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| Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons |
Advocates for
the EAA argue that “real” education reform takes five to seven years to show
success, according to the Detroit News, and thus the EAA should be allowed
to continue, despite voters’ wishes. In reality, there is no consensus about
what “real” reform even means, let alone any evidence that reforms share a five
to seven year timeframe. Nevertheless, if the EAA were allowed to continue its
control over these schools, we would likely
never know if they “improved,” since the new legislation would exempt EAA
students from the state exams that are used to compare schools and judge their
success.
The EAA was
a corporate coup that usurped local control of 15 Detroit schools from parents
and the community and handed it over to an unaccountable cabal of business
leaders. The new legislation not only keeps the schools out of the jurisdiction
of Detroit Public Schools, it also allows the EAA to work outside the authority
of the state superintendent and elected state school board. It would also be
permitted to take over hundreds of other low performing schools throughout the
state, as well as many that are not low performing, potentially making the EAA the
largest school district in the state.
The EAA was
never really about improving educational outcomes for low income students, as
proponents have argued. Rather, it is about transferring tax dollars into the
hands of private education profiteers. The agency was described by its
chancellor, John Covington, as a “public body corporate,” according to an
article in Counter Punch, which describes the EAA as a
“for-profit” vulture seeking to take over financial control of the
50,000-student, predominantly poor and black school district. The EAA was
created in 2011 as a joint venture between Eastern Michigan University’s board
of regents and DPS, with the support of Gov. Rick Snyder, who hired a former GM
executive to manage it. (It should be pointed out that soon after Covington
left his former district, Kansas City, the district lost its accreditation).
The EAA
funnels public funds into the hands of private corporations by outsourcing many
of its education services, including food concessions and maintenance. It can
also profit by leasing or selling unused school buildings to private charter
schools. The curriculum is heavily based on canned computer lessons purchased
from Agilix and School Improvement Network, the Huffington Post reports. Each child gets an
individualized learning plan ostensibly tailored to his or her needs. However,
these plans are tied to the computer lessons, which students must master before
advancing to the next level. Thus students are tied to their computers and the
digital curriculum, while the companies that produce the curriculum are
guaranteed long-term customers.
Supporters
argue that the curriculum and pedagogy are “student-centered,” which is a
catchy edu-babble way of saying it is superior to other pedagogies. One EAA teacher
even invoked Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of
the Oppressed, suggesting that the EAA digital curriculum was a positive
move away from the didactic, “banking” model of traditional public
schools, according to the Counter Punch piece.
Of course
this is completely absurd. While the curriculum may in fact be adaptable to the
needs of each individual student, it also isolates students from their peers
and denies them the social aspects of learning. Placing children in front of
computers for hours at a time is not only unhealthy physically; it also
undermines their development of communication and collaborative skills. But it
may help them adapt more easily to a future career in an office cubicle.
The EAA’s
digital pedagogy is just another form of “blended learning,” one of the many trendy
national “reforms” that undermine the quality of education and the integrity of
the teaching profession in order to transfer public education revenues to the
private sector while weakening the public sector unions. With a uniform curriculum
created by outsiders and imposed on all students, there is no longer a need for
skilled, credentialed teachers. A warm body will suffice—somebody who can take
attendance, make sure kids stay on task, and send them to the office when they
misbehave.
The EAA’s
assault on teachers goes well beyond the deskilling of the teaching profession.
EAA teachers have been stripped of their collective bargaining rights and they
are paid less than their peers in DPS. The EAA is also forcing them to pay for 40%
of their own medical benefits, while depriving them of pensions, according to the
Detroit Free Press. They are also required to work 40
more days than their colleagues in DPS.
