Fractured education reform never works
OK. Let's play a game.
Guess what this is: Its mission is to supervise the lowest achieving 5% of schools in Michigan. Its job is to establish policies that can rapidly improve those schools, coordinate reform efforts with the Department of Education, strengthen teacher effectiveness and convince Michigan to try initiatives that work elsewhere.
So what entity is this?
If you guessed the Education Achievement Authority, which oversees 15 low-performing schools in Detroit, you would be ... wrong.
Those goals belong to Michigan's State School Reform and Redesign Office, whose operations Gov. Rick Snyder moved Thursday from the Department of Education, which he does not oversee, to the Department of Technology, Management and Budget, which he does oversee.
The governor's actions prompt me to ask a series of questions, starting with: "Huh?"
And these:
Why move the reform office staff and 138 of the state's worst-performing schools — including some in Detroit — from the oversight of educators to that of business analysts and number-crunchers? Does that portend a future move of those schools to for-profit management companies?
Why make major changes affecting Detroit children while the Coalition for the Future of Detroit Schoolchildren, a diverse 36-member group of Motown leaders, is working tirelessly to develop recommendations for the governor by March 31?
State Sen. Bert Johnson thinks he knows: The governor did it so he'd be "100% in a position to control those schools."
Retired educator Keith Johnson, former president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers and a member of the 36-strong coalition, was more direct.
"We're going to continue to do our work," he said. "But if we put in all this work and we come back with sound recommendations that he simply ignores, it will give us license to go on the attack against the governor, saying, 'You charged us with coming up with recommendations for the state and then you cut our legs out from under us.'
"These people ... are putting in a lot of thought on a volunteer basis because we all care about the future of education in Detroit and Michigan. I think it's an insult to all of us for him to cut us off at the knees like this — potentially."
Another coalition member, who asked for anonymity until the group's work is done, called the governor's action "disappointing and distracting" but said it now places the governor in the hot seat.
"There are many people who share the governor's discontent that this (reform) office hasn't been used to help low-performing schools," the member said. "This move is bold in the sense that the governor is assuming responsibility to improve schools in the state, that he wants to be accountable.
"Even though I would have preferred for the governor to wait until the coalition has completed its recommendations, he's sending a powerful message that this office was underutilized. He's putting it out there that he wants to be accountable for low-performing schools. The public has to now hold him accountable."
If that is what Snyder intended, he bit off a huge hunk. This job might be harder than Fractured education reform never works: