If it feels as if Michigan schools are being tugged in multiple directions, that’s because they are. And while all the attention to improving outcomes of the state’s schools is positive, the dearth of a comprehensive vision will render these efforts useless.
The governor, Legislature, State Board of Education, Michigan Department of Education and the School Reform Office are all involved with creating and implementing school policy in this state, and that has led to a confusing mix of proposals and benchmarks for schools.
And as we’ve said before, without clear direction, accountability goes out the window.
Exhibit A is the state’s education plan recently submitted by state Superintendent Brian Whiston to the U.S. Department of Education, a requirement for states to receive federal education dollars. In most states, this accounts for 8 percent of the total school budget. That’s sizable in Michigan, which spends roughly $14 billion a year on K-12 education.
The move, announced Monday, came after Gov. Rick Snyder signed off on the plan but expressed support for more discussion on “greater transparency in the school accountability portion of the plan,” MDE said in a news release.
“Given Michigan’s historically low performance nationally, we must ensure that our accountability system is transparent, honest, and works for every student in the state,” Snyder said in a statement. “Parents have a right to know their schools are providing a quality education for their child.”
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has 120 days to review and approve state ESSA plans, according to MDE.
The accountability system has been the most controversial element within Michigan’s ESSA plan. At issue has been how the department would show school performance.
Snyder’s administration has expressed support for a report card that assigns each school an overall A-F grade based upon several factors, including performance on state tests and graduation rates.
Members of the State Board of Education don’t want an A-F system. Instead, they favor a dashboard that would show performance in several areas but would not include an overall grade or rating for schools.
MDE’s ESSA plan includes both options, as well as a system that would assign a school a grade for each of the following six categories: student proficiency, student growth, graduation rate, assessment participation, school quality/student success, and English Learning Progress. This option would not include an overall A-F grade for the school.
The state’s ESSA plan says if the Legislature does not implement a new accountability system by June 30, the default system will be the transparency dashboard. Committees in the state House and Senate are currently discussing the creation of a new accountability system.
Besides accountability, other elements in the plan include how Michigan will work to support struggling schools, educator quality and the creation of a new assessment system geared toward measuring “within-year” student growth as well as proficiency
“I said from the beginning of this work that we are going to put forward a plan that is best for the students in Michigan,” state Superintendent Brian Whiston said. “This is how we move forward, and I want to thank all of the passionate people who provided input and helped inform this plan. Let’s all work together now to put the plan into action.”
Here’s some of the main components of MDE’s ESSA plan:
“Defining the purpose of school accountability as providing direct supports to the districts, rather than labeling and sanction.”
“A differentiated response to schools based on their academic need, with the most intensive interventions and supports being provided to those most in need.”
“A true focus on the whole child and the aspects of a well-rounded education, including not only academic subjects like fine arts and physical education, but also areas related to safety, health, school culture and climate, food and nutrition, early childhood, postsecondary transitions, and social-emotional learning.”
“Flexibility in the interventions and actions taken by districts and schools, rather than prescribed certain models or interventions. This plan helps local districts diagnose their needs across the whole child spectrum, identify evidence-based practices, and implement a plan that is tailored to their needs.”
Integration and focus on alignment with early childhood initiatives and goals.
“Educator quality that goes beyond a focus on “highly qualified” (which was required under NCLB), to supporting teachers and leaders throughout their careers.”
“Assessment systems that are designed to measure within-year student growth in addition to proficiency on rigorous content standards.”
“An accountability system that provides clear information to all stakeholders, based on areas that relate to the progress toward being a Top 10 education state in 10 years.”
Before she was appointed U.S. Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos spent the better half of two decades on an expensive, dogged crusade to bring school vouchers to her home state of Michigan. Bankrolled by the limitless financial resources of the DeVos Family Foundation, her efforts helped fuel other school choice initiatives – namely lifting caps on charter school expansion – but no amount of political contributions or slick marketing campaigns was enough to do the same for vouchers.
So what got in the way?
Aside from the fact that the idea of funneling public taxpayer money to pay tuition for private schools, including religious institutions, is an enormously unpopular and harmful idea, a sizeable share of the credit has to go to a provision in Michigan’s constitution.
Michigan is one of 38 states that has strict state constitutional prohibitions against state or local financial assistance to non-public schools. In most of those states, the prohibition is specifically against aid to religious institutions, including schools. These prohibitions were adopted in many of these states in the nineteenth century as part of the common school movement and were intended to prevent public funding of religious schools.
In recent years, opponents of these provisions have sought to recast them as anti-Catholic provisions and tagged them as “Blaine amendments” after a failed 1875 effort by Congressman James G. Blaine to amend the federal constitution to prohibit governmental aid to religious organizations.
While the federal Blaine amendment effort was clouded by anti-Catholic bias, the state constitutional prohibitions against aid to religion were not and cannot be dismissed summarily, as voucher proponents would have it, by tarring them as mini “Blaine amendments.”
The Supreme Court will soon weigh in on the strength of such state “No Aid” provisions. By June of this year the Supreme Court – particularly if it is joined by a ninth member – could decide that interpreting these provisions to prevent religious institutions from receiving public funds violates the federal Constitution. This could push the door open for school vouchers on a national scale, giving an enormous and timely boost to Donald Trump’s and Betsy DeVos’ ambitious school privatization agenda.
It’s an agenda, says NEA President Lily Eskelsen García, that siphons off taxpayer dollars from public schools for private and for-profit schools – all at the expense of students.
“For too long, these schemes have experimented with our children’s education without any evidence of real, lasting positive results.”
In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court may issue a decision that could push the door open for school vouchers on a national scale.
What Do Recycled Tires Have to Do With School Vouchers?
The case the Court will consider this year doesn’t actually involve a school at all. Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Pauleycenters around a statewide aid program in Missouri that helps organizations turn used tire scraps into rubber surfacing material for playgrounds. Supply is limited, so the state selects who receives the aid.
The Trinity congregation, which runs a daycare center for children, applied for a grant, but was turned down by state officials given the Missouri constitution’s “No Aid” provision.
Trinity Lutheran sued, arguing that the state constitutional prohibition is inherently “hostile” to religion because it violates the neutrality principle of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. The church asserts that a government program – in this case, a grant for playground covering – that treats a religious organization different from a secular organization is unconstitutional.
But Richard Katskee, legal director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, says the prohibition against direct financial aid to churches “stands at the very heart of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.”
In a post on ScotusBlog, Katskee writes: “Whether to adhere to a particular faith and pay to support a church, or to support none at all, was seen [by the Framers] as the fundamental right of every individual. State financial support for churches is still forbidden by the First Amendment – out of respect for religious freedom.”
Indeed, state constitutional prohibitions against government aid to religion support religious freedom rather than undermining it, says Alice O’Brien, General Counsel at the National Education Association, which filed an amicus brief in support of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, the respondent in the case.
“They prevent the government from forcing individuals of one religion to support another religion, and prevent the government from appearing to favor one religion over another. They also protect the independence of religious institutions, given that government grants inevitably go hand-in-hand with government regulation. ” O’Brien explains.
Audio: NEA President on School Vouchers On March 6, NEA President Lily Eskelsen García was interviewed on the “Maggie Linton Show” on SiriusXM to talk about how voucher schemes pray on the nation’s most disadvantaged students.
A ruling in Trinity Lutheran that prohibits states from enforcing their own constitutional prohibitions against state aid to religion, says O’Brien, “could open the door to significantly expanded state school voucher programs including ones that fund pervasively sectarian schools.”
But the Court may issue a narrower decision that is limited to the facts of the case before it, leaving to another day the question of how far states may go in prohibiting aid to religious schools.
School voucher advocates may have a clearer shot at such state constitutional prohibitions with Colorado State Board of Education v. Taxpayers for Public Education.
In 2015, the Colorado Supreme Court struck down a voucher program created by Douglas County, a suburban district of 67,000 students just outside of Denver, that used a shell charter school to transfer funds to private schools. The State and school district have now asked the Supreme Court to review the case. The outcome of the Douglas County case may hinge on how the justices rule on the Trinity Lutheran case.
The Fifth Vote
How this plays out may well depend on if, and when, Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s nominee to fill the ninth seat on the Supreme Court, is confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Most experts see him as the ideological heir to Antonin Scalia, although Gorsuch during his years as a federal appeals court judge hasn’t ruled in any cases involving state “No Aid” provisions or school voucher programs.
However, a red flag can be found in a 2005 article he wrote for the conservative magazine National Review, which included the following criticism of so-called judicial activism:
“American liberals have become addicted to the courtroom, relying on judges and lawyers rather than elected leaders and the ballot box, as the primary means of effecting their social agenda on everything from gay marriage to assisted suicide to the use of vouchers for private-school education.” (emphasis added)
A ruling in Trinity Lutheran that prohibits states from enforcing their own constitutional prohibitions against state aid to religion, says O’Brien, “could open the door to significantly expanded state school voucher programs including ones that fund pervasively sectarian schools.”
On so-called “religious liberty” cases, Gorsuch very much falls in line with other conservative justices. For example, in 2013, he voted to allow privately-held for-profit corporations both to claim religious beliefs as entities, and to use those beliefs to deny contraceptive coverage to employees – the famous “Hobby Lobby” case that eventually made it to the Supreme Court.
Gorsuch’s potential vote to strike down state constitutional prohibitions against religious aid could remove a significant obstacle to school vouchers and is just one of the many ways the next Court could impact public education in the United States
As the Trump administration ramps up its efforts to push school vouchers nationwide, a decision in the Trinity Lutheran case that eliminates a constitutional safeguard against using taxpayer money for private and religious school tuition will have an immediate and troubling impact.
School privatization advocates will undoubtedly celebrate such a ruling, but that doesn’t change the fact that vouchers are nothing more than a scheme to take public money and hand it over to private schools that have little or no accountability to taxpayers, says Eskelsen García.
“Private and for-profit schools that receive taxpayer-funded vouchers have almost complete autonomy on how they operate. They don’t have to follow academic standards, don’t have to hire qualified teachers and don’t have to disclose financial decisions to the public.
“A child’s success should not depend on a gamble.”
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Pauley in April, and is expected to issue a decision by late June.
Public education is a great equalizer and compulsory in the United States. Hence, we view public school education as a right and this system allows our children to fulfill their potentials.
Today the right for all American children to be educated is threatened by the efforts of Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education. She has no experience in education as a teacher, administrator, or school board member, and poses a danger to public education. How? By her unending efforts to undermine public school funding in favor of funding voucher schools and for-profit schools that receive tax monies but face no accountability standards.
The DeVos family spent millions of dollars in Michigan to promote charter schools. This lobbying has left Michigan with the largest number of low-performing charter schools in the United States.
It is very upsetting that the administration has selected such a nominee to run our public schools, a position designed to fortify and improve our system’s achievements.
Mrs. DeVos’ efforts are designed to strip our schools of crucial funding for children who need extra help in reading and math. Instead, she wants those monies to go to charter schools.
We do not need an unqualified nominee to be in charge of our children’s education. We must stand together to fight for our public schools and universities.
Early college high school, apprenticeships, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education take center stage as governors continue to give state of the state addresses.
South Dakota: Gov. Dennis Daugaard Dives into Dual Credit and Remediation
During his January 10 state of the state address, South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R) praised the state’s dual credit program, calling it a win-win-win. “Students win because these are the cheapest college credits they will ever buy, and they get a head start on college or tech school. High schools win because they can expand their course offerings at no cost to the school district. Universities and technical institutes win, because they attract students who are better-prepared when they come to campus.”
Daugaard had numbers to back up the program’s success, sharing that, in the past school year:
2,139 high school students took at least one dual credit course from a university, and another 899 took a technical institute course.
The passage rates were 94 percent for university courses and 88 percent for technical institute courses.
High school students and their families saved a total of $4.4 million.
Daugaard also touched on the issue of remediation, noting that last year 30 percent of first-year, full-time freshman at state universities took at least one remedial course in math or English. He discussed a free program to help test students who may need remediation in high school to avoid the costs and difficulty of remedial courses in college.
He gave a nod to the strengthening of career and technical education programs across the state through workforce education grants awarded by the Building South Dakota Fund.
Hawaii: Gov. David Ige Calls for School Transformation and Increased Early College Access
Hawaii Gov. David Ige (D) talked about school transformation during January 23 state of the state address, expressing his desire to have a system that gives more flexibility to schools so that those closest to the students, who “best understand how they learn and what motivates them” are the ones designing programs and implementing plans. He also mentioned a new Innovation Grant Program to help support school-level innovations that work to close achievement gaps for students with disabilities, students from low-income families, and immigrant students.
Ige also proposed to expand the state’s Early College Program, to allow more students to begin earning college credits in high school. To make his case, Ige noted that studies say this may be “one of the most powerful tools to advance college enrollment and success among our public high school graduates—especially for lower-income and first-generation college students.”
Rhode Island: Gov. Gina Raimondo Expands Early College Options
Rhode Island is working to give its people a “real shot in the economy of the future,” said Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) in her January 17 state of the state address. For Raimondo, that means expanding early college options. She noted that in 2016 nearly 4,000 students took college courses while still in high school, some earning enough credits to have a full college semester completed before graduating from high school.
Raimondo also discussed the state’s push to have more individuals with a degree or credential beyond high school, which currently is less than half of Rhode Islanders. To reach a goal of 70 percent of Rhode Island adults with degrees or certificates by 2025, Raimondo noted that the state is working to make college more affordable and accessible, and will continue to invest in training and certificate programs.
Alaska: Gov. Bill Walker Shares Top Five Priorities for Education
In his January 18 state of the state addressAlaskaGov. Bill Walker (I) shared five top priorities for the state’s public education system. Put together by the State Board of Education after a public outreach process, the priorities include.
Improving student learning
Ensuring excellent educators
Modernizing the system
Inspiring tribal and community ownership
Promoting safety and well-being.
Walker noted that final recommendations in these areas would be shared with his office at the end of 2017 and that legislative efforts for reform would begin.
Michigan: Gov.Rick Snyder Makes the Case for Apprenticeships and STEM Education
In his January 17 state of the state address, Michigan: Gov. Rick Snyder (R) emphasized the importance of not treating education, the economy, and careers as silos, but instead to create the connection between school and career while inspiring lifelong learning. As the economy changes and jobs fluctuate, Snyder expressed the need to have the flexibility to respond accordingly in education. One method Snyder mentioned is apprenticeships, sharing the state’s growth as a leader in this area, with a 14 percent increase in registered apprenticeships over 2016. He talked about the need for even more growth and his intention to work with the state legislature and private sector partners to make this happen.
Snyder also hits on the hot topic of STEM education, and the need to expand access to STEM courses in Michigan schools as more STEM-related jobs require computer coding and computer science knowledge.
Other Education Highlights
Graduation rates receive a mention in Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R)’s January 17 state of the state address, as Bryant acknowledges both the state’s all-time-high 80 percent graduation rate and gains on reading and math tests.
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) called for one million dollar annual increases in K-12 STEM education and in the federal E-rate program during his January 17 state of the state address. Holcomb noted that more than half of Indiana’s schools do not have wi-fi in the classroom, and that this increased funding will enable more schools to participate in the E-rate and improve digital connectivity in schools.
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) mentioned efforts to expand apprenticeship programs for high school students to strengthen career pathways in his January 25 state of the state address, an initiative of the Governor’s Cabinet on Children and Youth alongside the Illinois State Board of Education, high schools, community colleges, and employers.
Today the Alliance for Excellent Education was recognized for its work to expand quality Linked Learning opportunities for students in California and across the nation at the Linked Learning Convention in Oakland, California. Linked Learning is a comprehensive educational approach that integrates rigorous academics, high-quality career and technical education, work-based learning, and student support to prepare all students, especially those who are traditionally underserved, to graduate from high school with the skills necessary to succeed in college and a career.
“From the most rural to the most urban school settings, Linked Learning is a sterling example of how the combined efforts of school districts, colleges and universities, and employers can make education more engaging for students and more relevant to the twenty-first-century economy,” said Alliance for Excellent Education President Bob Wise, who received the 2017 Linked Learning Policymaker Champion Award. “The Alliance is honored to be partners in this movement and to have communicated the impact of Linked Learning to federal policymakers and education leaders for nearly a decade.”
Originating in California with nine school districts, Linked Learning has expanded to serve more than 65,000 students in California, and many more in Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin. The approach is working to reverse the trend of too many students, particularly African American, Latino, and students from low-income families, who are failing to graduate from high school with the skills necessary to succeed.
In conjunction with the convention, the Alliance released a short video demonstrating how Linked Learning is changing lives and improving educational outcomes for students at Los Angeles Unified School District. In the video, Paola—a first-generation college student—shares how her mentorship in high school helped to prepare her for college and a career. Watch the video below or at https://youtu.be/rUbM4wMjvcs.
“Our students are becoming increasingly more diverse and it is clear that our success as a nation is inextricably linked to the achievement of students from low-income families,” said Wise. “Linked Learning has been a successful approach to more positive education results for traditionally underserved students. For example, African American students in Linked Learning pathways are 12.4 percentage points more likely than their peers to enroll in a four-year college.”
“More than 11 million jobs have been created since the Great Recession, and only 1 percent of those jobs went to people with only a high school diploma,” said Wise. “It’s obvious that students need preparation for both postsecondary education and the workforce—not one or the other.”
“Linked Learning makes the critical connection between the classroom, college, and a career while eliminating the disconnect between classroom learning and the real world of the workplace,” said Wise. “This approach enables students to explore their interests while preparing them for the jobs they will be applying for and that the workforce will be seeking.”
“It is my belief that schools can and must be a sanctuary of safety and possibility for all of the young people in their care.” So says Flint Community Schools superintendent Bilal Tawwab, of Flint, Michigan, in a commentary published by Huffington Post.
These are not idle words. Flint has experienced chronic economic decline, as well as a major water crisis that landed the city in the news for all the worst reasons. As Mr. Tawwab puts it, “These challenges our children face – and, in too many cases, the traumas they have experienced as a result – stack the odds against them before they even get to school.”
So it’s exciting to share some good news from this resilient community.
Despite the challenges, students in Flint achieved significant growth as measured by our very own MAP – in part thanks to what Mr. Tawwab calls a wise investment “in the people who can most impact a child’s learning: Teachers.”
Under Mr. Tawwab’s leadership, the district made a series of strategic investments. First, given the water crisis and on-going trauma that many children in the district have experienced, Flint invested in non-academic supports to make sure students have access to healthcare and tools to manage the stress. Then, to support student learning, as Mr. Tawwab says, the district “…invested resources in the people who can most impact a child’s learning: Teachers.”
Flint committed to a professional learning program that included things teachers said they needed. How could they use data from MAP to build individuated education programs (IEPs) for special education students? How could they better use the Learning Continuum to unpack what students were ready to learn next, and where they needed extra help? How could they set goals with students, and talk to them about growth?
Working with NWEA, the team developed a customized program that met the district’s needs and included data coaching, and smart use of NWEA’s different professional learning modules. Throughout, NWEA staff worked with the district closely to ensure that the plan continues to meet teacher needs.
The results speak for themselves. Join us in sending a big congratulations to @FlintSchools on this great news!
![[ESSA] State Plan Versions That Have Been Released So Far](https://nnpa.org/essa/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/essa-posts-featured_0060_iStock-460421987-1-1080x600.png)
Before she was appointed U.S. Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos spent the better half of two decades on an expensive, dogged crusade to bring school vouchers to her home state of Michigan. Bankrolled by the limitless financial resources of the DeVos Family Foundation, her efforts helped fuel other school choice initiatives – namely lifting caps on charter school expansion – but no amount of political contributions or slick marketing campaigns was enough to do the same for vouchers.
On March 6, NEA President Lily Eskelsen García was interviewed on the “Maggie Linton Show” on SiriusXM to talk about how voucher schemes pray on the nation’s most disadvantaged students.
“It is my belief that schools can and must be a sanctuary of safety and possibility for all of the young people in their care.” So says Flint Community Schools superintendent Bilal Tawwab, of Flint, Michigan, in a