EAS for Schools: Flatline Signal For DPS.

DPS is going to cut a lot of teachers, but the real story here is the end of the DPS as we know it.

The plan, basically the gutting of the Detroit Public Schools, isn’t just an example of improving school performance, but the process of introducing a new form of school management to the city. The various memos that tout this Education Achievement Authority quote schools that are no longer school districts, but hybrid charter school systems that are autonomous from a central hub.

Let’s be serious and honest about this. DPS is the remnant of a large-field funded system. Lots of people, little expenditure on education, lots of money to flow around. After a couple decades, a few protests, and a lot of politics, we’re out of money, and the large-field of citizenry is now a fraction of what it used to be as a tax base. The math is pretty grim, as well.

For the lowest 5 percent of schools qualified for the Education Achievement Authority (EAA), the premise is simple. Take the money usually doled out to districts/administrations/powerbrokers and give it to the schools itself.

This is a grand idea.. More on the consequences later.

This approach, to spend money given to schools on the schools focuses the effort to fix a school from within, not the politics of a bureaucracy and central district office structure.

But there are a few sets of consequences that accompany this type of program. The purpose of the EAA is to create a 5-year gap from DPS, and attempt to reinvent the problematic schools. After the 5-year period, these schools have a couple options:

1. Reintroduce the school into DPS, debts and all
2. Remain as a EAA school (if the kids are the problem, and not the system)
3. Choose to become an independent as a charter school.

Oh ho!

With this 3rd option, the endgame is pretty clear.

Now for the bad news past the promises of politics. When a school becomes part of the EAA, the district loses the per-pupil state aid for every student that comes with them.

For DPS, where nearly 80% of students are lunch-qualified or more, they already have a crushing deficit as-is. Even with teacher cuts, the gap is considerable, and the burden will place even more pressure on schools in the DPS that remain, now without the added volume of students that often provide more than just per-pupil funding. School Lunch programs are federally funded, offering a little margin to spread costs, and various access-to-federal money programs are no stranger to Detroit…

So when students are leaving the DPS for these new EAA schools (a deal that any parent should take advantage of)…what do you think is going to happen to all the other students in the system left behind?

Most parents will choose a school that puts 95% of their money into the school (EAA), not 55% (DPS). Simply put, it puts the premium on the school that gets the most bang for the buck. And some Detroit parents are going to wonder why their kid isn’t helped out, while the lowest 5% get the box seats. Added, parents won’t settle for 55% of their dollar, and demand DPS do what the EAA is doing as well. Fast-forward one election later, and DPS is toast.

EAA is also apparently permanent. It’s a system of recycling schools, but also allowing those schools to go indie once you throw real money at them. I can’t imagine a school wanting to go back after tasting 95% of their money, and then going back under the yoke of DPS, can you?

So let’s take the law as-is. For the next year, the lowest 5% of schools go EAA. But what happens after 2012? Do another 5% of schools go in, or the program expanded to the state? And where does that leave the districts of non-Detroit schools, often who need those kids to pay the bills?

Lots of odd questions like this enter into quasi-legislative declarations, especially when there are few concrete answers (even in hard data of the impact of these school movements, no study exists, just like impact studies of MBT repeal or ObamaCare savings for that matter).To be clear, I’m actually a fan of this type of program, but it’s really sketchy when it comes to the future of the entire district, and the cost burden it shifts to certain districts over others.

In my view, this plan will take the district apart, and put it back together with charter high schools. Reasons are pretty simple. First off, the Education Achievement Schools (EAS) consist of the lowest-performing 5% of DPS schools. That just coincidentally happens to be the 16 of the 20 high schools in the district. So EAA inherits the entire high school constituency (minus the magnets), where 95% of their money goes to their school and their school alone, while the other 4 schools get the leftovers, which is approximately a 55% share (DPS bureaucracy and debt accounts for 45% of your tax dollar).

Moreso, according to the claims of the EAS memo and FAQ (pdf), putting 95% of the school money into those schools. And that will fix the problem…Wait…More money…helps schools?

I mean, that’s what people have been saying all along, that more money for school equals better performance, and the EAA is offering a 40-point bump to all those schools, while letting the rest of the DPS schools sit idly with higher debt/pupil ratios and other fine “undetermined” factors that are taking place in 2012.

Put it all together, and you’ve got quite a recipe for change in the DPS, but also in the future of the DPS. One, the schools that are adopted into the EAS program are not only autonomous, but granted the right after the 5-year period to secede from the DPS Union. Two, the teachers in the EAS are provided the direct right to unionize, quite a clever move. It splits the unions up in a sense, because by logic, a teacher won’t be able to share contract status with one system over another system. DFT also notes that the teachers who don’t take an EAA position in an EAS school still belong to their union. That signals a fight for subscribers, or factions brewing in the future if schools start going independent.

The report indicates that as many as 16 of all 20 high schools in DPS are likely going to the EAA, or the entire high school cadre separated from the DPS for 5 years. And even before that 5 years, in June 2012, the DFT will have to renegotiate their contracts across 2 groups, not just one, and the EAA becomes a real authority.

And as for the politics of this, it’s really a big deal. It tests the bond of school to district, of teacher to school, and union. Already, the DFT is no stranger to infighting, but to have 2 entities at essentially different endgames, a teacher is in a very difficult place. If they choose EAA schools, they might be shunned as loyal DPS teachers after 5 years. They may not recognize service in the EAA program for seniority (as current DPS teachers fear losing their seniority if they leave DPS).

As well, for those who tout “redistribution”, this is one heck of a redistribution of tax dollars, both federal and state. It offers the worst 5% the best deal. And that’s questionable, because it’s not really backed up by any hard data or structure yet.

Gov. Snyder wants performance. He’s also bent quite a few rules towards that performance, and put other existing districts on notice, that if they fail to stay fiscall healthy, he’s going to redistribute their structure all over the playground. He’s taking all of those per-pupil dollars, and giving back to parents who desperately want a future for their kids, not the vaca loco of a select high-tier Administrator who earns 6 figures in a city that earns 1/4 as much.

It’s the real fight for our future, in my view. There will be problems, but the reform program before us is the future. The failure of decades of DPS “fixes” and federal/state money grabs has led us to this point.

Lots of teachers will be out of work, and most of them, dang good ones. Gov. Snyder might lose his majority after this as well, as that many layoffs might hit attract cheeseheads who opposed Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin.

It’s also a political question for the road ahead. If DPS bureaucracy and debt service accounts for 45% of all the funding for the district…Why are teachers the ones burdening the price? The pension narrative as well, that old folks who worked hard are paying for the elimination of the business tax…It’s gonna be a doozy. Teach On, Teach. Mako out.