For a recent summary of revelations about the EAA, please see this op-ed article by Reps. Ellen Cogen Lipton and Brandon Dillon, which lays out the devastating MEAP data that was finally made public.
- Cap of 50 schools to go into the state reform district (currently run by the EAA) – but WHICH fifty?
- Schools have the option to beg for a “turnaround” contract with their ISD instead of being thrown into the EAA (an absurd effort to pretend to include the Parent Proposal)
- Schools can also drop to their knees to beg for their local ISD to take them over rather than the EAA (seeing a pattern here?)
- With good behavior, schools will be released from the EAA and put on parole after 4 years.
Here’s the carrot: If you go along, we’ll put off tossing any schools into the EAA until after the elections. We might even protect your schools from that awful fate. Plus, we might smile upon your request to increase per pupil funding.
Here’s the stick: If you don’t go along, we’ll start tossing schools into the EAA right away, without any of the “protections” the deal would have given you.
Wow! Where to begin?
- Notice how the EAA has changed from being an innovative miracle factory to something you use as a threat, kind of like prison?
- Note also that the cowardice here is stunning: no schools grabbed until after elections. Since we don’t know which schools will be grabbed, voters can’t hold their representatives accountable
- The Governor and legislative leaders are acting as if they decide when schools get taken over, when in fact it’s up to the state superintendent, who works for the elected State Board of Education and not the Governor or legislature. But, let’s not pick nits.
The bottom line is that the EAA has been a disaster, both academically and in terms of properly caring for its students. Rather than admitting this fact, and turning to a better way to help struggling schools, our Governor and top lawmakers are using entry into the EAA as a club to threaten communities into accepting a flawed and half-baked state takeover system. The same kind of thing, in fact, that helped create the EAA disaster.
Your representative needs to hear your voice NOW, because they are having their arms twisted as I write. Please call today! Tell them we don’t want a massive Lansing-run district taking over schools all over our State.
Executive Director
Michigan Parents for Schools
http://www.mipfs.org/
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