03/06/2020
Why does this story matter for co-ops and tutors who take partnership funds?
1. It makes clear that, since our kids are not counted for the $7,800 per student of state education funding, they will attempt to draw us into the public school system however they can, because they profit from our involvement, netting on average at least $850 per student per partnership class.
2. It's a reminder that partnership-funded classes are, in fact, state-funded and must be completely secular. Tutors and co-ops that take partnership money are prohibited by law from teaching religiously. Since the state is auditing school systems and clawing back their improper funding, tutors and co-ops ought to be expecting auditing of your content as well; don't be surprised if they ask for their money back from you, too.
3. All partnership classes must also be available to any public school student, so if you're a tutor who offers a class and you take partnership $, you are required by law to make that class available to public school students, too. That this has been unenforced is irrelevant; expect it to start to be enforced.
4. The public schools are definitely tracking "home schoolers" who are in their partnership classes, and reporting this to the state. As the chart (I'll paste it below) on partnership numbers shows, the rate of homeschoolers in partnerships is not nearly as high as some have indicated. Gull Lake Partnership, one of the largest in the state, only serves 680 students in their partnership (some of those are not actually homeschoolers, but public school students who have had to exit the typical classrooms for a range of reasons).
5. If you are a tutor taking partnership (state) funds, oversight of your content will increase, as the schools and the state increase regular monitoring of student progress through state/local reporting requirements. Again, this is coming soon, as it already has to some partnerships.
Michigan school districts are profiting from taxpayer-funded online academies that teach home-schoolers electives like ice skating and animal husbandry. The programs are legal, but the state is cracking down, alleging some districts are overcharging taxpayers.
