How Privatization of Child Welfare Ruined Detroit Public Schools

Allow me to present another approach of understanding as to why education in Detroit is deplorable.

The Privatization of Detroit

Privatization.

Yes, the "P" word is the reason why Detroit schools suck.

First it began with the privatization of child welfare programs in Michigan.  No one was paying attention and it slipped its way into mainstream policy making by presenting financial incentives of "revenue maximization" for the one and only type of entity which could contract with the state:  non-profits.

Non-profits are exempt and excluded from any form of external, public scrutiny as they are exempt and excluded form audits, meaning no state oversight.

Then, hone this category of non-profits down to an even more exclusive group, religious, and you have a faith-based model of fraud because you cannot audit God.

Besides, God would never use children to profit because non-profits maximize revenue, remember?

Then you have those annoying little factors called the ills of poverty, mainly housing in Detroit and the pervasiveness in developmental disorders of children.

With the extra "revenue-mazimization" of these religious non-profits, financing of politicians who, whether knowingly or willingly, turn a blind eye to the fraud, get to remain in office to continue the lack of oversight authority of these privatization schemes in the name of God.

Predatory lending, land speculators, targeting of poor children for federal funding under fraudulent child welfare services, pathetic local and county governance of public works and administrations, deplorable upkeep of schools and phantom educational programs for special needs students, and artificially astronomical property taxes were the makings of the great escape from Detroit.

As a result, population declined, particularly the enrollment of children.

The great conquest of an international port was a success.  If all worked out, it would become a national model of the great policy experiment.

Then the DOJ worked to provide Detroit with a little stimulus of the Hardest Hit Fund to assist the residents who were victims to the aforementioned schemes, only to face a collective of state and local pseudo-quasi-governmental-authorities which decided in the back rooms of Lansing and email groups that the best way to redistribute these federal funds was to shove it in their pockets by establishing such extreme barriers for anyone to access housing and this federal assistance, that no one wanted to move back, or could afford to move back to the inner city.

I call privatization "trickle-out economics".

Trickle-out economics, the current regentrification model, so far does not work; it defies gravity, logic and a whole bunch of federal laws.

In the end, there is not much that will be done because non-profits are immune from oversight, anything dealing with the welfare of children, education is protected by law from any public scrutiny and the U.S. Department of Justice is too much of a docile monk to stand up and defend childhood in Detroit.

Privatization is nothing more than selling chattel, the oldest form of survival.

Why Michigan lost shot at $45M for charter schools

The U.S. Department of Education has rejected a $45-million grant request from Michigan to boost and expand charter schools, largely because the state lacks oversight of the authorizers who approve and oversee them.

The state also scored poorly when evaluated on the academic performance of charters and the state's plan to improve achievement among disadvantaged students in charters.

The loss will impact efforts by grassroots organizers to start charter schools — the very people the charter law was designed to encourage when it was enacted more than 20 years ago. But the loss of the grant could have even broader implications in Michigan.

"This sends a message to policy makers that we've got to get more serious about quality," said Lou Glazer, a charter advocate and president of Michigan Future, a nonpartisan think tank that helps fund the start-up of high schools in Detroit, most of them charter schools.

It also mirrors findings in a Free Press series — "State of Charter Schools," published in June 2014 — that found Michigan spends $1 billion on charters, often with little accountability, transparency or oversight.

The Michigan Department of Education has received the multiyear federal grant six times altogether — and  twice  in the last decade: $23 million in 2007 and $44 million in 2010. But the criteria this year were more focused on oversight.

Three outside experts reviewed applications, awarding points in each of 11 criteria established by the federal agency. The MDE application was awarded just 17 of 45 possible points for oversight of public chartering agencies, and 21 out of 45 points for high-quality authorizing and monitoring.

"There are no uniform and high expectations of authorizers," one reviewer said.

Reviewers also were concerned that the only oversight initiatives are voluntary, with one saying. "There is no guarantee that those who need it the most will be participants."

"I don't think this is a Department of Education problem. This is a policy maker's problem," Glazer said.

Jared Burkhart, executive director of the Michigan Council of Charter School Authorizers, said,  "Just because there aren't words within the law doesn't mean there aren't good practices going on in the state of Michigan."

"We're doing things that are hopefully leading to better outcomes," he said.

Burkhart said Michigan's law also clearly gives the state superintendent the ability to suspend an authorizer that isn't providing proper oversight.

That provision of the charter law wasn't tested until last year, however — after the Free Press series was published. MDE put 11 authorizers on notice that they were at risk of suspension; seven were later removed from the list and four remain on it.

Burkhart's organization has pushed for a voluntary accreditation system — one it wants to have become part of state law. AdvancED, an agency that accredits K-12 schools and districts nationwide, conducts the reviews. So far, Grand Valley State University has gone through the process and received accreditation. Central Michigan is currently undergoing it. The two universities are the largest authorizers of charters in Michigan.

The reviews looks at criteria such as whether an authorizer is ensuring its schools are audited annually by a certified public accountant, whether it is ensuring schools are posting transparency documents, and whether it's ensuring schools that perform in the bottom 5% academically for multiple years are either being closed or restructured.

"My vision is that all authorizers would be able to have to prove that they are somehow fit to be part of the profession of authorizing," Burkhart said.

'Ghost' schools

The federal grant allows the state to disseminate small grants for planning and implementation of new charters. They start at $100,000 for initial planning and can increase if a school receives a charter, said Tammy Hatfield, manager of the public school academies unit at MDE. Michigan charters are referred to as public school academies in state law.

Not all of those schools end up opening, a fact that was criticized in a report released this week by the Wisconsin-based progressive group Center for Media and Democracy. The report highlighted 25 charter school grants issued in 2011 and 2012 in Michigan for schools that never opened.

"These 'ghost schools' exist only on paper," the group said.

But Hatfield said that's part of the process: A large part of the planning grants, for instance, is exploring the idea of opening a charter and determining whether it's feasible. Some don't open because they can't find an authorizer. And in some cases, the developers decide on their own not to pursue the charter.

Those grants can be crucial for some. And without a new round of funding, "they'll have to look toward other sources," Hatfield said.

Burkhart said it will mean authorizers will have to step up by providing more assistance to those trying to start charters.

Low state scores

Michigan's charter law allows school districts, community colleges and universities to authorize charter schools, but the MDE has limited oversight of them. Hatfield said a more detailed analysis of the review comments will be done to look at how other states that received or lost out in the grant competition were rated.

The changes in the criteria clearly had an impact.

"This year’s selection criteria focused on supporting the creation of high-quality charter schools, strengthening public accountability and oversight of authorized public chartering agencies, and supporting and improving academic outcomes for educationally disadvantaged students," said Dorie Nolt, press secretary for the federal education department.

The reviewers weren't just critical of the lack of authorizer oversight. They also scored the state low for the academic performance of charters, awarding 15 out of 30 points in that area. One of the reviewers said the percentage of charters ranked in the bottom 5% of schools in the state "is unreasonably high." Another questioned why, after two decades of charters, "student outcomes are still just 'comparable' to traditional public schools."

The state also was scored low in identifying what's working in charters and making that information available to schools statewide.

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