Chalkbeat

DPSCD Board of Education will educate community before voting on changes to public comment rules

2024-12-11T21:16:28+00:00

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The Detroit school board once again delayed voting on changes to the board’s public comment policy Tuesday evening to give the board time to educate the community about the proposed changes.

The new policy would eliminate virtual public comment, which started in 2020 during COVID-19 lockdowns, formally allow exceptions to the three-minute comment time limit for commenters with disabilities or in need of translation, and introduce a new process of registering to comment, among other changes.

The board originally delayed voting during its Nov. 12 meeting to give the public more time to review the policy changes. The new policy was on its second reading Tuesday, but board President Angelique Peterson-Mayberry said the board would not vote on the policy until it has engaged in community education about what the policy changes would mean for meeting participants.

Eliminating virtual comment raises questions

If the board passes new policy changes, virtual public comment will be eliminated. The proposal stems from concern that participants could sign in on several devices under different names to make more than one comment.

“Right now, it’s just really difficult to ensure that it is living up to the spirit of public comment for everyone in the community,” board member and policy committee chair Misha Stallworth West told Chalkbeat in November.

But some worry changes in the policy, especially eliminating virtual public comment, will make it harder to make comments to the board.

Emma Howland-Bolton, a fourth grade teacher from Thirkell Elementary-Middle School, said the virtual public comment format is already a frustrating process. The board streams meetings virtually on YouTube, but virtual commenters must join a Zoom meeting to raise their hand and request to make public comments. Other school districts, she said, have a more user-friendly process.

“Rather than limiting public comment, I hope that you guys will work to expand it so we can join the rest of the school boards in Michigan with having actually accessible virtual and in-person public comment,” Howland-Bolton said.

Tabrian Joe, who ran for school board in the 2024 election and commented on the policy changes during the Nov. 12 meeting, urged the board Tuesday to table the vote until new members Monique Bryant and Ida Simmons Short enter office in January 2025.

Lauren Chapman, a virtual public commenter who pushed the board to include pools in its site plans for Pershing and Cody high schools, emphasized the importance of virtual public comment.

“I’m currently on military orders, thus underscoring the importance of having virtual options,” Chapman told the board over Zoom.

How might public comment change?

Some new features of the proposed policy codify existing practices into official policy, while others introduce — or take away — existing aspects of public comment.

Stallworth West, whose eight-year term ends this month, told Chalkbeat that the proposed policy “helps to ensure there’s not confusion between the board and the public around what’s happening and how it happens.”

Here are some other key changes:

Commenters will register using a “action agenda item” or “non-action agenda item” comment form available at the meeting entrance.
Public comment period will be limited to one hour unless the board votes to extend it.
Speakers can’t yield any of their speaking time to another speaker. This has been current practice, but hasn’t stopped commenters from requesting that their time be yielded.
Attendants can distribute documents, handouts, or leaflets at the entrance door of the meeting, but cannot distribute materials in the meeting room.
Audience members will be discouraged from clapping, applauding, heckling, and verbal outbursts.

Alex Klaus is a freelance reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at alexrklaus@gmail.com.

DPSCD to pay some high school students to attend literacy interventions

2024-08-23T17:13:25+00:00

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Detroit district high school students who are two or more grade levels behind in reading will receive cash gift cards as an incentive to attend after-school tutoring sessions.

The amount of money on the gift cards and other details are still being worked out by officials in the Detroit Public Schools Community District. The initiative was included in the district budget approved by the school board in June, and is expected to begin during the school year that begins Monday.

It sprang out of a discussion in a school board finance committee meeting, said Board member Misha Stallworth. As the committee discussed spending literacy lawsuit money on early-grade students, Stallworth said she raised questions about incentives and how to support literacy improvement at the high school level. (Proceeds from the lawsuit settlement aren’t funding the student incentives.)

“When we think about this literacy lawsuit and the origins of it, the question that was coming to mind for me is, how do we focus on those students that kind of missed out on some of the changes that younger students have been able to benefit from,” Stallworth said in an interview with Chalkbeat.

Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told Chalkbeat in an email that paying high schoolers to attend tutoring is important to overcome the “negative impact emergency management had on student achievement.”

State-appointed emergency managers controlled the district from 2009 until 2017. Plaintiffs in the literacy lawsuit had argued emergency management created poor conditions that made it difficult for students to learn to read. That claim was confirmed in the settlement.

Board member Sonya Mays, who chairs the finance committee, said she is willing to try innovative ideas to address literacy and high rates of chronic absenteeism, two pressing issues in the district.

As of spring 2024, 53.9% of eighth graders read two or more grades below reading level. That figure is 5 percentage points lower than the previous year, according to district data.

Gabrielle Groce, a district high school English teacher, said she hopes that paying high schoolers to attend intervention sessions will improve literacy skills.

“I just want, especially our Black and brown kids, to be able to succeed,” Groce said. “If this helps them, or helps push them to be better through literacy, then I’m 100% on board with it.”

How the district can create the biggest chance for success

District officials are still working out details like how much students will be paid and who will offer the sessions. The district will likely offer the program at each high school through their academic interventionists, Vitti said.

These details could determine the success of the program.

Mattie Morgan, a great-grandmother of a sixth grader and a high school freshman, said she believes the program could be popular with students, but she wonders if they will stick with it as time goes on.

Elizabeth Birr Moje, the dean of the Marsal Family School of Education at the University of Michigan, said there is always a risk with external incentives – students doing tasks for money instead of for their own satisfaction – that a participant will do what they need to get the incentive without engaging in deep learning.

But Moje believes this plan is a pragmatic approach because it gives some students who would otherwise have to work a chance to earn an income while improving their literacy skills.

If the program also has exciting activities, social interaction, and opportunities for students to see growth in their reading skills, it can help keep students engaged, she said.

Moje said it’s also important who teaches the course. DPSCD has not yet decided whether an external provider or internal staff will offer the sessions. However, Vitti said the intervention will utilize the Orton-Gillingham approach, a multi-sensory method of teaching literacy.

“The best outcomes from tutoring are high-dosage tutoring offered by a trained tutor, and preferably a certified teacher, and that’s just for general tutoring. So if we’re talking about helping someone who really needs those reading supports, then they’re really going to need to have people who know what they’re doing and not simply volunteers.”

She hopes the district ensures intervention is tailored to the needs of each student, recognizing that not all students struggle with the same issues. For example, a ninth grader reading at a seventh grade level would likely not need phonics instruction because they already have an understanding of reading concepts.

“A program that only focuses, for example, on foundational skills is probably not going to meet the needs of most of the students, but it certainly won’t meet the needs of all of the students. By the same token, a program that would only focus on high level comprehension skills may not meet the needs of all of the students,” Moje said.

Groce, the teacher, also wonders if transportation could be an issue. She recalls some students who didn’t get to school because they didn’t have a ride.

Incentive program supports students who need to work

Teenagers are pulled in different directions when combining school and work responsibilities, Stallworth said. But if they can’t read well, she said it will impact their ability to work jobs that can sustain them and their families as adults.

“It can be tough to have them feel comfortable, motivated, and to be able to balance their time in terms of their economic needs to go to courses or additional literacy support, things outside their typical classroom schedule,” Stallworth said.

Morgan’s great-granddaughter, who is entering high school, talks about wanting to get a job to make her own money. Morgan agrees that financial incentives would benefit high school students like her great-granddaughter who would otherwise look to find another job.

Moje likes that the program rewards students’ efforts and willingness to improve their skills, rather than rewarding them based on predetermined academic outcomes. She said children who aren’t performing on grade level often stress about doing well in school, and they don’t need to be made to feel worse.

“We’re really investing in children who, for whatever reason, haven’t had the opportunity to learn literacy at the levels that you’re going to need for happiness and success in society,” Moje said. “It’s recognizing that young people have other things to do in their lives, and some of them may actually need the income.”

Alex Klaus is a summer intern at Chalkbeat Detroit.

Detroit families get free dental services, books, advice at back-to-school event

2024-08-09T21:30:55+00:00

On one end of a school gym, buckets of pink and blue glue lined a glitter-covered slime-making table. As some families made slime, the sound of dribbling basketballs echoed through the room from kids and adults playing basketball at the other end of the gym.

The Detroit Parent Network’s free annual Young Inventors event at University Preparatory Academy in Detroit on Wednesday also provided health and dental checkups, health care access, and opportunities to get involved in education and childcare policy advocacy.

DPN Senior Director for Programming and Impact Remy Sirls said the event was meant to give caregivers and children something fun to do while increasing access to resources.

“We want to equip parents with information, educate them about maybe some things that they might not know about, and empower them with the resources to be able to do what it is they want to do,” Sirls said. “How do they adapt that to their life? So not telling people at all what they should be doing or how to do that, but giving you just access to the resources.”

Students normally present creative projects at the event, but attendants participated in other activities this year.

DPN introduced new activities such as a “passport to literacy” that kids could get stamped at every station to receive a prize.

Families could also trade books at a “take a book, give a book” station that offered new books for various reading levels.

Children could also submit their ballot in two mock elections: Cookie Monster versus Elmo for president, and Android versus iPhone.

Jessica Walk and her 2-year old daughter came out because they were looking for a fun way to get out into the community. They especially enjoyed the slime-making table.

Cousins Alakai and Abel McClain helped DPN set up the event. Alakai, a youth volunteer with DPN entering 10th grade, helped Abel set up the craft table. Abel, an incoming sixth grader at Lincoln Middle School, was also a fan of the slime table.

DPN Program Manager Toyja Bridges, who has helped run the program each year, especially likes watching families do experiments and fun activities with their kids.

“It’s good quality family time,” Bridges said. “It’s amazing. I just love to see people come together.”

DPN, which has hosted the event twice before, is a parent engagement organization that helps parents advocate for their children and create change in their schools and community.

Alex Klaus is a summer intern for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at aklaus@gmail.com.

I didn’t think I could succeed in school until I received accommodations for my disability

2024-07-31T21:04:10+00:00

I have always needed to work 10 times harder than my peers only to feel like I was hardly learning. Teachers commonly said I was not reaching my full potential.

The worst part was that I had no idea how to reach my “full potential.”

I seemed like a solid student on paper: good enough grades, ideal attendance rates, involved in extracurriculars, and college-bound. My only behavioral issue was talking too much. Educators did not seem to recognize I was dealing with a bigger issue.

Alex Klaus

At the time, I did not know that I had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, commonly known as ADHD, a disability that impacts daily functioning. Inattention, hyperactivity, auditory processing issues, impulsivity, impatience, and poor organizational skills all made school a daily challenge.

I would take pages of notes without any recollection of what I just learned. Lectures did not help me in classes like math or science. Instead, I needed one-on-one support to walk me through each step. Many of my teachers were unable or unwilling to do so. Sometimes they were overburdened, and other times, they reduced my challenges to not reading my notes well enough or not paying attention.

I even struggled in classes I had greater interest in, like English and history. I always enjoyed writing but found reading difficult. I would read entire chapters of books before realizing I did not retain any of the information, making reading too frustrating to enjoy. Lectures were especially challenging, as I struggled to focus and process everything my instructors said.

I did not think most of my teachers believed in me, and ultimately, I stopped believing in myself.

Test-taking was always a nightmare, mainly because my brain concentrated on the sounds of writing pencils and shuffling papers around the class rather than the test in front of me. I felt unequipped to succeed.

These experiences shaped the way I experienced education. I grew to feel resentful and angry at my school, and frustrated with myself. I did not think most of my teachers believed in me, and ultimately, I stopped believing in myself. I wanted to see a world where students did not have to struggle in the same ways I did.

I channeled these frustrations into writing and researching for better ways to support students like me. I was naturally attracted to journalism as a young teen because I wanted to identify injustices, provide a way for people to voice their experiences, and find sensible solutions.

And I am drawn to Chalkbeat’s mission — to report on the effort to improve schools for all children. I became a summer intern at Chalkbeat because I wanted to shed light on ways Michigan’s education system can help students succeed from the perspective of someone who felt her school failed her.

I always envied those around me who could take advantage of federal rules requiring schools to offer accommodations for students with diagnosed disabilities such as longer test-taking times, testing in a separate and quieter environment, using headphones, and even permission to use fidget toys. I knew these resources would help me, but I did not have a diagnosed disability at the time, despite showing clear symptoms of one.

Eventually, my inability to understand course material squashed my interest in learning. Working harder than my peers to get half as far became exhausting and unsustainable. By high school, I no longer saw a point in trying to succeed.

My goal by high school was to show up and get good enough grades to graduate, get into college, and never look back. Finding solace in electives like choir and creative writing or extracurricular activities like leading my school’s debate team motivated me to finish.

At the time I graduated high school in 2019, 13.24% of Michigan students had a disability. But this did not include students like me, whose disability was not diagnosed until after graduation.

Chalkbeat reporting revealed that my experience is similar to many other Michigan students who did not receive disability accommodations during the pandemic, and the many more whose disabilities are never identified due to the under-resourced and overwhelmed system. Others might struggle if the state does not provide funding for mental health support in schools.

When I received my ADHD diagnosis at age 18, I realized the behaviors educators wrote off as not trying hard enough or not reaching my full potential actually stemmed from living with an undiagnosed disability and no accommodations.

My diagnosis helped me better understand my brain and develop the necessary skills to manage my ADHD symptoms. I learned organizational skills that worked with my disability, not against it. Oftentimes, simple solutions like finding outlets for my hyperactivity and using headphones and low-distraction workplaces to complete my school work did the trick.

Most importantly, I sought out accommodations in college. Recording my lectures and requiring subtitles on videos help me follow the material when my auditory processing issues get in the way. Quiet and separate testing spaces have been critical.

I was always capable of succeeding in school; I just needed support. In fact, I largely attribute my passion and creativity, which plays a major role in my work, to my ADHD.

Since receiving accommodations, I have succeeded in ways I didn’t think were possible. My professors describe me as an active participant in class who turns in high-quality work. I am even considering graduate school, something that felt out of reach for most of my life despite always having an interest in research.

I hope my story reminds students with disabilities what they are capable of and that they are deserving of the support they need to thrive.

Alex Klaus is a summer intern at Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at aklaus@chalkbeat.org.

Milliken v. Bradley: 50 years later, teachers across the country reflect on the historic case

2024-07-29T15:00:00+00:00

Most of Alisha Washington-Hutton’s history students are familiar with Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1954 that ended state-sanctioned racial segregation in schools.

But few of them know about another decision by the court in a case closer to home that has affected integration efforts in metro Detroit for years.

That’s why she attended a two week institute, Democracy in Education: A View from Detroit, at the Walter P. Reuther Library. The program is giving her tools to teach her students in Royal Oak Schools about Milliken v. Bradley, a case 20 years later that ended plans for cross-district busing to integrate Detroit and suburban schools.

“I’m going to consider the long history of education and Black people’s fight for education. So we often think about Brown v. Board as the end of desegregation, but instead bringing to my kids these slightly more complicated stories I think will be to everybody’s benefit,” said Washington-Hutton, a teacher at Royal Oak Middle School.

She’s among 22 teachers from across the country who gathered at the Reuther library for the two-week program funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Discussions on Tuesday centered on the events leading up to Milliken v. Bradley and its long-term implications for school segregation. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision.

The historic case began when the NAACP filed a lawsuit against the state of Michigan on behalf of then-elementary school student Ronald Bradley. In 1972, U.S. District Judge Stephen Roth ordered 53 school districts, including Detroit, to create a cross-district plan to bus thousands of Black children to suburban schools, and thousands of white children to Detroit schools.

In 1974, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against the plan. Detroit then had to implement its own districtwide desegregation plan.

Thurgood Marshall, the only Black justice on the court at the time, said Detroit could not integrate its schools without working with the suburbs, as white residents fled the city and its demographics shifted to predominantly Black.

Washington-Hutton wanted to better understand the historical context behind the demographic differences between her district, which is largely white, and the Detroit Public Schools Community District, which is predominantly Black.

People often assume segregated schools or neighborhoods “happened organically,” she said. But people often make choices to segregate or integrate.

“Oftentimes when we can kind of just assume that it’s a natural thing, people just decide where to live, just based on, you know, they like the area, it hides a little bit of the structural racism that can go into the makeup of our schools,” Washington-Hutton said.

Inspired by the 50th anniversary of the case, Matthew Kautz, a professor at Eastern Michigan University, worked with his colleagues to form the institute. They wanted to engage educators from across the country in rigorous study of the legal history of school segregation, systemic oppression, and resistance.

Attendants first listened to Rev. Dan Aldridge, a veteran activist, discuss his experiences organizing for community control of Black schools in Detroit and New York. Kautz then walked educators through the history of desegregation efforts in Detroit and across the country that led up to Milliken v. Bradley.

Attendants then watched a documentary-in-progress by Donovan McCarty, a filmmaker and attorney at the Detroit Justice Center. They wrapped up the day with a discussion about the legacy of white flight and failed efforts to integrate city and suburban schools in metro Detroit.

“We wanted folks to be able to think within this institute and then take back to their students how to think about the complicated dynamics of schooling, education, race, and democracy,” Kautz said. “How do we work with students to make sense of that, given these are the places where they learn, and this is the world that we’re asking them to inherit and make sense of.”

Michele Smiley, who teaches U.S. history and African American History and Culture at Plymouth-Canton Educational Park, hopes to apply what she has learned to the curriculum. She already teaches Brown v. Board, but she said she felt there was a missing piece in her curriculum, a gap she hoped this institute would fill.

Lisa Landrum-May, who teaches high school English 10 and Advanced Placement African American Studies in Maryland, connected what she learned with her own experiences being bused to a predominantly white school as a Black kid in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the 1970s.

She remembers people telling her it was a great opportunity for her, but the experience harmed her. She did not feel like white parents and teachers wanted her there.

“This impacted my life for 50 years,” Landrum-May said.

At her old school, where all the faculty was Black, she recalls the teachers treating the children like their own. But things changed when she was bused a lengthy distance out of her neighborhood to a white school.

The new school had more resources, but her first teacher there tried to segregate Black and white students in the classroom and made her feel like she did not have the skills necessary to do well.

“They were thinking about holding me back, then they were saying maybe special ed” – where most of the Black students ended up, she said. “It affected me so deeply. I’m 58 years old, and I’m an English teacher. I’m very literate, I’m very articulate. I was afraid to read out loud up until like seven years ago.”

After hearing the impact busing had on students, Smiley already has ideas on how she will incorporate Milliken v. Bradley into her teaching. She hopes to give students a greater idea of the different opinions about solutions to the inequities caused by school segregation, particularly the push from some in the Black community for community control and equal funding instead of integration.

Tyrek Laing from Burbank, California found the opportunity to look at the connections between education and democracy appealing.

“I’m learning that even though we’re in different locations, there’s some fundamental challenges that we all face,” said Laing, a dean of student inclusion in grades 6-12 at an international private school. “Detroit has such a rich history of protest, of advocacy, and so learning the stories of people who are here and have been on the ground here throughout the years, was something that I felt like would be motivational and giving me strategy as well.”

Washington-Hutton and Smiley agreed that their favorite part of the institute has been connecting with educators from around the country and hearing their experiences. As a co-director, Kautz has appreciated the participants willingness to learn, be vulnerable, and engage with each other.

At one point, there was a moment where school integration seemed like a very real possibility,” Washington-Hutton said. “While learning all this information is great, I think part of it is really important because you learn with the Bradley case why it stops. Why we have all of this progress, progress, progress, and then we kind of just hit against the wall.”

Alex Klaus is a summer intern at Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at aklaus@chalkbeat.org.

Filing deadline for the school board election is approaching. Here’s what it could mean for DPSCD.

2024-07-12T15:32:10+00:00

The July 23 filing deadline for three seats on the Detroit school board is fast approaching in what could be a consequential election for the state’s largest district.

Current board member Misha Stallworth isn’t running for re-election, meaning at least one new person for the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s seven-member board. Sherry Gay-Dagnogo said she is unsure whether she’ll run to keep her seat. Member Sonya Mays didn’t comment for this story.

New members could determine whether Superintendent Nikolai Vitti’s direction for improving student achievement, school climate and culture, and increasing teacher pay will move forward, or be stalled by board division.

Members have strongly supported Vitti since his hiring in May 2017, just a few months after the first DPSCD board was seated, and nearly a year after a historic legislative initiative created the district as part of a broad effort to address mounting debt.

Mario Morrow, a political analyst with a background in education, said this could change if the election introduces members less supportive of Vitti’s vision.

“Board members don’t always see eye to eye, and you will have differences. You’ll have people who disagree, which is a good thing, you know, in a democratic society,” Morrow said. “You’ve had a pretty stable board for some time that have pretty much been all on the same page.”

Vitti told BridgeDetroit in May that the district and board will need to communicate and solve problems together in order to remain focused on district reform.

“The opportunity to sustain and accelerate the improvement the District has experienced over the past seven years rests heavily with the elected School Board and future School Board elections,” Vitti wrote in an email last week to Chalkbeat. “I am optimistic that the community will continue to elect those whose agenda and experience continues a positive synergy of elected officials to govern DPSCD.”

Stallworth leaves at least one vacant seat on the board

Stallworth and Mays were among original board members elected in 2016 to oversee DPSCD.

Stallworth said she is stepping down to make room for new energy and perspectives on the board.

“We’ve accomplished a lot of things and I think it’d be great to see what some other community voices have to say.”

Stallworth has faced criticism from some because of her absenteeism from board meetings. She has missed seven of 10 regular board meetings and three of seven special board meetings since August, though her attendance record for finance and policy committee meetings were more regular. She said her busy schedule as a full-time working mother has made it difficult to attend regular board meetings.

Stallworth said being on the board has been one of the most rewarding but challenging things she’s ever done.

“It was the first elected board leaving emergency management, we immediately got hit with a list of school closures from the state that we had to navigate around, and were able to avoid succumbing to that list. A lot of schools that were on it” have made considerable progress, Stallworth said.

She watches online the meetings she misses in person, but since 2022, the state Open Meetings Act has prohibited elected officials from participating remotely unless they are on military duty. Stallworth said this makes public service inaccessible to working moms like her and people with disabilities.

Gay-Dagnogo said the overwhelming workload of being a board member has made her hesitant to run for re-election.

When she represented a portion of Detroit in the Michigan House, assistants helped Gay-Dagnogo handle the high volume of calls and legislation. Independent agencies helped her make quality decisions by providing fiscal analysis on action items. Gay-Dagnogo said school board members do not get similar assistance, so they must investigate each action item which makes it hard for members to make informed decisions.

“Most people run for the school board to catapult themselves to a higher office,” Gay-Dagnogo said. “I left a higher office, and came to really be a customer service rep with no real way to address the systemic problems that exist.”

Board may face challenges after election

New board members bring new ideas and visions, but there’s a learning curve, and new members must catch up quickly with how the board works and operates, Morrow said.

Gay-Dagnogo thinks the learning curve will slow board operations, especially because the board has to replace Stallworth, who chairs the policy committee, and potentially Mays, who chairs the finance committee.

Board members are responsible for hiring and firing superintendents, and Vitti’s evaluations could change as new members replace long-standing ones who’ve served throughout Vitti’s entire tenure, Morrow said.

“New board members tend to have a higher bar for superintendents because they want to prove they are making a difference sooner than later,” he said.

Stallworth thinks a leadership shift will require the board to get to know each other and find the best ways to work effectively together.

“The main thing is that as a community, we are really thoughtful and engaged in the election process so that we select board members that are equipped, that are committed, and that really have their eye on the prize of continuing the reform of the district to make sure our students are getting what they need academically and holistically,” Stallworth said.

Members reflect on their time in office

Gay-Dagnogo thinks her constituent services have been her biggest accomplishment while on the board. She’s proud that she has been a voice for her community.

Stallworth is proud of some of her individual accomplishments, like work to reform the Code of Conduct, navigating district operations through the COVID-19 pandemic, and time chairing the policy committee. She’s also proud of leading the policy committee because she believes policies and procedures are crucial infrastructure to build an organization.

Stallworth said she will continue to dedicate herself to improving the district.

“I won’t be satisfied until we’re looking at proficiency numbers that demonstrate that our kids are really ready for the next level in their lives.”

Alex Klaus is a summer intern for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at aklaus@chalkbeat.org.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect Misha Stallworth’s attendance at committee and special board meetings in addition to her attendance at regular board meetings.

Tentative state school budget agreement could mean massive cuts to Michigan schools

2024-06-26T22:38:10+00:00

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Michigan school leaders and advocates – particularly those in high poverty and shrinking districts – are bracing for potential widespread cuts as legislators work to come to an agreement on a state education budget Wednesday.

A tentative budget plan would mean no increase to the base foundation allowance in per-pupil funding for the 2024-25 school year. It would also gut state grants for school safety and mental health, which would likely lead to layoffs of staff such as counselors in districts across the state. One-time state funding for raises and pay would also reportedly be cut.

“There’s a lot of concern about what this budget would mean,” said Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, an advocacy group focused on state school funding priorities. “It could mean layoffs all over the state. It would be devastating in a lot of ways.”

A conference committee of lawmakers was working Wednesday on an education budget agreement. Legislators are racing to meet the July 1 deadline to pass a budget.

A tighter state budget coupled with the end of federal COVID relief money this year will likely mean layoffs and cuts across the state, said Michael Addonizio, professor of educational leadership and policy at Wayne State University.

Districts with declining enrollments and higher percentages of students from families living in poverty stand to lose the most, Addonizio said.

“Whatever final agreement they come to, it’s probably going to be a clear step back from the last two years,” he said.

This year’s budget could be a vast contrast from the last two years, when lawmakers approved historic increases in spending for schools, raising the per-pupil amount to $9,608. For the first time last year, the state adopted an Opportunity Index, which gave additional funding to districts with high rates of poverty.

This year’s tentative plan shelves previous proposals from the governor, the House, and the Senate that would have decreased the state’s payments into the Michigan Public School Employees’ Retirement System. Those proposals would have freed up money to go into programs such as at-risk funding, support for English language learners, and universal pre-K, as well as school mental health staffing.

The idea of decreasing payments into the retirement system has been divisive since the governor first proposed it. Some Republican lawmakers said it was a “raid” of the funds and it has been a sticking point in budget negotiations.

The conference committee’s potential agreement would also decrease school districts’ payments into the retirement fund by 5.8% for the next fiscal year. However, school leaders say there is no guarantee that decrease will continue and wanted a decrease in payments to be permanently codified into law.

McCann said the savings for districts would not offset other cuts.

“Whatever amount of money that would mean for districts, it will be one-time money,” he said. “So, it can’t be used for anything related to staffing.”

Many districts have already adopted their own budgets, which they calculated using the governor’s proposal. Now, those districts will likely have to go back to the drawing board and make difficult decisions on what they will have to cut, said McCann.

Andrea Oquist, superintendent of Livonia Public Schools, said her district was “stunned” by news of what’s in the tentative agreement.

The potential massive cuts to school safety and mental health grants would be a huge blow to the district.

“This year, we got $3 million to provide extra psychologists, social workers, security personnel, security cameras,” she said. “That is being cut all the way down for LPS to $225,000 next year,”

Ypsilanti Public Schools Superintendent Alena Zachery-Ross said the district was hoping to see an increase in per-pupil funding, but did not budget for an increase out of caution.

Still, she said, rising operating costs — namely energy bills, transportation, food service costs, and benefits for employees — will make funding the district’s needs difficult without a per-pupil funding increase.

“This will make us really have to tighten up the belt quite a bit, and it will have us to really think about next year differently,” Zachery-Ross said.

School groups are actively lobbying lawmakers to rethink their tentative agreement. Among them is the Michigan Association of Superintendents and Administrators, which made a call to action to the public.

Once the agreement is voted out of committee, it will go to the House for a roll call vote before it goes to the Senate.

The final legislative budget then goes to the Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s desk to sign. She can veto all or parts of the bill.

The budget will take effect Oct. 1.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Klaus is a summer intern for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at aklaus@chalkbeat.org.

High school computer science classes might expand in Michigan. Will that address equity issues?

2024-06-21T19:22:19+00:00

In her two years of high school at Dearborn Public Schools’ Virtual K-12 school, rising junior Weaam AlAliyi has already learned about computer programming, understanding algorithms, and data analysis in three computer science courses.

Weaam believes computer science courses in high school are critical in preparing students for higher education and the modern workforce.

Gaining computer science skills is “increasingly important in today’s digital world,” Weaam said.

High schoolers across the state could have similar access to computer science courses if Michigan lawmakers pass a bill requiring all public high schools to offer a computer science course by the start of the 2027-28 school year. Michigan would become the 31st state to have such a requirement, according to 2023 data.

The bill passed the state House on Tuesday and is on its way to the Senate. The bill received bipartisan support, but all 22 no votes came from Republicans.

The bill garnered support from the Michigan Department of Education, among others. Cheryl Wilson, computer science consultant at the MDE, said the department recognizes a need to prepare students for computer science positions in the state and beyond.

The classes would have to be aligned with Michigan’s computer science standards. Rep. Carol Glavnille, a Democrat from Walker and a former educator who sponsored the bill, hopes the courses will cover subjects like AI functions, app development, data analysis, and internet security. These courses, she argues, will prepare students for the large number of available computing jobs with higher than average salaries.

Michigan had an average of 14,328 open computing jobs each month in 2023, with an average salary of $96,702.

Technology access remains an obstacle

A legislative fiscal analysis estimates the requirement would not create extra costs for the state, but high schools without existing computer science classes might struggle. Robert McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance, a group that advocates for public schools, says the state needs to ensure that each school has appropriate teachers and equipment available to students.

“It is still a reality that some students don’t have access to the same technology that other students have at home,” said McCann.

Still, McCann thinks that grants to improve technology access in homes during the pandemic will give more students the resources they need to study computer science and make it easier for schools to implement the new courses.

Schools that can’t offer the course can provide an online option through online schools such as Michigan Virtual.

Glanville suggested that existing online computer science programs like Code.org can offset access issues. Code.org testified in support of the bill when Glanville introduced it to the House in May.

But Aman Yadav, a professor of computing education at Michigan State University, worries that under-resourced schools will still struggle to offer quality computer science courses due to a lack of certified staff. He warns that affluent students are more likely to succeed in online courses.

“The bill is a step in the right direction to make sure that all students within Michigan have access to computer science at the high school level,” Yadav said. “However, there are significant challenges for schools who are under-resourced, both in our rural communities and urban communities, because of lack of requirement for teachers to have sufficient knowledge to teach computer science.”

In 2017, the Michigan Department of Education announced it will remove requirements for computer science teacher endorsements by 2026. Wilson said the department did that to open pathways for more educators to teach computer science, especially in districts that lacked enough qualified teachers.

But Yadav worries that a lack of quality computer science teachers will discourage students from continuing computer science education after their first course.

Racial and gender disparities are wide

Research suggests that disparities in enrollment heavily affect women and Black students. Only 29% of Michigan students who took an AP computer science exam in 2022 were women, and Black students were less likely to take AP computer science exams than their white and Asian peers.

Yadav said existing research on disparities in computer science education focuses too much on access and not enough on success rates. For example, 2022 data indicates that Black students in Michigan were less likely to pass their AP computer science exams than other students, with scores of 3 or higher: Only 29% of the Black students who took an AP computer science exam in 2022 passed, while 70.8% of all students passed.

Kady Robinson-Larsosa, a rising junior at Detroit’s School at Marygrove, has learned computer science skills in several classes, and may even have a chance to earn college credit as a junior. She said she sees value in computer science courses as a Black DPSCD student because of the increased career opportunities for students.

“Usually we’re not seeing engineering as a way to pursue a career in the future,” she said. As course access expands, she thinks it could increase well-paying career opportunities. She sees the skills she has learned helping her aspirations to enter the business and marketing field after graduation.

Kady said she notices more women in her Marygrove classes than men. But in a STEM-focused career readiness summer program at the University of Michigan, she said, there were more men enrolled.

How can the state address equity issues?

Yadav said he hopes that the legislature adds language requiring educators to be certified in computer science to teach the class and suggests the state invest in teacher certification.

“Computer science is hard to learn,” Yadav said. “A focus on increasing access without a focus on quality of that access is problematic for Michigan students.”

Wilson said the MDE doesn’t have plans to implement such a program now, but might consider it in the future.

Yadav also thinks schools should offer classes at a younger age. By high school, students have already formed views on who is successful in computer science or STEM.

Eva Burch, who recently graduated from Detroit Prep, doesn’t plan on taking computer science courses when she starts her freshman year at Cass Technical High School, but she said having earlier access to learning computer science courses might have encouraged her to take them now.

Kady said the courses will be helpful in high school nonetheless. “I think it’s a great opportunity for all high schoolers to be able to take advantage of, even if some don’t,” she said.

Glanville hopes that over time, the state can identify which schools teach computer science and figure out how to increase the availability of these courses across Michigan.

Alex Klaus is a summer intern for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at aklaus@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: June 24, 2024: A previous version of this story said Eva Burch was already a DPSCD student. She was a student at Detroit Prep and will become a DPSCD student in the fall.

Detroit school board approves three-year plan for use of literacy lawsuit funds

2024-06-12T22:06:53+00:00

Detroit Public Schools Community District students will see greater investments in literacy education thanks to a three-year plan to spend $94.4 million in “right to read” lawsuit settlement money.

DPSCD Board of Education officials unanimously approved the plan Tuesday night.

The board’s approval means struggling students in the district will receive more individualized help through reduced class sizes, and more literacy teachers and academic interventionists.

Seven Detroit public school students filed the ‘right to read’ lawsuit against the state in 2016. Students argued that Michigan emergency managers who controlled the district between 2009 and 2015 created conditions unfit for obtaining a quality education. Large classroom sizes, inadequate literacy intervention programs, and a lack of education resources for English language learners were among the many issues the lawsuit cited. Building maintenance issues exacerbated these problems, creating an environment that was not conducive to learning.

The lawsuit, originally called Gary B. v. Snyder during former Gov. Rick Snyder’s term, was later called Gary B. v. Whitmer to reflect Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration. Whitmer and the seven plaintiffs reached the $94.4 million settlement in 2020 amid pressure from protestors and a federal Sixth Court of Appeals ruling that literacy is a protected right in the U.S. Constitution. The settlement meant plaintiffs dropped their bid to establish this constitutional right.

The settlement confirmed student claims that Michigan’s emergency managers created conditions that made it harder for students to learn to read. It also established two task forces to make policy recommendations to the school board and governor. One group, the Literacy Equity Task Force, discussed how DPSCD should allocate the settlement money at its first meeting last August.

It took three years for the district to receive the $94.4 million and almost another year for school officials to decide how to use the funds with guidance from the task force.

The three-year plan seeks to address disparities such as literacy rates which indicate that students are not getting the foundational literacy skills they need. In the spring of 2023, 24.7% of students read three levels below their grade while only 13.5% of students could read at grade level. The plan includes enhanced literacy intervention in core and small group instruction, increased support for immigrant students, and resources for students to expand their learning at home.

Here are some of the key investment areas:

Increase the ratio of academic interventionists for K-4 students.
Bonuses for teachers in challenging positions.
Hire more teachers to reduce K-3 class sizes.
Supply supplemental reading programs with technology and new materials.
Expand City Year, an AmeriCorps program that sends success coaches into schools.
Hire one multilingual academic interventionist for every 42 students to support immigrant students and English language learners.
Increase available reading materials for children to use at home.

Auditing firm Plante Moran will generate a report of literary performance and the use of settlement funds each year for the board’s review. The audits will help the DPSCD board assess what’s working and what needs to change.

During an April district community meeting, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti also pointed out a caveat with the funding: “it’s one-time money,” he said. The district hopes to create long-term initiatives that can be funded in other ways once the lawsuit money ends.

Alex Klaus is a summer intern for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at aklaus@chalkbeat.org.