The Detroit News has a report out today that is both shocking and unsurprising. In it, they reveal that, since its inception in the fall of 2012, the Education Achievement Authority has spent nearly a quarter million dollars in travel, gas, a chauffeur for Chancellor John Covington, on furniture and other miscellaneous, non-education-related items. And they put it all on […]

Last week, a vicious fight broke out between two students at the Education Achievement Authority’s Pershing High School. With a non-functional walkie-talkie and no other adults around to help, teacher Tiffani Eaton had to act fast as the two brawling boys thrashed around the room, punching each other, and knocking over desks. She grabbed a broom handle and whacked one […]

Hung out to dry with no alternatives and no union to help protect her A teacher at the Education Achievement Authority’s Pershing High School found herself with no way to communicate with security and no tools to disarm an exceedingly violent fight in her classroom. School rules prevented her from leaving the room and the walkie talkie she carried to […]

Mosaica, the for-profit charter group that has been running Muskegon Heights schools has agreed to end their contract with the school district. Why? They couldn’t make a profit: “To be brutally honest – they had to be brutally honest to themselves as well with us – in their model as a for profit company, their profit was not there,” Weatherspoon […]

Although I was unable to attend the Senate Democrats’ hearing on expansion of the Education Achievement Authority earlier this week, I was allowed to submit written testimony. Since it allowed me to sum up my impressions based on nearly 20 interviews with former and current EAA teachers and an administrator, I am reprinting it here. April 22, 2014 Chris Savage […]

On Tuesday of this week Senate Democrats, led by Senators Bert Johnson and Hoon-Yung Hopgood, held a hearing about Governor Snyder’s failed experiment on Detroit students known as the Education Achievement Authority. They took testimony from Michigan State Board of Education Vice President Casandra E. Ulbrich and from EAA teachers Delbert Glaze, Jordan Smellie, Mechelle Seiglitz. They also heard from […]

Spin all you want, Governor. Voters KNOW. Rick Snyder and the Michigan Republicans want you to believe that they have done more to help fund education than any ever before in our state. By comparing what they are spending to what the state spent when we were receiving funds from the Stimulus program that offset prior spending, they show you […]

One of the recurring themes in the conversations that I have had with various teachers and administrators who work or have worked for the Education Achievement Authority is that when financial benefactors or members of our state government came to visit, the entire school transformed. Schedules were altered, often on the fly, to accommodate the visitors’ schedules. Kids ate lunch […]

The best government corporatist money can buy I have confirmation from two independent sources in the Michigan legislature that multi-millionaire Dick DeVos is using the threat of massive financial support for Republican primary opponents of vulnerable Senate Republicans to force them to vote for the bill that would expand the Education Achievement Authority statewide. The same approach was used to […]

Yesterday, I wrote about the activities planned for teachers at the Arts and Technology Academy of Pontiac (ATAP), a for-profit charter school run by Mosaica. These “Teacher Appreciation Week” activities featured a variety of what can only be described as humiliating activities planned for the teachers to raise funds for the school. They included: MANDIVA – Our 3 favorite male […]

Teacher humiliation for fun and profit Mosaica Education, Inc., a self-described “for-profit education management organization”, runs eight different for-profit schools in Michigan: Arts and Technology Academy of Pontiac Bay County Public School Academy Bingham Arts Academy Edgewood Elementary School Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School Mosaica Online Academy of Michigan Muskegon Heights High School Muskegon Heights Middle School In fact, […]