California: The award-winning American Indian Model charter schools face closure after failing to fix problems with financial oversight that resulted in $3.8 million of questionable expenses (The Oakland Tribune).

Wisconsin: Three former state House speakers push for a voucher expansion (Associated Press). School choice options continue to grow with proponents pointing to achievement gains (WisconsinReporter).

Indiana: Ball State University pulls its sponsorship of seven struggling charter schools, likely ensuring their closure (Associated Press). School choice supporters press for an expansion of the state's voucher program (NWI.com).

Texas: A school choice proponent testifies that a tax credit scholarship program would save the state $2 billion a year (Houston Chronicle). More from San Antonio Express News. Waco-area school boards support a resolution opposing any publicly funded private school choice options for the state (Waco Tribune Herald).

Michigan: The legislative path for Gov. Rick  Snyder's school choice expansion plans remain murky (MLive.com).

Tennessee: A school board member in Knox County tries unsuccessfully to convince his colleagues that private school vouchers are a good thing (Knoxnews.com). State lawmakers scrutinize Tennessee Virtual Academy, operated by K12 Inc., over poor test results (Tennessee Public Radio). Memphis charter schools are poised to grow - again (Memphis Business Journal). The NAACP pushes for more regulatory accountability for charter schools in the wake of complaints about one in Memphis (Memphis Commercial Appeal). Gov. Bill Haslam is expected to unveil his proposal for a limited statewide voucher in his State of the State speech tonight (News Channel 5).

New York: Twenty-four more Catholic schools in the state will close because they're not financially self-sufficient (New York Times). (more…)

Florida: Tony Bennett is selected the state's new education commissioner (redefinED). He tells reporters afterwards that he champions school choice first and foremost because of the social justice component (redefinED). A new group headed by T. Willard Fair,  co-founder of the state's first charter school, aims to create a pipeline of black executives and entrepreneurs to help lead private and charter schools (redefinED). The Miami-Dade school district ranks No. 10 in the country for school choice, according to a new report from Brookings (redefinED). A Catholic school in Tampa is at the heart of a University of Notre Dame project to revitalize Catholic schools, particularly for Hispanic students. (redefinED).

Louisiana: Voucher parents are worried in the wake of the legal ruling that puts the program in limbo (advertiser.com). Gov. Bobby Jindal makes a pitch for vouchers at a Brookings Institution event in Washington D.C. (Huffington Post).

Washington: More than 150 teachers, parents and administrators attend a charter school conference in the wake of the successful passage of a charter school ballot initiative (Tacoma News Tribune). (Full disclosure: The conference was sponsored by the Washington Charter School Research Center, which was founded by Jim and Fawn Spady. Fawn Spady chairs the board of directors at the American Center for School Choice, which co-hosts this blog.)

Michigan: The education adviser to Gov. Rick Snyder presents the governor's sweeping public school choice proposal to business and education leaders (Grand Rapids Business Journal). (more…)

Oklahoma: The state supreme court tosses out a lawsuit challenging a voucher program for special needs students, saying the two school districts that filed suit did not have standing (The Oklahoman).

Indiana: The state supreme court hears arguments over the constitutionality of the state's fledgling voucher program (Indianapolis Star). Enrollment in the state's voucher program skyrockets in year two (Huffington Post).

Colorado: The Colorado State Court of Appeals hears the appeal over the Douglas County voucher program (Denver Post).

Louisiana: The state's voucher program heads to court this week (thetowntalk.com).

Georgia: In the wake of election victories, school choice supporters aim to expand the state's tax credit scholarship program (Atlanta Journal Constitution).

Florida: Incoming House Speaker Will Weatherford creates a new school choice and innovation committee to ensure choice issues don't get lost in the general education discussion (redefinED). (more…)

Earlier today, the Michigan Senate approved a measure that ultimately removes the limits on the number and location of charter schools in the state, ending a battle fought almost entirely along party lines. The House approved the legislation yesterday, and Gov. Rick Snyder is expected to sign it into law.

The charter bill is one among several education reform initiatives embraced by Snyder that also would mandate the state's cross-district enrollment policy in every school system and would extend dual enrollment in colleges and universities to students in private high schools.  Of those three efforts to enhance school choice, the charter initiative has enjoyed the greatest momentum. The cross-district enrollment measure, which would require any public school to open its doors to students from other districts as long as it has seats, has stalled in committee.

Over at Jay Greene's blog, Matt Ladner applauds the Legislature's action to expand charter schools, but admiringly hopes for the day "when complacent check-book choice districts might reconsider their decision not to admit students whose parents happen not to be able to afford a $400,000 mortgage."

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, appears to have hit upon a proposal that has equal support among voters who identify themselves as either Republican or Democrat in the Wolverine State.

Among several education reform measures Snyder has proposed recently -- which include an expansion of charter schools -- the governor has put faith into the idea that all public schools should be schools of choice.

While news reports generally have focused on Snyder's controversial charter school ambitions, several wealthy districts bordering more impoverished urban school systems have lobbied aggressively against Senate Bill 624, which essentially orders schools to open their doors to students from other districts as long as they have seats. Most Michigan school systems already participate in the program, but the holdouts include affluent suburban districts, such as Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills, where school boards and city councils have openly declared that their quality of life and "premium housing stock" will suffer from this urban encroachment.

A new poll shows these attitudes are out of touch with the overwhelming majority of Michigan voters. The Republican polling and political consulting firm Marketing Resource Group surveyed a sample of 600 likely voters in Michigan early in October to determine support for the bill and found that 82 percent of respondents supported this option. And while MRG is a partisan research firm, it broke its results down by party. Republicans and Democrats responded the same way: 83 percent said they supported the measure. A third group, which MRG identified as ticket-splitters, backed the bill with 79 percent saying they supported it. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, and it was commissioned by the Michigan Catholic Conference, which supports Snyder's school choice initiatives.

Before this is skewered as a favorable poll commissioned by a special-interest group who wanted to promote a favorable poll, the Catholic Conference can at least unequivocally show that the majority of Michigan voters shares its sense of social and economic justice in this matter. Most Michigan voters care more about equal educational opportunity than they do about Grosse Pointe's premium housing stock.

"Regardless of the respondent's location, race, gender, union membership or party affiliation, the results of this survey clearly indicate that Michigan families have grown lethargic of the status quo and want the ability to choose where and how their children receive the best education possible," said Paul A. Long, the president of the Michigan Catholic Conference. "It is the hope of the Michigan Catholic Conference that these polling numbers will help members of the Michigan Legislature look past what is a very small yet vocal minority of special interests and listen to everyday parents and families who want better educational options for their children."

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and lawmakers have formally introduced several initiatives aimed at providing more educational options to families. In addition to mandating cross-district enrollment at any school with open seats, Snyder would remove the cap on the number of charter schools and introduce a parent trigger similar to California's. More background here, here and here.

The biggest thing standing in the way of a conservative governor who wants to enhance school choice throughout the State of Michigan is the wall raised by wealthy conservatives.

Today, Detroit commentator and former Wayne County government chief of staff Bill Johnson took to the pages of the The Detroit News to ask Gov. Rick Snyder to "resist forcing the failures of core cities on the suburbs." To Johnson, Snyder's move to mandate cross-district school enrollment is nothing more than a "social-engineering experiment" that will result in the destruction of stable, middle-class neighborhoods. He writes:

Middle-class social status is earned - not a designation awarded by government's manipulation of the social environment. This transplanted underclass generally has no experience buying a home, maintaining it, managing a budget, or adjusting to new neighbors with different values. No less is true for trying to force-feed inner-city students who are apt to bring a lot of baggage and few socialization skills to suburban school environments.

This may be the most hard-hearted argument in opposition to the governor's proposal, but it's well-aligned with the oppressive dogma institutionalized by the Grosse Pointe school board, which wants to insulate its residents who chose to invest in "premium housing stock" from urban encroachment and the "baggage" to which Johnson refers.

Johnson, not surprisingly, grounds his argument in the philosophy of local control. But this pretends that the governor wants to control how Michigan's school districts educate their children. He does not. His plan only would begin to dismantle the de facto private school systems in metropolitan Detroit that reflect just how segregated its neighborhoods are. It would mandate only that schools cannot refuse students from other districts as long as they have open seats.

That is the definition of public.

by Doug Tuthill and Adam Emerson

Since the late 1800s, we have defined public education as being synonymous with school districts, but given the increasingly diverse delivery models that now comprise public education this traditional definition is no longer appropriate. We best define public education today as publicly funded learning options that are publicly regulated to achieve a set of democratic values and aspirations -- most notably greater equity and excellence.

Ironically some school districts do not seem to meet this modern definition of public education. Consider, for example, the “gated” school districts in some suburbs. Recent redefinED posts about Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s plan to allow cross-district school choice has drawn responses from suburban parents who say they want to keep their district boundaries fortified. "I chose to buy a home where I did because of the good schools," one parent wrote here. "The children, for the most part, come from homes where the parents are professionals and value education. My concern is that parents who do not share these values will still take advantage of our schools. The problems of the Detroit public schools will become our problems."

Convictions like these have become institutionalized by Michigan school boards, primarily in wealthy districts, opposed to Snyder's proposal. The Grosse Pointe school board, just to name one, has now passed a resolution calling for the governor and the Legislature to respect the local community's authority:

The citizens of the Grosse Pointe Public School System have chosen to make personal sacrifices, including but not limited to investing in premium housing stock ... The Board of Education of the Grosse Pointe Public School System has never chosen to participate in the Schools of Choice program in large part to protect and respect these incremental investments made by our citizens to directly benefit our students ...

Additionally, the Grosse Pointe Woods City Council followed suit with its own resolution, during which Mayor Robert Novitke said, "You can imagine what it's going to do to your property values, your quality of life in this community." And state Rep. Tim Bledsoe, a Democrat from Grosse Pointe, wrote in the community's newspaper that, "We have for decades taxed ourselves more in order to provide the highest quality education for our children. To now have non-residents take advantage of our many years of investment simply by winning a lottery is outrageous."

We respect a parent’s desire to do what’s best for her child, but the education system parents and school leaders here want to perpetuate is antithetical to equal educational opportunity and therefore is not truly public education, even though it’s a publicly funded school district.

As the Grosse Pointe school board correctly notes, neither it nor 10 other Michigan districts have chosen to participate in the state's voluntary Schools of Choice program. They also happen to be among the wealthiest districts that border the City of Detroit and spend the most per pupil.

Political monopolies will always deliver superior services to those with the greatest political power, which is why public education should not be a politically managed monopoly. We don't begrudge parents using their personal wealth to provide their children with the best education possible, but we support a public education system that ensures all parents, regardless of income or political status, will have access to the learning options they need to properly educate their children. Public education will never meet its obligations to our democracy if it can only be delivered through school districts.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's newest education reform package could be released this week and is expected to include Snyder's plan to turn all of Michigan's public schools into schools of choice, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Under this proposal, a system of choice would mean exactly that: Though schools could give preference to those living in their attendance zones, Michigan would otherwise recognize no artificial district boundaries. Schools would have to open their doors to any students if they had the space.

As the Free Press notes, the proposal is likely to bring together strange bedfellows in opposition. The Detroit school district is warning that Snyder's plan would exacerbate the current exodus of students trying to get out of the troubled urban system. Meanwhile, officials in affluent school districts, such as Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills, are fighting as aggressively.

As the plan wends its way through the Michigan Legislature, newspapers will likely uncover more disturbing comments than even this observation from Bloomfield Hills superintendent Rob Glass, who told reporters late last spring that his residents pay “extra taxes to provide extra levels of education to their local community. To make that same option available to others who have not made that sacrifice or that choice to invest doesn’t seem fair.”

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder called the Detroit school system a "failing format" when speaking to reporters from the Detroit Free Press Thursday at the Detroit Regional Chamber's annual policy conference on Mackinac Island. But instead of calling for a wholesale conversion to charter schools, as some might suggest, Snyder offered that a "system of schools" with charter-like autonomy might be more innovative:

... He said the school board could focus on measuring academic results instead of dictating curriculums and school-by-school management.

"You need to empower the schools more, rather than having a command-and-control structure of the district," he said. "How do you give the administrator in that school and the teachers a team? You make it more entrepreneurial and innovative.

"It's like they're a business unit, and they're there to help their kids grow. Give them the resources to succeed, and then, how do you hold them accountable?"