The victims are children

Over the last six years there have been four emergency managers in quick succession for the Detroit Public Schools. There were also two more a few years before the current block. The last few have tended to stay only 18 months because after that the elected school board can show the manager the door, but if he leaves before then the governor can appoint another one and reset the clock.

So, how are they doing? With that amount of time, the DPS system should be humming along just fine. Well, no.

The DPS system enrollment is about half of what it was and the budget has gone from a slight surplus to $170 million deficit and more than $2.1 billion of debt. The education the students get is no better. Some of the student drop is because students are fleeing the system. Some of it is inflicted by the state, which put the worst 15 schools under an Education Achievement Authority, and those also haven't improved.

The latest emergency manager has been in office for only a short time. As he was being introduced to the public he said he would be opening up the budget and looking for places to cut. Gee, why didn't someone think of that six years ago?

The Metro Times has a good story about the whole sorry mess. From all the shenanigans, it seems the state wants the city school district to fail. I couldn't possibly think of why.

How we got into this mess is part 1 of the story. I read it when I was in midtown Detroit and picked up a copy. I didn't realize there was a part 2 until I got onto the Metro Times website to provide you with a link to part 1. Both parts were written by Curt Guyette of the Metro Times staff.

The topic of part 2 is simple: What to do about it?

Michigan school funding from the state is mostly per pupil. Which means as the enrollment in DPS schools drops the state funding drops. According to Peter Hammer, economist and law professor of Wayne State University, that means there is no way the emergency manager can succeed. The more he cuts, the more students flee, the less income he has to work with. The job outline as defined by state law means the EM cannot deal with the root problem of insufficient funding from the state. Hammer says if the state intended to eliminate traditional public schools it would have been hard to create a better method to do so.

Legislators have been pushing the idea of school choice, that if DPS doesn't shape up students will choose alternate schools that are better. One little problem with that grand idea. The charter schools available to Detroit students are no better than the public schools. Part of the reason is that the state legislature has refused to enact any accountability of charter operators. The state hands out cash without any oversight. And legislators don't seem to be in any hurry to change that.

There are a variety of coalitions talking about how to fix Detroit schools. There are local, state, and national justice groups looking at what to do. There is much discussion of whether the board should be appointed or elected. But many of the changes suggested by these groups have been tried. And failed. That means the root problem isn't a governance issue. It is a funding issue. Unless the state legislature fixes that issue (and they're the only ones who can) Detroit schools will not improve. I can come to only one conclusion: The state legislature wants Detroit schools to not be able to educate Detroit's youth.

Many of these legislators represent the highly religious western part of Michigan. These lawmakers no doubt use lots of Christian references when they speak. I wrote a post three years ago showing how un-Christian it is to set up a tax structure that perpetuates poverty.

Steven Singer wrote about his experiences as a middle school teacher near Pittsburgh. He says he deals with a lot beyond what is in the textbooks and curriculum. That includes neighborhood violence. If he doesn't deal with at least the emotional fallout, kids don't learn. He actually enjoys dealing with all this extra stuff. He is quite annoyed with one aspect: If he can't fix some of these insurmountable problems because of a lack of tools his job is on the line. And speaking of violence, Singer wrote:

Keeping public schools defunded and dysfunctional is also a form of violence. Promoting privatization and competition when kids really just need resources is also cruelty. Pretending that standardized curriculum and tests are a Civil Right is also savagery.

It’s called class warfare. Its most prominent victims are children. Its most active soldiers are teachers. And we’re on the front lines every day.