Did the state's Education Achievement Authority fudge its mission to help land a $35.4-million federal grant?
Detroit News reporters Chad Livengood and Jennifer Chambers report that the agency overstated its authority to take over failing schools across Michigan in a bid to win the federal grant.
The News reports:
The application to the U.S. Department of Education for a five-year teacher merit pay program claimed the reform district with 15 Detroit schools had legislative permission to grow to 60 schools in 10 urban districts by 2017, which it doesn't.
The grant application took liberties with other facts, claiming to be an IRS-authorized charitable organization and that EAA Chancellor John Covington "has been given the mandate and authority to take control of persistently poor performing schools throughout Michigan" — an issue still being debated in the Legislature.
EAA spokesman Bob Berg said the inaccuracies were "screw-ups" in a hastily written application submitted in late July and approved in October. . . .
It is one of several missteps by the school reform agency discovered by The Detroit News in records made public through a Freedom of Information Act request.
