Changing Michigan's schools Thursday 2-25-2007 Merge districts, services to gain money for students The Detroit News Every time someone mentions the phrase "school consolidation," Tom White sees a tiny, white-haired woman, wagging her finger in protest. "She said, 'How dare you! How dare you touch our schools!'" White, executive director of the Michigan School Business Officials, recalls of the public hearing he attended in Lansing. "I thought to myself, 'Never again.'" Consolidating school districts and services provokes fierce feelings of identity and community in Michigan, a state that has always prided itself on local control. Residents may be frustrated with their schools' quality, but they still want their local high school football team. Tradition, however, has become a blind spot, not a virtue. Michigan must consolidate districts and services, as called for in Gov. Jennifer Granholm's State of the State address earlier this month. We are encouraged by the governor's demand for consolidation, but worry that it will go no further than the similar pledge she made in her 2005 address. This time, the governor and lawmakers must provide more leadership on an issue that is draining classroom resources. Michigan has the fourth highest number of school districts in the country, with 549. Some of the districts in Metro Detroit are as small as a few hundred students. But no matter how small the district, it still must hire a superintendent and other administrative and maintenance staff. In addition, nonclassroom school personnel -- janitors, food servers and assistants -- have doubled during the last 20 years, contributing to out-of-control health care costs. It is not enough for Granholm to simply threaten the school districts with a loss of state aid if they don't consolidate services such as transportation, accounting and human resources. The state must also make it easier for districts to do things such as pooling health plans to bring insurance costs down. And it should look at the role of the 59 intermediate school districts to determine which ones could be merged and which services could be contracted out to private firms. Twenty-five years ago, 70 percent of employees in education were teachers; now it's 49 percent, says Philip Cusick, professor of educational administration at Michigan State University. "It's not teacher salaries or the number of teachers that has risen. It's the bureaucratic machine." Some educators are claiming they can't implement the state's tough new curriculum without additional resources. But if they think consolidation, there are opportunities to revamp content while keeping costs down. Dade County, Fla., for example, created a center where students from schools county-wide take college preparatory classes and sophisticated computer training. "This is politically difficult to do," White says. "But when you're in such a financial crunch that we're in now, you have to be creative out of sheer necessity." Saving costs by consolidating districts and services is one major step Michigan can take to squeeze more results out of the considerable money it spends on public schools. Not having the political will to take that step would send a signal to parents and students that Michigan is not serious about delivering a first-class education.
Wednesday 2-14-2007
Improving schools starts with improving teachers
The Detroit News
Sharlonda Buckman has heard the complaint too often: Kids feel their teachers are unequipped, acting more as babysitters than educators. But she never imagined the state would listen.
"Every time we poll parents, they say the top three causes for Detroit's student achievement gap is teacher preparation," says Buckman, the executive director of the Detroit Parent Network, an advocacy group.
But the State Board of Education did listen to Buckman and other parents, and promised change. Now it must have the courage to implement real teacher preparation and management reform.
Teacher unions are among the most powerful special interests blocking major education reform in Michigan. Gov. Jennifer Granholm is in their pocket, as are most Democratic lawmakers and a fair number of Republicans.
But if Michigan is to dramatically improve its student performance to ensure its economic vitality, politicians must be willing to blow up labor contracts that put teachers' interests ahead of what's best for students. When the State Board of Education committee rolls out its early recommendations on how to improve teacher performance next month, it should:
Other states are seeing such reforms yield success.
Those states are experimenting with organizing schools around student success, rather than bargaining agreements. That often means lengthening the school day and year in some cases.
Another example: Some East Coast schools are moving their best teachers to the ninth grade when students appear to struggle most. Traditionally, teachers have preferred teaching older students and more prestigious classes.
"We have to be willing to play with all of the variables -- who teaches whom, the amount of instructional time we allot to certain students and certain subjects -- if we are truly going to make student success the priority," says Amy Wilkins, vice president for government affairs at the Education Trust, an education advocacy group in Washington, D.C.
As the state decides what reforms make sense for Michigan, it should start by determining what works best for students, and not what's possible in the current labor environment.
The goal should be forcing the unions to adapt, not adapting reform to accommodate the unions.
Changing Michigan's schools
Tuesday 2-13-2007
Get serious on graduation by raising the dropout age
In the ninth-grade classes at Fraser High School, the early warning signs of dropping out are rarely predictable. The grades of all-A students suddenly plummet. Talkative teens withdraw. Others become preoccupied with a divorce or their first romantic break-up.
For too many, what is predictable is their imminent failure. Years before they hit age 16, the state legal age to drop out, these freshmen are already struggling. In time, one in four will drop out.
Fraser High -- a white, middle-class suburban school -- is typical for Michigan. Long perceived as an urban problem, the state's 25 percent-plus dropout rate is a widespread plague that thwarts our economic recovery.
Other states have adopted bold reforms to improve their graduation rates. Michigan can't agree on what to do.
While we have resisted the call to raise the dropout age, other states have taken that step. Arkansas, Wisconsin and Minnesota are among the states that have raised the compulsory school attendance age to 17 and 18.
Superintendents in St. Paul, Minn., and Milwaukee report that state legislation boosted the number of high school graduates, though research showing a direct correlation between the state's action and the rate has not been conducted. If a higher dropout age worked in those states, it may well work in Michigan. Gov. Jennifer Granholm was right to raise the topic in her State of the State message.
But like most other education reforms, special interests stand in the way. Home school advocates have fought such legislation out of fear it will impinge upon them, despite the fact that our state has one of the most protective home school laws.
Educators worry that forcing kids to go to school when they'd rather drop out will lead to classroom disruptions and an additional burden for teachers. Jim Ballard, executive director of the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals, admits that has been a problem.
"The biggest perception is, dropouts are troublemakers, and we don't want those troublemakers back in our school," Ballard says. "That's a dying sentiment."
Evidence from other states proves otherwise. In Minnesota, "the school climate did not change at all," says Joann Knuth, a former school superintendent and executive director of the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals. "I understand where those educators are standing from. But the reality turned out so much better."
Educators also argue that any such reforms must be tied to an increase in funding to support alternative schools for dropouts.
In truth, many privately run alternative schools have opened to serve dropouts, but some have been shut down because of resistance from the teachers unions and the public school districts, who see them as a threat to their franchise.
Michigan legislators should raise the dropout age to 18. But they should also make it easier for charter and private schools that serve troubled students to open and operate. It's not good enough to simply trap students for another two years in schools that have already failed them.
See related commentary on the opposite page.
Dropout myths
False perceptions that have frustrated reforms:
Myth: Our financially strapped state can't do much.
Truth: Other states have cost-effective reforms.
Myth: Dropouts can still get decent blue-collar jobs.
Truth: Poverty and instability mark dropouts' lives.
Myth: Michigan's dropout rate really isn't so bad.
Truth: Many officials downplay the rate or argue about it rather than solve the problem.
Changing Michigan's Schools
Sunday 2-11-2007
Local school districts balk at education reform
Michigan is already stepping back from its new commitment to education reform, just as it is trying to catch up with other states and the world.
Less than a year after Michigan passed much-heralded statewide curriculum reform for high schools, school districts are balking at fully implementing it, saying they will teach it through trimesters rather than semesters, allowing them to keep more elective courses as well as teachers who aren't qualified for the tougher classes.
In doing so, they are sabotaging students' access to the content they most need to prepare for college and the work world.
"It makes a mockery out of these high school graduation requirements," says Sharif Shakrani, co-director of Michigan State University's Education Policy Center and one of the country's foremost experts in student achievement. "Unless the legislators do something about this, it will be really hard to correct later on. Otherwise, it's a sham."
Today, The Detroit News kicks off a weeklong series on Michigan education, exploring how the state can dramatically improve students' K-16 success if it is willing to stand up to the special interests controlling the schools.
Never before has education mattered so much to our future well-being.
Yet at the school and district level, many administrators, teachers and union leaders are proving reluctant to follow state leadership on the high school curriculum reform passed last spring.
At the state level, both Democrats and Republicans resist or do not initiate reforms, using the respective excuses of union rights and local control to protect their core supporters.
These so-called traditions are holding the state back from educational and economic progress.
"I really am a local control guy," says Mike Reno, a Republican member of the Rochester Community Schools Board of Education. "But at this point, local control is out of control."
The problem is not ignorance. We know what to do. Other states have shown us.
Nor is the problem simply funding. Money helps, but it has not driven successful reforms elsewhere.
Texas, Virginia and North Carolina and other states have undertaken bold state-level reforms to effectively boost their students' academic success. As a result, they are increasingly closing their socioeconomic achievement gap.
By contrast, Michigan did not pass a statewide assessment until April 2006. The state has not improved its college attendance rate significantly, and its student achievement is continuing to fall behind compared with other states' performance growth.
"We need another approach," Shakrani says. "Other states have taken another approach, and it is bearing fruit."
This week, we'll look at how Michigan can -- and must -- take another approach to K-12 education.
If Michigan is to regain its educational edge, both political parties must put children before their partisan supporters and embrace a more open-minded, 21st century interpretation of their core beliefs.
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About the series
How Michigan must reform the state's K-12 education system to catch up with the rest of the world.
Today: Opponents use excuses of union rights and local control to frustrate school change.
Monday: Why Michigan's student achievement is falling behind, and what we can do about it.
Tuesday: We explore the special interests that fight reforms to turn around the state's dismal dropout rate.
Wednesday: How other states have overhauled teacher management to improve student performance.
Thursday: Michigan must cut its skyrocketing administrative costs to save money for the classroom.
Changing Michigan's schools
Monday 2-12-2007
State must play stronger role in education reform
Just 10 years ago, Michigan students significantly out-performed the national average on achievement. Today, their performance is barely average compared with other states -- and fails miserably compared to other countries.
Michigan students didn't grow worse; they just didn't grow at all. While our state's performance stagnated, other states' students blossomed under careful cultivation.
Years after other states launched dramatic changes to improve their schools, Michigan is just trying out overdue education reform.
Last year, Michigan implemented a sorely needed statewide curriculum reform. While we applaud this new mandate, we realize that schools need further state leadership to guide instruction, textbook policy, teacher management and other issues to ensure the educational system leads the country once gain, and the world.
Other states have embraced bold statewide reforms. They are seeing real results. Yet Michigan clings to outdated, rigid traditions of local control and union rights that need to be modernized.
We have always believed that government works best when it is closest to the people. But Michigan's local school boards have proven incapable of breaking the stranglehold of education unions and implementing common sense reforms. We cannot deny what is working in other states.
Experts and activists agree the state must take the lead on improving student performance by providing more guidance on instructional methods, and addressing school structures and educators who resist reforms.
Michigan can wipe out its education deficit if the state:
Provides more guidance on instruction. Many school districts are struggling to figure out how to implement the new state curriculum.
Overhauls middle school instruction and structures to better prepare students for high school.
Recommends textbooks, if not mandate them, to reflect the needs of the new global economy. Michigan instruction is based on textbooks. If the books change, the teaching will follow.
Michigan's rigid teacher bargaining agreements and interpretation of local control has continued to thwart reform.
"This is a state that has prided itself for many, many, many years that the decisions of education are made at the local, local, local level," says Sharif Shakrani, co-director of Michigan State University's Education Policy Center and one of the country's foremost experts in student achievement.
Mike Reno, a businessman and Rochester school board member, adds, "With local control comes responsibility to make sound decisions. Look at most school boards: I don't think they make bad decisions; they just don't make any decisions. If they had done their jobs, we would not have needed the state to lead reform. But we do."
Michigan's cultural attitude must also change. North Carolina upended its old belief that "not everyone is meant to go to college" and mandated that middle schools eliminate tracking. Now, every middle school student is taking rigorous college preparatory classes and they are closing their socio-economic achievement gap.
Michigan needs a similar comprehensive reform of education that starts with taking the schools back from special interests.
Changing Michigan's schools
Friday 2-15-2007
Like automakers, schools must change or perish
Without fixes, educators won't earn more funding
Tom Watkins
M ichigan citizens value education. Yet, 62 percent of Michigan's voters rejected the November ballot Proposal 5 to "guarantee" funding increases to our local public schools. The voters understood that the money was for the adults and not the children, so more money wouldn't automatically translate into higher quality and achievement.
Now comes the hard part of making the necessary changes in our schools.
Like the auto industry, our system of public education must change or perish. The configuration of our public system of education is not sustainable educationally or fiscally. And it will not prepare our children to compete in a rapidly changing world without significant and fundamental change.
With technology and globalization, our children are not simply competing against the students in the school district or state next door; they are competing against the 3 billion new capitalists in Russia, China, India and other developing nations that are clamoring to take our jobs and our middle class way of life.
A time for boldness
Bold efforts need to be undertaken to redirect limited resources to the core mission of teaching and learning. Michigan citizens will not increase funding to schools until the governor and Legislature, along with local school boards and superintendents, demonstrate that they have made the tough decisions to:
As an example, the highly regarded public accounting firm Plante & Moran did a study nearly a decade ago that showed how Wayne County could save nearly $10 million annually by consolidating special education bus routes without hurting students. The recommendations were never implemented because it would affect adults and their jobs.
$10 million wasted
That is $10 million that could and should have gone to prepare our children for the 21st-century knowledge economy but was burned up on the roads. There are similar examples across our state.
There are no incentives or natural constituency at the local level for taking on the tough assignment to rein in costs, consolidate school districts, form joint operating agreements and other ways to save money and be more effective with public school aid.
Clearly, our children will benefit from strategically targeted investments. However, the problems confronting our schools cannot and will not be addressed by simply pouring more money into the existing system.
When I was state superintendent of public instruction, I compiled a 2004 report on Michigan's structural school funding issues and warned: "A simple solution would be to join the chorus and simply ask for more tax revenue to fund our schools. However, simply funding the current system will not yield the results our children need and deserve."
Consensus for reform grows
Others are reaching the same conclusion. The executive directors of the Michigan Association of School Administrators and the Michigan Association of School Boards, in a Nov. 15, 2006, joint letter to The Detroit News, appear to agree that fundamental change is needed when they wrote: "Proposal 5 -- rejected by 62 percent of Michigan voters -- should serve as a wake-up call for all of us in education."
The respected Citizens Research Council of Michigan concluded that change is required in a report that stated: "increased pension and health benefit cost for working school employees leaves little room for increased spending directed to teaching and learning."
Last year's Senate majority leader, a Republican, and the Senate minority leader, a Democrat (who is now Gov. Jennifer Granholm's budget director), with more than 40 years of legislative experience between them, concurred that the state needs to consolidate school districts and direct more dollars to the classroom.
Given the runaway health care and pension costs, unless changes are made, we should change the name of the Department of Education to the Department of "Health Care and Pensions" to more accurately reflect where the bulk of any future money will be spent.
We have witnessed what has happened when the auto industry ignored new realities and waited too long to address the structural problems confronting them. Leadership matters. Doing nothing is not a solution.
Michigan's citizens have historically demonstrated their willingness to invest in our children. They will do so in the future when fundamental changes in Michigan's public education system assure them that the investment will pay off for our children and our collective future.
Tom Watkins is a business and education consultant who was state superintendent of public schools from 2001-05. E-mail: letters@detnews.com.
2 comments:
wow...i have nothing else to say
Rock Lee:
WOW is good!
Best,
Jim
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