USA Today partnered with the Detroit Free Press recently to publish a series of stories on U.S. public school teachers who say they have been disrespected.

One article chronicled a day in the classroom of Detroit school district teacher Felecia Branch. The teacher’s compassion for her students is highlighted, with images of Branch hugging her students and descriptions of how she builds up their confidence through daily interactions. The article states that Branch is a motherly figure to many of her students.

But the report ignored one important aspect of public education: Are the children in this school learning?

In the case of the school where Branch teaches, the answer is a resounding “no.”

MacKenzie Elementary and Middle School is and has been among Michigan’s very worst public schools, according to recent assessments by both the state and by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

The Mackinac Center report cards cover the 2011-16 time period. Importantly, they incorporate the effect of students’ economic backgrounds into how they grade schools. This allows the report cards to measure the amount of learning that actually takes place in a school, rather than how far its students may lag their peers in more affluent communities when starting out.

Schools where disadvantaged students advance more rapidly do better on this report card than schools where more advantaged students progress at a slower pace, even if the latter group may score higher on state tests.

In contrast, the state of Michigan’s school rankings do not factor in the socioeconomic background of the students they serve. This means that most schools with a higher percentage of disadvantaged students tend to be clustered at the bottom of the state’s ranking, even if their students are advancing at a faster pace than those elsewhere.

MacKenzie Elementary and Middle School has ranked at the bottom under either methodology. The state places it in the bottom one percent of all public schools.

In the Mackinac Center’s 2011-13 and 2014-16 report cards, MacKenzie Elementary and Middle School received an “F.” But that doesn’t quite cover just how poor the academic performance of that school has been.

In the 2011-13 report card, the Mackinac Center reviewed 2,246 elementary and middle schools and Mackenzie Elementary and Middle School finished 2,229th, meaning just 17 Michigan public schools performed worse.

In the 2014-16 report card, the Mackinac Center reviewed 2,261 elementary and middle schools and Mackenzie Elementary and Middle School placed 2,246th, meaning just 15 schools performed worse in the entire state.

The USA Today report states that Mackenzie teacher Felecia Branch suffered a pay cut and then had no raises for several years. But the article doesn’t explain why Detroit teachers had to take pay cuts. It happened because the district experienced an enrollment implosion over the past decade, due an exodus of students escaping the worst performing city schools in the United States.

That status was awarded by biannual National Assessment of Educational Progress reports, long called dubbed the nation’s report card, which ranked Detroit as the country’s worst urban school district in 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017.

The period covered by these reports coincides with a 47 percent plunge in Detroit school district enrollment, from 95,494 students in 2009 to 50,210 in 2018. Parents were helped in getting their children out of the city’s failing schools by two Michigan public school choice programs: one that let children enroll at charter schools and another that let students attend schools in neighboring districts.

Enrollment at public charter schools in Detroit has risen to 50,460 in the 2016-17 school year – more than the 44,890 students who remained in the conventional school district. Tens of thousands more students who live in Detroit attend charters in other communities, or travel to other school districts under a state program known as Schools of Choice.

“Context matters, especially when the results at this school — and many others in Detroit – are so dismal,” said Ben DeGrow, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center. “Many parents have fled these schools to find better opportunities for their kids, and most of them are satisfied with what they’ve found. Charter schools in Detroit are getting better results for their students for significantly less funding. The typical charter environment is enabling teachers to make a greater impact on how much students learn. We need to be more curious about what’s causing that kind of success, and how to make it even better.”

A small-business owner providing pool repair services in the suburbs south of Detroit gave up on his career and shut down the business after experiencing burdensome and costly licensing regulations from the state.

The former business owner, Adam Alexander, suggested that special interest groups were behind the tedious licensure requirements.

“Being forced to buy a trivial class is degrading,” Alexander said in a letter he posted on his website and sent to state legislators. “Wasting so much time is demoralizing. Navigating an unreliable system is despair-inducing.”

Alexander ran a small business that focused on pool and hot tub repair, but it also included other home repair and leak-detection services. The business, formerly in Southgate, was called No Worries Pool & Spa. Without a license, Alexander was allowed under state law to do residential jobs that were worth $600 or less. For bigger jobs, he needed to acquire a residential builder license.

The cost of the classes, the test and the license he needed amounted to nearly $900. The largest financial burden came in the time required to study for the test. Taking time off work to study for it cost him at least $10,000 in income, he said.

“The study material covered a vast range,” Alexander said in his letter. “I had to learn about scaffolding that I had never seen on a construction site. … I learned about steel wire rope for cranes though I’ve never had plans of buying one. I learned about storing diesel in stationary tanks though I've never seen such a tank on a residential build. I spent [hundreds] of hours memorizing construction trivia of the world.”

Alexander said much of the material contained in the test was not necessary because, as a contractor, he would simply look up codes that he did not have memorized. Additionally, a lot of codes he was required to memorize were not likely to apply to his line of work, he said.

“Essentially, it was a lot of information that just doesn’t apply to the real world,” he said. “It was as if a group of people who don’t know anything about construction made a test about what they think construction is about.”

When Alexander thought he had finally navigated the red tape, he found out that he would be required to take an additional 21 hours of classes within his first three years of acquiring the license, and then another 21 hours in years four through six.

With the continuing cost and time associated with a license, and because it had become virtually impossible to make a living from $600-or-less jobs, he decided to close his business. His next step was to take up a job splitting firewood in a minimum wage job. Although he was offered a position as a boom truck operator and could work in the construction field under a larger company, he said he believed special interests were behind these regulations, and he refused “to facilitate this corruption.”

The regulations that cost Alexander his business were proposed in 2007 by two state senators, a Republican and a Democratic. Though the Office of Regulatory Reinvention advised the state to eliminate the pre-license class requirement in 2012, legislators reaffirmed it in a 2013 bill introduced by former State Rep. Frank Foster, R-Petoskey. It passed in a bipartisan fashion, receiving only one “no” vote in the House and one “no” vote in the Senate.

Jarrett Skorup, director of marketing and communications at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and author of a report on occupational licensing, said that burdensome licensing laws are a serious problem throughout Michigan.

“More than 20 percent of the workforce in Michigan is required to have a license to work,” Skorup said. “This equals nearly a million jobs and has been growing.”

Skorup said that Michigan requires licenses for occupations that many states do not, such as painters, roofers, hair shampooers, teeth whiteners and potato dealers. He said the Legislature should pass legislation to reduce these burdens.

Alexander said that he wishes legislators would end the construction class he called “a complete waste of time” because the reading materials and test questions don't properly reflect the job.

In a 2015 study, the Pacific Research Institute, a California-based free-market policy nonprofit, ranked Michigan in the bottom half of U.S. states for its burdensome regulatory requirements, at 28th.

Michigan lawmakers are considering legislation that would review current state mandates, allow more people to have access to licensed work by removing barriers faced by some ex-offenders, and prevent local governments from adding on their own regulations.