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 […]
Michigan K-12 schools
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 […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Long-simmering GOP-MEA ‘war’ intensifies going into 2014
The Michigan Education Association and Michigan Republican Party are on speaking terms – sort of. SIGN OF TIMES: An MEA-financed billboard from last year’s elections reflect the heated rhetoric that has come to mark the union’s relationship with the Republican Party. (courtesy photo) Last year, the two sides regularly exchanged plenty of words – words […]
Posted inGuest Commentary
Guest commentary: Why do EAA critics want children trapped in failing schools?
By John William Covington/Education Achievement Authority Rep. Ellen Lipton’s comments about the Education Achievement Authority are an example of the way so much of the educational establishment and their political allies are trying to kill an innovative approach to educating young people who have been abjectly failed by the old, outdated system of public schooling. The […]
Posted inPhil's Column
Schools, colleges aren’t preparing students for careers in Michigan
Phil Power is founder and chairman of the Center for Michigan. Paul Hillegonds, who these days is a vice president at DTE Energy, is one of Michigan’s most plugged-in and thoughtful people. Whenever something valuable and useful is going on in our state, Paul, a former speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives, is […]