What happens when policymakers create statewide school districts to turn around their worst-performing public schools? In Louisiana and Tennessee, Recovery School Districts (RSDs) have made modest-to-strong progress for kids and serve as national models for what the future of education governance might hold.
In the Great Lakes State, the story is more complicated.
In Redefining the School District in Michigan, Nelson Smith, senior advisor to the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, examines the progress of the Education Achievement Authority. Unlike the larger RSDs, Michigan’s is a smaller effort with just fifteen schools, all in Detroit, and a big focus on competency-based learning.
As the policy brief attests, the EAA model—direct-run schools with limited reliance on chartering and a high-tech approach—is far from the catastrophe that some critics claim. Yet its detractors aren’t all wrong. There have been many hurdles. The EAA was rolled out on a tight timeline and a shoestring budget, amid urban decline in Detroit. It would have taken a miracle for this to work out well. (Which is something policymakers might have considered before pursuing this path.) Further, its governance arrangement is a Rube Goldberg invention of epic proportions.
The reality of the EAA is not as disastrous as you may have heard. But it’s also not a success like the RSD or ASD—both of which are improving outcomes, albeit slowly, for kids. Which might make its cautionary lessons that much more important for other states thinking of going down this route.
The key takeaway from Fordham’s report is that neither statewide school districts nor blended, competency-based learning are silver bullets.
Download Redefining the School District in Michigan to learn more.
This is the second brief in a three-part series. Find the first policy brief, Redefining the School District in Tennessee, here.
