Mark Binelli's view of charter schools in Highland Park and Detroit

[renf]

Michigan Gambled on Charter Schools. Its Children Lost.

Free-market boosters, including Betsy DeVos, promised that a radical expansion of charter schools would fix the stark inequalities in the state’s education system. The results in the classrooms are far more complicated.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/magazine/michigan-gambled-on-charter-schools-its-children-lost.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSou rce=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

[Lowell]

Long, but well worth it, read. Embarrassing, from the article:

"And a 2016 analysis by the Education Trust-Midwest, a nonpartisan education policy and research organization, found that 70 percent of Michigan charters were in the bottom half of the state’s rankings. Michigan has the most for-profit charter schools in the country and some of the least state oversight. Even staunch charter advocates have blanched at the Michigan model."
...
"Michigan’s K-12 system is among the weakest in the country and getting worse. In little more than a decade, Michigan has gone from being a fairly average state in elementary reading and math achievement to the bottom 10 states. It’s a devastating fall. Indeed, new national assessment data suggest Michigan is witnessing systemic decline across the K-12 spectrum. White, black, brown, higher-income, low-income — it doesn’t matter who they are or where they live."

[hybridy]

pretty sad. we are relocating out of state from birmingham public schools...curious to see how my first grader is prepared for the new district

[EastsideAl]

And yet, our know-nothing-in-chief appointed one of the main architects, boosters, and profiteers of this disgraceful failed system to run the entire country's education department.

[Bham1982]

Our state went from middle-of-the-pack to bottom tier, concurrent with the charter school deluge.

Now Betsy wants the Michigan catastrophe to go national. At least people are making a profit off our failing kids.

[Lowell]

"Last year, before her Department of Education nomination, Betsy Devos wrote an op-ed in The Detroit News calling for the wholesale dissolution of Detroit’s public-school district in order to “liberate all students.” But more than half of Detroit students already attend charter schools, and studies have found these schools, on average, to be either as poorly performing or only marginally better than the public schools long called a national disgrace. "

"According to a 2015 study, Michigan was the state leader in charter-school bond defaults, responsible for more than a third of the nationwide total."

[Canadian Visitor]

I have a question for the locals.

Clearly education is a much discussed topic in your parts.

As it is here in Ontario.

But if Ontario's system isn't perfect [[and it isn't) we certainly do spill the proverbial ink on the various details constantly on how it should be better.

That led me to wonder what discussion is like on your side of the border.

So went to the Freep site and searched PISA [[the way schools systems are compared to each other around the world) and found nothing........

Thought that was odd...but moved on to try 'curriculum' as that's always a hot topic here.............nothing, not one hit.

So I was curious....how does education get discussed in your neck of the woods if no one compares local achievement to global and no one talks about curriculum? LOL

Or is that just a Freep thing?

[mwilbert]

I have a question for the locals.

Clearly education is a much discussed topic in your parts.

As it is here in Ontario.

But if Ontario's system isn't perfect [[and it isn't) we certainly do spill the proverbial ink on the various details constantly on how it should be better.

That led me to wonder what discussion is like on your side of the border.

So went to the Freep site and searched PISA [[the way schools systems are compared to each other around the world) and found nothing........

Thought that was odd...but moved on to try 'curriculum' as that's always a hot topic here.............nothing, not one hit.

So I was curious....how does education get discussed in your neck of the woods if no one compares local achievement to global and no one talks about curriculum? LOL

Or is that just a Freep thing?

People talk about it, but it is really depressing.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/new...tion/98144368/

or if you want something really bad

http://www.freep.com/story/news/loca...test/74679094/

The fact that Michigan has uniquely terrible charter school rules is just the arsenic on top of the underlying poisonous mushrooms.