This Week & Next (July 3, 2014)

GLEP Launches New Website on School Funding
A new website has been launched by GLEP to provide education advocates, parents, policy makers and the news media with the facts about school funding in the state. MiKidFirst.com includes “to the penny” allocations for 800+ school districts with data from FY 2012, 2013 and 2014. This site proves that funding, on a per student basis, has gone up by hundreds of dollars per student since Governor Snyder took office. Even the Democratic Chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on School Aid has gone on the record to refute the claim from political partisans that Governor Snyder has cut $1 billion in K-12 funding. Click here for former Rep. Matt Gillard’s interview on the subject.

Candidate Open House & Education Town Hall on July 8 in Detroit
17 candidates in 10 campaigns for State Senate and State House of Representatives in Wayne County have committed to participate in a Meet the Candidate night and Education Town Hall Meeting from 6:00-8:00 pm on Tuesday, July 8 at Madison-Carver Academy at 19900 McIntyre Street in Detroit (near 8 Mile Rd and Telegraph Rd).  GLEP is pleased to join seven other education advocacy organizations to sponsor this event. Please click here to see the list of candidates, and click here to register for this FREE event.  Please share this information with voters, parents and interested parties.

WDET Provides Charter Supporters Some Rebuttal Time, Sort Of
GLEP’s Gary Naeyaert and Jared Burkhart, Executive Director of the Michigan Council of Charter School Authorizers, were invited to respond to media criticism of the charter school movement on the Craig Fahle Show on WDET FM earlier this week. Halfway through the program, however, Stephen Henderson, Editorial Page Editor of the Detroit Free Press, joined the show and then the fireworks got started! Please click here to listen to the podcast of the show.

Number of Superintendents Signing the “School Accountability Pledge”: 0
MAPSA has made a “School Accountability Pledge” available for traditional public school superintendents who are willing to operate under same accountability, transparency and oversight laws as Michigan’s charter public schools. A few of these standards, none of which have been reported by the media, are the following:

• Operate under a performance contract that says they’ll be shut down if they fail to operate to a level satisfactory. (NOTE: while 80 charters have been closed since 1996, NO traditional public school has ever been closed for failing kids.)
• Accept any student in the state, no matter where they live.
• Do not hire anyone that has a defined family relationship with a school board member.
• Subject every contract for approval by the State Board of Education.
• Pay 3% of total state aid to the State Board of Education for oversight purposes.
• Be automatically closed if the school is on the bottom 5 percent of the top-to-bottom list for four straight years.

Even though no local Superintendents have yet signed the pledge (they’re likely not working this week, we think) we will report those who sign it in future editions of “This Week & Next.”

Ed Reform News From Around the Country

• State of the Teachers Unions (Education Week)
• Support for School Vouchers is Growing, Survey Finds (Education Week)
• Several States Expand Education Choice (Cato Institute)
• Don’t Leave Out Religious Schools from School Choice (Sacramento Bee)

Do you support what GLEP is doing to improve education in Michigan? Please consider making a donation to help us continue our efforts, and all contributions are very much appreciated!!

Respectfully,

Gary G. Naeyaert
Executive Director
517-281-2690