Earlier this month, John Covington, the former head of Governor Rick Snyder’s failed education experiment on Detroit students – the Education Achievement Authority (EAA) – resigned to become a consultant (and, according to Covington, to take care of his mother.) As Jack Lessenberry explained it in his Metro Times titled “Detroit’s EAA ‘fatally flawed’” (a terrific piece worth reading in […]

UPDATE: I hadn’t taken into account that the National Heritage Academies actually began their ad blitz at the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News on Sunday. This post has been updated to reflect that. It’s Day Four of the explosive Detroit Free Press exposé of Michigan charter schools and also Day Four of the National Heritage Academies complete takover of […]

The corporatist front group Mackinac Center is waging a no-holds barred, blatant attack to destroy teachers unions and they seem to have a particular hatred of the Michigan Education Association (MEA). The group, heavily funded by millionaires and billionaires like the Koch brothers and the DeVos family, is shameful in their approach. They have used the Teacher of the Year […]

As I wrote about this morning, Michigan’s largest for-profit charter school company, National Heritage Academies (NHA) responded to a blockbuster new investigative report being published at the Detroit Free Press this week by buying up all of the ad space on the front page of their website as well as the website of the Detroit News. It turns out that […]

NOTE: This post has been updated HERE. The Detroit Free Press is running a spectacular, week-long series on charter schools in Michigan and the woeful lack of oversight and accountability our state exercises when it comes to charters. While some states have outright bans on for-profit schools, 61% of Michigan charter schools are run by for-profit corporations and over a […]

This morning, I lit into MLive reporter Khalil AlHajal for his atrocious “journalism” regarding Governor Rick Snyder’s failed experiment on Detroit kids, the Education Achievement Authority. As I was publishing that post, another article about the EAA was published by Bridge Magazine which was also posted at MLive. In stark contrast to AlHajal’s piece, this one by Chastity Pratt Dawsey, […]

I don’t normally hammer on the mainstream media journalists in Michigan. The job they do is very difficult and they are doing it with fewer and fewer resources all the time. I also try to cultivate a reasonably positive relationship with them because I know the relationship between full-time journalists and bloggers is often contentious. That said, when a journalist […]

Last week I wrote about how the corporatist front group Mackinac Center had sent a mass email to teachers in over 50 school districts in Michigan encouraging them to leave the Michigan Education Association, one of the two largest teachers unions in the state. Their effort didn’t stop there. This week, teachers across the state received postcards in the mail […]

On April 1st, I ran an April Fool’s Day joke post that I titled, “BREAKING: EAA Chief unexpectedly quits to take new job – ‘Screw you, guys. I’m going home.’” This morning the Detroit News is reporting that my parody post was not far off the mark and that this is actually happening – John Covington, Chancellor of Gov. Snyder’s […]

After working until 1 in the morning the previous evening, the Michigan Senate was looking at another marathon session as they tried to tackle road funding and a last minute push to expand the Education Achievement Authority. Although EAA expansion had been considered dead earlier in the afternoon, a group of EAA lobbyists, representatives from their two law firms, their […]

New legislation is being considered today to expand the state school reform/redesign school district (SRRSD) to up to 50 schools statewide in Michigan. Currently the Education Achievement Authority is the only entity contracted with the state Department of Education to provide SRRSD services. No schools would be permitted to be ordered added to the SRRSD until January 1st of 2015 […]