I don’t know that it’s made the news yet, but, on Friday afternoon, in response to the recent decision by Eastern Michigan University’s Board of Regents to continue their enablement of Governor Snyder’s controversial takeover of Detroit Public Schools, faculty within EMU’s Teacher Education department voted unanimously to condemn the actions of the board, all but one of of whom, it just so happens, are political appointees of the Governor. In addition to the unanimous “no confidence” vote against the Board of Regents, there was also a vote to censure Board Chairman Mike Morris, who just recently told the Ann Arbor News that, if he had to choose between staying the course with the school’s commitment to its interlocal agreement with the Education Achievement Authority, and having a happy faculty, staff and student body, he’d choose to keep the contract with the EAA. Apparently that didn’t sit so well with the staff of the Teacher Education department, who had made it clear to Morris and his fellow Republican appointees that, not only were Detroit students losing ground academically under the EAA, but that it was keeping EMU graduates from finding positions in many Michigan school districts. [It’s well known that school districts around the state are not extending offers to EMU teaching graduates as a way of pushing back against what they see as EMU’s active role in helping Snyder to destroy public education in Michigan and set the groundwork for privatization.]
Morris, for what it’s worth, told the Ann Arbor News that he based his decision to keep the EAA alive, not because he actually had evidence that it was working, but because of what he sees when he looks into the now hopeful eyes of Detroit’s children. “I see the eyes of those kids (in Detroit schools) who are having a chance to be successful and I hear their parents talk about ‘This is different and so much better. I really think my children have a chance to be successful.'”
[If you’re unfamiliar with the EAA, and just why people are so adamantly against it, I’d suggest reading my 2014 interview with EMU Education Associate Professor Steven Camron, which goes into the history of this bold gambit to dismantle public education, and why the Governor needed EMU’s participation in order to make it happen.]
Interestingly, on the same day that the EMU Regents decided to keep their sponsorship of the EAA in place, EAA principal K.C. Wilbur Snapp was indicted as a result of the still ongoing federal corruption probe into Snyder’s program. The following clip is from the Detroit Free Press.
The first time Kenyetta (K.C.) Wilbourn Snapp broke the law, she had been in a new job for less than a week.
It was 2009. She was in her first stint as a principal, and she was to run Denby High School, the city’s worst-performing school that year. The Detroit native was eager to achieve — and eager to please.
“I was the first person to make it in my family, so everybody started coming around,” she said. “My grandmother showed up and Food Services hired her… Then comes my uncle tagging along and, I’m like, ‘Do I have to give him a job?’”
She had no job available, so she asked her football coach to hire her uncle as an assistant. She paid him using funds from a DPS vendor. That vendor paid Snapp $750 every time she gave him the names of 20 students for a tutoring program. She said she doesn’t know whether the program actually existed.
The second time she broke the law, she buried a student’s mother. With school funds.
She knew it was illegal. But after the first few times, stealing became easy. Then it became routine. And Snapp, a beloved high school principal by day, became a savvy, well-connected crook around the clock.“If you needed money, you could get money,” Snapp, 40, told the Free Press in a series of exclusive interviews.
She accepted my call because I wrote the story six years ago of how she turned Denby around in 2009. She said she wanted to try to explain why she did what she did.
“There’s a network,” she said. “It’s so deep.”
If Kwame Kilpatrick is Detroit’s greatest example of a municipal leader who forfeited a brilliant career to be a player, Snapp may become the poster child for a home-grown educator who squandered her career for money.
Snapp — who was indicted Thursday and recently told the Free Press that she agreed to plead guilty to charges of bribery and tax evasion in exchange for leniency — is at the heart of a federal corruption investigation into the Education Achievement Authority, the state reform district for the lowest-performing schools. The EAA oversees 15 schools in Detroit.
Federal authorities are examining relationships between school officials and vendors who appear to have been paid for work not done or work billed at rates much higher than contracted. Investigators have spent more than a year sifting through thousands of documents that portray a “family business” with employees helping vendors, vendors helping employees and everyone helping themselves…
And, in spite of knowing all of this, EMU’s Board of Regents chose last week to continue their relationship with the EAA… It’s absolutely unconscionable.
Without EMU’s support, Snyder never would have been able to take over Detroit’s public schools, fire experienced teachers, replace them with inexpensive Teach for America students, and set the groundwork for the corrupt, private sector-led system that is now being investigated by the FBI.
As for the departmental “no confidence” vote at EMU, I’m hearing that other departments within the university are planning to follow suit. I’m also hearing that we may see a “no confidence” vote from the Faculty Senate in the very near future. I can’t believe it’s taken this long, but I’m glad to see it’s finally starting to happen. These Regents have turned Eastern Michigan University into a political weapon of the Governor, and, in the process, they have done irreparable harm to the institution. [Is it any wonder that EMU can’t keep a President?]
I know it would take a constitutional amendment to change the current paradigm, and make the Regents of EMU accountable to the people of Michigan at the ballot box, instead of to the Governor who placed them at EMU, but maybe it’s a fight worth having. Clearly we’ve gotten to a point where something has to change.
[Still want more? Check out my recent interview with EMU College of Education Associate Professor Stephen Wellinski.]