Not an authority on education achievement, apparently A couple of weeks ago, after listening to a WKAR interview with Education Achievement Authority Chancellor John Covington and the lawmaker who sponsored the bill that would expand the EAA statewide, Lisa Lyons, I wondered aloud if perhaps Ms. Lyons had already seen the MEAP scores that were released yesterday. Lyons, the chair […]

As I mentioned yesterday, the ACLU discovered that the Education Achievement Authority had a job posting on their website for pre-school teachers that described the position at three different schools as being “teachers are responsible for implementing a developmentally appropriate early childhood education curriculum in a Christian setting”. As I wrote in my post about this, the job posting language […]

Yesterday, the ACLU of Michigan sent Education Achievement Authority Chancellor John Covington a letter asking about this job posting (archived HERE.) The job posting is for preschool teachers at Law, Bethune, and Brenda Scott elementary schools, all part of the EAA. The job description says that the, “teachers are responsible for implementing a developmentally appropriate early childhood education curriculum in […]

On Wednesday of this past week, news broke that State Superintendent Mike Flanagan was ending a 15-year exclusivity contract with the Governor Rick Snyder’s failed experiment with Detroit children known as the Education Achievement Authority. The contract specified that the State School Reform/Redesign District (SSRRD) would only place “low performing” schools in the EAA. By ending that part of the […]

Just a few odds and ends from the world of the Education Achievement Authority, Gov. Rick Snyder’s failed education experiment with Detroit students. First, although a vote had been predicted yesterday, various reporting suggests that Republicans in the House and Senate are still struggling to come to an agreement on what the expansion of the EAA should look like. Some […]

As faculty and students at Eastern Michigan University gather at a rally today to urge their Board of Regents to sever their educational institution’s relationship with Governor Snyder’s failed Educational Achievement Authority experiment in Detroit, lawmakers in Lansing are whipping votes to pass legislation that will expand it statewide and codify it into law. Yesterday’s bombshell news that State Superintendent […]

NOTE: There are two comments at the bottom of this interview disparaging both me and the interviewee, former EAA Teacher of the Year Kim Jurczak. One goes by the name “Lyeyname” and the other by “Mypost”. Both comments came from the same IP address meaning that they were made by the same person masquerading as different people to make it […]

I don’t normally just reprint press releases but this one is so well done and so perfect that I couldn’t really add much to it. Ellen Lipton has been a fierce, fierce warrior in the battle to save Michigan’s public schools. Along with Sen. Hopgood, she was, for far too long, a lone voice calling out the Education Achievement Authority […]

Spin, baby, spin

Yesterday, EAA Chancellor John Covington and Republican Chair of the House Education Committee Rep. Lisa Lyons appeared on the Current State program to discuss the Education Achievement Authority. In clear defensive mode, both of them sought to characterize anyone who opposes the EAA as the only solution to the intractable problems facing the Detroit Public School system as “defending the status quo” and being “outright criminal”.

The audio, excerpts, and commentary after the jump.

WOW! NOTE: My commentary on this development can be found HERE. Not a good week for the Education Achievement Authority and its leader John Covington. First, MLive reporter Jeff Wattrick’s article from 2011 is being circulated again, reminding all of us that Covington’s so-called turnaround success in Kansas City fell apart after he left when the district he controlled lost […]

NOTE: My reporting on the Education Achievement Authority involves multiple posts. You can read all of my coverage of the EAA by clicking HERE. In the aftermath of the explosive allegations that have arisen in the course of my reporting on the situation in the Education Achievement Authority, the EAA has gone on the attack, writing them off as “anonymous” […]