THE POOR PAY THE HIGHEST PRICE FOR CHARTER SCHOOL EXPERIMENTS — PART 2 — DETROIT
Part 1 of this series focused on New Orleans and the radical experiment there with ALL charter schools serving the city this year. I showed that New Orleans is an example of how investors and hedge fund managers see “reform” experiments as an option only for the poor. We really don’t see much, if any experimentation being proposed in the upper economic sectors of this country right now.
Next, let’s look at another example of the callous disregard for the future of poor children to serve the business desires of investors and edu-corporations.
Detroit: Basket Case Then — Basket Case Now
By 2009 Detroit Public Schools was a basket case district that needed reform. But instead of actual reform of their school system, the state of Michigan passed model legislation provided by ALEC that replaced most of the Detroit public schools with unaccountable corporate charters.
Just this year, The Detroit Free Press ran the results of a year-long investigation: Michigan Spends 1 Billion on Charter Schools, but Fails to Hold Them Accountable.
What they revealed is that taxpayer dollars have been spent on the charters that replaced the public schools in Detroit for minimal if even significant change in the quality of education for the children there. The report also reveals that once public money enters the realm of the private companies receiving it, there is no longer transparency about that money. Those organizations can do anything that they want with it by Michigan law.
The very thorough report by the Detroit Free Press is well-The Poor Pay the Highest Price for Charter School Experiments — Part 2 — Detroit | Life at the Intersections: