New Law Creates More Charter Schools for Michigan
by Education Action GroupLabor unions are very powerful in Michigan, and the Michigan Education Association may be the strongest of them all.
That explains why the number of charter schools in Michigan has remained capped at a frustrating 150 for nearly two decades.
But that finally changed last week, when Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill that will increase the cap to 300 charter schools in 2012, 500 in 2014 and eliminate limits altogether starting in 2015. That means school choice is on the march in Michigan, and traditional public schools will face increased pressure to measure up or lose thousands of students and millions of dollars of state funding.
The new law is a major defeat for the MEA and many public school organizations, who bitterly opposed the idea of increased competition.
Framers of the new law addressed a major argument against the expansion of charter schools by including new reporting and accountability standards for the non-traditional schools. The way we see it, more accountability will give good charter schools the opportunity to publicly demonstrate their unique ability to teach children who struggled in traditional schools.
At the bill signing ceremony, Snyder said the changes will give familes “good choices” and will result in a “program of quality,” according to the Detroit Free Press. We couldn’t agree more.
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57 Comments
And in other news… the world did NOT end.
Yet!!!!
ROFLMAO
Charter schools are what the locals make them.
They are experiments in decentralized schooling. Some ideas and schools will work, some will fail miserably.
"What the locals make them"–that's what ALL schools should be.
Does this mean that in about 25 years and,……..
after a good number of charter school graduates,……
starti to call the shots in Michigan, that,……
Detroit will start turning it around.
YAY to my former home state of Michigan!
BTW, Michigan residents were also pioneers in the home-schooling movement. They took a tremendous amount of heat for daring to defy the union-public-ed behemoth. I saw the results when I taught college there–every single home-schooled student I had was far above his/her peers in knowledge, community/civic involvement, and maturity. Not bad for kids of knuckle-dragging bitter-clingers (sarc).
Ah, you caught that.
…The survival of America depends on the success of the Pro-Life & Pro-School Choice Movements….
…….and We the People are Winning……..Slowly but Surely……..
Cool news, though its a little strange he didn't kill the cap immediately.
Hey progressives, why are you so out of date? Sweden has voucher programs. They allow parents to shop for schools and their test score are much higher. Why are you American progressives over 30 years out of date. Stop being dinosaurs and anchors. You're in the way.
I'd be nervous about the extra rules and accountability – the fact that they only apply to the charter schools and not the public means they can tighten the choke chain whenever they want. Look at the private/profit universities as an example.
OK, this is nice, but at the same time, look at what the federal gov stuck into the "stimulus" bill.
"How the feds are tracking your kid"
"Under regulations the Obama Department of Education released this month, …… The department has taken a giant step toward creating a de facto national student database that will track students by their personal information from preschool through career. Although current federal law prohibits this, the department decided to ignore Congress and, in effect, rewrite the law."
"How did it happen? Buried within the enormous 2009 stimulus bill were provisions encouraging states to develop data systems for collecting copious information on public-school kids."
"According to the National Data Collection Model, the government should collect information on health-care history, family income and family voting status."
"Not surprisingly, these proposed regulations provoked a firestorm of criticism. But on Dec. 2, the Department of Education rejected almost all the criticisms and released the regulations. As of Jan. 3, 2012, interstate and intergovernmental access to your child’s personal information will be practically unlimited."
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnis...
That's right. Just after the New Year, and on the day of the Iowa caucus, these rules will take effect. So why haven't we heard any of the GOP candidates bringing this up?
It used to be that jails were privately run (see The Three Penny Opera). That was wrong. The police and prisons should be publically run. OTOH schools run by the public don't seem to be working out. We should admit that public schools have failed and begin to phase them out. It took us a hundred years or more to get into this mess we can't expect overnight reform.
Liberals expect social programs to work like a racchet – it advances and never retreats. That needn't be. For example forty years ago most cities stopped building large multi storied apartment buildings for public housing. It didn't work for that population and so it was halted. We replaced high rise housing projects with some other programs that were even worse but now that Freddie and Fannie have failed in turn we can hope that all public housing efforts will soon stop.
Civilization is young. Running housing and education from the government is only one of many possible configurations that we will try. There's no reason to prematurely acccept that public schools are permanent.
Man, watching the Leftists and the Unions going down in flames is getting to be high entertainment for me! pass the popcorn please!
http://www.theantiliberalzone.com/
THE NEW ANTI LIBERAL ZONE
(NEW DOMAIN AND UNLEASHED!)
I believe that in order to get parents re-engaged in educating their children that we should make a few changes. The first change would be that parents of children that drop out of school should be required to pay for the failure. If they cannot accomplish the goal set out by society then they should be required to repay the taxpayers for their failures.
This could be great news for Michigan, but before I start cheering I want to read the "new reporting and accountability standards" that only apply to charter schools. Seems those same reporting and accountability standards ought to also apply to public schools.
thanks for the info
I suppose it hasn't been discussed it because there are so many afronts to our nation that this one slipped through the cracks. Every day this administration comes up with another way to poke the citizens in the eye … we're running out of bandwith to keep up with the tyranny.
You've won nothing. Abortions are still safe and legal and public schools form the backbone of American primary education. The only reason Americans even tolerate you is because you have been so unsuccessful.
So move to Sweden if you don't like it here in the U.S.
Keep a close eye on Ohio and Wisconsin. It's going to be entertaining alright, but not for you.
So you like being in the way? You like keeping kids under-educated? You don't want what's best for kids?
Why is that?
…..Liberals say, "You can choose to kill your baby, but not their school if you let them live…."
….That insanity is why both the Pro-Life and School Choice movements are gaining strength daily….
You're aborting your own kind effectively reducing the number of abortion supporters through self elimination. By all means make yourself extinct.
Public schools are a failure and you're too intellectually dishonest to admit it. We rank 23rd in the world, have massive drop out rates, spend the most of any other industrialized country.
Plus, if a monopoly "works", why did Sweden go with a voucher system when they faced the same problems in the 90s that we have today. In fact every successful school system in the EU ties the money to the kid and not the school district.
Face it, you are an antique. You are a 30 year, out of date progressives. Your fellow progressives have left you behind 3 decades ago. They are moving away from nannying because they see it does work while you want to play "daddy can I be the Czar?"
You're an anchor, a ball and chain.
If you want national health care why don't you move to Canada.
Why do your so called solutions require my forced participation for them to work?
We had a charter school (K- 8th) open here 14 years ago, chartered by the local state university, with a focus on arts. People are always surprised to learn that, because the district is in the top 10 of the state (not 10% – 10, period), and the high school is in the top 100 in the country.
The school ended up scooping up a whole bunch of previously home-schooled kids, and has just finished its second expansion. When it was first proposed, it was of course met with lots of resistance from the MEA, but the local school board welcomed it. And it is, naturally, among the top-performing charter schools in the state.
The kids leaving the school for HS disproportionately outperform their peers from the excellent area middle schools.
So, as in all endeavors, a rising tide lifts all boats. The arguments against charter schools are revealed as nothing but rank politics and big labor self-interest.
….Keep a closer eye on Ohio and Wisconsin and Virginia and New Jersey on Nov 6, 2012 – they will all go Republican and your grief and despair will be very entertaining…
…..Will you vow NOW to leave America when Romney wins…..heh
Is that a threat, little troll?
Yeah, you really are a droid. A robotic slave to the left with no capacity for thought other than what your programming allows.
"Some ideas and schools will work, some will fail miserably."
Yep: the free market at work. Unlike the Welfare Schools, where miserable failures continue forever.
"and public schools form the backbone of American primary education."
Which is why we have the worst-educated populace in the developed world.
ooooh, think you can keep your evil union racket intact forever, goon?
Perhaps…now the children of Detroit inner city plantation slaves will learn to read and write…a right for most children…but not for the slave children of the Democratzi 'loons' and their union 'goons'!
It took a Republican Governor to get the job done…and they aren't happy…because the 'loons' like their slaves uneducated to keep them in line and voting for the 'loons' as they are told!
GOD bless Governor Snyder for doing the RIGHT thing for the children of Michigan and…especially…Detroit!
CHILDHOOD MOLDS US INTO WHO WE BECOME- WHAT DID LITTLE BARRY BECOME BESIDES A LIAR AND A BULLY AND A DIVIDER OF MEN/NATIONS?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVgRRbDuZvY&fe...
Yes, our union oppressed schools are soooo good that I, a high school drop out and self educated, was the only person employed in our office without a high school education in which every other employee had at a minimum an associates degree but all of which were unable to name the current Secretary of State at the time ( the geriatric moron Warren Christopher). They were all very nice people but were obviously poorly served by public schools and just plain ripped off by whatever colleges they attended. If it was just one or two I could consider the possibility that they were sub-par students. But the evidence is everywhere. Just look at the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the segment called "Jay Walking" where he asks pedestrians questions about pop-culture which they invariably answer correctly followed by questions about history or some other academically oriented subject which they invariably get wrong. Our children have been dumbed down to mush by lazy, greedy and self centered morons – some of which I have out-debated as a teenager when supposedly being "taught" by them.
Comment from notTheDroid directed at FamousDrScanlon:
You've won nothing. Abortions are still safe and legal and public schools form the backbone of American primary education. The only reason Americans even tolerate you is because you have been so unsuccessful.
My Response is not simply an opprtunity to state that I have greater intellect than others. It is with sadness and despair that I even need to respond in such a way. I love this country and it making me sick that my kids and grand kids are about to inherit a socialist, if not communist cesspool. My response is as follows and I know I am not alone:
Yes, our union oppressed schools are soooo good that I, a high school drop out and self educated, was the only person employed in our office without a high school education in which every other employee had at a minimum an associates degree but all of which were unable to name the current Secretary of State at the time ( the geriatric moron Warren Christopher). They were all very nice people but were obviously poorly served by public schools and just plain ripped off by whatever colleges they attended. If it was just one or two I could consider the possibility that they were sub-par students. But the evidence is everywhere. Just look at the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the segment called "Jay Walking" where he asks pedestrians questions about pop-culture which they invariably answer correctly followed by questions about history or some other academically oriented subject which they invariably get wrong. Our children have been dumbed down to mush by lazy, greedy and self centered morons – some of which I have out-debated as a teenager when supposedly being "taught" by them.
No, we are going to destroy communism and stay right here.
Bravo!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great point!!!! I don't trust Snyder one bit. I think he is a snake and a rat. He certainly is not what he professed to be while campaigning. Its odd, but I follow national news and politics much more closely than that of my own state and therefore feel ill-equipped to make an accurate assessment of Snyder but I am fairly confident he is a criminal parasite just like the rest.
Because all but one or two GOP candidates are treasonous scum just like the commies (Dems). A time will come in this country when people will be shot (by the citizens).
I just gave you your 4th. thumbs up. I am in your corner. I get giddy and almost do a jig every time a communist (Democrat) or one of their sacred cows is damaged. I couldn't put it better, get out the popcorn.
In other words – "Quit Wasting OUR MONEY"!!!!!!!! Couldn't agree more. If the morons insist on confiscating and spending MY MONEY then they better not be wasting it. Better yet – lets just execute all communists.
Exactly.
Great Video. I posted it on FaceBook
This is ugly. However, I do believe these commie scum may end up with a bunch of statistics that they won't like.
This is another reason to pray the GOP gets control in 2012 – so we can begin undoing all of the disgusting garbage BO & the dems have passed.
Republican governor performs miracle.
Leftists go psychotic.
Taxpayers are relieved.
Great idea…the truths need to go to everyone…thank you…for doing that!
I like being in the way of you. I like seeing public education available to all children and not just those fortunate enough to be able to afford it. I reject anything that seeks to destroy the middle class in favor of corporations and wealthy Americans.
So if it feels like I'm in your way, you're right.
Of all the members of the right wing clown show, Romney is the least objectionable. I suspect that once in office, we will see the Romney who governed Massachusetts and not the guy currently pandering for right wing votes.
So you're in favor of taxing everyone for this public education but don't really give a s**t if that education is any good.
Brilliant, just brilliant.
So tell me, why do you hate children?
Your strawman assumes too much. You should have gone to college.
Don't want to answer? Don't blame you, dum-dum.
Here's the thing. Your way isn't working. There is a solution that does work, but you and the rest of the dum-dums on the left don't want to solve the problem, you just want to perpetuate it. Yeah you're a ringing endorsement for college alright…..
So again, why do you hate children?
Don't bet on it. Detroit stands as a testament to liberal policies and unless there is a population shift into Detroit, the city will continue on its death spiral.
That's why we must defy a government that chooses to ignore and re-write its own laws. This is war people. The government has taken the path of warfare against its own people.
I know many teachers in Michigan and all hate the MEA. They also all hate the Fed Dept of Education and the no child left behind regs.
…Wise of you to accept the inevitability of Republican Victory in 2012…..
"I suppose it hasn't been discussed it because there are so many affronts ………….."
I really think that's their strategy. If you have one or two scandals, that might take you down, but if you have one or two a WEEK, it's almost too hard to keep up with. In short order, "scandal fatigue" sets in with the population, and then it's all over for the country.
No it simply means there is yet more incentive for people to leave that miserable excuse for a city. From a population in excess of 2 million they probably have 750,000 left, and those are searching for ways to leave. Detroit is hopeless, a shining example of liberal/progressive leadership since the days of Coleman Young. Burned out buildings, devastated infrastructure, corrupt officials — a Democratic run paradise.
Hopefully, we see more states follow suit. Teachers unions are one of the more disruptive special interest groups in operation right now, and it’s pretty clear teacher compensation is more important than actually helping students.
Taken together, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association have been the nation's leading political donors in federal elections over the past two decades, and teachers' unions are either number one or number two in terms of political giving in 60% of US states (http://eng.am/pdU7XL). As a result, schools are going broke and putting education in danger, while teachers continue to rack up exorbitant compensation packages (http://eng.am/vYsTcj).
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