New Urban Playbook: Hand Over Schools to Charter Operators
Teacher Calvin Hobbs works with students at African-centered Timbuktu Academy of Science and Technology in Detroit. Timbuktu has about 350 students in kindergarten through eighth grade and is one of nine Detroit Public Schools-authorized charter schools. The school district's emergency financial manager is proposing turning the operation of 41 academically challenged schools over to charter operators to help cut into a $327 million legacy budget deficit.
—AP
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The financially embattled Detroit school system has announced a controversial plan to turn nearly a third of the district’s 141 schools over to charter operators or education-management organizations by next school year. Officials say their only other option is to close dozens of low-performing schools.
If the plan to hand 41 schools over to outside managers is approved by the school board, the 73,000-student Detroit district will be borrowing a page from the same playbook that a growing number of large urban districts seem to be using.
“You’re seeing more of this activity by school district leaders, but it’s not their only strategy. It’s the right strategy for some schools