Oh, good! Governor Rick Snyder wants to be held directly accountable for the improvement of the bottom 5% of schools in Michigan.
He has taken away responsibility for them from the State Department of Education and transferred it to an agency he controls.
He must have forgotten the lessons of the Educational Achievement Authority.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The governor seems to be taking a turn at frustrating an elected State Board of Education. He may be following the playbook of the Republican governor of Indiana. Why doesn’t he hold accountable the bottom underperforming Michigan charter schools?
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Yes, it is purely political. He’s nervous that Vicki Markavitch will be named the next state superintendent and she’s no friend of charters and choice. She’s also the candidate who is the most qualified to have the position based on experience and accomplishments.
Snyder is excellent at shell games. He hides his intentions until the opportune moment, then BAM! His favorite expression is “That’s not on my agenda.” Then it appears on his agenda 24 hours before he signs it. His advisers say he has been contemplating this executive order for a while but yesterday was the first it was reported.
Those of us who follow state politics knew this was likely back in 2011.
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I suppose it would be too much to hope that he’s willing to fire himself if he’s found to be ineffective?
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“if”????
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Oh, good! Less transparency and accountability in government.
Maybe they’ll do that innovative plan he tried to push past the public last time, where they stick lower income kids in front of screens all day to save money:
“The governor, speaking Tuesday night during a virtual town hall meeting, suggested public uproar over private meetings by a group working to develop a low-cost school model for Michigan has overshadowed an important discussion about increasing the use of technology in the classroom.:
LOOOO-W cost! That was the objective.
Last time he got caught. I bet they’ve gotten better at keeping it all under wraps since then. Can we just negotiate with lobbyists directly? We might do better than we go thru the politician middleman.
http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/04/michigan_gov_rick_snyder_on_sk.html
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I’ve always thought these rt-wingers & corporatists really want the power of dictators and that their talk of democracy, liberty & freedom is all smoke screen.
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Just for the sake of accuracy, “right wingers” really doesn’t fit.
The whole ed reform Movement rushed to Detroit to endorse Eli Broad’s EAA, including the US Secretary of Education:
http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/22176723/education-secretary-arne-duncan-says-he-is-encouraged-during-detroit-visit
Why doesn’t anyone from the federal government ever travel to do a promotional event for public schools?
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140 schools under his direct control? Wow. I wonder if they’ll actually privatize that many schools with no public input at all. Would that be the biggest take-over in the country, to date?
I hope someone sues for the correspondence. I’d love to know how long this has been in the works and whether out of state ed reform lobbying groups were brought in before the public was informed.
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The far right knows not how to govern, only rule. Witness Congress.
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Math vale – there’s enough blame to go all around (see Mario Cuomo, John King, Arne Duncan, Jeb Bush, . . . ).
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Yes, but these are the neolibrals cut from the same cloth. I see no difference between Kasich and Cuomo. Republicans in our state of Ohio cannot govern, only rule by obliterating and silencing all opposition. Yet we are a 50-50 state. The RTW push has less to do with worker rights, and everything to do with weakening Democratic opposition to create a one party system.
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Math vale – these neoliberals are giving us regular liberals a bad name.
In other words, I need to find a new name to describe my philosophy. Maybe I’m simply a Ravitch.
Ellen
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Ellen,
I consider myself, politically speaking to be a free thinker willing to look at all and make my own decisions on who to vote for. No need to have a “party” tell me who to vote for.
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Yes Duane, we all know you are “anti-labels”, but at one point in time liberal meant forward thinking (in a positive way). These neo liberals seem to have become more like neo conservatives with the goal of seeing which one is better at sucking up to the patrons with the most money. You can tell the winners – those with the brownest noses.
Ellen
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From the posting: “He must have forgotten the lessons of the Educational Achievement Authority.”
Pardon the impertinence, but that assumes he learned the “lessons of the Educational Achievement Authority” in the first place.
Impossible, because he can’t forget what he didn’t know to begin with.
After all, if he was ‘thought-full’ he would not be a ‘thought-less’ member of the “education reform” establishment.
😎
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It’s ironic that we all realize this is a bad move (or at least not in the best interests of the children). Heaven forbid a politician would be the right thing for the right reasons. We are all so jaded because we are living in this alternate universe where sanity is consistently ignored.
Ellen T Klock
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And that’s when L. Black’s statement comes into play: “I took acid when I was younger to prepare myself for times like now”.
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This just in …
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