I predicted this back when I testified on the need for accountability in HB 618 that eliminated the cap on charter schools. We needed this measure then and can not continue without it now!

Legislature asked to ban closed charter schools from reopening

POSTED: 12/03/14, 4:47 PM EST | UPDATED: 15 HRS AGO

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MORE INFO

For additional information about Michigan Association of Public School Academies and the request to Legislature to prevent failing charter schools from reopening under new authorizers, please visit www.charterschools.org.

As dozens of charter school educators and parents came to Lansing for a Charter School Lobby Day Wednesday, Dec. 4, a state charter school association called on the Legislature to ban schools closed for “academic failings” from shopping for a new authorizer.

The the Michigan Association of Public School Academies announced it will ask the state Legislature to adopt new accountability standards; and one would impact traditional schools as well as the charter schools. .Current state law allows a charter school that has been closed by one authorizer for academic failings to seek a new authorizer.

The charter school association is asking for an amendment to a bill introduced Wednesday by Rep. David Knezek, D - Dearborn Heights that would prohibit “authorizer shopping” among charter schools.

Another amendment it is advocating for would change Michigan’s school accountability system to an easy-to-understand A-F letter-grading system for all schools and require the automatic closure of schools - charter and traditional - that chronically earn failing grades.

http://www.dailytribune.com/social-affairs/20141203/legislature-asked-to-ban-closed-charter-schools-from-reopening 

For teachers, transparency can have a distinctly negative connotation

My doors are always open except when the hall is too noisy. This article points out a lot of great reasons for transparency in the classroom.

How Opening Up Classroom Doors Can Push Education Forward

Katrina Schwartz | February 18, 2014 | 12 Comments

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Transparency is not a word often associated with education. For many parents, the time between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. can feel like a mysterious part of their child’s life. Questioning students about their school day often results in an unsatisfying answer and not every parent has the time to be in constant communication with their student’s teacher.

For teachers, transparency can have a distinctly negative connotation. In the political debate, the word is often used in connection to hot button issues like posting teacher salaries and benefits publicly or publishing test scores. And within the school walls, transparency can feel like judgement. Teachers can see principal visits as inspections, not respectful check-ins to offer encouragement and suggestions. No school is the same and dynamics between teaching staff and the administration are different everywhere, but for many teachers the classroom is a sacrosanct, personal space.

 “I try to become a bridge between the quantifiable and the qualifiable.”

But what if teachers embraced the idea of transparency as a form of activism, a way of shining light on what works in the classroom? “The minute we say, ‘Come look and talk to the students,’ we can show what we’re all about,” said Jose Vilson, an educator and panelist at EduCon in Philadelphia. “If we can do that with a sense of trust and expertise, with respect for ourselves and others, then we can have a pro something instead of an anti-something.”

Opening one’s classroom to public scrutiny isn’t an easy thing to do. “In order for us to get more people involved, some of us are going to have to be twice as involved, go twice as deep and explain what we are doing in the classroom,” Vilson said. That means being vulnerable and willing to defend teaching practices to anyone who asks. But by welcoming a variety of voices into a discussion about what drives powerful learning experiences, and why certain teaching practices work and others don’t, the process becomes participatory. Everyone shares the responsibility for changing a system that matters to the future of the country.

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/02/how-opening-up-classroom-doors-can-push-education-forward/ 

Robotics and STEM

I had the opportunity to speak on Education Nation about STEM, Technology, STEAM, and Innovation

Education shakeup!

This looks  interesting, I wonder how true it is? Is he thinking that removing the profit motive from education may help level the playing field?

Schauer Education Plan Looks To Shut Down Successful Charter Public Schools

By TOM GANTERT | April 23, 2014 |  Follow Tom Gantert on Twitter

Mark Schauer

A 2013 study by Stanford University found that Detroit students in charter public schools were performing far beyond those in the Detroit Public Schools district. The study is the most comprehensive yet done, individually tracking students and holding for race, poverty level, English language learner, special education status and more.

Although many considered the study a success for charter public schools, gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer apparently has a different view on school choice in Michigan. He’s dedicated a lot of his “education plan” if he were to be governor to dismantling charter public schools in the state.

Schauer’s plan wants to stop the “unrestricted expansion of poor quality charters and cyber-only schools” and “provide for strict quality control over new charter and cyber schools.” Schauer also wants to remove “the profit motive” from charter schools. Schauer’s campaign didn’t respond to an email questioning just how that would be done.

All charter public schools in Michigan are authorized by either a public university, a community college or a conventional school district, but they can be run by management companies. If the state was to restrict "for profit" management companies from being involved in schools, many schools rated very highly would be shut down.

Read more at:

www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/20013