Detroit News. March 30, 2024.
Editorial: Stifling charters won’t save public schools
Michigan’s public schools consistently rank among the worst performing in the nation, so it’s no surprise 10% of the state’s students choose charter schools in hopes of a better education.
It’s a wonder the percentage isn’t larger. And it might be if the education establishment didn’t work so hard to subvert the state’s school choice laws.
The latest effort by Democrats beholden to the Michigan Education Association is to make it tougher for public charter schools to find buildings suitable for housing their students.
When charters began gaining popularity, particularly in urban areas such as Detroit where school failure was endemic, school districts refused to sell or lease them abandoned buildings. Many districts preferred to see their surplus schools torn down or left to rot rather than turn them over to the charters competing for their students.
The Michigan Legislature, controlled by Republicans at the time, put a stop to that practice in 2017 with the passage of the Education Instruction Access Act, which prohibited districts from using deed restrictions to block sales to charters.
With Democrats back in charge in Lansing, they have the law in their sights. A bill introduced by Rep. Noah Arbit, D-West Bloomfield, would repeal the act under the guise of preserving historic school buildings.
In Arbit’s own district, West Bloomfield Schools recently decided to demolish the century-old Roosevelt School in Keego Harbor rather than accept an offer from a private developer to purchase it for $1.7 million dollars. The district feared it would ultimately become a charter.
School Board member Carol Finkelstein said in a public meeting, “Roosevelt is a beautiful 104-year-old historic building that is facing demolition because we simply cannot afford to have it become a competing school.”
Stifling competition and denying students in failing schools an opportunity at a better education is not the way to improve the performance of Michigan’s schools.
So many parents have turned away from traditional public schools out of frustration with their chronic under-achievement. The way to win them back is by delivering better results.
Charter schools are not the reason traditional public schools are failing. Rather, decades of skirting accountability and putting the interests of teachers unions ahead of the needs of students are to blame.
Charter schools managed to find places to house their students before the Education Instruction Access Act was passed, and they will do so again if the law is repealed.
Communities are better served, however, by allowing charter students to fill buildings no longer needed by the district.
But as demonstrated by West Bloomfield, many school districts prefer to see those old schools torn down — at considerable expense to their taxpayers — rather than have them used for their intended purpose by charter schools.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has already reduced funding for online charter schools, a lifeline for students who are uncomfortable in a traditional school setting, and now her Democratic colleagues want to make opening charter schools more difficult.
The anti-charter bias is in conflict with Whitmer’s stated goal of attracting more families to Michigan.
Parents of school aged children won’t come to a state where the only choice they have for educating their children is a poorly performing public school system.
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Traverse City Record-Eagle. March 29, 2024.
Editorial: Auditor General needed to ensure good government
There’s an interesting brouhaha over Michigan’s Office of Auditor General and its budget for 2025.
One of the OAG budget lines has a placeholder, which if not filled, would end up cutting the agency’s funding by 28 percent, or $8.3 million.
The office, itself, is longstanding and important. Established in 1836, the Auditor General is the chief fiscal officer of our state. Appointed by Legislature and peopled by certified public accountants. It — with exacting impartiality — is charged with the weighty task of rooting out problems in our government.
And it, no doubt, has. In recent days, the OAG found stagger-worthy inventory issues at Michigan Liquor Control Commission (62,000 bottles lost); a 4 percent shortfall in fingerprinting school contract workers; and longtime lags (19 months) in completing discrimination investigations in the Department of Civil Rights.
But even though the office itself is “non-partisan,” detractors call some of its work “misleading” and say current Auditor General Douglas Ringler (originally appointed under Gov. Rick Snyder) is doing “Republican bidding,” according to the Michigan Advance.
A report on Unemployment Insurance Agency claims processing during the pandemic was criticized for deliberately “lacking context” and another, in reporting nearly 2,386 more COVID-related deaths in long-term care centers than the state, may have tailored the report to its Republican requestor.
Ringler needs to publicly reconcile any errors or problems and make double-sure that any reports carrying the OAG seal are objective and fully accurate. Only bulletproof work and personal integrity can withstand the partisan blows of Lansing. That office needs to withstand being buffeted by Lansing’s changing winds, as its work — ferreting out waste, inefficiencies and fraud — is fundamental to good governance.
As journalists, we know there’s a price to pay for bearing unwelcome truths — but that price should be popularity at dinner parties, not $8.3 million. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s use of the budget as a way to browbeat OAG to kiss the ring only underscores the need for it.
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The Mining Journal. March 30, 2024.
Editorial: AED training, units in high schools will save lives
Call it common sense but legislation making its way through the State Legislature seems like a smart move to us.
The measure, from state Rep. John Fitzgerald, D-Wyoming, would require schools to have a cardiac emergency response plan in place for all athletic events.
It has passed the House and is awaiting Senate action.
It followed the Feb. 18 death of 18-year-old Detroit Northwestern High School athlete Cartier Woods, who died a week after he suffered cardiac arrest during a basketball game, according to the Detroit Public Schools Community District.
The pending bill would require all public and charter school coaches and assistant coaches to add AED training to the already mandatory CPR training.
“The bill is to implement a cardiac emergency response plan, which would be a formalized plan of who is responding, what are their duties and what their responsibilities are in case of a cardiac emergency,” said Fitzgerald. “The school will be allowed to assign specific personnel to determine who is included in their response team,” he said.
Fitzgerald noted that having trained persons on site is the goal, not just head coaches but other faculty as well.
There’s more.
The sponsor of a related bill, Rep. Tyrone Carter, D-Detroit, talked about what training and the costs will look like if the legislation passes.
“The AED training will piggyback on the yearly CPR training that is already required for coaches. There will be no extra cost for the additional training,” he said.
Carter said the state will cover all costs of the AED machines if the legislation passes.
A lot of organizations have lined up in favor of this legislation, including the Department of Education, the Detroit Lions, the Michigan State Medical Society, the Michigan Athletic Trainer’s Society and the American Heart Association.
Will there is a cost to state government? Yes there will, but look at it this way: It’s literally a matter of life and death.
We support the legislation and look forward to it passing.
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