'Million Voices' Critical to Fight Sweeping State Education Reforms
Dr. Vickie Markavitch urges parents, educators and others to contact their lawmakers and voice opposition to the bills, which would create a 'super school district.'
Nearly 200 people who attended an informational meeting Thursday on proposed school reform bills were told their voices are critical in battling proposals that could dramatically change Michigan's education landscape.
Farmington resident Agnes Skrzycki walked into the meeting room at the Farmington Schools Ten Mile Building expecting to hear dry facts and statistics. But at the end of Oakland Schools Supt. Dr. Vickie Markavitch's presentation, she said was "very interested and concerned" about the legislation.
Skrzycki said she was impressed by a dynamic speaker who used "black and white terms" and "quantifiable data." "There's nothing political about it," she added.
"It's scary, as a mother, as a taxpayer and as staff, because this will affect every single person," said Christine Kish, a Farmington resident who also works for Farmington Schools.
Bills would create 'super district'
Senate Bill 1358 and House Bill 6004, along with House Bill 5923, would expand an Education Achievement Authority (EAA) currently in place to help improve failing Detroit schools, Markavitch explained. The new "super district" would operate without oversight by the state superintendent of schools or the state board of education and would be able to create charter or virtual schools that could specialize and admit only students in a particular interest area, she said.
The bills, Markavitch said, are layers of a plan that will eventually include massive changes to school funding, which Gov. Rick Snyder is expected to propose early next year.
"Policy makers in Lansing are pushing what is a very radical agenda," Farmington Schools Supt. Susan Zurvalec said. "While we know there is room for improvement, we are also sure this community cannot flourish without free and appropriate education for all of our children."
Zurvalec said the bills will strip taxpayers of control and remove their voices from the process as public education dollars are funneled into charter and cyberschools operated under the EAA.
One million voices by 2013
Northville Supt. Mary Kay Gallagher called public schools "an integral part of the fabric of our communities" and said the reforms are an effort to dismantle public education.
"It's easy to turn your head and think it won't have an impact on all of us," she said. "Our kids are worth a deeper look than that."
The combined audiences in Farmington for afternoon and evening meetings was around 340. By the end of next week, Markavitch expects to have made presentations to more than 2,000 people. She believes the way to counter the millions of dollars being spent by advocacy groups on drafting and passing reforms is by recruiting a million people to make their voices heard in Lansing.
Attendees were encouraged to sign up on the Tricounty Alliance website for legislative updates, and to refer friends and neighbors to the site, which also offers information and advocacy letter templates.
"I think by January, when we really need to start speaking out about the governor's rewrite of school funding ... we will have our million voices," Markavitch said, "and I hope yours are among them."
Read more: Farmington Area Parents, Educators Jam Meeting on Proposed Education Reform Bills
Chris Greig
9:34 am on Friday, November 30, 2012
Thank you for covering this important information. I traveled to Lansing twice in the last two weeks to provide and hear testimony to both the House & Senate Education Committees. (Both times, I was not able to testify before they adjourned.) Opposition from all over the state is being heard about this reckless legislation being rammed through a lame duck session when taxpayers and voters are recovering from a national election and trying to prepare for the holidays. Our communities and locally controlled schools are more important than a one month process that includes very little public discourse. The EAA has only been operating 15 schools for 3 months. We do not yet have the data to determine if this model is good enough to expand to other schools. We have many outstanding public school models across the state that are not being considered.
Please contact your legislators to let them know we deserve more than this less-than-open process.
Susan Lichtenberg
9:34 am on Friday, November 30, 2012
Thank you, Joni, for publicizing this issue. A quality education is a fundamental right for every single child in our community, and should not be a "for-profit" endeavor. I hope all reading this article will realize this is not about schools of choice; not about the pros and cons of charter schools, but about our right to be part of the democratic process. Please contact your governor and congressman! Susan MacNeill Lichtenberg
Tom
11:16 am on Friday, November 30, 2012
This is why I send my kids to private school
Go to a pure voucher system. Let the schools/teachers fight for the students and achieve the results to warrant continued investment
Parents with vouchers will fix the system...cream will rise to the top
FHVoice
1:43 pm on Friday, November 30, 2012
... and the rest shall drown in the dreck, eh? You are welcome to your private schooling. Leave public schools public. Vouchers are no guarantee of admittance in a "better" school, but they do guarantee a drain on resources and condemn students "left behind" to being forever left behind. Of course, the GOP mantra of I've got mine the heck with everyone else may have infected your thinking ...
David Anderson
1:43 pm on Friday, November 30, 2012
Stagnating performance, increased costs, reduction of revenue - and this with our current model. Is change, or challenging the existing model, bad? It wasn't too long ago the BOE said that change is good.
art
1:43 pm on Friday, November 30, 2012
I think Dr. Markavitch sees this as a possible loss of her postition. One would rather see their tax money going to a performing schools and its teachers as opposed to the same retreaded thinking that we have had for years. Tom, has the right idea, let those who perform well be the receiptent of those children who want to learn and those who want to teach as compared to those who need to be in an organization which tells them what to do.
Kathy O.
5:49 pm on Wednesday, December 12, 2012
All children WANT to learn, moron. I can't say that all teachers want to teach, that is true. But, segregation of the "haves" and "have nots" is shameful. But, that is the mentality of our great nation of late...the rich get richer, I guess.
Bloomfield1876
7:53 am on Wednesday, December 5, 2012
I agree, did anyone ever hear Markavitch speak before so passionately about anything? In fact did anyone ever hear of her before her pitiful plea to stop the reforms? I aree with art, it's her soulful wailing about the loss of her privilege and perks that is the real source of her concerns, and you can add Glass and the other vocal superintendents to the mix. What a sorry bunch.
Homer Simpson
2:38 pm on Friday, November 30, 2012
FHVoice-I wasn't there but viewed her "informational" video that has been making the rounds on Facebook, Twitter etc. Why would I want to go and hear someone speak who has no impetus to change or steer a path away from the status quo in the face of damning numbers and performance? I just recently received my teaching degree, trying to break into the "old boy network" is very frustrating, especially when you are a subsitute and see the crap that goes on in the schools.
FHVoice
4:57 pm on Saturday, December 1, 2012
Homer, how revealing ... your comment:
"I wasn't there but viewed her "informational" video that has been making the rounds on Facebook, Twitter etc. Why would I want to go and hear someone speak who has no impetus to change or steer a path away from the status quo in the face of damning numbers and performance?"
Well, perhaps because you might learn something instead of assuming you already knew it all. From the article, Agnes Skrzycki walked into the meeting room at the Farmington Schools Ten Mile Building expecting to hear dry facts and statistics, but instead found an apolitical speaker who spoke plainly and with supporting data.
You aren't one of those "anti-facts" folks, are you?
And then there you wrote: "I just recently received my teaching degree, trying to break into the "old boy network" is very frustrating, especially when you are a subsitute and see the crap that goes on in the schools."
Your inability to "break into" teaching locally is probably due to the fact that there is a surplus of teachers in the area, especially after the cutbacks many systems have endured.
Of course, it could also be that your qualifications (e.g. spelling substitute) are beneath those required.
art
10:50 am on Saturday, December 1, 2012
Jon,
"Corporate plantation schools", please use some common sense and sanity when posting on here will you?
Jon Awbrey
12:24 pm on Saturday, December 1, 2012
My view of where we're heading — if we don't watch out — may have been influenced by my viewing of the awesome film ‘Lincoln’, that shows us some of the places we've been when we didn't watch out before, but on review I still think it's still a pretty apt description of the danger ahead.
Jon Awbrey
12:13 pm on Saturday, December 1, 2012
Citizens concerned about public education who want to get a clue about the coming tsunami of Corporate Plantation Schools are advised to read Diane Ravitch's blog every day.
► http://dianeravitch.net/
Hear me now and believe me later ...
Darren Whittaker
4:57 pm on Saturday, December 1, 2012
Just the latest attempt to commercialize public education so that a few, well-heeled entities can line their pockets with more taxpayer money. As we've seen with health care, profit becomes the overriding priority, and the ones that are supposed to benefit end up suffering. Some of our legislators are hell-bent on handing over public entities to private hands in a sop to their benefactors. Charter schools are not a panacea, as has been proved time and time again. Corporate schools will do no better - but that's the "beauty" of this proposal...it won't matter. There's little accountability. Money that should rightly go to improving the segment of public education that is underperforming will now go to grossly over-paid executives, which is funny because the extremists whine about that now, only in regards to superintendents. The only change will be a shift in expenditures, and the ability of the taxpayer at large to hold them responsible. The Michigan legislature has put a giant "for sale" sign on nearly everything, and the spoils will go to the highest bidder (contributor). Sad.
Homer Simpson
8:56 pm on Saturday, December 1, 2012
Thanks for the feedback FHvoice. Your comments revealed much about you. Apparently you haven't viewed the Oak Cty Supt video. As for banging me on misspelling substitute while typing on my phone, you have clearly not spent any time in the FPS system. Teachers regularly send out emails that contain numerous typos and grammatical errors both internally and externally. I will enjoy working at one of the new charter schools, being paid what I'm worth instead of some union set figure that bankrupts all parties involved. I'll also lay my qualifications up against yours any day of the week. You know not of what you speak.
Jon Awbrey
7:05 pm on Sunday, December 2, 2012
Here is a related Facebook page ...
• http://www.facebook.com/SaveMIPublicSchools
About —
“Aiming to chronicle the massive opposition to the Michigan EAA, Selective Enrollment Schools, & Parent Trigger bills (HB 6004/SB 1358/HB 5923/SB 620).”
art
7:05 pm on Sunday, December 2, 2012
Mr. Whittaker, as Homer pointed out, there has been little if any accountability in the FPS and too many other districts. Its time to try something new and bold---not for the teachers sake but for the STUDENTS now and those of the future. We have run out of time and ideas from the old ways and must improve for the future of ALL our children. The ME society has take over the school systems that we once knew.