Tagged: Education Achievement Authority

Governor Rick Snyder says expanding a state-run district for struggling schools is one of his top priorities for 2013.         

The Education Achievement Authority is designed to turn around schools with persistently low student test scores. Right now, the authority oversees 15 public schools in Detroit.      

Snyder wants to expand the district across the state. The EAA would be able to take over schools that fall in the bottom 5 percent.

Bills to expand the system did not move in the final weeks of the legislative session.        

Snyder says more lawmakers would come around to the idea if they saw the state-run schools firsthand.          

The EAA has been operating for just four months. Opponents of the expansion say it’s too early to tell if the system is working.

On Wednesday, we heard Gov. Rick Snyder's chief education advisor say this:

"We have over 230 schools where zero children were college-ready when they got their high school diplomas," Richard McLellan.

McLellan was talking to Michigan Radio’s Jennifer Guerra who reported on proposed changes to Michigan’s education system.

Michigan's new statewide district for low-performing schools was not a winner in a national competition to share a $400 million prize. 

The  Education Achievement Authority was launched just this year in an effort to turn around 15 of the state's lowest-performing schools -- all of them in Detroit.  

So it came as a surprise to Sandra York when the EAA was named a finalist in the federal government's  Race to the Top competition.

York is executive director of the Michigan PTA.

State lawmakers are mulling over a number of bills that would overhaul public education in Michigan.

One measure would expand a new state-run district meant to turn-around schools with test scores in the bottom five-percent.

The idea has many public school officials pitted against each other.

Schools like Detroit's Denby High school are at the center of the debate.

Last year, it was one of the lowest-performing schools in the Detroit Public Schools system. Now, it’s one of 15 Detroit schools the state oversees through its Education Achievement Authority.

For the first time, Michigan could get a piece of President Obama’s Race to the Top prize money for education.

But not everyone’s celebrating.

The Education Achievement Authority was the only Michigan district to qualify as a Race to the Top finalist.

The new authority runs 15 of Michigan’s lowest performing schools in Detroit, but legislation at the state Capitol would expand the district statewide and cement it into law.

More than 100 Parent Teacher Association administrators, teachers and parents signed a letter this week asking Mr. Obama to reconsider his choice.