Michigan’s Education Achievement Authority is closing down, and the low-performing schools put into the state-controlled district will be returned to the Detroit public schools.
The EAA was a disaster from the beginning. Its leaders had total control, and they used it to run experiments on the children, using technology. They ran up the bills and produced no academic improvements. The first leader was Robert Bobb, with Barbara Byrd-Bennett as chief academic officer (BBB is now sentenced to jail time for taking bribes in her role as superintendent of the Chicago public schools). Then there was Broad-trained John Covington, who increased the deficit, then moved on. At all times, Eli Broad was deeply involved in creating and staffing the EAA. This Friday is the last day for the EAA.
The EAA’s 15 schools will stay open, but they’ll be absorbed back into the Detroit Public Schools Community District. Sonya Mays, treasurer for the DPSCD school board, says the district is working with the EAA to make it a smooth transition for students.
The two districts are coordinating on transferring school records, communicating with families, and hiring administrators and teachers, among other things.
“And so it’s our hope, and we’ve tried to be very intentional about this, that students themselves will see very little disruption,” Mays said.
The EAA was created in 2011 to turn around Detroit’s lowest performing schools. But, according to Michigan State University education professor David Arsen, it fell far short of that goal.
“The EAA could fairly be regarded as a train wreck of educational policy,” Arsen said.
Arsen says a rushed policy process, plus a lack of state investment, meant the EAA had little chance of turning around Detroit’s failing schools.
In the state’s latest rankings, two-thirds of the EAA’s schools were in the bottom five percent.
Do you think maybe there is a lesson here for the low-performing Achievement School District in Tennessee and the copycat districts created in Nevada and elsewhere?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You might also that Detroit public schools are now under the control of an elected school board for the first time in seven years: http://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2017/01/11/detroit-school-board/96452920/
This trend against mayoral and state control is also apparent in the move to restore an elected school board in Chicago and Newark — the latter apparently imminent this fall – for the first time in 21 years: http://observer.com/2017/04/newark-school-board-election-nj-unity-slate/
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A relief to hear of a possible shift back from what should never have been.
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I look forward to seeing how the accountability-obsessed reformers plan to hold the EAA leaders accountable. What will the penalties be?
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That’s a good one ponderosa–held accountable?? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!
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Actually, the EAA was created to be the “state” reform District. In other words, it was initially imagined — and the Gov. forced a vote on this no less than 3x — to take over “failing” schools not just in Detroit but in the entire state of Michigan. It was backed by both political parties, the State Board of Education, and the State Superintendent. Moreover, at one point the Governor and his Devos nexus imagined the EAA model via a “skunks works” plan would satisfy (minimally) the constitutional (MI) requirement for public education at 5K a student with no frills 1 to computer instructor. That is, if you account for the initial — and pressed for — scope of the idea, the failure is that much greater. Extraordinary really, even in a nation of extraordinary failures. The idea was so preposterous, in fact, that even astute critics struggled to take in the enormity and the stupidity of the undertaking.
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Another example of Democrats throwing public school students under the bus.
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Hooray! Mayoral control of schools is a stupid idea and about $$$$$$ for campaigns.
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Was the real purpose of taking over these large districts with complicated budgets to assest strip them just as some CEOs asset strip their companies? I’ve read this happens and involves two sets of books.
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It is good news to see political leaders finally admitting that they are failing at fixing schools by ending democracy. Most of us thought that was a bonehead move to start with having taken civics in public school.
New York politicians should pay attention. It didn’t work in LA and Newark has been a more than 2 decades long state failure. How long are New Yorker’s going to allow uninformed politicians to destroy public schools?
Chicago schools are much worse off than they were before mayoral control.
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Well, I guess technology and the free market did not improve Detroit schools. Why is that ? Because they don’t. What improves schools is at a very grassroots level – it is going in and doing those things that we know work – smaller class sizes, pre K programs, after school tutoring and enrichment, well paid and listened to teachers, good caring principals, community involvment, full curriculum including the arts, and lots of hope and compassion.
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Cali girl, that says it all!
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