In a state where only about three-quarters of public-school students graduate from high school and a dismal 17 percent are considered college-ready by the ACT standard, Midland Academy of Advanced and Creative Studies stands alone. The Midland-based charter school graduated 100 percent of its students in the 2010-11 school year, 50 percent of whom were […]
High school champs tout rigor
Posted inTalent & Education
Risk, analysis make charter math champs
Stepping out of the box is more than a cliche at Canton Charter Academy — it’s an act that’s strongly encouraged, said Principal Catherine Henkenberns, who gives her teachers room to stretch themselves as educators. “I want them to feel free to take risks and to really do what they think is going to be best […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Practice makes perfect (reading scores)
Set in the country on nearly 70 acres marked by rolling creeks, nature trails and nearby farms is Countryside Academy. This green-themed school near Benton Harbor integrates an environmentally based curriculum into learning. Principal Steve Rigoni said instruction revolves around the environment: “Students in English class can be reading about the environment or renewable resources, […]
Posted inPhil's Column
Big bucks silence views of ordinary folks
Surprise! Would you believe that … political systems are stacked in favor of those with money? That’s probably been true since the days of the pharaohs, if not before. But these days, two things make the normal much worse in our country: First, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the Citizens United case, essentially ruled two […]
Posted inTalent & Education
A push and helping hands aid science success
Talk to Ned Milne, science teacher at Woodland School, and it becomes clear how that Traverse City charter school earned its success in teaching the subject. For starters, all science classes are electives. Where students at other schools may be herded into general grade-level classes, at Woodland they choose among ecology, biology, chemistry and earth […]
Posted inTalent & Education
A school with one foot in the old country
Most of the Michigan charter schools you’re reading about in Bridge this week are relative newcomers to the field, with all but one founded in or after the mid-1990s, when charters, or public school academies, were established by the state legislature. The exception is the AGBU Alex & Marie Manoogian School in Southfield, which was […]
Posted inMichigan Government
DOC doesn't know if prisoner release effort works
A new Auditor General report is going to cause some heartburn in the Michigan Department of Corrections and in the Legislature. It says that DOC has spent about $130 million on a prisoner re-entry program — and has no clue whether the program actually works. The Michigan Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative was a centerpiece of the […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Charter champs know: Writing is tough
When Sherry Swain was teaching writing to first-graders, she sometimes took a lesson from E.B. White’s classic, “Charlotte’s Web.” She would read the first sentence — “‘Where’s Papa going with that ax?’ said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.” — and tell her students, “You know, that wasn’t E.B. […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Charter math winners make it count
At the International Academy of Saginaw, math is taught through a proprietary curriculum of the school’s management company, SABIS. Called “Teach-Practice-Check,” it’s “really just good teaching,” said Justin Doughty, director. Material is taught, practiced as a group, practiced individually and checked for mastery. Advanced students are christened “prefects” and enlisted to help slower peers. Doughty said […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Reading champs point to early prep
Now in its 16th year, Island City Academy was founded as an independent charter school in Eaton Rapids, a small town about 20 miles south of Lansing. Thomas Ackerson, its principal, said the school was born to institute a back-to-basics program that ran counter to the educational trends of the time. “The original idea was […]