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Rep. McMillin: Districts don’t oppose virtual learning, they just don’t want charter schools offering parents choices

February 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Traditional K-12 districts don’t oppose virtual schools, they just don’t want charter school operators to be able to run them, state House Education Committee chairman Thomas McMillin said today.

His committee wrapped up testimony on a school choice package that includes lifting a cap on the number of “cyber” charters and expanding high school and college dual enrollment. McMillin, R-Rochester Hills, said the committee will likely vote next week to send it to the full House.

Testimony about cyber schools closed after discussing questions about the quality of instruction at two existing schools.

But leaders from several traditional districts also said they have – or want to offer – similar virtual schools, some even using the provider criticized for making large profits on the schools.

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Community stepping up to help Suttons Bay Schools

January 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

SUTTONS BAY — The northern Michigan community is helping the Suttons Bay Schools try and stave off a state takeover.

Superintendent Mike Murray says the district planned to get state funding for 760 students, but fell short by 114 students due to a charter school’s decision to drop out of Suttons Bay’s virtual school. The student funding has left a $400,000 hole in the schools budget.

The school district needs to come up with the money to balance its budget, or the state may step in by sending an emergency financial manager.

After a community meeting about the issue last week, pledges began pouring in to the school. As of Thursday, $91,000 was raised. The teachers of Suttons Bay pledged $55,000 in support, with the rest of the donations coming in through various community organizations and residents.

For the rest of the article, go to Community stepping up to help Suttons Bay Schools

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Michigan Education Association leaders say virtual charter schools are designed for profits, not students

January 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

LANSING – Teachers union leaders lashed out at plans to eliminate the cap on virtual charter schools, telling state House Education Committee members that the schools are interested only in profits.

The so-called “cyber school” bill was part of a school choice package before the committee, following last month’s vote to gradually eliminate the cap on charter schools authorized by state universities.

Education Committee Chairman Thomas McMillin, R-Rochester Hills, said he’s not ready to call for a vote on the package of six bills aimed at offering parents and students more educational choices.

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Suttons Bay schools need help to survive

January 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

You have to feel for Suttons Bay Public Schools. The district has been chasing a decrease in student enrollment for a decade, nonstop.

Suttons Bay’s plight resembles someone trying to sell a home in the spiraling housing market. About the time the homeowner adjusts the price, the market falls. By the time the homeowner adjusts expectations and lowers the price again, the market has slipped that much more.

Except enrollment at Suttons Bay has been falling much quicker and longer than the price of homes. Student numbers at Suttons Bay, which was formerly the county’s biggest school district, peaked at over 1,100 a dozen years ago. Coincidently, it was in the year 2000 that District voters approved three bonds totaling nearly $7 million that, among other improvements, added 19 new classrooms.
Times were booming.

But the latest count showed 643 students, and the trend is continuing lower.

Why the big fall?

Jobs, mostly, or a lack thereof. Families have a difficult time sustaining themselves in the 65 square-mile Suttons Bay district. Consequently, there are fewer student-aged children living there, and little incentive to move in.

The situation is dire, as the district through Superintendent Mike Murray based its budget on an increase in enrollment from 702 students to 760 students. Much of the increase was pegged to success of the district’s innovate “virtual” classroom that allows students from across the state to take classes at Suttons Bay.

The budget turned out to be a big, bold gamble that failed when the virtual students never materialized. Consequently, the second easy complaint would be to blame Murray and the Suttons Bay Board of Education for being so far off.

For the rest of the article, go to Suttons Bay schools need help to survive

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Viewpoint: Republican rule in 2011: A year of living dangerously

January 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I’ve traveled to many Third World countries. They have much in common: A great deal of money is wasted on military adventures, most struggle mightily to institute self-rule if they have any at all, many people live on the edge, and each features an education system that best serves the wealthy. Morocco, Romania, Turkey, Russia, the story is pretty much the same. Young bright students who come from wealthy families are fluent in multiple languages. They are drilled in math and science. They attend well-financed private institutions supported by the legacy of their parents’ assets. Public school students go to overcrowded, poorly financed, understaffed holding tanks.Many kids in Third World schools drop out with little but the basics by the time they are 16.

2011 was a dangerous year in Michigan for those who trust in public education. Highly partisan decisions coming from Lansing, with little input from educators, are laying a Third World foundation that will further segregate our society between rich and poor.

The foundation grant (per pupil funding) will be further eroded in upcoming years by Legislative removal of caps on charters and cyber schools. Charter cap removal is law; cyber cap removal is in the process of becoming law. Each will take with it public school tax dollars that will further dilute per pupil funding. Furthermore, neither charters nor cyber schools are being legislated additional oversight that will regulate quality. In fact Republican Sen.Phil Pavlov of St. Clair, sponsor of SB 619 that removes limits on cyber schools says, “It’s a great way to catch up on credits if they’ve fallen behind.” Every public school teacher knows that the E-2020 computer courses used already to “catch up on credits” are a farce. They provide little rigor and unlimited chances to qualify for an effectively worthless high school diploma. The final portion of this erosion of the per pupil funding will take place when religious schools lobby Lansing to link charters to vouchers and grab their own piece of the pie. By then pe pupil funds will have been so diluted that state funding will not be enough, even with drastic cuts at the local level, to adequately pay for public schools. However, religious schools and private charters for the elite, will have had their tuition costs reimbursed through state aid. A voucher system defeated at the polls will have become a reality through legislation.

For the rest of the article, go to Viewpoint: Republican rule in 2011: A year of living dangerously

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S-B on the ropes

December 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Suttons Bay Public Schools is seeking funding from the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians to stave off a possible state takeover of the district.

The Board of Education voted unanimously Monday night to support an application for 2 percent gaming funds of $400,000 to help offset a projected $600,000 deficit for the 2011-2012 school year.

“It’s unprecedented,” Murray told the board. “They’ve never had this large a request. It’s hard to predict what will happen.”

According to the 2 percent application, in spite of the systematic budget-cutting measures taken by the district, the district is faced with a projected $600,000 deficit by June 30.

The final student count that determines state aid to the district came in at the end of November 28 percent short of the 760 students built into the 2011-2012 budget. Enrollment was 547 students. Murray explained that students enrolled in Suttons Bay’s “virtual school” have to log in 10 times over the course of a month in order for the school to receive state funding.

“If they log in nine times, but not 10, we get zero funding for that student, as opposed to our seat time waiver student who needs to be here on (count) day,” he said.

Also hurting was a last minute decision by a larger charter school not to enroll in the Suttons Bay online program. Instead, the charter school, located downstate, chose to go with a commercial online program. Charter school administrators are now regretting the decision, Murray said

“We’ve been flooded with requests for our virtual school since count day,” he said. “With the 90/10 count, a district can take the money, then lose the kids. Anyone who picks those kids up after Oct. 5 has to educate them without reimbursement from the state. No good deed goes unpunished.”

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The Mackinac Center: Outdated thinking stands in the way of online learning

November 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Enrollment in online schools is growing nationally by about 30% each year. Unfortunately, outdated rules and regulations in Michigan stand in the way of schools unleashing the full potential of digital learning.

There are several misconceptions about digital learning. The concept of placing kids in front of a computer and expecting them to learn turns some people cold to the idea of digital learning.

The president of the Michigan Education Association, Steven Cook, invoked this image recently, likening online learning to spending an entire day staring at a computer screen. But that’s not how digital learning works.

Digital learning is really about individually customized instruction, improved learning assessments and expanded access. Using technology, instruction can be tailored to students’ unique needs, allowing them to progress at their own pace. Comprehension can be measured in real time and fed back to teachers instantaneously. With the Internet, all students, no matter where they live, can access the best teachers, instruction and programs.

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Review gives no clear answer in debate over charter schools

November 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A review of student achievement data in the Jackson County area provides no consistent answer to a key question in the debate over charter schools: Do students at the schools perform better than their peers at traditional public schools?

The answer to that question as it relates to area charter schools? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

“I think the magnets are a result of those factors,” Evans said. “Not just charters. Schools of choice, virtual schools, parochial enrollment and the charters.”

He said he’s not sure the Legislature needs to clear the way for more charter schools to open, particularly ones that he said are founded by “outside influences.” The House legislation would make it easier for out-of-state organizations to set up charter schools in Michigan.

“I’m going to say that schools of choice have been a good thing,” Evans said. “I’m not sure charter schools have had the impact that they were supposed to have.

“At some point, you’ve just got to take care of schools that you have,” he said.

For the rest of the article, go to Review gives no clear answer in debate over charter schools

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In run for Grosse Pointe school board, Roeske says he’s a ‘Boy Scout’

November 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

What do you think is your most important qualification for the school board?

I think that the biggest thing I would bring to the board is a sense of working collaboratively. I’ve been a board observer, and I think that the board can work without being divisive. And I hope that the ability to be collaborative and work together in a cohesive manner – to make sure that we’re all kind of lining up our arrows pointing the right way – is what I’ll bring.

Where would you like see the school community in five years?

I think that we need to do a better job of integrating technology in the classrooms. In Grosse Pointe we do a very good job of buying technology, and we do a pretty good job of getting software like Blackboard, which is a software application for virtual classrooms. Where I think we have a better opportunity over the next few years is to help our teachers integrate that technology into the classroom so they enhance the learning experience for the students.

Any other goals?

I think that we have some opportunities to really zero in on trying to bridge some of our performance gaps for our kids and help our at-risk students. We do an okay job for our students with special needs, and we do a pretty good job at the other end for our students in the advanced programs. Where I think we have an opportunity is with those kids in the middle. How do we engage them and make sure that we’re helping to close those performance gaps?

For the rest of the article, go to In run for Grosse Pointe school board, Roeske says he’s a ‘Boy Scout’

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MI could see more cyber charter schools

October 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) – Michigan could see more online or “cyber” charter schools under a plan that passed in the state Senate this week.

“It’s like a regular school, it’s real teachers with real students,” said Jim DeKorne, of Grand Valley State University’s charter schools office. “It uses technology for that connection between those two people.”

Michigan Virtual Charter Academy, an online school in Grand Rapids authorized by GVSU, is in its second year of operation. Some teachers’ lessons are recorded, school leaders said, and others are in real time. Sometimes students are working through material on their own.

There are even online field trips, but kindergarten-through-8th-grade students never set foot inside the school. Some high school students do.

“It really is serving people who we believe would not necessarily be optimally served by the current system,” DeKorne said.

For the rest of the article, go to MI could see more cyber charter schools

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