuous and unAmerican.
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Read recently that Eastern Michigan’s Board voted to renew its relationship with EAA against the recommendation of the school’s president and teachers. It also said that Detroit had more Charters than any city besides New Orleans. Shame on Eastern MIchigan’s Board, but they aren’t educators either. Forget where I read this article, perhaps MLive.com
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http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2014/12/05/eastern-michigan-university-eaa-controversy-continue-contract/19960197/
or
Old article but worth the read http://bridgemi.com/2014/06/f-is-for-frustrated-disorganization-at-detroit-eaa-schools-leaves-students-scrambling-to-graduate/?gclid=CMGiu5f7tMICFYdcMgodKTUA9g
or
eclectablog.com
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