Local control, charter schools focus of testimony over $715M Detroit schools reform package
Testifying Thursday before a state senate committee, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan pushed lawmakers – considering a $715 million proposal to reform the debt-plagued Detroit Public Schools – to restore local control to the district and create a commission with authority to open and close traditional and charter schools.
"If your local district had five superintendents in less than five years, your constituents would be up in arms demanding change," Duggan said. "Yet that's what we have seen and that's why the feeling is so deep about the need for local control."
Duggan was one of several people to appear before the Senate Committee on Government Operations to comment on the DPS reform legislation, introduced last month by Sen. Goeff Hansen, R-Hart.
The testimony was wide-ranging, touching on the impact of charter schools, DPS' dismal student achievement and enrollment that plummeted over the past decade.
It also focused on how quickly DPS, under control by a state-appointed financial manager since 2009, should be governed by a locally-elected school board. The legislation calls for a nine member board, appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder and Duggan, to serve until an elected board takes over in January 2017.
Sen. Morris W. Hood III, D-Detroit, said that's not soon enough.
"The school district deteriorated for numerous reasons under the state's watch, under the emergency manager, and now you're saying we should give up our elected school board powers because of that," Hood said, in response to testimony from John Walsh, Snyder's director of strategy. Local control, charter schools focus of testimony over $715M Detroit schools reform package | MLive.com: