McNeilly said another voucher measure could be on the ballot as early as 2002. Sharon Gire, a Democratic State Board of Education member who opposes vouchers, agreed that the measure helped focus efforts on the lowest-performing schools. In the next year, the board plans to spend more money on a program that sends teachers and administrators from better-performing schools to schools that need help. Gire hopes the state's new superintendent, who will be hired by the board early next year, will support the intervention program. Gire believes the program will be more helpful than measures such as the state's rancorous takeover of the Detroit schools in 1999.
Lawmakers apparently agree.
Earlier this year, they rejected a similar attempt to take over Benton Harbor's schools. We need to take a really in-depth look both at schools that are failing and schools that are succeeding against the odds and figure out what those schools are doing right.