House Democrats Unveil New Plan to Stop School Dissolution

A Monday Capitol news conference had a few House Democrats announce a plan that would allow struggling school districts to avoid dissolution or being moved to the Education Achievement Authority while providing alternative means for improvement. The goal is to create transparency in the school system and also to allow certain financial and academic issues to be addressed. Under the proposal, a team of professionals will be provided to struggling schools to aid them in developing a plan to improve the school.

State actions in the case of struggling schools have included dissolution, such as the case in Buena Vista or Inkster, or limiting to Kindergarten through 8^th grade and requiring high school students to attend neighboring districts.

Dave Murray, spokesperson for Governor Snyder has said that the Governor currently works closely with the Department of Education and the Department of Treasury to help schools avoid crisis. Mr. Murray says that the EAA is doing its job and it is working.

The Senate Democrats will join the House Democrats in the reform proposals.

The education reform proposals would entail the following:

Require education professionals, parents, community leaders and other experts, through the Michigan School Reform Office, to conduct a review of struggling schools and create an aggressive action plan designed to address the specific issues and challenges of that school
Create a master teacher plan with the goal of preparing the best students to choose to be teachers and mentor those teachers now in classrooms.
Require a comprehensive study of the true cost to educate a child in a Michigan public school
Ensure that specific needs of each school district are addressed and properly funded
Disclose the amount of taxpayer dollars spent on classroom instruction including the cost to provide instruction in a virtual school
Require all schools to have school boards that comply with the Open Meetings Act and hold their school board meetings in their school communities at times and places that are accessible for parents and community members
Require that no group with the ability to authorize charter schools be allowed to authorize new schools if any of its existing schools fall in the bottom 5 percent.

posted by PAA Online , Friday, September 27, 2013 12:34 PM
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