Bills reveal Snyder's schools plan: Increased oversight

Financially troubled school districts in Michigan would become empowerment zones controlled by education managers with sweeping powers to oversee both charter schools and traditional public schools under draft legislation generated by the governor’s office.

Some parts of the draft laws — which are certainly subject to change — closely mirror the proposal Gov. Rick Snyder announced in April for overhauling public education in Detroit.

But they also provide a more detailed glimpse of the extraordinary powers education managers would have over schools located within empowerment zones. That broad authority would likely be among the most controversial aspects of the legislation if it remains in its current form.

The drafts apply the empowerment zone model to multiple districts in financial trouble. However, it is likely that the final version would focus only on Detroit if it doesn’t find legislative support.

Under the package of seven draft bills:

• The education manager would act as a CEO and superintendent of the empowerment zone, developing and enforcing plans for a universal enrollment system, how school buildings should be used, measuring academic growth and accountability, enforcing student performance standards and deciding which schools should be closed.

• Authorizers of charter schools in empowerment zones would lose the authority to independently open a new school — they would first need the education manager’s approval. There is an exemption for authorizers trying to replicate a high-performing school. The manager’s decision would be final and not subject to appeal.

• Education managers would measure school performance with an “A to F” grading system. The system would be created either by the Legislature or the education manager.

• A school in an empowerment zone would be considered high-performing if, among other criteria, at least 80% of its students are proficient in math and reading on the state M-STEP exam. The drafts also outline the process for closing poor-performing schools.

Gary Naeyaert, executive director of the Great Lakes Education Project, a lobbying group in Lansing that promotes school choice, said the reaction in Lansing to the drafts has ranged from “mild to wild” opposition.

Naeyaert said he’s concerned about the education managers’ broad powers.

“We don’t think the answer to improving academic performance for students is to create additional layers of bureaucracy,” he said, referring specifically to Detroit. “We’re not comfortable with subjecting over a dozen autonomous authorizers to the will of a single political appointee.”

The education manager would be picked by a five-member education commission. The commissions would meet annually and three members would be appointed by the governor and two by the mayor of the largest city in the zone.

The costs of running empowerment zones would be funded through 1% of the Title I, Part A, funding, or the money the federal government gives to high-poverty school districts.

Creating the new Detroit Education District

One draft bill pushes forward previously announced plans to split DPS into two separate entities to address its massive debt.

One entity, the new Detroit Education District, which would absorb DPS’ students, teachers, buildings, labor contracts and access to state and federal education funds. The old DPS would still exist as a separate legal entity to collect taxes and pay off the district’s nearly half-billion dollar operating debt.

The change would take effect July 1.

The Detroit Education District would have a 7-member school board with three appointees from Mayor Mike Duggan and four from Snyder who would gradually be replaced with elected officials. The current DPS school board would become part of the old district.

The proposed legislation says $250,000 from the state’s general fund budget would be used to support the creation of the Detroit Education District.

The new district would have the same power to borrow money as the old public school system. But it would also be subject to scrutiny by the City of Detroit’s financial review commission.

Schools in the Education Achievement Authority, the state reform district for low-performing schools, would be empowerment zone schools in the Detroit zone, the proposal says.

The proposals, which are dated July 16, address the belief among many education officials that there needs to be better coordination of enrollment and placement of school buildings in Detroit.

The city has a decentralized system of about 100 schools operated by Detroit Public Schools along with about as many charter schools run by a dozen authorizers. There are also 15 former DPS schools that are under the control of the EAA. Academic performance across all sectors is generally poor.

The 47,000-student DPS also has seen sharp enrollment declines and mounting financial troubles over the past several years. The district has been run by an emergency manager since 2009.

The drafts differ in some areas from a proposal released in March by the Coalition for the Future of Detroit Schoolchildren. Namely, the coalition wanted the governance of Detroit Public Schools to return to an elected school board.

“The foundation of democracy is local control. We don’t want to take (residents’) voices away,” said state Rep. Sherry Gay-Dagnogo, D-Detroit, a member of the coalition.

Dave Murray, a spokesman for Snyder, declined to comment on the drafts or how they may change.

“I do know that anything that is more than a month old is very outdated,” he wrote in an e-mail.

He said the governor remains focused on trying to improve education in Detroit.

“We know that all of Michigan benefits from a thriving Detroit, and the city’s comeback can’t be complete until all families know that their children will have a high-quality education that will help them reach their potential,” he said. “The ongoing effort — and there is still much to do — continues to include many voices working together toward this common goal.”

Contact Ann Zaniewski: 313-222-6594 or azaniewski@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @AnnZaniewski. Staff writer Lori Higgins contributed to this report.

A glance at the governor’s proposal

The bills as drafted would immediately create an empowerment zone in Detroit. Other financially distressed districts could become empowerment zones either voluntarily or though a declaration of the state superintendent, school reform officer or state treasurer.

Under the proposals, the education manager would work with experts to develop a “zone accountability plan” that would include “academic measurements to assess student growth and proficiency.”

Schools would be ranked by an A to F letter grading system.

In Michigan, schools that have been on the state’s bottom 5% lowest performing list for three consecutive years are subject to closure.

Managers of empowerment zones will be able to initiate closures of poor-performing schools, including those that are not necessarily in the bottom 5%.. They will have the power to decide which of those schools should be reconstituted, get a new education provider, or be removed from its current building and replaced with a new school.

Read draft legislation generated by the governor’s office: