Contents of this issue:
Michigan Senate may propose financial manager for Detroit schools
International student enrollment drops at U.S. universities
Congress votes to tighten qualifications for Pell Grants
Oakland intermediate district may cut International Academy subsidy
Reasons for home-schooling increasingly diverse
Massachusetts officials may simplify teacher certification rules
MICHIGAN SENATE MAY PROPOSE FINANCIAL MANAGER FOR DETROIT SCHOOLS
DETROIT — Michigan Senate leaders may begin a legal process this week
that could result in the appointment of a state emergency financial
manager to oversee the Detroit Public Schools, the Detroit Free Press
has reported.
The Detroit school district is facing a two-year total budget deficit
of $198 million, according to projections that the district released
earlier this month. Republican lawmakers in the state Senate say they
will introduce a resolution that asks state Superintendent Tom Watkins
to assess the district's financial status.
Such a review could lay the groundwork under state law for appointing
an emergency financial manager for the district. This manager would be
given broad discretion to cut spending and personnel in order to
balance the district's budget.
The only school district to receive a state-appointed financial manager
under this emergency provision is Inkster. The Inkster district is now
in its third year of state financial management.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm has expressed skepticism about the Senate
proposal, according to the Free Press. She has issued a statement
indicating that Detroit already "has an emergency financial manager" in
district CEO Kenneth Burnley.
Watkins said that the state Department of Education might lend its
support to the district's proposal of a $200 million bond sale to
temporarily cover expenses. The bond sale would require the state
Legislature's approval, however. A spokesman for state Senate Majority
Leader Ken Sikkema told the Free Press that it "is not likely [Senate
leaders] are going to allow Detroit to borrow their way out of this
problem."
SOURCES:
Detroit Free Press, "Senate eyes school emergency," Nov. 24, 2004
https://www.freep.com/news/education/dps24e_20041124.htm
Detroit News, "State leaders to meet about Detroit schools,"
Nov. 28, 2004
https://www.detroitnews.com/2004/schools/0411/28/B01-17511.htm
Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "School Funding: Lack of Money or
Lack of Money Management?" August 2001
https://www.mackinac.org/3683
Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "The Six Habits of Fiscally
Responsible School Districts," December 2002
https://www.mackinac.org/4891
INTERNATIONAL STUDENT ENROLLMENT DROPS AT U.S. UNIVERSITIES
BOSTON — The Christian Science Monitor has reported that U.S. colleges
and universities last year experienced the first decline since 1971 in
the number of foreign students enrolled.
Experts gave several reasons for the decrease: federal government
delays in processing visas for foreign students; a slow U.S. economy;
and increased competition from higher education institutions elsewhere
in the world, especially those in English-speaking countries, such as
Australia, Canada and Britain. "Competition is out there, and that's
not just a phenomenon that's part of the post-9/11 period; that started
well before, and I think we were a little bit asleep at the wheel
because the U.S. had been so dominant as a destination for
international students," Ursula Oaks, a spokeswoman for NAFSA:
Association of International Educators, told the Monitor.
Even as several English-speaking countries have enjoyed noticeably
increased foreign enrollment in the past few years, foreign enrollment
in American higher education institutions was down 2.4 percent in the
2003-2004 school year, including a decline of 5 percent in foreign
undergraduates. Boston University Associate Provost John Ebersole told
the Monitor that to counter this trend, "We need to be thinking about a
major PR effort to convince international graduate students that they
are welcome here and that it's not as difficult to get a visa as maybe
it was a year or two ago."
SOURCES:
Christian Science Monitor, "Foreign enrollment drops at U.S. colleges,"
Nov. 16, 2004
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1116/p11s02-legn.html
Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "Immigration and Open Borders,"
November 1997
https://www.mackinac.org/681
Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "Private Prepaid Tuition Programs
Can Help Make College Affordable," September 2001
https://www.mackinac.org/3685
Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "Competition Among Professors Would
Help Parents Afford College," August 1999
https://www.mackinac.org/2105
CONGRESS VOTES TO TIGHTEN QUALIFICATIONS FOR PELL GRANTS
DETROIT — An omnibus spending bill awaiting approval by President Bush
would freeze the maximum per-student Pell Grant disbursement for the
third consecutive year and introduce rule changes reducing the amount
of money given to students using the program to finance their college
or university education, according to The Detroit News.
The maximum Pell Grant award would be $4,050 under the spending bill.
The News cited Brian Fitzgerald, staff director for the congressional
Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, as estimating that
revisions to the Pell Grant qualifications process may reduce federal
grants by about $300 for up to one million students and remove an
additional 90,000 students from the grant rolls entirely.
The $12.4 billion Pell Grant program suffers from a $4 billion total
shortfall, according to congressional Republicans, and the rule changes
under the proposed law would save the program $300 million. At the same
time, greater overall demand for the program's funds would increase
Pell disbursements under the proposal by $458 million. Fitzgerald
estimated that the number of students given Pell Grant monies has
increased 19 percent in the last two years, to roughly 5 million
students.
SOURCES:
Detroit News, "Congress curbs Pell Grants," Nov. 24, 2004
https://www.detroitnews.com/2004/schools/0411/24/A05-15081.htm
Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "Money and Red Tape," January 2004
https://www.mackinac.org/6094
Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "Private Prepaid Tuition Programs
Can Help Make College Affordable," September 2001
https://www.mackinac.org/3685
Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "Competition Among Professors Would
Help Parents Afford College," August 1999
https://www.mackinac.org/2105
OAKLAND INTERMEDIATE DISTRICT MAY CUT INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY SUBSIDY
DETROIT — In order to reduce its budget, The Oakland intermediate
school district may cut a subsidy to less wealthy school districts that
participate in the area's well-known International Academy, according
to The Detroit News.
Bloomfield Hills-based International Academy is a public high school
serving students in 11 Oakland County-area school districts and offers
the International Baccalaureate program to its students. The Oakland
intermediate district provides an annual $35,000 subsidy to four school
districts where per-pupil funding is less than the $7,500 cost of
attending the Academy. In addition, the Academy plans to open a second
campus, which would require a subsidy of more than $200,000 from the
Oakland intermediate district.
International Academy founder and Principal Bert Okma told the News
that the Oakland intermediate district's funding was important, and
that the school might search elsewhere for assistance: "We're looking
at other forms of support. It would be possible that we would make a
funding initiative to the private sector."
SOURCES:
Detroit News, "Oakland Schools may cut subsidy," Nov. 23, 2004
https://www.detroitnews.com/2004/schools/0411/23/B01-13597.htm
Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "The Six Habits of Fiscally
Responsible School Districts," December 2002
https://www.mackinac.org/4891
REASONS FOR HOME-SCHOOLING INCREASINGLY DIVERSE
ST. LOUIS — Parents are home-schooling their children for increasingly
diverse reasons, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Traci Hodges, a part-time consultant and business manager, told the
Post-Dispatch that she chose to home-school her daughter for both moral
and instructional reasons. According to the Post-Dispatch, Hodges does
not have "ultra-conservative moral and religious values" or "a fierce
belief in the right to keep government" out of her life, and she shares
responsibility for educating her daughter with her husband, who is an
emergency room doctor.
Hodges had to overcome inhibitions before reaching out to other home-schooling families. "Everyone has their preconceived notions of what a
home-school parent is like," Hodges told the Post-Dispatch. "But then
you learn that they come from all walks of life."
Other parents choose home-schooling because their child can receive
more individualized attention than is available at traditional schools.
"The teachers in the public schools are becoming very, very swamped
with a lot of paperwork and dealing with special-needs kids who are
being added to the classroom," said Nancy Schaaf, executive director of
the Dayspring Centre for Arts and Education in Maryland Heights, Mo.
Schaaf said that this problem precluded her son from receiving the best
possible education. "My child was going to school for seven hours a day
and not getting any attention. He was losing his excitement for
learning," she told the Post-Dispatch.
The federal government's National Center for Education Statistics
estimates that about 1.1 million children nationwide were home-schooled
last year. The National Home Education Research Institute in Salem,
Ore., calculates that home-schooling has increased about 7 percent
annually for the last four years.
SOURCES:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Home schooling is attracting mainstream
families," Nov. 28, 2004
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/education/story/ 324DBB26891133ED86256F5B00155C5B? OpenDocument&Headline=Home+schooling+is+attracting+mainstream+families
Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "Home Schoolers Make Case for School
Choice," May 2002
https://www.mackinac.org/4364
Michigan Education Report, "Home schooling works, study finds,"
Aug. 15, 1999
https://www.educationreport.org/2212
MASSACHUSETTS OFFICIALS MAY SIMPLIFY TEACHER CERTIFICATION RULES
BOSTON — According to a report in The Boston Globe, Massachusetts
Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll said last week that
Massachusetts must streamline its teacher certification rules in order
to maintain its current workforce, which is facing an imminent decline.
Driscoll told the Massachusetts Board of Education that nearly 40
percent of the state's teachers may retire within the next five years.
To alleviate the problem, "We should be offering incentives, not
barriers," he said, according to The Globe.
Revisions to state education programs have made teacher licensing rules
more complex in the past 10 years, the Globe reported. This complexity
led two board members to request more time to understand proposed
changes to the system, and the board postponed voting on the issue
until December.
"You should be able to tell someone in 10 minutes what they need to do
to become a teacher. And that's not happening now," Anne Wass, vice
president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, told the Globe.
"People are confused, and they don't get the answers. The system is so
difficult to navigate that it has really become a barrier to recruit
new teachers, especially those changing careers midlife."
SOURCES:
Boston Globe, "Simpler rules eyed for teacher licensing," Nov. 24, 2004
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2004/11/24/simpler_rules_eyed_for_teacher_licensing/
Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "Must Teachers Be Certified to
Be Qualified?" February 1999
https://www.mackinac.org/1651
Michigan Education Report, "Subject matter courses should drive a
teacher's schooling," Spring 2002
https://www.educationreport.org/pubs/mer/article.aspx?ID=4375
MICHIGAN EDUCATION DIGEST is a service of Michigan Education
Report (
https://www.educationreport.org),
a quarterly newspaper
with a circulation of 130,000 published by the Mackinac Center
for Public Policy (
https://www.mackinac.org),
a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institute.
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