MME

“Roy Roberts’ proposed FY2012 operating budget recycles the errant academic projections and plans of his predecessor. Replicating the previous plan indicates that we can expect a continued decrease in academic performance, enrollment, and financial solvency.”

DPS PERFORMANCE ON MME STAGNANT UNDER ROBERT BOBB, ACCORDING TO DATA RELEASED TODAY

YET NEW EM ROY ROBERTS PLANS TO CONTINUE BOBB’S ACADEMIC REFORMS

By Dr. Thomas C. Pedroni

June 27, 2011

Although MME scores increased marginally in all areas except Social Studies and Science in the years 2007-2009, these gains disappeared beginning in 2010, the year Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb unveiled an academic plan to increase proficiency in all tested subject areas to 100 percent by 2014.  MME scores showed marginal gains in Math, Reading, and Writing between 2007 and 2009, before Bobb was appointed the district’s first Emergency Financial Manager, while scores in Science remained level and Social Studies scores decreased.  However between 2009 and 2011, the years of Bobb’s tenure, marginal gains in Reading and Writing scores were erased, while Science scores decreased and Social Studies scores plummeted, from 55 percent to 46 percent proficiency.  Math proficiency also increased marginally in the period 2009-2011, from 16 to 17 percent proficiency; however scores had been improving at a more rapid pace between 2007 and 2009.

Proficiency Scores on the Michigan Merit Exam, 2007-2011, by Subject*

*Data retrieved June 27, 2011 from http://www.mdoe.state.mi.us/MDEDocuments/2007-2011MMEPublicSchoolssortablebyISD,District&Building.xls

The downward trend in MME scores comes at a time when Emergency Manager Roy Roberts, a Snyder appointee, has newly taken the reins from the first Emergency Manager.  Although Roberts has modified certain aspects of Bobb’s overall action plan for the district, his June 2011 FY2012 Budget Proposal adopts Bobb’s March 2010 Academic Plan in its entirety, including its projections for test score increases in the MME, which according to Bobb were to steadily increase to 100 percent proficiency in all subject areas by 2014.  The following chart on projected proficiency in Math is reproduced from page 88 of Roberts’ 2011 Budget Proposal, but also appeared on page 8 of Bobb’s 2010 Academic Plan.

Notably, when Bobb’s projections were released in 2010, the actual 2010 and 2011 MME scores were not known.  Despite the present availability of the data, Roberts’ budget does not include the 2010 or 2011 data.   The following chart layers the actual MME data on top of Bobb’s and Roberts’ projections.

Implications: Academic achievement and financial solvency require a new academic plan and a new academic vision. 

Roy Roberts’ Proposed Budget recycles the errant academic projections and plans of his predecessor, jeopardizing the district’s academics and finances. The original Emergency Financial Manager, Robert Bobb, argued that he needed to control academics for the district because of the close relationship between academics and finance.  Financial pressures were closely related to declining enrollments, as each student who left the district took thousands of dollars of per pupil revenue with him or her.  By controlling academics, the EMF argued, he could stave the plummet in enrollment.  However, academic performance on the MME has in many cases stagnated or marginally declined under the first Emergency Manager, and has not followed the trajectory of improvement that Bobb had envisioned.  Had the new Emergency Manager, Roy Roberts, included the most updated academic data when constructing his proposed budget rather than his predecessor’s errant projections, he might recognize the need for a dramatically different academic path than that of his predecessor.  Replicating the previous EM’s academic plan, as the current EM has done, seems to indicate that we can expect a continued decrease in academic performance, enrollment, and financial solvency.