Less than nine weeks after Gov. Rick Snyder appointed Joyce Parker as emergency manager for the Highland Park School District, Parker finds herself a defendant in a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU lawsuit notes that a paucity of Highland Park students have met the state’s proficiency benchmark in reading, and alleges that the district failed to provide adequate assistance to students who were not reading at grade level. Just 35 percent of fourth-grade students and 25 percent of seventh-graders scored "proficient" on state standardized tests.

It is commendable that the ACLU is advocating for higher academic standards in Michigan public schools. But one of the ACLU’s arguments is that though the emergency manager has “intervened on account of extreme financial mismanagement … it has not done the same with regard to the severe instructional failures in the schools. … ”

In fact, addressing the district’s financial mismanagement may be the best way to locate resources for greater academic support to students.  Highland Park has been spending a lot: For the 2010-11 school year, Highland Park reported spending almost $20,000 per student. That’s 70 percent more than the statewide average of $11,560.

One might expect after reading the ACLU lawsuit that a disproportionate amount of that money did not go to directly and efficiently educating Highland Park students. That appears to be the case when the district’s expenditures are compared to statewide averages.

For instance, Highland Park spent $1,009 per student on administrators’ salaries and benefits during the 2011 school year. That’s 50 percent more than the statewide average.

But that’s not the only place Highland Park overspent. The district reported spending about $2.5 million on employee health insurance, about $2,164 per student. It exceeded the state average here by 58 percent.

One particularly disheartening paragraph of the ACLU’s brief describes 50 students being crammed into a single classroom for an entire semester, with some students forced to stand for lack of chairs. And yet, according to state data, Highland Park still managed to employ more teachers per student than the statewide average. The district reported employing one full-time teacher for every 13 students, whereas the state average is one full-time teacher for every 17 students.

Though Highland Park reported employing a large proportion of teachers, according to the ACLU filing many didn’t teach: Some teachers allowed students to sleep at their desks during class time and others failed to provide direct instruction.

The powers of school district emergency managers are broad, and include the ability to rearrange district finances and to sidestep previous restrictions that may have allowed ineffective teachers to continue to teach students.

Highland Park is a district where such powers are, sadly, needed. But it may take more than the two months granted Parker to shift district resources away from waste, like an overly large administrative staff, to helping students read. 

The House and Senate are in the midst of a summer break, so rather than votes, this report instead contains several newly introduced bills of interest.

Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting

Senate Bill 1110 and House Bill 5579: Require gross negligence for suits against emergency room physicians
Introduced by Sen. Roger Kahn (R) and Rep. Kenneth Horn (R), respectively, to restrict medical malpractice lawsuits against emergency room physicians to cases of gross negligence. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

Senate Bill 1111: Establish that emergency managers do not have eminent domain powers
Introduced by Sen. Coleman Young (D), to establish that emergency managers appointed by the state to manage fiscally failed cities and school districts do not have the power to condemn property and exercise the power eminent domain. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

Senate Bill 1116: Raise medical malpractice burden of proof
Introduced by Sen. Arlan Meekhof (R), to establish “the exercise of medical judgment” as a valid defense in medical malpractice cases, defined as a “reasonable and good-faith belief that the person's conduct is both well founded in medicine and in the best interests of the patient.” This would be a “question of law” for the court to decide. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

Senate Bill 1132: Allow one married person to adopt
Introduced by Sen. John Pappageorge (R), to allow a married person to adopt an adult as an individual rather than as a married couple, if all the parties agree. This might be done for purposes of inheritance. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

Senate Bill 1138: Post medical provider complaint statistics online
Introduced by Sen. Hoon-Yung Hopgood (D), to require the Department of Community Health to post on the internet statistics of complaints and disciplinary actions regarding physicians and other health professionals, and require health care facilities to post similar statistical information about their own providers. However, the bill would not require names to be named. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

Senate Bill 1139 and House Bill 5741: Ban doctors from banning patient posts of critical info
Introduced by Sen. Rebekah Warren (D) and Rep. John Olumba (D), respectively, to prohibit doctors and health care facilities from requiring patients to agree not to post a negative comment online as a condition of receiving medical services. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

House Bill 5545: Revise overtime “comp time” restrictions
Introduced by Rep. Tom McMillin (R), to eliminate a provision that requires an employee and employer to have entered a previous written agreement (essentially a contract) in order for an employee to take time-and-a-half “comp time” instead of overtime pay. Instead, the parties could sign a written agreement whenever the employee wants to take comp time instead of extra pay. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

House Bill 5558: Authorize DDA borrowing-and-spending for “transit-oriented facilities”
Introduced by Rep. Jim Townsend (D), to explicitly authorize Downtown Development Authorities to borrow and spend on projects benefiting, and subsidies to, developers of “transit-oriented facilities” and “transit-oriented development.” Money to repay DDA loans is “captured” from a portion of tax revenues that local governments levy to pay for their own operations and services. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

House Bill 5565: Impose regulations on “fracking” chemicals
Introduced by Rep. Lisa Brown (D), to impose a comprehensive state regulatory regime on the chemicals used by natural gas well drillers in producing gas using “hydraulic fracturing” (or “fracking”). Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

House Bill 5576: Mandate city income tax withholding by firms outside the city
Introduced by Rep. Lisa L. Howze (D), to mandate that a business that is not located in a city that imposes an income tax, but has at least one employee who lives in such a city, must withhold city income taxes from that employee’s paycheck. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

House Bill 5580: Authorize and regulate medical marijuana dispensaries
Introduced by Rep. Mike Callton (R), to authorize and establish a comprehensive regulatory regime for medical marijuana dispensaries, including licensure and municipal registration, with criminal penalties for violations. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

House Bill 5591: Impose rental car tax
Introduced by Rep. Douglas Geiss (D), to impose a $1 per day tax on cars rented at airports. Money from the tax would be used for road projects near the airport (unless a simple majority of the legislature voted later to use the money for something else). Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

Interested in a cumulative list of all weekly Roll Call Report Votes for 2012?

SOURCE: MichiganVotes.org, a free, non-partisan website created by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, providing concise, non-partisan, plain-English descriptions of every bill and vote in the Michigan House and Senate. Please visit https://www.michiganvotes.org.