Detroit News
January 18, 2013
Michigan earned an “A” for its charter school laws, according to a report card issued this week by the Center for Education Reform.
The organization issues the assessment annually, ranking states according to the strength and quality of their charter school laws.
Michigan was ranked No. 4 on this year’s list, up from No. 5 last year. The top four all received a letter grade of “A” on the report card, including Washington, D.C., Minnesota and Indiana.
Michigan received high marks in the areas of authorizer quality, school autonomy and teacher freedom. It got low marks for facilities and funding equity.
Michigan has passed a number of charter school reforms in the past two years, including lifting the cap on university-authorized charter schools and removing many of the limits on cyber charter schools, along with strengthening accountability measures for all charter schools.
“Michigan’s ‘A’ is very well-deserved,” said Dan Quisenberry, president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies.
“This report card is an accurate reflection of the positive strides we’ve made and the work that still needs to be done. The climate for quality public education in Michigan is much better now than it was a couple years ago, but as the report card points out, charter schools still aren’t being treated equally when it comes to equity in funding and facilities. We’re an ‘A’ now, but we need to be an ‘A-plus’ if we want our educational system to be truly great.”
On Monday a report released by an independent analyst of charter schools shows charter school students in Michigan and Detroit are out-learning their public school counterparts.
The study, done by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes, found the typical Michigan charter school student school gained more learning in a year than a district school peer — an advantage of about an additional two months of reading and math learning.
The learning advantage was even greater for students in Detroit charter schools, which make up 27 percent of the state’s charter students, on average gaining nearly three months achievement for each year they attend charter schools.