Dive Brief:

• Michigan's School Reform Office, which falls under the purview of Gov. Rick Snyder, will assess the Education Achievement Authority's performance and overall role in Detroit's education landscape.
• The state-run district was created in 2011 to serve the bottom 5% of the state's schools, but it only ended up running in Detroit, where it took over 13 low-performing public schools and 2 charter schools.
• The EAA has been rife with issues since the start — not only do many view it as undemocratic and taking power away from what should be an elected school board, but it has not seen academic improvements.

Dive Insight:

During the 2013-14 school year, the district’s standardized test scores showed not only stagnation but declines.

Dr. Thomas Pedroni of Detroit’s Wayne State University analyzed the results and found that, of the students who already lacked proficiency before entering the EAA, in math, “78.3% showed either no progress toward proficiency (44.1%) or actual declines (34.2%). In reading, 58.5% showed either no progress toward proficiency (27.3%) or actual declines (31.2%).”

He then analyzed those who were actually proficient before entering the EAA and found that, during 2013's MEAP math test, only 10 of 56 students who scored proficient the prior year remained proficient at the same level or higher. The other 46 declined.

While a lack of academic success is an issue, there is also the problem of the district's curriculum. A Fall 2014 investigation of the district's curriculum exposed how for-profit tech company Agiliix used the EAA to test a new learning management system that it hoped to then market to other districts.  Using marginalized students as guinea pigs for a new tech curriculum doesn't typically bode well.