Cutting Our (Financial) Losses in the Public Realm: Running Schools Like a Business
Well, it’s beginning.
Well, actually, it had already begun.
So it continues.
And the pace of it just might be picking up.
School closings that is.
Detroit Public Schools Community District has just announced that it will be closing Durfee Middle School.
If you follow Michigan’s education scene, you know that the State School Reform Office (tellingly located under the Michigan Department of Technology/Management and Budget department rather than the Department of Education- it’s complicated) is looking to close schools that perform in the lowest 5% across the state for 3 consecutive years. (You also know that over 100 public schools have closed in Detroit since 2005.) The Detroit Free Press explains,“More than 120 schools were on the state’s 2015 list of Michigan’s bottom 5% of schools, including 47 schools in the Detroit district. Durfee has been on the list since 2014.
The 2016 bottom 5% list — and an announcement about school closures or reforms — is expected to be publicly released within weeks. The Michigan Department of Education compiles the bottom 5% list based on state test data. Officials warned in August that some schools that have been on the list for three consecutive years could be shut down.”
I’ve previously addressed this cruel nonsense of determining the success or Cutting Our (Financial) Losses in the Public Realm: Running Schools Like a Business | educarenow:
