THE WHITMORE LAKE Public Schools may be a short distance from Ann Arbor just up US-23, but the two school districts are plagued by the same financial woes and the Whitmore Lake district’s student performance as measured by the MEAP, SAT and ACT, as well as state college readiness measurements are a world apart. Annexing the Whitmore Lake district, which has under $50,000 left in its rainy day fund, will bring a school district which is an inch away from the imposition of an Emergency Manager under the aegis of the Ann Arbor Board of Education.
While the AAPS would grow to become the fourth largest district in the state, it’s hard to see how an annexation improves the achievement gap that has plagued the Ann Arbor Public Schools for decades or provides additional state funding sufficient to reverse the trend of spending less on instruction by increasing class sizes, cutting programs and shifting more costs to parents.
Frankly, while Superintendent Dr. Jeanice Swift has shown she can put money back into her own district’s rainy day fund—equal to about half of a percent of her 2014-2015 budget—she has not followed through on important initiatives, such as food pantries to combat student hunger. Her budget was balanced on the backs of janitors and teacher pay freezes coupled with poaching students from surrounding districts. We believe this is not a sustainable fiscal model, nor a socio-economic one we support.
According to data released by the state, approximately one out of two Pioneer High School students graduate college ready. In the Whitmore Lake District, one in four high school students is college ready when they graduate. Whitmore Lake reading and math proficiency at all levels is lower than in the AAPS.
The Whitmore Lake Superintendent is retiring and Dr. Swift is just beginning. She has no track record of success with respect to newly implemented programs, or strategies. We believe it’s more prudent to document success and build on outcomes. Coupled with concerns that Dr. Swift has not yet implemented zero-based budgeting—a change local business leaders recommend—we cannot support AAPS officials spending time or resources on the annexation of a financially failing nearby school district.
Look at it as a strategic move in an age when everyone is pushing government to consolidation.
There are no short term gains.
Worrying about Ann Arbor’s achievement gap solves nothing. Student achievement isn’t driven by school programs. It’s driven by parents who value achievement and are role models of academic achievement.
If this is true:
“Estimated new foundation grant of $9,095 bringing in more than $1.7 million in new revenue”
Then Ann Arbor just turned down a chance to increase state funding for Whitmore Lake kids by $2,000 per student while stabilizing their declining enrollment.
Next time Ann Arbor Schools spends 20,000 on a marketing campaign for schools of choice kids that come to the district with lower per-pupil funding-stealing kids from districts who can’t afford to lose them — remember you turned this win-win proposal
Like the county road millage where local government is doing the job of state government in financing infrastructure, the annexation of WL is much the same. Ann Arbor taxpayers are being told that the right thing to do is to ‘rescue’ the WL district from financial insolvency.
No thanks.
The superintendent who ran that district into the red is riding off into the sunset with a pension. This, alone, is a picture that should anger voters in Ann Arbor. The leaders of that district built a $60 million dollar high school on a gamble. They gambled badly. Now, pension in hand, the leader who did it is asking Ann Arbor to take a gamble.
Amen. There is no way this annexation is going to improve the quality of education in the AAPS. There are so many unanswered questions.