Dive Brief:
- Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s new $715 million dollar education reform package might be held up as federal investigators continue looking into alleged vendor kickbacks in the state-run Education Achievement Authority (EAA) district, which was also created by Snyder.
- Education Week reports that federal indictments could be handed down for “an undetermined number of current and former EAA officials and employees in the Detroit public schools.”
- The timing of the probe into EAA, which contains 15 schools and 6,000 students, puts more pressure on Snyder to come up with a plan for how to handle the district with the “worst schools in Detroit.”
Dive Insight:
"Everyone would like to see the EAA disappear,” state Board of Education President John Austin told Education Week. “It's tainted and tarnished.” For the past seven years, all public schools in Detroit have been under state control, struggling with persistent enrollment losses, closures, and poor academic achievement.
Snyder’s EAA was initially created to turn around the lowest-performing 5% of Michigan schools, 15 in all, but those efforts continue to falter. The latest federal investigation began after EAA employees reported alleged financial discrepancies to law enforcement. At least one school official, former EAA principal Kenyetta Wilbourn-Snapp, told local media that she wanted to take a plea deal and would admit to taking part in bribery and tax evasion.
