Penalizing struggling schools solves what exactly? The Detroit Free Press has an article in today’s edition titled “Rick Snyder’s push to tie school funding to performance still needs a scale”. They quote Governor Rick Snyder from last April: “In my 2013 budget message, I will be proposing that school districts receive a bonus beyond the per-pupil state foundation allowance for […]

Not unexpected, just another drop in a torrent: Governor Rick Snyder has declared a financial emergency in Highland Park, and will appoint an Emergency Manager. Gov. Rick Snyder today said he would appoint an emergency manager to oversee the financially troubled Highland Park School District – just hours before state officials announced they are reluctantly giving the district a $188,000 […]

Much of the outrage about Public Act 4, the Emergency Manager law centers around its disparate impact on minority school districts and cities. But this law may be coming to city or school near you even if it’s not a so-called “majority minority” area. Take a look at the data that was assembled by Progress Michigan to see how obvious […]

I guess we’re supposed to be thankful for this? Michigan Governor Rick Snyder said this week that he’s done robbing from our children to balance the state’s books after he took $1 billion from the school fund to help pay for an 86% tax cut for businesses. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said Tuesday that his next budget proposal likely won’t […]

Back August I wrote about how the Snyder Administration had hired John Covington to run a new group called the Education Achievement Authority (EAA). The EAA was set up to help out failing schools in Michigan. This past week, John Covington was hired by the state of Michigan to oversee a collection of underperforming schools in the state. The new […]

To say things are bad for teachers in Michigan is tragic understatement. Layoff notices are being issued around the state (per union contracts) for the coming school year. The most significant was announced this week: Detroit Public School teachers union members get pink slips Detroit Public Schools administrators have mailed layoff notices to the 5,466 members of the teachers union […]