This fall, Michigan received disappointing, but expected news: The Center for Education Reform gave the state a score of '0' for its school choice policies.

Though charter public schools provide choice to approximately 10 percent of Michigan public school students, our state is the only one in the nation to hold the distinction of constitutionally prohibiting any form of private school choice, including tax credits. 

In this regard, Michigan lags far behind Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin. All three of those states have recently expanded their private school choice programs. Michigan's neighbor to the south, Ohio, now allows students attending failing schools to make a better choice — low-income Ohio students and those with special needs can attend schools that their parents believe will provide them with the best education.

While Michigan students attending poor-performing schools have to "wait it out" if there is no available public alternative, Ohio provides students with immediate access to an alternative.

Wide-ranging choice programs like Ohio's are promising because they empower parents. With the expansion of choice, schools become more accountable to the people they serve. If students leave, schools will lose money. By expanding private school choice, Ohio is incorporating choice-based accountability and placing more power in the hands of parents.

In comparison, some of Michigan's recent reform efforts fall flat, in part due to the fact that the state is handicapped by its prohibition against private school choice. State officials enforce accountability instead with unilateral state action and bureaucracy. There is no better illustration of this than the Michigan's "Top-to-Bottom" school ranking. The list purports to measure the quality of all schools with a single, though complex, methodology.

This list is used to force schools to fire principals, trigger school reorganization, and could even force the closure of a school. Indeed, legislators have considered using the TTB list to identify schools for state takeover. Never mind the fact that some of the lowest-ranked schools on the TTB list have been recognized for their success by independent, third-party organizations. 

One stark example illustrates the risks associated with a centralized accountability system. Thirkell Elementary, a Detroit elementary school featured in the last edition of IMPACT for scoring at the top of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy's Context and Performance report card, is ranked poorly by the state. It is troubling that Thirkell, which the U.S. Secretary of Education honored this year and which Excellent Schools Detroit identified as a top-rated school, is considered a failure by the Michigan Department of Education.

Choice-based accountability has the potential to transform education for the better. Since parents see schools firsthand, they are able to discern whether a school is meeting their child's needs. The decentralized knowledge that parents gain through experience is what economist Friedrich Hayek described as the "particular circumstances of time and place." There is no mechanism that will ever be able to make use of all of this richly detailed information, other than enabling individuals the freedom to make decisions to best serve their needs.

In other words, no equation developed by state officials will ever be able to take into account what parents know from experience and word-of-mouth about the quality, safety, organization and effectiveness of each Michigan school. A centralized system of judging school quality will always overlook key and individual aspects of certain schools, or penalize schools for serving disadvantaged children. 

A better model is in Ohio, where students in schools that receive low grades on the state's report card for two years become eligible for up to $5,000 to attend another school. Instead of unilaterally closing the school or requiring certain actions, Ohio empowers students and parents to leave if they want. If the state misidentifies a school as failing when it really is serving students well in the eyes of their parents, then students will continue to enroll. 

Michigan has tried many different state-imposed accountability reforms recently, including "best practices incentives" to encourage districts to adhere to better financial and educational practices. These require districts to evaluate teachers based on performance, and also require that performance be a significant factor in teacher compensation.

Unfortunately, certain schools have repeatedly demonstrated how to abuse or avoid these state reforms. The Birmingham school district gamed the state's best practices incentive to get hundreds of thousands of dollars for taking in just six additional students. Lansing rated every one of its 887 teachers effective, rendering the evaluation requirement meaningless. Davison Community Schools made headlines when the district provided $1 as a bonus to teachers who were rated highly effective. 

Such abuses are an expected risk in a top-down accountability system. There is little recourse under this system, and taxpayers are left to foot the bill for clever work-arounds.

In comparison, a choice-based accountability system would force districts to focus on providing an education that meets students' needs. Districts would not be able to easily game such a system. If schools do not meet the needs of students, parents could simply take them to another school. Under a system of comprehensive school choice, the state could ease up on top-down reforms and instead trust parents to remove their children from failing schools.

Michigan has tried virtually every other education reform measure in the book. But the state has not enabled wide-sweeping educational choice. Perhaps it's time to consider it.

The House and Senate are in the midst of a two week recess, so rather than votes this report contains several recently introduced bills of interest.

Note: The will be no Roll Call Report next week (Thanksgiving week). The next report will go out as usual on Friday, Dec. 6.

Senate Bill 509: Authorize new state Senate office building
Introduced by Sen. Randy Richardville (R), to authorize the sale of the Farnum Senate office building in Lansing and construction of a new building for Senators’ offices. Reported from committee, pending before full Senate.

Senate Bill 515: Declare blueberry as the official state fruit
Introduced by Sen. Tonya Schuitmaker (R), to establish in law that henceforth the blueberry (Vaccinium Cyanococcus) shall be designated as the official State of Michigan fruit. Note: At present, Michigan does not have an official state fruit. Past bills have proposed designating the cherry as the official state fruit, and apple cider as the official state beverage. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

Senate Bill 523: Authorize seizing delinquent child support payer’s IRA
Introduced by Sen. Mike Nofs (R), to allow assets in a delinquent child support payer’s Individual Retirement Account to be seized to make up the arrearage. Reported from committee, pending before full Senate.

Senate Bill 552: Exempt oil and gas well machinery from business tools tax
Introduced by Sen. Jack Brandenburg (R), to exempt machinery, pipelines, tanks, and other equipment used in drilling and operating oil and gas wells from the state property tax imposed on business tools and equipment (“personal property tax”). Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

Senate Bill 560 and House Bill 5095: Ban large puppy breeders
Introduced by Sen. Steve Bieda (D) and Rep. Michael McCready (R), respectively, to prohibit commercial puppy breeding operations that have more than 50 female dogs over four months of age, and impose a number of other new regulations on animal breeders, shelters and pet shops. Among other new regulations, shelters would have to hold an animal for at least one week and make efforts to identify the owner before euthanizing it, selling it, making it available for adoption, etc. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

Senate Bill 604: Mandate criminal background check to adopt a pet
Introduced by Sen. Steve Bieda (D), to mandate that animal shelters must check a government criminal records database before letting a person adopt an animal, and prohibit adoptions if the records show a person committed an animal cruelty offense in the past five years. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

House Bill 4774: Mandate state permit/license for all private gun purchases
Introduced by Rep. Jim Townsend (D), to expand to all gun purchases, including rifles and shotguns, a state pistol purchase “license” mandate. This pistol permit regulatory regime was repealed for purchases from licensed gun dealers by a 2012 law (dealers already run buyers through a federal database check), but still applies to private person-to-person handgun sales.

House Bill 4778: Ban off-shore Great Lakes windmills
Introduced by Rep. Ray Franz (R), to prohibit electricity-generating wind turbines from being located in the Great Lakes. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

House Bill 4796: Impose children’s products regulatory regime
Introduced by Rep. Alberta Tinsley Talabi (D), to require manufacturers and distributors of children’s products that contain substances deemed harmful by the Department of Environment Quality to submit detailed annual reports to the state regarding the products and the chemicals in them. The bill contains various exceptions and authorizes penalties of up to $150,000. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

House Bill 4816: Require insurers disclose “Obamacare” price increase in customer bills
Introduced by Rep. Mike Shirkey (R), to require bills sent to customers for health insurance policies or HMO plans to include an estimate of the amount that any price increase was caused by mandates and regulations imposed by the federal health care law. Reported from committee, pending before full House.

House Bill 4832: Give tax break to energy-efficient new home buyers
Introduced by Rep. Jon Switalski (D), to authorize a $5,000 income tax credit for a person who buys a new home (but not an existing one) that has been deemed a “green structure” by a particular private entity specified in the bill, and a $2,000 credit for renovations that meet criteria determined by this entity. The credit would not be “refundable” (that is, would not be a potential cash subsidy), but the amount exceeding the person’s tax liability could be “carried forward” and used against future years’ tax liability. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

House Bill 4849: Ban sanctions on schools with student group “achievement gaps”
Introduced by Rep. Tom McMillin (R), to prohibit the state Department of Education from “imposing any measures” on a public school that has an “achievement gap” between “any cohort of its highest achieving pupils and any cohort of its lowest-achieving pupils.” Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

House Bill 4852: Authorize local “trap-neuter-release” programs for feral cats
Introduced by Rep. Adam Zemke (D), to let local governments establish programs to trap, neuter or spay, and then release feral cats. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.

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.