Quisenberry sees "money spent on things that don't work" and that "we should stop doing that."  He also see's pieces of the governor's work that is addressing this and reallocating differently as a good thing.  Beckmann noted the Governor is also trying to get away from basing public school funding on head count, but rather on a results based process.

Beckmann: "So here you are in the charter schools, which according to teachers in Michigan don't provide the level of education and student achievement they do in the traditional public schools, and yet when the governor makes this kind of proposal, to base funding on outcomes, here you are in this area of charter schools that supposedly don't produce results, and you embrace what the governor proposes, and here are the unions that claim that they have better outcomes than you and they oppose it. why? That seems to be a complete disconnect there.  What am I missing?"

Quisenberry: "Well we don't agree that, in fact the facts when you look at the Michigan Department of education numbers show that Michigan Charter Schools ARE succeeding, More likely to be proficient, more likely to graduate, more likely to go on to post-secondary education. Particularly in our urban areas where schools aren't always working like we want them to, so those are the facts, is that we are getting performance out of our charter public schools, and so what you are seeing out the governor's proposal, and what we're excited about, is that we have an opportunity to align education to the outcomes that we want.  And isn't about seat time its about performance."

The conversation goes on for about 5 more minutes.  Worth listening to, but my fingertips are starting to bruise.

A couple of days ago, Quisenberry had this to say about Snyder's plan in response to Governor Rick Snyder's special message on education reform in Detroit:
 

  "Public charter schools have always embraced reform.  By their nature and design, public charter schools are improving and implementing innovative approaches like the governor has outlined that teach children, empower parents and better manage schools. The governor's vision is bold. We applaud him for that and believe it is past time for adults to work together to better serve children."

They should.

In fact it has been my own thought that charter schools might well be the last hope for Detroit's perpetually under served student population.

The trouble will still be that bridge of public dollars to private efforts, and the parasitic labor element is not likely to let it go too easily.

Good luck to our governor, to Mr Quisenberry, and the teachers and students in this state.