Back in 2011, a man named Pasquale “Pat” Battaglia posted a blog entry on the website of the Lapeer County Tea Party Patriots titled “The God and Country Education Project”. In it, he introduces something he calls “American Christian Academies” and denounces the “progressive” movement who he says have taken “less than 3 generations to completely obliterate our schools”. Fast […]

Public Education is a partnership and has been for many decades now. That partnership includes our local communities, the school board, our cities, the state, and the federal government, to simplify this part of my message. For many years Public Education was working well. It educated us all, kept to constitutional promises, improved over time. It was a natural or […]

In the wake of the blistering multi-day expose by the Detroit Free Press detailing the failures of for-profit charters in Michigan and the astonishing lack of transparency and accountability they enjoy, the charter school industry is ramping up its propaganda machine. Just in the past few days, there have been two op-eds in The Detroit News promoting their for-profit-with-tax-dollars model […]

In the wake of the Detroit Free Press‘s explosive eight-day exposé on Michigan charter schools which revealed an astonishing lack of oversight, transparency, and actual performance in charters, Democrats have responded this week with a bill that would place a moratorium on opening any more charters. The legislation was introduced by state Representative Sarah Roberts. Rep. Robers and minority vice […]

SEE UPDATE BELOW You know the corporate funders driving the push to dismantle and privatize as much of our public school system as they possibly can are freaking out when they do stuff like this tweet from the Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP): You also know they’ve stepped in it when they have to tweet out four explanatory tweets following […]

State Superintendent Mike Flanagan announced today that 11 of the 40 charter school authorizers have been put in “At-Risk of Suspension” status after a damning investigative report by the Detroit Free Press recently reveal gross negligence, a lack of transparency, nepotism, and, most importantly, poor performance in many of Michigan’s charter schools. In Michigan, which has a quarter of the […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]