Category Archive

Much of the attention of the Michigan Legislature during the past week has been focused on passing various education reform bills intended to help us compete for a share of the $4.35 billion in “Race to the Top” federal incentive funds.

Over a dozen bills have been introduced and debated in the legislature during the past few months.  The four key education reforms needed in Michigan, and addressed by this comprehensive bill package, focus on the following issues:

Charter expansion: The state is being encouraged to allow for the expansion of quality public charter schools.

Failing schools: The state is being encouraged to develop an intervention plan for the persistently lowest-achieving 5% of all public schools in the state, including public charter schools.

Alternative and administrator certification: The state is being encouraged to develop alternative pathways to teacher certification, as well as a certification process for school administrators.

Linking data to performance: The state is being encouraged to develop a system that uses student academic performance data as a significant factor in the evaluation of public school teachers and leaders.

There are a number of other issues that have been included in some of these bills, such as full-day kindergarten, starting school before Labor Day, compulsory attendance to age 18, etc.  It is unclear how many of these issues will remain in the package.

Because the House and the Senate have passed different versions of these bills, they are being assigned to a six-member Senate-House conference committee.  This committee will review the issues and draft a new set of bills (a conference report), which can then only be voted “up or down” by the full Senate and House of Representatives (no amendments or changes allowed).

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop has named the following members to the conference committee:  Senator Wayne Kuipers (R-Holland), Chair of the Education Committee; Sen. Gerry Van Woerkom, (R-Muskegon), Vice-Chair of the Education Committee; and Sen. Buzz Thomas (D-Detroit), the primary sponsor of the charter expansion bill.

House Speaker Andy Dillon (D-Ferndale), has not yet publicly announced which three Representatives will serve on the conference committee.

It is expected the conference committee will produce their final report and the bills will be voted on in the Senate and House no later than Thursday, December 17.

Charter advocates are working to protect the strength of Michigan’s existing charter law and provide additional opportunities for quality charter schools to open in the state.

There is still a lot of work to do on these bills, and it is likely that  changes will occur before the process has been concluded. To read the specific bills being considered by the conference committee, please click on each link below:

SB 926 (Thomas) – Charter Expansion (school aid act)
SB 981 (Kuipers) – Charter Expansion & Linking Data to Performance
HB 4787 (Melton) – Charter Expansion & Failing Schools
HB 4788 (Johnson) – Failing Schools (school aid act)
HB 5596 (Pavlov) – Alternative Certification for Teachers

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Secretary Duncan, Speaker Gingrich & Rev. Sharpton talking about education reforms needed to help closing the achievement gap on NBC’s Meet the Press.

News feature on Michigan’s efforts to compete for “Race to the Top” federal education incentive funds.

In the city with the lowest high school graduation rate, quality education with high expectations and high is actually happening.

A quick look at state and federal education funding in Michigan, covering the current school year and looking ahead to FY 2011.

Just after 5:00 pm yesterday, Governor Granholm signed HB 4447 (Brown), the FY 2010 school aid budget.  This means that state aid payments to schools, scheduled for today, will likely go out on time.  If you were wondering why all the “down to the wire” drama was necessary here, now we know.

The Governor line-item vetoed $51 million in “section 20j” funding in the budget last evening, which is a categorical item that distributes additional funds to a number of school districts in the state which historically had higher per-pupil spending.  These affluent school districts — most are represented by Republicans — are crying foul, while advocates for true equity in K-12 funding are cheering.  Like everything in politics, however, this isn’t a simple question.  Especially when you consider that the lion’s share of education funding is derived from the state sales tax — which is disproportionately paid by those with higher discretionary spending in their household budgets.  And many of these folks happen to live in “20j” districts.

So the Governor whacks $51 million from the school aid budget, and the Senate had passed $100 million in revenue for this budget that has yet to be passed by the House.   We have a hole in the school aid budget of $50-$100 million right there.  At the same time, projected revenues for the school aid fund in this fiscal year continue to drop, and we’ve just about used up all of the available Obama bucks to backfill these shortfalls.  The essential question is “How should we be paying for public education in Michigan?”  It should be obvious that doing nothing isn’t really an option, as funding for the school aid fund continues to drop like a rock.  The school aid fund will have $1.1 billion less in FY ’11 than we started with in FY ’08.

For perspective on the per student impact, the state’s foundation grant cut for FY ’09 was $380 per student, and this was filled entirely with federal stimulus funds. BREAK EVEN!!

The initial cut for FY ’10 is $450, with about $285 per student in federal funds used to backfill, resulting in a “net” cut of $165 per student.  OUCH!! [NOTE: another mid-year cut is looking very likely here!]

As we look to FY ’11, the projected initial cut in the state foundation grant will be $700 per student, and we’re currently holding about $100 per student in federal stimulus funds to backfill this reduction, which would result in a “net” cut of roughly $600 per student next year. DOUBLE OUCH!!

See where this is going?  Our challenge is to do nothing or do something!!  What is that “something?”

We believe our priorities should be to adopt significant reforms and deal with pending funding reductions before we start talking about new revenue for education.

What do you think?