Governor Snyder's Education Conference (Update)

Snyder: Education system in Michigan, U.S. is broken

Gov. Snyder responds to school controversy: Gov. Rick Snyder on Monday addressed a controversy over a group of state officials and others who have been meeting privately under the name "skunk works" to develop a plan for state schools.

By Paul Egan
Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

EAST LANSING — The system for preparing students for the workplace — at both the state and national levels — is broken, Gov. Rick Snyder said in kicking off an education summit Monday.

Snyder made no reference in his opening remarks at the annual Governor’s Education Summit to a growing controversy over an education reform group headed by a top Snyder official.

“The world is much more demanding in terms of specifying what you need to get a position,” Snyder told attendees at the Kellogg Center in East Lansing.

“We’ve built a system that doesn’t work anymore in terms of helping people be successful.”

It was the 18th summit since former Republican Gov. John Engler launched the annual event.

The goal was to build on an oft-stated Snyder goal of improving links between businesses and educators to help assure a better match between the skills possessed by graduates and those in demand in the marketplace.

Snyder said there are 60,000 vacant high-quality jobs on a state website, and filling them would lower the unemployment rate by 1.5 percentage points.

But Snyder opened the summit amid a controversy over a work group that’s been meeting secretly and discussing development of a low-cost school plan that critics say smacks of a school voucher plan.

School vouchers — issued by the government and redeemable at private schools — are unconstitutional in Michigan, where they have been rejected by voters.

A group which is headed by Snyder’s Chief Information Officer David Behen has been meeting using the moniker “skunk works” and communicating using private e-mail accounts, the Detroit News reported Friday after obtaining meeting minutes and other records.

A goal of the advisory group is to create a “value school” through enhanced use of classroom technology that would result in a cost of about $5,000 per student, or about $2,000 less per pupil than the current per-pupil base rate, the newspaper reported.

Students would pay the costs of their schooling with a Michigan Education Card similar to the debit cards the state issues to pay welfare benefits. Surplus money on the card could be used for online courses, music lessons, sports team fees or other expenses.

Talks are under way with Bay Mills Community College about opening a technology-centered school by August of 2014, the report said.

The name “skunk works” originated with a secret project to develop new war planes during World War II.

News of the work group drew strong criticism from teachers unions, school administrators and Democratic lawmakers.

Snyder told reporters he never asked the group to launch the project and is not aware of the details of what they are working on, but does not want to discourage anyone from coming to him with ideas.

“Their choice of names wasn’t a good choice,” Snyder said.

Snyder officials said Behen’s group was involved in brainstorming about how to enhance the use of technology in classrooms and was not tasked with developing a voucher plan.

Steve Cook, president of the Michigan Education Association, said the group “deliberately shut out input from educators in favor ofinformation technology companies who stand to make money off this scheme.”

William Mayes, executive director of the Michigan Association of School Administrators, said the plan “is focused on lowering education’s price tag rather than on building a quality system for all students.”

Sen. Bert Johnson, D-Highland Park, said the plan’s purpose is “to repackage school vouchers so that millions of dollars could be funneled directly into the pockets of private interests.”

Among the group’s members is Lansing attorney Richard McLellan, who was earlier tasked by Snyder with rewriting the state law spelling out how schools are funded. Submission of McLellan’s report was delayed after a draft report was also harshly criticized as resembling a school voucher plan.

Snyder has called for schooling that is “any time, any place, any way and at any pace.”