Should it be Harder to Become a Teacher? Harder How? | Dana Goldstein

Should it be Harder to Become a Teacher? Harder How? | Dana Goldstein:

Should it be Harder to Become a Teacher? Harder How?

Amanda Ripley has a thoughtful piece at Slate on how states are passing regulations that raise the SAT score/GPA bar for getting accepted into teacher training programs. I thought a lot about this as I wrote The Teacher Wars, which is a history of teaching in America (out Sept. 2! Plug plug!). It became pretty obvious to me that one of the original sins of our public education system was the normal school, a special school for preparing teachers — segregated from other higher education — which originally accepted only women, because women were cheaper to employ en masse as teachers. These normal schools, which began opening in the 1830s, were, at first, a substitute for academic high school. They sometimes accepted students with the equivalent of only a sixth or seventh-grade education. Later, the normal schools evolved into many of today’s non-selective regional state colleges. These colleges continue to prepare the majority of American teachers, who enter the classroom with undergraduate degrees in education.

As early as the 1850s, smart people who cared about public schools began to critique the “normals.” Susan B. Anthony, who began her activist career organizing her fellow female teachers to demand higher pay, believed teachers would never be respected until they were educated alongside other white-collar professionals. W.E.B. Du Bois wrote, “It was not enough that the teachers of teachers should be trained in technical normal methods; they must also, so far as possible, be broad-minded, cultured men and women, to scatter civilization among a people whose ignorance was not simply of letters, but of life itself.”

Like Amanda (a friend and colleague, whose book I loved) I believe teaching is difficult, highly intellectual work. But here’s what I found in my research. First, while a teacher’s intellectual capacity — measured through the size of their vocabulary, for example, and their writing skill – seems to drive increased student achievement, there is a much more tenuous connection between teachers’ own standardized test scores, their grades, the selectivity of their colleges, and student learning. (High school level math seems to be an exception; there, the teacher’s own achievement matters more.) Research on highly-rated teachers who stay longterm in the profession, and who are willing to commit to work in high-poverty schools, Should it be Harder to Become a Teacher? Harder How? | Dana Goldstein:

Ohio next up in Common Core showdown :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet

Ohio next up in Common Core showdown :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

AUGUST 12, 2014

Ohio next up in Common Core showdown

by Alisha Kirby

(Ohio) Yet another bill to repeal the Common Core State Standards will be heard Aug. 18 in Columbus amid growing public opposition to the standards.

Authors, Ohio Speaker Pro Tempore Matt Huffman, R-Lima, and Rep. Andy Thompson, R-Marietta, announced a placeholder bill, House Bill 597, which they say will fully repeal the standards and replace them with standards that have been proven and developed by the state’s school districts, parents and teachers.

“Americans view Common Core as an intrusion by the federal government into a very personal matter: the education of their children,” Rep. Huffman said at a joint press conference July 29 with Rep. Thompson announcing the repeal. “This bill will work to address their concerns in order to find a solution.”

Ohio has become one of a number of states looking to repeal the standards, citing concerns over topics such as federal intrusion, poorly planned implementation and a lack of student data privacy. Similarly, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker called for his state to repeal Common Core last month.

A portion of the Ohio proposal has been made available which shows only that the core-aligned English language arts and mathematics standards will be replaced with “academic content standards that have been proven and tested and will ensure the maintenance of local control over the implementation and use of the standards.”

It follows the introduction of a similar bill late last month that would prohibit the Ohio State Board of Education from adopting the standards, and the Department of Education from implementing them, and void all prior actions to do so.

The standards were approved in the state in 2010 with little issue, and the state’s web-based field tests of the Common Core with the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Ohio next up in Common Core showdown :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

Twin Rivers applies LCFF mandate to engage community

(Calif.) Building on a year of positive change, Twin Rivers Superintendent Steve Martinez has set the bar higher for 2014-15 with a new program aimed at promoting student success though engagement.

by Tom Chorneau / 6h 

Broken Promises in New Orleans | janresseger

Broken Promises in New Orleans | janresseger:

Broken Promises in New Orleans

Posted on August 12, 2014 by janresseger

There has been a lot of hype about the transformation to charter schools of almost all of the public schools in New Orleans.  The transformation began with the destruction of the city by Hurricane Katrina just as the school year had begun in 2005.  Powerful forces in Louisiana assisted by Margaret Spellings, then U.S. Secretary of Education and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation made enormous grants; the state seized almost all of New Orleans’ public schools into a state-managed Recovery School District that permanently laid off all of New Orleans’ teachers; and a mass of charter operators came to the city to bid for building sites where they would participate in what was seen by many as a grand experiment.

As school opens this fall—nine years later, all of the remaining traditional public schools in what has become the Recovery School District are opening as charter schools, authorized and operated by different appointed boards.  The promoters of all this have made the numbers look as though the mass charterization has raised achievement, though this blog recently covered evidence that statistics can be made to show what those who present the data want the numbers to show.

What is clear is that many parents and others in the community have felt left out of a process which, although it features parental market choice, has sidestepped democracy and too often responded authentically neither to particular parents nor to the broader community.  A new series by Danielle Dreilinger in the New Orleans Times-Picayune here and here (and also reprinted at the Hechinger Report here and here) traces just how administrators in the New Orleans Recovery School District forgot about their promise to save Paul L. Dunbar Elementary School by opening Layfayette Academy, operated by the local Choice Foundation and chosen after a thoughtful process involving many community organizations in the tiny but very engaged Hollygrove neighborhood.

One school building among 82 New Orleans sites to be assigned a charter operator—an agreement signed in 2010 between the Choice Foundation and then Superintendent Paul Vallas—a change of staff in the Recovery School District—the signed agreement misplaced during a nine year “siting”process—and a Knowledge Is Power (KIPP) charter operator instead granted control of the new building soon to be completed and opened in Hollygrove.

Dreilinger explains: “After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleanians had to rebuild.  There were neighborhoods to reknit. There were schools to reinvent…. In Hollygrove, the two efforts Broken Promises in New Orleans | janresseger:

Shanker Blog » Differences In DC Teacher Evaluation Ratings By School Poverty

Shanker Blog » Differences In DC Teacher Evaluation Ratings By School Poverty:

Differences In DC Teacher Evaluation Ratings By School Poverty

Posted by Matthew Di Carlo on August 12, 2014

In a previous post, I discussed simple data from the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) on teacher turnover in high- versus lower-poverty schools. In that same report, which was issued by the D.C. Auditor and included, among other things, descriptive analyses by the excellent researchers from Mathematica, there is another very interesting table showing the evaluation ratings of DC teachers in 2010-11 by school poverty (and, indeed, DC officials deserve credit for making these kinds of data available to the public, as this is not the case in many other states).

DCPS’ well-known evaluation system (called IMPACT) varies between teachers in tested versus non-tested grades, but the final ratings are a weighted average of several components, including: the teaching and learning framework (classroom observations); commitment to the school community (attendance at meetings, mentoring, PD, etc.); schoolwide value-added; teacher-assessed student achievement data (local assessments); core professionalism (absences, etc.); and individual value-added (tested teachers only).

The table I want to discuss is on page 43 of the Auditor’s report, and it shows average IMPACT scores for each component and overall for teachers in high-poverty schools (80-100 percent free/reduced-price lunch), medium poverty schools (60-80 percent) and low-poverty schools (less than 60 percent). It is pasted below.

In short, this table suggests that there is a rather substantial discrepancy in IMPACT results between teachers in low-poverty schools versus their counterparts in medium- and high-poverty schools.

Specifically, you’ll notice that almost 30 percent of teachers in low-poverty schools receive the highest rating (“highly effective”), compared with just 7-10 percent in the other categories. In addition, just over seven percent of teachers in low-poverty schools receive one of the two lowest ratings (“minimally effective” or “ineffective,” both of which may result in dismissal), versus 18-21 percent in the medium- and high-poverty schools.

So, the relationship between school poverty and IMPACT ratings may not be linear, as the distributions for medium- and high-poverty schools are quite similar. Nevertheless, it seems very clear that IMPACT results are generally better among teachers in schools serving lower proportions of poor students (i.e., students eligible for subsidized lunch), and that the discrepancies are quite large.

One question is why these differences, which have been found elsewhere in both test-based and non-test-basedmeasures, arise.

Broadly speaking, there are two possible explanations (and they are not mutually exclusive). The first, put crudely, is Shanker Blog » Differences In DC Teacher Evaluation Ratings By School Poverty:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Quinn losing to the worst person in the world. Why?

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Quinn losing to the worst person in the world. Why?:

Quinn losing to the worst person in the world. Why?

Workers need more than a $1.75 raise.

Mimicking former MSNBC great Keith Olbermann, I'm willing to go out on a limb a say that billionaire Bruce Rauner is the worst person in the world. And few would disagree, although Pat Quinn's running mate Paul Vallas may have a lock on second place. While Quinn proudly takes credit ("I was born for this...") for slashing the pension benefits of the state's public-sector workers, Rauner has vowed to do away with collective-bargaining rights and unions altogether, a la Gov. Walker in Wisconsin. 

So why does the worst person in the world, hated even by most Republicans, have a double-digit lead over Quinn the incumbent with just 12 weeks to go? This in a state where only 27% of voters vote Republican. I would argue that it's not just the money factor. And it's not only because running-mate Vallas has hardly lifted a finger to help Quinn. Rauner can't even spend all the dough he's raising, even while saturating the market for almost a year now with trite, negative, sometimes laughable ads (what ever happened to Bruce-the-Hammer?). I mean, there's only so much money you can spend on a campaign without moving beyond your own base. The rest, he's has had to spread around to a host of ultra-right-wing, Tea Party and Koch Bros.-aligned groups. 

What ever happened to #Hammer & Shake?

My assessment? This is one of the worst the-other-guy's-a-crook("unpatriotic") campaigns in recent memory, which has to work in favor of the guy with the most money. Quinn's Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Quinn losing to the worst person in the world. Why?:

D.C. Dumping Test Scores From Its Teacher Evaluations:

D.C. Dumping Test Scores From Its Teacher Evaluations

 WASHINGTON (AP) — The District of Columbia public school system, one of the first in the country to evaluate teachers using student test scores, announced Thursday that it would suspend the practice while students adjust to new tests based on Common Core standards.

Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced the decision, saying officials are concerned it wouldn't be fair to use the new tests until a baseline is established and any complications are worked out.

The District has fired hundreds of teachers under the system, which was put in place by Henderson's predecessor, Michelle Rhee. Test scores make up 35 percent of evaluations for those who teach students in the tested grades and subjects.

Last week, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation joined the two largest teachers' unions in calling for a temporary halt to evaluating teachers based on Common Core tests. The foundation has spent more than $200 million implementing the Common Core standards nationwide.

The U.S. Education Department has not backed the idea of a moratorium, which is also being considered in New York. Gov. Andrew Cuomo introduced a bill on Thursday that would remove test scores from teacher evaluations for two years, and a handful of states have delayed using test scores to make personnel decisions. But no state that already includes test scores in evaluations has committed to pausing the practice.

"Although we applaud District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) for their continued commitment to rigorous evaluation and support for their teachers, we know there are many who looked to DCPS as a pacesetter who will be disappointed with their desire to slow down," Raymonde Charles, an Education Department spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement.

President Barack Obama's administration has offered incentives to states to develop D.C. Dumping Test Scores From Its Teacher Evaluations:

8-11-14 Wag The Dog Week

WagTheDog | Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart. ~ Rumi:

He Who Controls The Language…

‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory,”‘ Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”‘ ‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument,”‘ Alice objected. ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’ ‘The questio

by getwhatugive / 2h 

8-10-14 Wag The Dog Week

WagTheDog | Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart. ~ Rumi: Thoughts and Feelings Do Matter“The children coming into their second grade classroom that morning arranged their chairs in a circle for a daily ritual: Their teacher asked every child to tell the class how they felt (unless they didn’t want to share this), and why they fe

by mike simpson / 7h 

THREE YEARS AND GROWING: HAPPY ANNIVERSARY UOO! - UNITED OPT OUT: The Movement to End Corporate Education Reform

THREE YEARS AND GROWING: HAPPY ANNIVERSARY UOO! - UNITED OPT OUT: The Movement to End Corporate Education Reform:

THREE YEARS AND GROWING: HAPPY ANNIVERSARY UOO!

BY MORNA MCDERMOTT · AUGUST 11, 2014

United Opt Out was created by six “pissed off radicals” in August of 2011.

Some of the names and faces have changed since then (Laurie Murphy and Shaun Johnson have rolled off the administration team) and new administrators have recently joined (welcome Ruth Rodriguez, Rosemarie Jensen, and Denisha Jones!).

We have also welcomed a huge host of regional leaders who are committed to assisting the opt out movement in their states and regions. They’re ready to help!

Region 1 Leaders: Morna McDermott McNulty (mcdermottmax@yahoo.com) and Ruth Rodriguez (ruthrfay@gmail.com )

Region 1 states include:

Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania

Region 2 Leaders: Tim Slekar (timslekar@gmail.com) and Peggy Robertson (writepeg@juno.com)

Region 2 states include:

Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota

Region 3 Leaders: Rosemarie Jensen (live4literacy@aol.com) and Ceresta Smith (cerestas@yahoo.com)

Region 3 states include:

Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington DC, West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi,Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas

Region 4 Leaders: Peggy Robertson (writepeg@juno.com) and Denisha Jones (denishanjones@gmail.com )

Region 4 states include:

Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington

Over the years we have partnered with and support the efforts of “sister” national organizations including SOS, BATS and Fairtest.

The lasndscape of education “reform” continues to shift beneath our feet. But one thing has not, and will not change: Our unwavering and passionate commitment to children, public school teachers, and our belief in the possibilities (and hope) for public education as the cornerstone of our democracy.

United Opt Out National serves as a focused point of unyielding resistance to corporate ed. reform. We demand an equitably funded, democratically based, anti-racist, desegregated public school system for all Americans that prepares students to exercise compassionate and critical decision making with civic virtue.

For a full description of what we “stand for” see here.  Please see who we are (bios below).

The movement is growing. What can we do?

Boycott the tests.

Educate parents and communities.

Support educators.

Talk back against the reform narrative.

REFUSE complicity and complacency.

Please connect with us! Become a UOO member today here.

WHO WE ARE:

Rosemarie Jensen is a former teacher and currently a parent activist. She received her M. Ed. from the University of Florida and taught K-1 for ten years in both Alachua and Broward Counties. In addition, she trained teachers in Alachua and surrounding counties in Math Their Way and later worked as a K-2 literacy trainer for teachers in Broward County. In the past 15 years she has been an active participant in her local schools and has worked to end high stakes testing and corporate reforms. She has been involved in community, state and national efforts to support public education and teachers. She has opted her son out of FCAT for the past three years in Florida.

Denisha Jones is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Howard University. She is a former early childhood teacher and preschool director. She received her PhD from Indiana University in 2013. She has been active in the fight to stop the corporate takeover of public education since 2011. She is also an admin for the Badass Teachers Association and has worked with Save Our Schools to expose the dangers of privatizing public education. She blogs about education for emPower Magazine, @ the Chalk Face, and the Badass Teachers Association. Her research interests include the de-professionalization of teaching, service-learning, providing meaningful professional development for early childhood teachers, and promoting diversity in education.

Morna McDermott has been working in, with, and around public schools for over twenty years. Currently she is an Associate Professor at Towson University, in Maryland where she teaches various theory and methods courses in the College of Education. Her scholarship and research interests focus on democracy, social justice, and arts-informed inquiry in K-post secondary educational settings, and working with beginning and experienced educators. She explores how the arts serve as a form of literacy that challenges traditional classroom learning and dominant narratives. Recent art work and installations have emphasized the value of art as a “public pedagogy” in creating grass roots social-political-educational change. Dr. McDermott currently serves as the Arts Based Educational Research section editor for the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy. In addition to publishing in educational journals and books, she has a blog at www.educationalchemy.com . She currently lives in Baltimore with her husband and two children. Contact Morna at mcdermottmax@yahoo.com

Peggy Robertson has taught kindergarten, first, second, fourth, fifth and sixth grade, beginning her career in Missouri and continuing in Kansas, for a total of ten years. She was hired by Richard C. Owen Publishers in 2001 to serve as a Learning Network Coordinator and spent the next three years training teacher leaders and administrators in educational theory and practice in the state of Colorado, as well as around the country during the summer months. In 2004 she was hired as the Literacy Coordinator by the Adams 50 School District in Westminster, Colorado. While working in Adams 50 she mentored teachers and administrators and supported them in the writing and implementation of school development plans. She earned her master’s degree in English as a Second Language at Southeast Missouri State University. She currently is an instructional coach at an elementary school and devotes the rest of her time to her work at United Opt Out National. Her blog can be found at www.pegwithpen.com . Contact Peggy at writepeg@juno.com or 720-810-5593.

Ruth Rodriguez holds a BA in Social Work and did graduate studies in Bilingual Education at Boston University. She was a Community Fellow in the Urban Studies Department at MIT where she researched school violence. She has spent most of her career life in the field of education, as a kindergarten teacher, school/family and community coordinator, and supporter of parent/teacher collaboration. Ruth is a member of the national Save Our Schools Steering Committee and sits on the Advisory Board of Citizens for Public Schools (CPS) in Boston, MA. Ruth served on MA Governor Deval Patrick’s Readiness Project on MCAS and Assessment, an initiative that brought together a diverse group of educators, to advise the governor on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MA high stakes exam for promotion and graduation requirement).

Timothy D. Slekar is the dean of the School of Education at Edgewood College. Dr. Slekar began his career in education as a 2nd grade teacher in Williamsburg, VA. He also taught 5th grade in York, PA. Dr. Slekar attended the University of Maryland at College Park where he earned his Ph. D. in social studies education. During his studies Dr. Slekar worked with 7th and 8th grade teachers in the city of Baltimore. Dr. Slekar has published research in some of the top educational research journals (Teacher Education Quarterly, Theory and Research in Social Education, Journal of Thought). Tim’s new radio show—Busted Pencils— will air within the month.  Get ready for “fully leaded education talk!”

Ceresta Smith is an American University alumna, and a twenty-six-year veteran educator who has taught grades six through twelve reading and language arts, as well as beginning and advanced television production. Contact Ceresta at cerestas@yahoo.com or 786-303-4785. She earned her National Board Certification in Adult/Young Adult English/language arts in 2002 and now serves as a teacher leader and mentor. In September of 2008, she moved from a school deemed “high performing” to serve as a teacher leader and literacy coach in a school deemed “low performing.” While there, she became a 2009 – 2010 recipient of a Jordan Fundamental Grant that facilitated the implementation of Text Titans, a literacy building initiative designed by her and funded by Brand Jordan. A private foundation created by basketball great Michael Jordan, Brand Jordan honors teachers who motivate and inspire students toward achieving excellence. As a committed educator and activist, Ms. Smith founded the Concerned Teacher Coalition in 2009 to address the inequities in Miami-Dade County’s predominantly African-American public schools. One of the original organizers of Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action, she continues to champion for equity and quality pedagogy in America’s public schools.THREE YEARS AND GROWING: HAPPY ANNIVERSARY UOO! - UNITED OPT OUT: The Movement to End Corporate Education Reform:

Who Taught Educators To Hate Themselves? (About Lists and Authenticity) - The Jose Vilson

Who Taught Educators To Hate Themselves? (About Lists and Authenticity) - The Jose Vilson:



Who Taught Educators To Hate Themselves? (About Lists and Authenticity)

The following is a debate I’ve had with a few folk, so here is an uninterrupted fleshing out of these thoughts.

Michael Petrilli put out another list of edu-influentials this year. This list, unlike the last time I wrote about this, didn’t need any particular prodding from me regarding diversity and inclusion of women who discuss education policy. This list, unlike the last time, kept Sabrina, Audrey, and me, and added Xian Barrett, too. I generally feel ambivalent about lists, awards, or any special recognition unless I know there was a concentrated effort by a group of folks to put me on. For that, I must be thankful.

At first, I felt as strongly as Audrey Watters does about lists. For the most part, I do agree with her assertions:

We can debate, as philosophers have for ages, the meaning of these terms – “intelligence,” “influence.” But more importantly, we should ask: why do these characteristics matter? To whom do they matter? And once there’s a practice in place that has defined these terms and has designed measurement tools to assess them and a scale to rank them, we should ask what purposes these designations serve. I don’t mean what sorts of perks do you get with your Klout score or your IQ; I mean for us to consider how might these ranking systems reinscribe hierarchy and inequality, all the while purporting to offer an “objective” tool that reflects ability.

Sorta like “science,” but not.

But then something hit me: there’s a lot of connected educators and edu-activists saying they don’t care about lists, awards, and recognition but taking them anyways. Before I became fully acquainted with the intricacies of social media and the worlds of ed-tech and edu-activism, lots of folks received plaudits, gifts, and followers just for existing, willing to include corporate sponsorship in their message as long as their “numbers” flew. Now that there’s a wider range of Who Taught Educators To Hate Themselves? (About Lists and Authenticity) - The Jose Vilson:

Teaching With Common Core Aligned Books and Ignoring the Questions of Children:

Teaching With Common Core Aligned Books and Ignoring the Questions of Children

AUGUST 11, 2014 BY NANCY BAILEY LEAVE A COMMENT

Common Core aligned books and the drill to teach reading to young children, appears to ignore the real questions children might have about the stories they read. This could be serious, especially if the book is beyond a child’s development. If the teacher is forced to address things like syntax, story order, and facts surrounding the characters and the word meaning, but never asks the child how they interpret the story, it could cause a lot of problems surrounding reading development. It could also cause a child to become confused, fearful, even dislike reading altogether.

The missing piece of the puzzle is that no one asks the children how they feel about what they read or what they think about what they read. This no longer matters in the cold, mechanistic style of measurable educating  and in this case with reading instruction. We are hearkening back to the cold 1940s (close reading) schooling and calling it progress. Like everything else with Common Core, there are right answers and that’s it. There is no room for interpretation.

For example, the Federalist recently provided an interesting example of teachers learning about this new kind of reading instruction. Here they were learning to teach the Common Core English Language Arts (See Here). The book the teachers were using to teach second grade summer school students, students who were having difficulty with reading already, was Eve Bunting’s Pop’s Bridge. Bunting is known for her gritty books, rich and provocative, like Smokey Night which deals with rioting, orFlyaway Home where a father and son live in an airport because they are homeless.Terrible Things is her book about the Holocaust with the message that people should Teaching With Common Core Aligned Books and Ignoring the Questions of Children:

11 charter school authorizers face suspension - SFGate

11 charter school authorizers face suspension - SFGate:

11 charter school authorizers face suspension

By DAVID EGGERT, Associated Press

 LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The state education agency on Monday put one-quarter of Michigan's charter school authorizers on notice of possible suspension, citing deficiencies in their transparency, academic performances and fiscal oversight.

The 11 chartering agents include five universities, a community college, the state's turnaround entity in Detroit and four K-12 districts. They are the chartering bodies for 124 — or 43 percent — of 289 independent, public charter schools, according to the most recent figures.

Superintendent Mike Flanagan's announcement was the first time the state had warned an authorizer since Michigan began allowing charter schools 20 years ago. The authorizers on the "at-risk" list have until Oct. 22 to fix their issues. Flanagan plans to decide in November whether to suspend their chartering ability.

"They wouldn't be out of business," he said in a statement. "They just won't be able to open any new charters until their deficiencies are fixed and the academic outcomes of their schools are improved."

Ultimately, the power to close a charter school rests with the authorizer.

Flanagan announced last month that he would review Michigan's 40 chartering agents after a Detroit Free Press investigation questioned charter school oversight. Some schools are operated by nonprofits, while profit-making businesses manage more than half. The newspaper concluded much of the spending takes place with little public transparency or accountability.

Flanagan had previously said lawmakers needed to first offer specific guidelines for shutting down authorizers before he could act, but he decided not to wait. Factors he used to create the list include accountability, transparency, contracts and financial governance — which he said exist either in state law or the academic ranking system.

The Michigan Association of Public School Academies, which called the newspaper series "one-sided," said Monday that Flanagan's findings are "not based in state law" and are a "finger in the eye" of the Republican-led Legislature and GOP Gov. Rick Snyder.

"It is a random, 'back of the napkin' measurement concept introduced today for the very first time that confuses the issue, misleads the media, ignores the law and aims to appease partisan motivations," the organization's president, Dan Quisenberry, said in a statement.

Flanagan said he has directed the Michigan Education Department to meet with 11 charter school authorizers face suspension - SFGate: