{"id":298,"date":"2014-09-02T21:04:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-03T03:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/09\/back-from-michigan-part-3-schools-of-choice-and-charter-schools.html"},"modified":"2015-03-01T22:23:49","modified_gmt":"2015-03-02T04:23:49","slug":"back-from-michigan-part-3-schools-of-choice-and-charter-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/09\/back-from-michigan-part-3-schools-of-choice-and-charter-schools.html","title":{"rendered":"Back from Michigan, part 3: Schools of Choice and Charter Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

So while at my folks\u2019 last weekend (is it a regionalism of some kind to say \u201cfolks\u201d for parents?\u00a0 And if so, did I pick it up from my Colorado-born dad or my Missouri-born mom?), there was an article in the paper about charter schools.\u00a0 Here it is<\/a>, a poll conducted by the Detroit Free Press after, apparently, an extensive series on accountability in charter schools.<\/p>\n

(Detroit has two local papers, the conservative Detroit News and the liberal Detroit Free Press; the operate under a Joint Operating Agreement which means that the papers are combined on the weekend, so my lifelong Republican dad is obliged to read the Freep.\u00a0 Also, for the last couple years, they only home-deliver three or four days a week, so the other days my dad has always gone out to buy the paper, and now we\u2019ll see whether my mom will do this for him for the next 4 months.)<\/p>\n

Of course, the context to the poll is a report that the charter schools perform poorly, though my dad was quick to say that the report was misleading because many of the charter schools are special schools for disabled children and their scores were not adjusted for appropriately.\u00a0 Whether or not that\u2019s the case, I don\u2019t know, but Dad probably remembers things he read in the paper better than what he had for breakfast that morning, and the Detroit News was probably publishing counterarguments to the Freep\u2019s anti-charter school editorializing.<\/p>\n

In any event, what\u2019s interesting is that there\u2019s a lot of talk about charter schools and school choice with no mention of what\u2019s going on in Michigan, which is, when you think about it, is a pretty big omission.\u00a0 Maybe the Michigan diaspora* isn\u2019t as large as I thought, or doesn\u2019t have as much movement to the Beltway and punditry.<\/p>\n

(*OK, I made up the term \u201cMichigan diaspora, and I have no idea whether it\u2019s a real thing, and whether the number of people who have left Michigan is all that large, but if it is a real thing, just remember that I came up with it first.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, Michigan does two things:<\/p>\n

First, back in 1994, they moved most of the funding to the state level<\/a>.\u00a0 There is some residual property tax levied at the local level for school districts which want to fund their schools at a higher level, but I\u2019m not sure how much.\u00a0 At the same time, they created something called Schools of Choice, in which students can elect an alternate school in the same or in an adjacent district.\u00a0 Kids from Detroit can \u2014 and do \u2014 transfer to schools in a bordering district, and the funding is such that schools do generally allocate spaces for out-of-district students.\u00a0 Here is a study<\/a> which reports on the number of students transferring into and out of certain districts.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, Michigan has an extensive charter school system. \u00a0 They\u2019re celebrating an anniversary this year, as the first ones opened their doors in fall of 1994<\/a>.\u00a0 The schools can be chartered by a public university or community college, so they are not dependent on local school districts\u2019 willingness to cooperate, as in Illinois, for instance.\u00a0 There are for-profit charter schools, and there are even online schooling options which advertised on TV while we were visiting.\u00a0 The only restriction<\/a> is that a school may not be religiously affiliated, and if a religious facility is used, any religious symbols must be covered.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the outcome?\u00a0 Well, I can\u2019t speak to the quality of Detroit Public Schools, for instance, but on their website<\/a>, they plead with parents to keep their kids in the system, quoting Emergency Manager Jack Martin:\u00a0 \u201cIt is my hope that any parent that was considering taking their child out of a DPS school will reconsider and have them remain with their teachers and classmates for another year,\u201d and citing a list of new programs and enhancements.<\/p>\n

Now, that being said, I don\u2019t know much \u2014 but it seems to me that anyone looking to promote school choice ought to be studying, and citing, the Michigan experience.<\/p>\n

(Side note:\u00a0 truancy must be a big issue in Detroit, according to the same article:<\/p>\n

Class sizes will remain at 25 for grades K-3 (which would not have been altered even under the previous plan), 33 for grades 4 and 5, and 38 for grades 6-12. Martin also noted that based on average daily attendance, DPS\u2019 class size across the district last year averaged only 16 students. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, the message to parents is:\u00a0 don\u2019t be scared by the high class sizes, because half those seats will be empty anyway.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So while at my folks\u2019 last weekend (is it a regionalism of some kind to say \u201cfolks\u201d for parents?\u00a0 And if so, did I pick it up from my Colorado-born dad or my Missouri-born mom?), there was an article in the paper about charter schools.\u00a0 Here it is, a poll conducted by the Detroit Free […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[94,88,219],"class_list":["post-298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-education","tag-michigan","tag-school-choice"],"yoast_head":"\nBack from Michigan, part 3: Schools of Choice and Charter Schools<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So while at my folks' last weekend (is it a regionalism of some kind to say "folks" for parents?  And if so, did I pick it up from my Colorado-born\" \/>\n<meta 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