House Passes DPS Plan
House Passes Plan for Detroit Schools
Last week, the House of Representatives passed their plan for Detroit Public Schools on a party line vote.
The House plan creates and funds a new school district that is responsible for educating students, employing teachers and maintaining buildings, while the current school district will exist solely to collect taxes and pay down incurred debt.
Notably, the district eliminates the Detroit Education Commission (DEC), which was included in the Senate-passed Detroit education plan. This commission would be appointed by the mayor and responsible for approving the opening of new schools, helping to ensure academic quality and placement in areas where additional seats are needed. In a recent report on charter authorizer quality, Ed Trust-Midwest recommended providing special authority for high-challenge jurisdictions to provide coordination and ensure quality in high-challenge jurisdictions. The DEC is an example of how this could be structured.
Instead, the House bills expand the authority of the Detroit Financial Review Commission to oversee district finances and approve the appointment of a school superintendent.
The package of bills includes: House Bill 5382 (Pscholka – R), HB 5383 (Price – R), HBs 5384 and 5387 (Garica – R), Senate Bills 711 and 820 (Hansen – R), and SB 822 (Knezek – D).
Achieving Equitable Access to #StrongTeachers? New Guide for District Leaders
Changing long-established patterns of assigning teachers is a challenging undertaking, with no one-size-fits-all answer. Achieving Equitable Access to Strong Teachers: A Guide for District Leadersuses a seven-stage process, reinforced with examples of what districts are doing, to ensure all students have access to high-quality teachers. District leaders can use this guide to explore causes of inequities, set equity-oriented goals and develop strategies to ensure equitable access to effective teachers.
Additionally, many districts have already started a process to understand and improve student access to #StrongTeachers. Our partners at the Education Delivery Institute have co-released a self-assessment tool that district teams can use to reflect on what stage they are in and move forward from there.
