Eastern Michigan University faculty balks at involvement in Detroit school reforms

From The Detroit Free Press: As Eastern Michigan University's Board of Regents voted to take part in a new school district to reform the state's worst-performing schools, faculty leaders promised not to do any work in Detroit that might help bust union contracts. Detroit Public Schools emergency manager Roy Roberts would lead the new district, called the Education Achievement System, and he would be given the power to nullify or change union contracts. EMU President Susan Martin says no faculty will be assigned to any work in a school in Detroit. But union leaders are skeptical, saying the reform proponents appeared to pledge Eastern Michigan faculty involvement.

EARLIER...
From The Detroit News: More than three dozen poorly performing Detroit Public Schools will be effectively removed from the district in 2012 and put under a new state-run program designed to provide more resources in classrooms and give more control to principals, parents and teachers. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and the district's emergency manager, Roy Roberts, announced plans for an overhaul of the system's worst schools. The changes will go into effect in 2012-13; the coming year will be used to "incubate" the program and prepare the schools for the changes.

SIDEBAR from The Detroit News: The turnaround district that Michigan is creating to improve Detroit's lowest-achieving schools most mirrors the Recovery School District that oversees most of the public schools in New Orleans. Paul Vallas, who ran Louisiana's Recovery School District until May, notes that Detroit's schools face similar challenges to those that confronted Orleans Parish after damage from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 devastated the area.