How Competition Hurts Children in Detroit's Schools
Many charter school advocates -- often guided by a "free market" ideology -- claim that charter schools force traditional public schools to innovate and provide better education. But in Detroit, where teachers and parents this week performed "walk ins" to show support for the city's ailing public schools, the exact opposite has been true.
Detroit's schools are in rough shape. The city's traditional public school district, Detroit Public Schools (DPS), could face bankruptcy by April. On a recent tour of DPS schools, Mayor Mike Duggan found crumbling facilities, dead rodents, and children wearing coats in freezing classrooms.
But even though Detroit's residents elected him, Duggan can't do much to help. DPS has been under state control for seven years, ruled by a series of "emergency managers" with unchecked authority over democratically elected local officials. The same tactic of "running government like a business" played a crucial role in the Flint water crisis. In fact, the same emergency manager who oversaw the switch to contaminated water in Flint -- Darnell Earley -- has been running DPS for a year.
Under emergency management, DPS has lost funding while more and more money has gone to the city's charter schools, which are some of the least regulated in the nation. The Washington Post has described Michigan, along with Florida, as being on the "cutting edge of shifting public education into the private sector." The result: what are essentially two separate school systems -- one traditional, one charter -- in direct competition for students and state funding.
This sort of competition -- a zero-sum game -- only helps some students and the How Competition Hurts Children in Detroit's Schools: