Well said Amy.

What! Marcia that is shocking! Are you telling me the Governor's EAA looks just like the current school system -- only he gets to do the hiring? Do you mean to tell us he is going to spend huge sums of money to replicate what is already in place only with the chance to pass out freebies to entrepeneurs!! Thanks! Please keep up the top notch community watchdog work!

Marcia,

Do you think that the state EAA has the ability to change the lowest achieving 5% of schools in the state in a significant way? I have my doubts because I don't believe the issues of poverty will be dealt with through school choice and with current funding. I'm curious what you think about the EAA in relation to that 5% because of your teaching experience.

This sounds like a good topic for a group discussion ... with many voices adding different perspectives and possible reasons the school has been failing for three years. I don't think all 15 EAA schools (currently) could or should have the problems solved in the same way.
You mentioned poverty, but there are many more reasons.
In the future, what I would hope to see is the local School Board/Administrators/Teachers/Parents /Students partnering to identifying that school after ONE year and working together to make changes and avoid the EAA alternative altogether. It is a local community problem and all five of the mentioned groups need to be an active and willing partner in making changes.
I have not read enough about EAA to really answer your question. It would be interesting to see IF Universities with education programs for teachers would partner with those EAA schools and incorporate teacher training with real time problems in education with the regular certified teacher in the classroom.
I reserve the right to rethink and restate my thoughts on EAA when I get more information. I personally would like the legislature to put all the different parts of this "vision" in as many different bills as they want... but... to review ALL as they relate to the whole before voting on any one bill.
Because these bills are not a constitutional change....if something is passed and deemed not good, with the right leadership and honest review, it can be changed.

I agree with you that it would be better to look at all these bills at the same time, but it doesn't seem to be happening.
These are the summaries of the EAA Bills. I understand that they are identical.
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2011-2012/billanalysis/House/pdf/2011-HLA-6004-1.pdf

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2011-2012/billanalysis/Senate/pdf/2011-SFA-1358-S.pdf

Mike, the Governor provides the vision. This is from one of his staff members. Just yesterday he presented his vision for the environment and energy with bill to be developed in 2013.

Joan, I hope you are right. The Detroit News has a surprisingly sharp and up to date account of today's meetings on HB6004.

At the end of the article, Lyons said school reform "is never done."
"We have to get to where we are ensuring that kids are not trapped in failing schools," she said.

No one here would deny that we want all children and all schools to succeed. I just don't believe that a state run school turned over to a charter operator is the way. Even if that take over gets the school beyond being a "5% school" (the description is from Sen Pavlov) will the change be enough to be sustainable? Think about it. There is a "5% school" that has been taken over by the EAA, a total overhaul of the school happens and a charter operator comes in. Lets say the school gets to 10% , then 15% and then 20% in the next three years which would be wonderful. However, at some point, I believe that upward trend will slow because of the greater societal issues impacting the students from outside of the school.

What I would rather see is a team working collaboratively WITH the school, the students, teachers, administrators, social workers, health care suppliers, volunteers, not for-profits that assist the families of the children and so on, to work not only in the schools and with education, but with the families and their needs. Until we do that, my opinion is that the reform (I would rather say innovation) will not happen in any truly transformative way nor will it be sustained.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121129/POLITICS02/211290455#ixzz2DhoAmPmV

Kat1324 Great post, thanks. Recently, GM partnered with Habitat for Humanity to work in the Morningside neighborhood in Detroit. There is a brand new elementary school. It is really impressive. Frankly, nothing in our district compares. Anyway, one of the biggest fears these kids have is getting mugged or jumped on the way to school. And the worst is getting pulled into one of the vacant buildings and raped. The week before we were there, that very scenario occurred, 2 blocks north. I don’t know the final figures, but we boarded up homes for two days. It was very rewarding. But more importantly, maybe those kids, who have to walk a block or 2 to school can do it with a little more relief and less stress. I think this whole thing is just a grab by the republicans to once and for all destroy the MEA. Don’t get me wrong, the MEA dug this pit of despair for teachers. They have known for years that the retirement benefits were unsustainable, that the whole system is sprinkled with bad and underperforming teachers. But they chose to do nothing about it. And not only have the kids suffered for a long time, but now those teachers who are really worth something are being more and more demoralized as the assault on them from almost every direction continues.

Kat 1324- regarding poverty, there are some interesting PISA test results (Program for International Student Assessment- essentially how we compare our educational outcomes to other countries) when you factor out schools with high poverty rates. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment#United_States). For example, if you only include schools where less than 10% of the students are poor, the U.S. ranks #1 against all 34 OECD Countries. When you include only schools with less than 25% of poor students, we rank #3. That's a fairly compelling argument that poverty is a HUGE factor for under-performing schools. Also a very important factor, I would think, would be the level of parental involvement.

I'm sure these statistics are assailable and other compelling statistics will tell a different story (you know what they say about statistics), but there's enough here to at least get you thinking about some of the important factors at play in some failing schools. Not nearly enough time is spent discussing this issue.