ETMidwest Press Releases

ROYAL OAK, MICH. (April 27, 2012) –Today the Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness released its initial report on the development of the first statewide educator evaluation system, a pioneering and overdue effort to improve Michigan public schools and student achievement.   The Council offers a sound, meticulous plan for its work – and rightly calls for legislative funding to pilot the proposed new system and full-time staff.

For years, too many Michigan teachers have received cursory support and monitoring of their classroom performance, if they received any attention and training at all. The Council’s detailed report aims to reverse this trend.  It recommends a pilot of three respected teacher observation models – expected to be fully developed later this year – to ensure that teacher evaluation tools are fair, reliable and consistent, from school to school and across the state. The Council also announced it would issue recommendations on other components of its evaluation model – including how to best measure student growth – later this year. The Education Trust-Midwest is gratified by the urgency the Council is bringing to its mission.

ROYAL OAK, MICH. (February 9, 2012) – A new report by The Education Trust-Midwest shows Michigan’s higher-income and white students’ achievement has declined significantly compared with other states.  While the poor performance of low-income and minority students has been the subject of intense debate in the past year, national data show Michigan students – from all socioeconomic backgrounds – have lost ground to their peers across the nation since 2003.

In fourth-grade math, for instance, Michigan’s white students have fallen from 13th in the nation in 2003 to 45th in 2011 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). White students now rank behind 34 states and the District of Columbia in fourth-grade reading – an important predictor of future achievement.

ANN ARBOR, MI  (December 7, 2011) – Detroit’s student achievement continues to be devastatingly low -- and has changed very little since 2009 -- according to today’s release of results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

The NAEP’s Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) for fourth-grade and eighth-grade reading and math shows Detroit’s performance is abysmal, ranking last in fourth-grade math, fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math. Detroit ranks second to last in eighth-grade reading. Detroit’s African American performance, which ranked last in 2009 for fourth- and eighth-grade math and reading, continues to be last in fourth-grade math.  Though Detroit Latino students’ scores increased slightly in fourth- and eighth-grade reading, they are still performing far below the national average.

ANN ARBOR, MICH.  (November 1, 2011) — Michigan now consistently ranks in the bottom of states in both performance and improvement in student achievement, after a continued relative decline, according to data released today from the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress.  Michigan’s African American children now perform among the worst in the nation for black children.

Michigan’s continued descent – falling from a relative rank of 28th in 2003 to 35th today in the U.S. in fourth-grade reading – demonstrates the importance of educational leadership in the performance of our schools.  Other states have continued to improve their levels of student learning on the national assessment.  In comparison, Michigan’s performance on the NAEP – the best gauge of student learning across states -- has remained relatively stagnant.

ANN ARBOR, MICH. (September 23, 2011) - Today President Barack Obama announced a plan to waive some of the federal accountability provisions of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), presenting an opportunity for Michigan to re-think its educational strategies.  

"Our state's leaders should seize this rare opportunity to do what's best for Michigan's students," said Amber Arellano, executive director of The Education Trust-Midwest, Michigan's only state-wide education organization that advocates on behalf of students.  "It will require our state leaders to come to the table quickly, and to step up to meet these worthwhile federal requirements that serve all of our children."”

ANN ARBOR, MICH. (August 19, 2011) - Every year Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll produces a report on Americans’ view of education.  This 43rd Annual report dives into the attitudes toward public schools.  This 43rd Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll contains commentary by Amber Arellano, executive director of the Education Trust-Midwest and other Americans regarding attitudes toward the public schools.

DETROIT, MICH. (April 27, 2011) —Today, Gov. Rick Snyder moved to make students a higher priority and to ensure that all of Michigan’s classrooms are staffed by high-quality teachers.  We applaud his recognition of the importance of teachers to our students, but urge him to take further steps to ensure that his proposals are smartly implemented. Students must remain a top priority as the state pursues the governor’s ideas, such as performance bonuses and charter school expansion.

The Education Trust-Midwest has advocated rigorously for Gov. Snyder to enact dramatic teacher quality reforms.  The Snyder administration has paid attention, and is proposing revamping Michigan tenure law and teacher lay-off policies. Today, the governor proposed to award tenure based on three years of effective teacher performance.  He also pushed for teaching performance to trump seniority in school lay-off and placement decisions.

ANN ARBOR, MICH. -- (February 9, 2011) The Michigan State Board of Education voted to become more honest with Michiganders about how well their children are achieving. It was a tiny step, however, in the state's progress to ensure that all of our state's children are prepared to work and succeed in the global community.

The state board voted to raise the "cut scores" on Michigan’s state assessments—the cut-off point for student test-takers between proficiency and lack of proficiency. As a result, data will line up more honestly with scoring systems on national assessments and Michigan parents are less likely to have a false sense of confidence about their schools' performance.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (January 13, 2011) – Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Detroit Public School district is not Michigan’s lowest performing district for some groups of students. In fact, a handful of other districts score tragically below the Motor City on key state tests, according to a new report from The Education Trust-Midwest.

In the report “Becoming a Leader in Education: An Agenda for Michigan,” Ed Trust-Midwest presents evidence of poor academic results statewide. It also provides a roadmap for Governor Rick Snyder and the new state legislature to reverse those trends and help Michigan make itself a national education leader.

Michigan is among the nation’s lowest performing states on national school assessments, a reality masked by the fact that the vast majority of Michigan children—about four out of every five elementary and middle schoolers—are meeting less-rigorous state standards. Higher income students as well as lower income students score substantially behind their peers in other states. Hardly just a K-12 education problem, Michigan’s beloved colleges and universities are not producing enough qualified graduates to build the knowledge-economy workforce needed to attract new employers to the state.