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A SWEEPING PLAN TO TRANSFORM EDUCATION

SNYDER: LET’S FIX MICHIGAN SCHOOLS

Critics say budget cuts will make it difficult

By CHRIS CHRISTOFF and LORI HIGGINS FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS

   Students could attend classes in any school with empty chairs; outstanding schools and teachers could earn bonuses; a new class of master teachers would mentor younger colleagues, and the last teachers hired wouldn’t automatically be the first laid off.

   With those proposals and others, Gov. Rick Snyder delivered in Detroit his latest plan for changing how Michigan’s public sector operates. His focus Wednesday was on public education, as he challenged lawmakers and the state Board of Education to enact reforms by July 4. They’d take effect in the 2012-13 school year.

   Some of the proposals will be a tough sell in the Legislature and with school employees and some parents.

   Snyder said the current system leaves too many students ill-prepared because it is rooted in stodgy practices better suited to a farming or early industrial culture, not a technology-driven global economy.

   “Michigan’s education system is not giving our taxpayers, our teachers or our students the return on investment we deserve,” Snyder said.

   His ambitious education agenda had strong supporters. But it also had wary critics, who said Snyder’s message doesn’t jibe with his proposed $300 per pupil school funding cut next year.

   “You don’t get there with the budget that’s proposed,” said David Hecker, president of the American Federation of Teachers Michigan.

JARRAD HENDERSON/Detroit Free Press

   Gov. Rick Snyder says the current school system leaves too many students ill-prepared because it is rooted in stodgy practices not suited for a technology-driven culture.

The proposals and their prospects

  
 REWARD GOOD SCHOOLS

   The plan:

   • School districts where students show an average of one year academic growth per year of instruction would get bonus money, on top of per-pupil state aid. Some individual schools might qualify. In the 2012-13 School Aid Fund, $300 million would be set aside for rewards.

   • Some funding for all districts would be tied to achievement, not enrollment.

   • Tougher standards for individual schools to ensure academic progress.

   • Require all districts to develop online dashboard that shows funding and academic progress. Prohibit districts from paying more than 80% of employee health care; those that fail would lose some state per-pupil funding.

   Prospects: Could be enacted. Some districts and their teacher unions will lobby against it as an unfair way to fund education that would hurt schools with large numbers of at-risk students.

   SCHOOL CHOICE

   The plan:

   • Require all districts with excess class capacity to enroll students from other districts, using lottery or other random selection. Host district would get state per-pupil allowance of choice students’ home districts.

   Prospects: Long shot. Districts don’t want to be forced to accept students from other districts, and will lobby legislators to oppose it.

   The plan:

   • Use more computer-based teaching; allow any student who wants up to two hours of online classes a day, without requiring minimum hours in a classroom.

   • Require all districts to offer college credit through early enrollment, online or dual enrollments. High schools, community colleges and universities would be required to accept one another’s credits for students.

   Prospects: Good, but needs legislation. Snyder, a former computer company executive who earned three college degrees by age 23, can use personal leverage to move legislators.

   TEACHER TENURE

   The plan:

   • Better prepare teachers in college, and nurture them professionally during their careers.

   • New state certification standards for teachers and school administrators to ensure they meet minimum standards.

   • More in-class training before teachers are certified. Teachers must pass a test on their area of instruction.

   • Fair, rigorous evaluations of teachers and more help for those who lack skills.

   • Pay raises based on performance evaluation, not seniority and master’s degrees. Students’ progress should count for 40% of a teacher’s evaluation.

   • Allow professionals such as accountants, chemists and engineers to teach with alternate certificates.

   • Tenure for teachers after five years of probation, if rated “effective” by administrators for three consecutive years. Can be dismissed after two consecutive “ineffective” evaluations.

   • Eliminate seniority as criteria for layoffs or bumping to other positions.

   • Create new category of master teacher, which gets more pay and can mentor other teachers.

   Prospects: State Board of Education generally supports new, higher standards that help teachers become proficient. Tenure changes will be fought by teachers unions. More likely to pass with the GOP controlling the state House and Senate.

   EARLY CHILDHOOD

   The plan: Consolidate fragmented early-childhood development programs into a new Michigan Office of Great Start — Early Childhood, within the Department of Education.

   The Great Start office would work with the private sector to develop programs for prenatal care, preschool and reading skills through third grade.

   Prospects: Good, doesn’t require legislation except for budget approval. Broad agreement that preparing young children for school improves graduation rates and has lifetime benefits.

   MORE CHARTER SCHOOLS

   The plan: Allow more charter schools in districts with at least one academically failing school. Allow charter school boards to oversee more than one charter school.

   Prospects: Good, not a slam dunk. The state limits to 150 the number of charter schools that universities can authorize statewide. That means they can’t open more in Detroit or districts where charter schools would be popular. Even former Gov. John Engler, a charter school proponent, could not get the cap lifted in a Republican-controlled Legislature because of opposition from teacher unions. Limiting new charters to academically troubled districts may win more support.

   NO BULLIES

   The plan: Legislation to prohibit bullying in schools, including cyber-bullying if it’s between a school’s students. “A bullied student is not only being tormented, he or she is being denied an equal opportunity to a quality education,” Snyder said.

   Prospects: Iffy. Several attempts to ban bullying in schools have failed, in part because some conservatives viewed it as sanctioning homosexuality if action is taken against students for bullying gay students. But bullying has gained more national attention after bullied students committed suicide.

JARRAD HENDERSON/Detroit Free Press

   Gov. Rick Snyder called for legislation to prohibit bullying, among other things.

What they’re saying about governor’s education plan

   “This is not about blame.

   This is not about picking a fight. This is about solving a problem.”

   GOV. RICK SNYDER 


"On the statistic that 16% of Michigan’s high school graduates are college-ready “While I welcome the focus on education as a lifetime undertaking, I do remind the governor that we won’t achieve the education outcomes we all desire without sufficient resources.”

   JOHN AUSTIN, president of the state Board of Education 


“It’s now up to all of the professionals in education — pre-K-12 in particular — to stand behind him and to move as aggressively as possible.”

   ROBERT BOBB, emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools 


“In all probability, it would decimate enrollment in Detroit Public Schools. Parents with transportation and means to move and get to outlying districts would certainly leave.”

   ANTHONY ADAMS, president of the DPS board, 


"On the proposal to allow students to cross district lines “What we need to do is create more schools that educate kids well and close those — be they charter or traditional public schools — that don’t.”

   DOUG ROSS, founder of University Preparatory Academy in Detroit and the New Urban Learning education management company 


“The problem with vouchers, charters and choice is they don’t start with what’s going on in classrooms. They think they’ll get to those things. As far as I’m concerned, that’s backwards.”

   JEFFREY MIREL, education professor at University of Michigan

Better schools worth fight

Snyder has a lot of minds to change for a long-needed system shake-up

   Michigan’s predilection for local control dates back to the establishment of townships with the signing of the Northwest Ordinance — in 1787. Historic doesn’t begin to describe it. So, by extension, historic won’t begin to describe the struggle Gov. Rick Snyder will have getting his visionary education reform package through the Legislature and embraced by school districts around the state.

   Much of what Snyder is proposing contradicts long-held local instincts and habits in favor of a statewide approach. His plans would require teachers, administrators, school boards and unions to think almost entirely differently about how schools measure success, how they strive for it, and how the state acts as both enabler and enforcer.

   I believe the governor’s plans go a long way toward creating the system of standards, measurement and accountability that Michigan so desperately needs.

   But I also believe that in the Legislature, and in school board meeting rooms, principals’ offices and teachers’ lounges all around the state, the governor’s ideas will evoke fear and resistance that will be tough to overcome.

   Make students matter most

   The natural constituency for his ideas is children who have seen their schools lower standards, flip-flop from one idea to the next, and tolerate ineffective teachers. They’re the ones who’ll benefit from the changes. But nearly everyone else has something to lose, at least from a self-interested perspective The best example is found in Snyder’s proposal to allow children to attend schools in any district that has room for them. It has natural enemies in districts such as Detroit, where school officials will be loath to tear down already leaking floodgates with a program sure to entice more parents to move their kids out of the troubled district. The idea also will draw strong opposition in districts where parents have moved to escape the problems faced in urban districts. For added kicks, that opposition is also tinged, at least in the Detroit area, with the region’s messy racial politics.

   Snyder’s proposals will also run afoul of union sensibilities in the extent to which the governor wants to standardize teacher tenure and performance assessments.

   Right now, even though tenure is outlined by state law, individual districts bargain its particulars, including layoff policies. One of Snyder’s proposals is to end the last-in, first-out practices that most districts follow with layoffs and gear it more toward teacher performance — worst-in, first-out, so to speak.

   It’s also true that right now, districts are free to set their own measures for teacher effectiveness, through the collective bargaining process. But Snyder’s proposal would standardize those performance measures and require consequences for teachers who don’t consistently make the cut. Unions have far more leverage over individual school districts than they do at the state level; I don’t expect them to cede that advantage without a fight.

   Snyder would also require school districts to implement administrator certification and training, something many don’t do now. Lots of districts require no certification at all for school administrators. The suggested change would again elevate a statewide imperative over local choices.

   Inconsistent state record

   Some of what Snyder is proposing might be easier if the state had a better track record of actually delivering on its education promises. Proposal A was supposed to put more cash in district coffers and equalize funding but, over time, has proved inadequate in doing so.

   And the state has gestured at serious reforms before, such as those enacted last year under Race to the Top legislation, but has never been consistent on follow-through.

   If Snyder manages to get his agenda enacted, Michigan will need strong leadership in the Department of Education and on the state Board of Education to make statewide standards and accountability mean something for schools and students. That will mean also assessing all the key players who occupy those roles now.

   Snyder may be courting a huge fight with his proposals. But it’s one worth pursuing, and winning, for Michigan’s kids.

   • STEPHEN HENDERSON IS EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR OF THE FREE PRESS. CONTACT HIM AT 313-222-6659, OR AT SHENDERSON600@FREEPRESS.COM  .

JARRAD HENDERSON/Detroit Free Press

   Gov. Rick Snyder unveils a number of education reforms that he hopes will transform Michigan’s educational system at the United Way Welcome Center in Detroit on Wednesday.

STEPHEN HENDERSON

   DETROIT FREE PRESS EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR