LANSING – The Cherry Commission on Education and Economic Development was on the right track with many of its recommendations for boosting educational and skill levels of Michigan residents to meet demands of a more technically advanced economy. But reaching Lt. Governor John Cherry’s goals will take a sea change in how that education is delivered, said Clark Durant, former president of the State Board of Education and president of the New Common School Foundation.

Durant was derided by school groups during most of his four-year tenure on the board for his proposals to introduce more competition and market theory into public education before he resigned in 1999 as he said the board was not a good forum for reform.

But he told Gongwer News Service in a recent interview that only the idea of ownership of the education system, including requiring some form of tuition that would alter the constitution’s guarantee of free public elementary and secondary education, would create the improvements Cherry and others were seeking.

“We have to have bold leadership if we’re going to rescue and save these kids,” he said.

And he does not make his suggestions from behind the desk of his law office, as he did when he served on the board from 1995-1999. Rather, he is now involved full time with Cornerstone Schools, the private school system he helped to found in 1991 and which is funded in part by Durant’s foundation.

He said he learned things as a member of the state board that have helped him in shaping Cornerstone. But he said there were also things public schools could learn from his schools’ operations.

Durant said the Cherry Commission provided some of the foundation for the needed changes in education. “It said some things that needed to be said,” he said. “It would be neat if John Cherry’s commission could truly look at this whole thing differently and not worry about the consequences.”

But as much as the Cherry Commission was suggesting improvements to the education system, Durant said it was also an indication that there still needed to be more changes. “It’s the lamenting of the lethargy of the current system,” he said. “There are too many kids not getting there. There has to be a fundamental change in the way we deliver public education.”

The linchpin of any improvement in education will be giving true choice to parents and students and giving power to teachers and principals to find ways to meet the needs of those students and parents, Durant said. But he said that system will only work if parents have a stake in it, much as the Cornerstone Schools do with engagement of parents or other adults in the achievements of students.

While it would take a constitutional amendment, Durant said parents should be paying a portion of the education their child receives through the public schools. That payment, he said, would give them the incentive to be sure they were getting the best service for their money.

“It is very hard in many cases to get the level of commitment you want in something that’s free or perceived to be free,” he said, dismissing property taxes not as a means of paying for education so much as the cost of owning a home. “A free good is without value.”

But Durant said a tuition system should not be looked at as a new source of funds for schools. He argued districts could provide the services that are truly needed with the funds they currently have. “It’s not an issue of money; it’s an issue of priorities,” he said. “You will always have shortages in a rationed system.”

The idea of a market system has always brought with it the idea that some schools will succeed and others fail, but Durant said it instead should carry the idea of schools trying to meet students’ needs. “What we’re trying to do in a difficult urban area is create a model of excellence,” he said of Cornerstone. “We’re not trying to create an alternative to anything.”

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