NEW LOOK, COURSE: The Ypsilanti and Willow Run school districts merged July 1 to form Ypsilanti Community Schools, a new district that’s embarking on a variety of operational reforms, including a longer school day and longer school year. (courtesy image/Ypsilanti Community Schools) Two Washtenaw County communities are taking a marriage born out of necessity […]
Michigan K-12 schools
Posted inPhil's Column
Apply brainpower to get better results from billions spent on education
Phil Power is founder and chairman of the Center for Michigan. The education industry in Michigan is facing a coming tidal wave of change — and the landscape is going to be re-arranged. Money may seem to many to be the major issue, but it’s not. According to Gov. Rick Snyder’s message to the […]
Posted inBrunch with Bridge
It would be nice to know size of classes in Michigan schools
A Bridge Editorial HOW MANY?: Michigan parents have no way to compare the number of students in their children’s classes to classes in other schools and districts, an information deficit the state Department of Education should quickly remedy. (courtesy photo/used under Creative Commons license) Bridge Magazine recently conducted an exhaustive analysis of class size […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Mix school choice, state incentives and you get a $400,000 high-schooler
In Birmingham, the school district got $440,000 for one out-of-town high-schooler. In nearby Novi, the schools received $320,000 for an empty desk. That’s what you get when you mix a governor’s reform agenda with schools threading the needle between school choice and protesting parents. The two districts in Oakland County had long opted out of […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Schoolchildren shuttle across SE Michigan, raising questions about funding, community identity
Oak Park Schools might want to rebrand itself as Grand Central Station. Each morning in the school year that just ended, 2,121 students from outside Oak Park traveled into the district for their education, filling 48 percent of the desks. Each morning, 1,004 young Oak Park residents — about a third of the community’s home-grown […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Fortress Grosse Pointe: In world of school choice, community says ‘stay out’
GROSSE POINTE — When Dan Roeske was running for the Grosse Pointe Public Schools board in 2011, he found himself addressing a PTO group at Poupard Elementary, one of the district’s 13 schools. A woman asked bluntly about one of the district’s perennial issues. “Where do you stand on open enrollment?” she asked. Roeske took […]
Posted inGuest Commentary
More and more schools falling into budget squeeze
(courtesy photo/used under Creative Commons license) State Superintendent Mike Flanagan delivered troubling news to a legislative panel last week: –One in 10 traditional K-12 school districts in Michigan (55 of 549) are operating in a budget deficit. –The number of deficit districts has doubled since 2008, when only 27 were in the hole. Two charts […]
Posted inSuccess
Class in Upper Peninsula school sparks students’ interest in powering the world
MARQUETTE — Doug Elliott’s class at Ishpeming’s Westwood High School goes way beyond the focus of many a shop class: making wooden birdhouses, shelves and such. Elliott’s students get into computer numerical control and sensors. Entitled “Survival in an Electrical World,” the class covers the basics and far more. An advanced class, for example, gets […]
Posted inGuest Commentary
Guest commentary: Keep world-class standards for Michigan learners
By Doug Rothwell/Business Leaders for Michigan Business Leaders for Michigan supports continued use of the Common Core State Standards in Michigan, writes Doug Rothwell. (courtesy image/used under Creative Commons license) This year, Michigan public schools began using the kind of high-quality content standards that our kids need to be competitive in the 21st century. Used […]
Posted inGuest Commentary
Guest commentary: In Detroit, put the value of early learning to work for all children
By Katherine Foran/Excellent Schools Detroit (courtesy photo/Excellent Schools Detroit) “We are consumed by issues of remediation,” Dan Varner, CEO of Excellent Schools Detroit, observed. We struggle with costly “fixes,” targeting academic failure, high dropout rates, unemployment, low wages, higher substance abuse and incarceration rates, poorer health outcomes and diminished opportunities that too often spill over […]