It has been quite the race in every way as both the State Senate and the House have introduced more than a dozen bills to help Michigan be competitive for the Obama Administration’s Race to the Top challenge with incentive dollars tied to required school-reform measures. MACAE’s Government Affairs Committee and the Alternative Education Focus Group spent a substantial amount of time last week at the monthly meeting in Okemos trying to digest and analyze all the various aspects of the bills and how they will collectively and individually impact community education programs.

Since much of the details will be forthcoming from the Michigan Department of Education (MDE), we hope to work closely with the department to ensure that these reforms truly have an impact on student achievement and do not have unintended negative consequences for those districts and teachers committed to serving students who struggle the most. 

As of early this morning, the House and Senate leadership were still debating accountability requirements and the creation of a substantially increased number of charter schools, whether the dropout age should be raised from 16 to 18, whether to require all-day kindergarten for districts that fall in the bottom five percent for student achievement, and when the required start date would be for the all-day kindergarten requirement. However, late this morning “an agreement in principle” was reached for these remaining sticking points to an agreement on this legislative package.  The failing schools issue was resolved to where the superintendent of a public instruction could intervene in school buildings in the bottom five percent of performance, or could cluster some of those buildings together to address a district that is performing poorly.

Other portions of this agreement deal with teacher tenure, which would deal with the disagreement by codifying the language in the Race to the Top program; raising the dropout age from 16 to 18, except students could still drop out at age 16 with parental approval; and the creation of an interim teaching certificate.  In addition, charter school operators would be allowed to open a new charter school for each charter they currently operate that has a three-year average of 70 percent or more of its students passing the MEAP, if at least half of the students in the area where the charter is located are receiving free and reduced lunches. In addition, the state superintendent would have the power to authorize 10 more schools over five years.

Overall, the package will result in substantial changes including teacher evaluations and tenure, in addition to the process for dealing with failing schools, the expansion and accountability requirements of charter schools, dropout age, and all-day kindergarten as noted above. As MACAE has a chance to fully assess all the implications, we will provide more information to our members. Meanwhile, we have posted a substantial amount of information and links on our website for your review.