Up North Progressive

The Education Achievement Authority that currently controls schools in the Detroit Public School District will come a little closer to taking control of more schools in the state with a vote in the Michigan State Senate, which is imminent.

The bill, if passed, would allow the state to take failing schools out of control of the school district and put them in control of a state school reform/redesign school district, or SRRSD. Michigan public schools performing at the bottom 5% would be taken from their school district and put into the SRRSD and given three years to improve.

The schools in the SRRSD, like the Detroit Schools in the EAA would use scantron performance testing that has already proved to be flawed in measuring actual student academic achievement when compared to MEAP scores. In Detroit, the EAA administration tried to hold off publishing MEAP testing data as long as possible because those scores did not match the performance tests taken and used to prove the EAA was a successful alternative program.

It’s important that your state senator know the terrible risks to our public schools with the expansion of the EAA to the entire state. It means local control of schools would be lost to what people in Lansing want. Call or email your state senator and tell them to vote NO on this bill and save the integrity of our public schools.