By Ron French/Bridge Magazine
Imagine a world where your teenage son chooses high school courses like picking dishes in a cafeteria – a serving of Advanced Placement chemistry in the white collar enclave across the river, Spanish online at the dining room table, an English class at the local community college, band at his home school.
Now imagine that same world, but where schools act less like cafeterias and more like department stores. Billboards promote quick high school math credits at an online branch. A new charter school operating in the old Sears building offers iPads to the first 100 students who enroll. Your son’s home public high school drops its football team in a downsizing caused by lost revenue from plummeting enrollment.
Those competing visions are at the heart of a battle over school reform that could reshape public education in Michigan. Measures being considered in Lansing would radically increase educational choices — more schools, more online options, more chances to split learning time and the money that goes with it between institutions.
Built around Gov. Rick Snyder’s education philosophy, this package of bills, some introduced and some still in draft form, promise to usher in an era of “super choice” in Michigan’s public schools.
Michigan families already have an array of educational choices available, from local public school to charter schools to online classes, but Snyder and like-minded advocates think there’s room on the shelves for even more.
They call it a reform the state desperately needs to prepare students for higher learning and work in a transforming economy. Opponents fear an uncontrolled market will lead to a dismantling of the state’s public schools.
John Austin, president of Michigan’s elected State Board of Education, calls the concept “choice on steroids.” He recently testified to a legislative panel that the proposals would leave Michigan with “a ‘Wild West’ of unfettered, unregulated new school creation, untethered from the goal of improving learning and student outcomes.” And Austin is just one critical voice being raised as attention turns to bills already known in shorthand as “super choice,” “parent trigger” and “Oxford.”
Will parents and students choose choice?
Setting aside the debate in Lansing (which is expected to continue well into 2013) what exactly would more school choice mean to those who would ultimately use it: parents?
Legislative puzzle
Michigan legislators have before them a variety of public education bills that could fundamentally alter how the state oversees and funds local classrooms:
House Bill 5923: Referred to as the “super choice” bill by some, this measure would significantly rewrite the state school code that governs public education. A variety of special designations could be issued to organizers that, among other things, want to create single-gender schools, or offer classes to tuition-paying foreign students or provide an online school. The bill was introduced in September, but has not received action in the House.
House Bill 6004/Senate Bill 1358: These bills are designed to codify in state law an education oversight authority first brokered via an interlocal agreement between Detroit Public Schools and Eastern Michigan University. The legislation also would mandate a statewide inventory of public school buildings and allow a statewide educational authority to control, use and modify vacant school buildings now under the control of local school districts. The bills were introduced in early November, but have not received votes in either chamber.
Senate Bill 620: Known as the “parent trigger” bill, this measure would allow parents to petition the state to “convert” a traditional public school that is among the 5 percent worst-performing to a “conversion” school with a new operator. It passed the Senate 20-18 in June, but has not received action in the House.
“The Oxford bill”: This document isn’t an official piece of legislation, but rather a draft measure developed and presented by Richard McLellan and theOxford Foundation at the behest of Gov. Rick Snyder. The focus of the draft is a rewrite of the state’s School Aid Act, which governs how money is distributed to public schools.
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Not that much, based on research of parental behavior around the nation.
School-choice dynamics, in general, track with consumer behavior in other areas, said Ellen Goldring, a professor of education policy and leadership at Peabody College at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
When offered choices for the education of their children, Goldring said, parents will frequently say they will base their decisions on academics, or choose what they perceive to be “a good school.” That won’t necessarily be schools with superior academic markers, however.
And when they do choose, they’re less likely to look at published data gathered by state agencies, but instead rely on word-of-mouth recommendations from co-workers, family or church members, the same way one might ask for a advice about any other service.
Goldring and two other colleagues studied charter-school choice in Indianapolis in 2010, comparing test scores of schools parents were leaving to those they were choosing instead. About one-third of parents moved their children to schools that weren’t making adequate yearly progress as defined by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
“Parents make choices for a complex array of reasons, and one thing we know is that transportation and geography are key,” she said. “If there is no transportation (to a desired school), some things are out of reach for parents.”
The bottom line: “Decisions aren’t based solely on academics.”
Aimed at the ‘best and brightest’?
In a “wild west marketplace,” parents won’t have the information to make good decisions, argues Margaret Trimer-Hartley*, superintendent of University Prep Science and Math charter schools in Detroit. Enrollment at University Prep High School is down 50 this year, even before the options now being considered are added to Michigan’s academic menu.
“There’s no real barometer that parents find useful or actually use,” Trimer-Hartley said. “We compete against schools offering Foot Locker gift cards (to enroll). In a competitive marketplace, you can expect that. But when you look at what drives education, it’s stability.”
Michigan leaders have some reasons to question just how many students would take advantage of the “unbundling” of services being considered.
The state’s lowest-performing schools are required to offer alternatives to their students, through letters to parents listing other schools their children can attend and even offering bus service to those schools. Yet, even among those academically failing schools, only one half of 1 percent of students make the decision to move, according to Michigan Schools Superintendent Mike Flanagan. “Even in those extreme circumstances, they don’t make the choice,” Flanagan said.
Meanwhile, a higher percentage of kids attending high-performing schools choose to move to other districts, Flanagan said. The reason could come down to demographics: Wealthier families (who more often live in districts with high-performing schools) are more likely to have the time and resources to consider options for their kids.
Lansing attorney Richard McLellan*, who led the drafting at Oxford and of HB 5923 and 6004, told Bridge that the state’s “best and brightest” may well take advantage of the academic cafeteria line more than others.
McLellan envisions a system where “an increasing number of the best and brightest can reach for the very challenging classes they can’t get now. We need to let those who have extraordinary talent move on in the system. Our factory model retards those kids.”
As for concerns about parental decision-making, McLellan fired back, “The arrogance of some school officials to parents is just palpable. I don’t agree with it.”
David Campbell, superintendent of the Livingston County Educational Services Agency, praises the concept of offering more choices for exceptional students, but worries what those choices – particularly increased use of online courses – will do for “the unmotivated student.”
“Those with the greatest skills will take advantage of this,” Campbell said, “but let’s not kid ourselves that this is moving the needle on public education.”
Staff Writer Nancy Derringer contributed to this report.
*Trimer-Hartley and McLellan are members of the Bridge Board of Advisers.
Senior Writer Ron French joined Bridge in 2011 after having won more than 40 national and state journalism awards since he joined the Detroit News in 1995. French has a long track record of uncovering emerging issues and changing the public policy debate through his work. In 2006, he foretold the coming crisis in the auto industry in a special report detailing how worker health-care costs threatened to bankrupt General Motors.
Staff Writer Nancy Nall Derringer has been a writer, editor and teacher in Metro Detroit for seven years, and was a co-founder and editor of GrossePointeToday.com, an early experiment in hyperlocal journalism. Before that, she worked for 20 years in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where she won numerous state and national awards for her work as a columnist for The News-Sentinel.
(Bridge archive photo)
By Nancy Derringer/Bridge Magazine
Michigan Board of Education President John Austin calls it a “nuclear bomb.”
National education reformer Diane Ravitch proclaims “Michigan is on its way to ending public education.”
Michigan Future Inc. President Lou Glazer warns that local school districts won’t survive.
Welcome to education reform in Michigan, circa 2012.
A coordinated series of draft and introduced bills could reshape public education in Michigan, giving students more options and re-routing taxpayer money.
Richard McLellan,* the Lansing attorney at the center of legislation, says critics should focus more on improving education than their debating points: “I think it will potentially drive real change for better learning. So, in that respect, if you believe schools are not doing a very good job today and you believe they do a better job afterward, then yes, it could be disruptive for some people’s careers.” He wishes, “People spent as much time analyzing the reforms as they spend with rhetoric.”
State education leaders warn, however, of serious unintended consequences of the reforms that need to be addressed if the bills are to be passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Snyder:
“Super choice”
* House Bill 6004 and Senate Bill 1358 expand the powers of the Educational Achievement Authority, which was established to run low-performing schools. The EAA is state-operated school district that this year is running 15 Detroit schools, with plans to expand next year to schools across the state scoring in the bottom 5 percent of all schools.
The legislation would codify an existing interlocal agreement in state law.
But the legislation goes beyond a legal cleanup. The EAA also could potentially take over schools beyond the state’s bottom 5 percent, open its own schools, hand over existing local public school buildings to charter schools, and exempt EAA schools from statewide assessment tests.
* House Bill 5923 would create nine new kinds of schools, including boarding schools, corporation-run schools and single-gender schools. For example, Compuware could open a school for the children of its employees and receive per-pupil funding for it.
Another variety of school – “globally competitive” – would be able to use a competitive admissions process and “recruit pupils from anywhere in the world.”
HB 5923 would strongly promote online classes, to the point that it appears to “uncap” the enrollment restrictions placed on cyberschools via charter school legislation adopted barely a year ago.
Even your local township government could bid to open a school under HB 5923. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Lisa Lyons, R-Alto, though McLellan told Bridge he authored it.
* A draft document, also crafted under McLellan, would revamp the state’s school funding law.
Today, the state sends a minimum of $6,900 to schools for each student enrolled. That money goes to one school, whether it is a traditional public school or a charter. The 302-page draft bill, summarized in an Oxford Foundation report commissioned by the governor, suggests that student aid be “unbundled” – that the $6,900 be split among various entities providing educational services to individual students.
Students who have enough credits to graduate from high school early would be given a $2,500 grant to continue their education at a Michigan college.
Reactions plentiful, less-than-laudatory
Michigan School Superintendent Mike Flanagan is in favor of reform, but thinks the state should slow down until we know how current reforms, such as lifting the cap on charters and increasing online education options, work.
Dan Quisenberry, president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, said this new chapter in school reform is “asking some important questions” that will potentially provide “a richer experience for students.”
However, he said, the administrative infrastructure required to allow funding to follow student activities, perhaps over multiple districts, could prove to be a challenge.
“The essence here is, (the bill is) responding to some things that are happening in education, and let’s get busy doing these things. Is it messy to get there? Yes, but that’s work that needs to be done.
“(But), to flip a switch and do this in 12 months? We may be ahead of ourselves,” Quisenberry said.
Cindy Schumacher, executive director of the Governor John Engler Center for Charter Schools at Central Michigan University – the state’s largest charter authorizer – released a statement that read, in part:
“We support the ‘Any Time, Any Place, Any Way and Any Pace’ model of education articulated by Governor Snyder as well as his emphasis on performance funding based on individual student growth. … Our continued focus will be to ensure that choice, accountability and improved academic performance are the goals of our system of schools. While we continue working to prepare our students academically for success in college, work and life, it is encouraging to see these priorities expanded in Michigan’s broader public education space.”
In the Upper Peninsula, Patrick Shannon, director of charter schools for Bay Mills Community College, is cautiously optimistic. Bay Mills serves a Native American population, and is the authorizer for a number of charters serving low-income populations and minority populations around the state.
“I’ve heard this called the debit-card system,” said Shannon. “A lot has to be fleshed out, (but) it’s potentially good for parents and students.”
What’s the dispute about?
Two of the most controversial elements are:
* A la carte academics – the ability for students to take classes almost anywhere they want, and have the state’s student aid follow them. Some education leaders worry that this concept will undermine traditional neighborhood schools by further eroding state funding. If a student takes world history at the neighboring charter school and a foreign language online, school aid would be split between providers.
But school aid pays for more than teacher salaries. “K-12 schools base their business model on an extremely high share of all kids,” explained Glazer, president of Michigan Future, a nonprofit education advocacy organization. “That allows them to subsidize high cost programming including high school sports and band with the surplus generated by low-cost kids.”
Margaret Trimer-Hartley*, superintendent of University Prep Math and Science charter schools in Detroit, points out that some programs, such as high school science courses, are costly. Will every school continue to support a full host of science courses if some of their students are going to other schools?
Such a system makes sense in the business world, but may not translate well to K-12 education, says Livingston Educational Service Agency Superintendent Dave Campbell.
“When a kid is in three different buildings, “it increases the chances of kids falling through the cracks,” Campbell said. “Most kids need a strong community of adults who care enough about them to hold them accountable.” Dividing time between various schools and online courses “fragments support. It’s not what most teen-agers need – they need structure.”
* “Super choice” – the broadening of charters and online schools. House Bill 5923 allows a lot more groups to open charter schools, from businesses to municipalities.
Charters could be single-sex, and charters wouldn’t have to accept all students who come to their door. The bill also allows the creation of more online schools.
Trimer-Hartley argues that urban areas already have a “saturated market.” She worries that more options will foster a “Walmart-ization of the education system: low costs with no customer loyalty.”
Going beyond ‘A’ effort
Michigan already has one of the richest school-choice environments in the nation, earning an “A” from the Washington D.C.-based Center for Education Reform. Michigan moved up to an “A” from a “B” in 2011.
The CER also ranks Michigan 11th in the nation for “parent power.” Its individual assessment of the state’s school-choice environment noted: “Michigan is prohibited from offering private school choices, but it makes up for that in its robust charter law which is expansive and responsive to consumers. A high number of digital learning opportunities and good teacher quality measures keep districts on their toes. And now failing school districts are finding new partners to manage their schools. All of these developments are plusses for parents.”
The CER ranked Michigan’s charter-school law, revised in 2011, fifth-strongest in the nation.
But choice’s academic record is mixed. Some charter schools have records of high achievement among their students; some are among the state’s worst schools. “If we do this, we need to make sure we don’t get more crap charters,” Austin said. “We need better schools.”
Michigan’s current cyber school – the Michigan Virtual Charter Academy – has a spotty academic record. Low-income students scored worse on 8th grade math than similar students in Detroit, or Grand Rapids; among 11th grade students at the cyber school, not one student scored at a proficient level in math.
Because of that record, some educators worry about expanding online options. “Before we charge to create more, shouldn’t we know if what we’re doing now works?” asked Austin. “What you don’t want are signs reading “Free education – call 1-800.”
The Oxford Foundation is accepting public comment on its proposal until Dec. 14. The report will be shipped to Snyder in January, at which point the governor will decide whether to incorporate the reform measures into his 2013 budget.
A spokesman for Snyder stated via email Monday that, “While the governor is reserving comment on the Oxford Foundation proposal until he gets the final draft at the
end of the year, he is looking forward to reviewing the proposal and the associated legislation when they get to his desk.”
end of the year, he is looking forward to reviewing the proposal and the associated legislation when they get to his desk.”
The other measures, however, are before the Legislature and lawmakers can act on them before year’s end – should they so choose.
“We know if the Legislature adopts this, the superintendents will be busy figuring out how to make this work,” McLellan said. “We know that whatever we write will need to be changed. We’re trying to provide a concept with flexibility.”
What is McLellan’s vision for Michigan if the reforms become law? “I’d hope that we’d find that kids in third grade could actually read,” he said bluntly. “We want to be on our way to having a literate Michigan population. We can’t say that today.”
*Trimer-Hartley and McLellan are members of the Bridge Board of Advisers.
Senior Writer Ron French contributed to this report.
Staff Writer Nancy Nall Derringer has been a writer, editor and teacher in Metro Detroit for seven years, and was a co-founder and editor of GrossePointeToday.com, an early experiment in hyperlocal journalism. Before that, she worked for 20 years in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where she won numerous state and national awards for her work as a columnist for The News-Sentinel.
Senior Writer Ron French joined Bridge in 2011 after having won more than 40 national and state journalism awards since he joined the Detroit News in 1995. French has a long track record of uncovering emerging issues and changing the public policy debate through his work. In 2006, he foretold the coming crisis in the auto industry in a special report detailing how worker health-care costs threatened to bankrupt General Motors.
Guest Column— 27 November 2012
(courtesy photo/used under Creative Commons license)
By Brendan Walsh
The Oxford Foundation’s proposal on school choice made landfall last week full of sound and fury – and igniting a bit more. But what does it truly signify?
It delivers “student choice” in spades and that has the education reform movement rejoicing. Reaction from the incumbent establishment was predictable. “The deeply flawed plan would end public education as we know it,” warned Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer.
The philosophical debate is ever alluring, but let’s get grounded on the issue. What’s broken and how should that get fixed? Gov. Rick Snyder has some strong opinions.
Brendan Walsh is treasurer of the Grosse Pointe School Board and maintains a blog on school policy issues at www.brendanwalsh.us.
To him the state’s return on its “P-20” education investment is measurable by college attainment, the percentage of citizens earning a degree. The U.S. Department of Education reports Michigan’s 37.2 percent among citizens aged 25 to 34 is below the national average (39.3 percent) and ranks 30th among the states.
The story is worse when we consider that Michigan ranks eighth highest nationally in total state and local education expenditure per $1,000 of personal income, according to National Education Association reports. We’re spending proportionally more than most and getting worse results. Not good.
To meet nationally stated goals, Michigan would need to double the number of college graduates – a dramatic goal that would require some dramatic changes.
The debate about whether this proposal is a voucher system or if it spells doom for public education as we know it misses the point. Would this policy realistically contribute to doubling Michigan’s volume of college graduates?
Michigan is already “choice friendly.” Charter schools have been uncapped, and still less than 10 percent of Michigan’s K-12 market (students) participate in choice. The Oxford proposal could drive more students to charters, but cyberschools appear to be the most likely beneficiaries. After all, it’s not very practical for students to travel around the state from class to class.
Even if it is effective in generating demand for online courses, will they be twice as effective in producing college graduates?
The Brown University Annenberg Institute for School Reform would say no. Their research suggests “combining GPA with the number of course failures in ninth grade gives a highly accurate predictor of high school graduation. The key indicators for GPA and course failures, in turn, are attendance and effort … strong attendance and effort depended on high levels of teacher monitoring and teacher support for challenging course content.”
If the researchers at Brown are wrong and online courses do a better job than traditional classroom instruction, then public education as we know it deserves to be driven out of existence.
Local schools have tremendous assets, but they had better hone their value propositions.
The proposal is disruptive — which is the point — but local school districts are likely to continue to dominate market share.
But the Oxford proposal will present other challenges. Let’s recall there’s two ways for Michigan to improve its educational ROI: keep costs flat and increase college attainment, or reduce investment even with no gains in college attainment.
The Oxford plan calls for a change in how enrollment is calculated and odds are good a new model will result in lower costs for the state. It also requires that providers of all types demonstrate student “growth” [on standardized tests] or their funding will be deducted for the “proportional foundation allowance … for pupils who did not achieve the required performance.”
If you don’t deliver, you won’t get paid. Even if cyberschools experience massive market share gains, if they don’t deliver, they, too, will suffer financial consequences and this proposal will have failed.
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