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K-12
Op-Ed: The Education Reform Conversation We Need Is Not the One We Keep Having
by Jeff Bryant
TWO VIDEOS CAPTURED just about everything you need to know about the status of the movement known as “education reform.” The first filmed event was a staged encounter between two prominent advocates for what is…
Testing Ann Arbor Public Schools On Its Release Of Public Records
In May 2012 former Superintendent Dr. Patricia Green told parents to use the Freedom of Information Act to access public records and information. The new Superintendent urges transparency and minimal reliance FOIA for routine requests. …
5 Big Education Stories to Watch in 2014
by Owen Davis
FOR PEOPLE LOOKING to “disrupt” public education, it’s become requisite to bemoan the “educational status quo” — a phrase meant to evoke images of poor kids striving against the impediments of failing schools and…
$1.5M Diverted From Public Schools Used For Ann Arbor SPARK Salaries, Marketing & Legal Fees
Using a tax increment financing scheme, since 2006, over $5 million dollars have been diverted from the cash-strapped public schools and given to Ann Arbor SPARK officials.
WHILE ANN ARBOR Public Schools officials, parents and students…
Eastern Michigan University Hires Van Scoyoc Associates To Lobby In DC
SPENDING ON LOBBYING was down across the board in 2012, but the education industry led the way in tightening the purse strings. According to OpenSecrets.org, “In 2011, the industry, which includes both for-profit and nonprofit colleges and…
ACLU Supports DOJ Guidance On Discipline Gaps Such As The One In The Ann Arbor Public Schools
THE DISCIPLINE GAP. Put simply, the term describes the gap between the number of minority students (primarily Black and Hispanic) and white students who are formally disciplined and/or expelled from the public schools they attend. Data from…
Deliverance: The Core is Rotten
by Warren Liverance
LATELY, BOTH LIBERAL and conservative blogospheres are abuzz with discussion of the “The Common Core.” It seems that for once, the majority of both sides oppose something that would be bad for the country. Since this…
EDITORIAL: AAPS Targets Hunger
IN A RECENT issue of The Ann Arbor Independent, the newspaper published an article which identified a cluster of Ann Arbor elementary schools at which fewer than 10 percent of the fifth grade students have scored “Advanced” on the MEAP in…
Keeping Tabs—Locals To Watch In 2014: Dr. Jeanice Kerr Swift
Listening her way across the city. Budgeting her way to perdition.
Dr. Jeanice K. Swift was not the Ann Arbor Board of Education’s first choice to lead the Ann Arbor Public Schools. The search for Dr. Patricia Green’s replacement began…
MEAP Data Reveal That 5th Graders At One-Third Of Ann Arbor Schools Perform At Levels Consistent With Schools In Nation’s Poorest Inner-City Districts
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT SHOULDN’T be predicated on which of Ann Arbor’s 21 public elementary schools a child attends. The AAPS elementary curriculum is standardized throughout the District, and teachers are uniformly compensated, qualified,…