Michigan: To close up to 25 low-performing schools

Students walk outside Pershing High School on Friday in Detroit. Pershing is one of the schools Michigan plans to close because of academic failures.
Students walk outside Pershing High School on Friday in Detroit. Pershing is one of the schools Michigan plans to close because of academic failures.

LANSING, Mich. -- Michigan announced Friday that it plans to close up to 25 underperforming schools in Detroit and in other urban communities in a move that would affect 18,000 students.

Despite the announcement, some schools likely will remain open. State officials will determine whether a closure would be an "unreasonable hardship" for children with no better schools to attend. Lawsuits challenging any closures also are likely.

The announcement occurred in conjunction with the release of Michigan's school rankings, which are based on standardized test results, students' improvement over time and the gap between the best-performing and worst-performing pupils. Michigan law says the state can close schools that have been in the bottom 5 percent for at least three consecutive years if other forms of state intervention have not worked.

State-ordered closings appear to be rare nationally. Texas has closed entire school districts for failing to meet attendance and other standards. Other cities such as Detroit and Chicago have closed several schools at a time to address falling enrollment, sparking protests for safety and other reasons.

Fewer than half of states have school accountability systems that allow for closures, and the option "has been used infrequently by states," said Jennifer Thomsen with the Education Commission of the States. "It seems to happen more at the individual district level."

Twenty-four of the schools targeted for closure are in Detroit, a predominantly black city with the worst academically performing school district of its size in the U.S. The rest are in cities such as Kalamazoo and Saginaw.

The plan drew sharp criticism from teachers' groups.

"Simply closing schools and upending the lives of students won't fix any problems if the root causes are not adequately addressed," said Steven Cook, president of the Michigan Education Association, the state's largest teachers' union.

The move follows attempts by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder to use state law to exert near-total state financial control of some cities, such as Detroit during its bankruptcy and Flint during its water disaster.

In 2015, Snyder took over the office charged with turning around the lowest-performing schools by transferring its functions to a department that reports to him instead of the elected state Board of Education. He cited unsatisfactory progress and said no schools in the bottom 5 percent had been placed in a state turnaround district as authorized under a 2009 law.

The law lets the state impose one of four intervention models, including closure, if a school's "redesign" plan is not working. Last week, a GOP state senator introduced legislation to repeal the intervention law, calling it defective and in need of a fix now that state powers are being used more aggressively.

In deciding which schools will close, state officials in the coming weeks will look at whether there are nearby schools that rank higher academically and could handle additional enrollment.

"Our goal is to make sure that every kid in the state of Michigan has access to a quality education so they have the skills necessary for a high-wage job, a career or college. That's the only way really to end multigenerational poverty for a large majority of the children in the schools that we're serving," said Natasha Baker, the state's school reform officer.

The Education Achievement Authority, the state-run entity that was intended as a turnaround district for Detroit's lowest-performing schools when Snyder created it in 2011, said it was disappointed to see eight of its 14 schools on the list for possible closure. The other 16 Detroit schools on the list are in the Detroit Public Schools Community District.

"Today's public announcement comes without input from districts, educators or community. This should make us all question the validity of this action," said Education Achievement Authority Chancellor Veronica Conforme.

She and Chris Wigent, executive director of the Michigan Association of School Administrators, said the state used flawed data. State assessments have changed every year since the 2014-15 academic year, "so there is no consistent data upon which to base these closings," Wigent said.

Until Friday, the state had only once before ordered school closings for academic reasons. Those closures in 2010 and 2011 involved two charter schools, which are independent public schools, a model that is especially prevalent in Detroit. Other charters have been closed by universities and others who run them.

The state's charter school group, the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, backed Friday's announcement.

"Nobody likes to see a school close, but we support the state taking this responsibility seriously," said Dan Quisenberry, president of the group. "Our kids deserve better."

Information for this article was contributed by Will Weissert and Don Babwin of The Associated Press.

A Section on 01/21/2017

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