Bowing to immense pressure from faculty, students, employees, education activists, as well as the general public, the Eastern Michigan University Board of Regents finally gave notice that it is ending its intralocal agreement with Gov. Snyder’s failed experiment on Detroit school children known as the Education Achievement Authority (EAA) this afternoon.
The move came after what can only be described as a face-saving move by EAA Chancellor Veronica Conforme who yesterday bizarrely encouraged the Board of Regents to put an end to the organization that employs her and that she has so vociferously defended since she began working there as a consultant under the disgraced former Chancellor John Covington.
If this move makes you happy (it makes ME happy), don’t get TOO happy. There’s a clause in the intralocal agreement that means it won’t be officially ended for nearly a year and a half:
Section 8.02. University Withdrawal. The University may withdraw from the Agreement prior to the expiration of the term of this Agreement if any of the following apply: […](b). After December 30, 2014, the University provides notice of its intent to withdraw on the first June 30th at least 180 days after the notice. A withdrawal under this paragraph is effective on the first June 30th at least 180 days after the notice.
In other words, we will continue to have the EAA to kick around until June 30, 2017.
Funny thing, though: If the Board of Regents had pulled out of the EAA back on December 8, 2015 when they last met, their agreement would end this June. But, because they inexplicably delayed the decision by two months, the EAA gets an extra year. I say “inexplicably” but my hunch is that it was intentional because delaying it by a year gives all the players time to find new gigs spreading their distorted vision of public education and education reform across the country.
The EMU Faculty Senate passed a vote of “No Confidence” in the Board of Regents on Wednesday. As someone who has followed this story and written about it extensively (136 posts!), I took a vote of my own and, by a narrow margin of 1 to zero, gave them a vote of “No Respect”.
