Poor Mojo's Newswire

The Education Achievement Authority is a new favorite project of the Governor’s. He’s talked frequently about his desire to expand the authority statewide and grow it exponentially while continuously removing local control from our neighborhood schools. Even at a time that Governor Snyder is starving every other school district in the state, he gladly threw an additional $2 million at the EAA in an attempt to show it’s succeeding, but the reality is, it isn’t.

In the latest MEAP scores issued just last week, only 0.9% of 3rd grade students in the EAA tested as "proficient" in reading and math. You read that correctly – less than one percent of 3rd graders in schools operated by the EAA are reading and writing at a level we should consider acceptable, a disgraceful number that the Governor should be embarrassed by.

And what about charter schools that the Governor continues to tout as better alternatives to our traditional public schools? Just last week again, it was discovered that at least 8 teachers at a new Muskegon Heights charter school system were teaching in classrooms despite lacking proper certification. These uncertified and unqualified teachers were brought in to replace highly skilled teachers at the school following its conversion to a charter system not because it was in the students’ best interest, but because it saved the company running the schools money and increased their profits.

To put it simply, Governor Snyder’s education plan is a disaster. Schools are meant to be places of learning and growth, not places where CEOs are cutting corners to turn a higher profit.