Education Week - May 8, 2013 - 12

EDUCATION WEEK

MAY 8, 2013

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INDUSTRY & INNOVATION > Tracking business trends and emerging models in K-12
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Private Firms Managing
Two Michigan Districts
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

one other district, the Detroit public school system, and six Michigan city governments—almost all
of which represent primarily black
communities. The moves have
caused pushback from civil rights
groups and aggravated racial tensions in the state.
For educators and K-12 analysts, meanwhile, the Muskegon
Heights and Highland Park ventures have implications for evaluating what happens when forprofit companies manage public
schools on a systemwide basis.
The districts ended the 2011-12
school year with hefty accumulated budget deficits attributed
to years of declining enrollments,
dwindling economic bases, and financial mismanagement.
Against that backdrop, the governor appointed Donald Weatherspoon to be the emergency
manager for the 1,400-student
Muskegon Heights district, which
had amassed a $16 million deficit, and Joyce Parker to head the
1,000-student Highland Park district, which had accumulated an
$11.3 million deficit.
African-Americans make up
88 percent of the students in the
Muskegon Heights system, and
98 percent of the Highland Park
system’s enrollment.
After his appointment in Muskegon Heights, says Mr. Weatherspoon, he knew he had to act quickly
if the schools were to open again in
the fall. So, in an unprecedented
move, he decided to lay off the entire staff of the Muskegon Heights
system and create in its place a new
charter district, called the Muskegon Heights Public School Acad-

emy, to be run by a private education-management company.
Last June, Mr. Weatherspoon
signed a five-year contract with
the New York City-based Mosaica Education, which operates
75 charter schools in 13 states
and the District of Columbia.
The company had three months
to hire and train staff members,
including those rehired from the
old district, bring neglected facilities up to code, and persuade
parents to keep their children
enrolled.
Ms. Parker followed suit in
Highland Park. In July 2012, she
signed a five-year contract with
the Phoenix-based Leona Group,
which operates 68 schools in five
states, to run the district’s high
school and two pre-K-8 schools in
the newly formed Highland Park
Public School Academy.
Mr. Weatherspoon, who took over
as the emergency manager for Highland Park in late October and now
oversees both districts, says it was
a unique convergence of circumstances that led to the formation
of the charter districts, and he does
not necessarily see it as a model for
other cash-strapped districts in the
state. (Currently, 49 Michigan districts are running budget deficits.)
And critics of the strategy say
that neither Mosaica Education nor
the Leona Group has an impressive
record of turning around low-performing schools.
“We think that there’s a huge
opportunity closed when the state
steps in and decides to intervene
in a place like Highland Park and
Muskegon Heights,” said Amber
Arellano, the executive director
of the Education Trust-Midwest,
an education policy and advocacy

group in Royal Oak, Mich.
“Our concern is that, based on
what we know about those operators,” she continued, “it would appear as if [this] opportunity may
be wasted ... because those are two
of the lowest-performing charter
operators in Michigan.”

‘Don’t Give Up on Us’
Cold and gray weather hung on
tight to Michigan this spring, and
occasional snow flurries dotted the
sky one day in March when Alena
E. Zachery-Ross, the regional vice
president of Mosaica Education,
took the stage here at a community meeting held in the Muskegon
Heights High School auditorium.
Addressing a sparse crowd of
roughly 30 people, Ms. ZacheryRoss, who describes herself as essentially the 1,190-student Muskegon
Heights Public School Academy’s
superintendent, presented the district’s midyear report card.

Reading and math scores were
up since the fall for 2nd to 7th
graders, although many students continued to lag behind
where they should be, she said,
and many 8th to 12th graders
remained far behind where they
should be to graduate on time.
But on the positive side, attendance was up, and the number
of fights at all schools had gone
down, Ms. Zachery-Ross said.
“Don’t give up, on us,” she implored the audience.
Some experts point out that Mosaica students nationally do not
show as much academic growth
as students from similar socioeconomic backgrounds in regular
public schools.
Company officials counter that
progress in situations like that
in Muskegon Heights should be
based not just on test scores, but
also on improvements in the overall climate of a school.
“We’re not going to have it all fig-

ABOVE: Alena E. ZacheryRoss, the regional vice
president of Mosaica
Education, describes
herself as essentially
the superintendent of the
Muskegon Heights Public
School Academy. An
emergency manager took
over the district last year.
ABOVE RIGHT: Teacher
Kim Woods works with
9th grader Takija Brewer
in her U.S. history class at
Muskegon Heights Public
Academy High School.

TALES OF TWO COMPANIES The Leona Group and Mosaica Education manage schools in a number of states.
LEONA GROUP PERFORMANCE

BASED IN PHOENIX,

with additional offices in Coral Springs, Fla.; East
Lansing, Mich.; and Toledo, Ohio

FOUNDED
IN 1996
MANAGES 68
CHARTER SCHOOLS

LEONA
GROUP

OPERATES IN
5 STATES

SERVES 20,000
STUDENTS
EMPLOYS 2,760
WORKERS

MOSAICA EDUCATION PERFORMANCE

Schools operated by the Leona Group in Michigan have a 90 percent
average four-year graduation rate and a 94 percent average collegeacceptance rate to two- or four-year colleges, according to Madalyn
Kaltz, a spokeswoman for the company.

During the 2005-06 and 2006-07 school years, the research group
WestEd, as well as researchers at the Education Policy Center at
Michigan State University, found that students in schools operated by
Mosaica Education experienced significant academic growth based
on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills.

An independent report by the National Education Policy Center, based at
the University of Colorado at Boulder, found that 54.4 percent of schools
operated by the Leona Group across the United States in 2010-11 made
adequate yearly progress—2 percentage points higher than the national
average for AYP, a key measure of performance under the federal No
Child Left Behind Act.
A January study from Stanford University’s Center for Research on
Education Outcomes, which studies charter schools, found, however, that
students in schools operated by the company experienced less academic
growth than comparable students in regular public schools. The study
included data from five academic school years, 2005-06 through 2009-10.
But Ms. Kaltz said a more holistic view is needed to determine the
success of the schools. “Child growth and development is much more
complex than what is reflected by a one-time snapshot based on
standardized tests,” she said in an email. “A primary key to our success
is that our school leaders and staff know every child by name, face, and
family, therein creating the type of caring environment where children
feel supported, empowered, and motivated to learn.”

But recent research shows a more mixed picture of performance in
schools operated by Mosaica. According to an independent report
by the National Education Policy Center, half of Mosaica-operated
schools in 2010-11 made AYP, 2 percentage points below the
national average.
Mosaica Chief Executive Officer Michael J. Connelly said the
numbers reflect the tough environments in which Mosaica chooses
to operate.
“All the states where we operate charter schools have the highest
standards for making AYP,” and Mosaica operates charter schools
in many struggling urban districts, which could affect its overall
performance, he said.
But the Stanford study released in January, found that students
in Mosaica-run schools experienced less academic growth than
comparable students in regular public schools over a five-year period
from the 2005-06 school year until the 2009-10 school year.

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Education Week - May 8, 2013

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