The news that state officials are moving to shutter as many as 38 Michigan schools triggered fear and fury from parents and educators.
Concerns were especially heightened in Detroit where 25 schools were put on notice that they’ll have to close their doors in June unless the state decides that closure would pose an “unreasonable hardship” to students — or unless school leaders are able to block the closures in court.
The state School Reform Office “is making uninformed decisions without consistent data on growth and achievement,” steamed Veronica Conforme, who heads the Education Achievement Authority, a state-run recovery district that saw eight of its 14 schools on the dreaded closure list.
“Today’s public announcement comes without input from districts, educators or community,” Conforme said. “This should make us all question the validity of this action.”
Conferme said most of the EAA schools have seen improved math and reading scores on state exams — evidence that she believes shows the schools are on the right track.
“Our students cannot continue to move between schools year after year,” Conforme said. “Short-sighted decisions create more volatility in our city, leaving families trapped in a downward spiral.”
The school reform office says it is closing schools in an effort to make sure kids have a shot at a decent education.
“Our goal is to make sure that every kid in the state of Michigan has access to a quality education so they can have the skills necessary for a high-wage job, a career or college,” said Natasha Baker, who heads the state School Reform Office. “It’s the only way to end multi-generational poverty for the children in the schools we’re serving.”
Educators have raised concerns that closing a school can be disruptive to children and communities because changing schools can hurt kids’ academic progress, but Baker responded that it’s “more disruptive to a community when they graduate thousands of kids who can’t read.”
The 38 schools landed on the closure list because they ranked in the bottom five percent of state schools for three years in a row. The rankings are calculated based on test scores and graduation rates but critics say there are many ways to measure a school.
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a think tank that supports school choice and accountability, noted in a statement Friday that the list of potentially closing schools includes six schools that received passing grades on the center’s school ranking system, which factors in student poverty levels. One school that could close actually got an A on the center’s report card.
The schools marked for closure in Detroit include the eight Education Achievement Authority schools, 16 schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community District and one Detroit charter school.
Chalkbeat wrote about the charter school, Michigan Technical Academy, last year when the school was trying to make a case that things started improving when new school leaders came into the building in 2015 and introduced a new way of teaching
Phillip Price, the school principal. said Friday that he’s still hoping he’ll get more time to show his school can succeed.
“Give me three to five years and I can turn a school around,” Price said. “Just give me the time and I’m going to take care of saving the school for the students because that’s what I do … I was one of these kids when I was younger, right in one of these neighborhoods, and somebody gave us the time and it worked.”
The School Reform Office said it will make final decisions about closures in the next 30-45 days after considering things like school location to determine whether students have access to higher quality schools.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.