Republicans in the state Senate say it’s time to go back to the drawing board on a bill that would facilitate state takeovers of struggling schools.
As The Michigan Public Radio Network’s Jake Neher reports, they’re not happy with a version that passed in the state House last month.
Lawmakers in the House added several things Republican Senators don’t like to the bill. For one, they capped the number of schools the state’s Education Achievement Authority could take over at 50. They also put in language that would let regional public school officials take control of the schools instead of the state.
Phil Pavlov chairs the Senate Education Committee. He says he won’t take a vote on the bill until at least some of those things are taken out.
“We need to get support for it,” he says. “So we’re taking a look at the changes the House made and coming up with some potential solutions.”
Critics of expanding the Education Achievement Authority say it hasn’t been proven to turn around struggling schools and strips away local control.
