Melton's plan for 'failed’ schools will be successful
Friday, November 21, 2008 5:52 AM EST
By The Oakland Press
State Rep. Tim Melton, D-Auburn Hills, was doing more than just campaigning for re-election IN the past few months. He has come up with an excellent plan to help specific failing schools in Oakland County and throughout the state.A bonus, particularly because of the horrible economy, is that his proposal can be financed with existing funds. So there will not have to be any additional state allocations or tax increases if the plan is approved and implemented.
Melton is chairman of the House Education Committee and, on Nov. 13, introduced House Bill 6705, which would force the failing schools to turn things around. The representative says there are 30 schools in Michigan that would come under the “failing” tag, which he describes as not making Annual Yearly Progress (AYP), for four years in a row and have 30 percent or less of their students proficient in math and English.
To make AYP, a school must improve its standardized test scores from one year to the next. Both Pontiac Central and Pontiac Northern high schools meet the criteria of failing schools, Melton has noted.Currently, when a school fails five years in a row it must respond in one of five ways. The first option is to open the school as a charter school.
A second option is to get rid of all the staff pertinent to the school’s failure. Number three is to hire a contractor to run the school while the fourth is to let the state take over the school, which it doesn’t have the ability or willingness to do. The fifth option is to design any other reform. Melton says 97 percent of the school districts pick this option but the changes they make are minimal and the result is usually continued failure.
Under Melton’s proposal, after that fourth straight year of failure, a school could go it alone for one more year to see if it can make changes and meet AYP. But if the school fails again, it would have to hire a turnaround expert from a list approved by the state. The expert would be given a five-year contract that could be canceled if progress isn’t being made. A key element is that the expert would have complete freedom to run the school.
He would not have to get approval from the district’s board of education for anything, from staffing levels to curriculum. The school in trouble would still receive its per student financing but the expert would have control over the money, not the school board.
Most of the 30 failing schools receive about $7,500 per student and also receive extra funds due to poverty rates in the districts, increasing the per student amount to about $10,000. Melton says, and we agree, that the $10,000 per pupil should be enough to educate our students and that there is probably considerable wasted tax dollars that an expert would find and clean up.
Melton hopes to move his bill out of the Education Committee and have it voted on sometime during the first two weeks of December. It’s a good plan that benefits students and is easy on taxpayers. The legislature should act promptly on it.
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