EAA Update

Sarah Lorenz

If you keep up on school reform news or education developments in Detroit, you've no doubt heard of the EAA--the Education Achievement Authority. The EAA is a new, statewide district formed by the Michigan Department of Education to take over the direction of low-performing schools that have failed to make progress under a redesign plan. Schools will remain in the EAA for five years. The EAA launched this fall with 15 schools in Detroit and will expand statewide in the future.

The EAA is linked to Eastern Michigan University through a partnership agreement, and last spring, Bill, Cathy, and Sarah attended an informational session on campus with the leadership of the new district. After a long trail of email and postponed dates, we had a meeting regarding literacy programming and how the EMWP and other NWPM sites might offer assistance to the EAA schools. We were pleased to hear that a reading and writing workshop framework was one of the preferred approaches to instruction, along with Guided Reading and Reading Apprenticeship.

As a result, our site, in collaboration with the Oakland Writing Project and the Meadowbrook Writing Project, offered four workshops in August to new EAA teachers--a total of 23 hours. The sessions included an introduction to reading and writing workshop for elementary teachers and also for high school teachers, a writing across the curriculum session for one of the high schools, and a Guided Reading session for K-2. The material was enthusiastically received by the teachers in attendance--which was impressive, considering the fact that they were in the midst of four weeks of professional development!

We are hopeful that the new EAA schools will be successful in their mission to improve the literacy outcomes for the students in these high-need schools.
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