Detroit Schools’ Pending Fiscal Collapse Endangers Over 45,000 Children
The public schools in Detroit, Michigan—a school district that serves over 45,000 students—may run out of money in April. The mess is so complicated that it is hard to know even how to describe it. How to address it would require strong leadership that appears to be lacking in Michigan these days.
The state is a one-party, all Republican state. Its governor and legislature are unified in their commitment to lowering taxes through austerity budgeting. In education they have also proven to be pro-privatization at least in the biggest and poorest cities.
One thing is certain. The kind of thing that is happening in Detroit is unlikely to affect your children personally unless you live in one of the 10 most distressed large U.S. cities profiled in the NY Times last week—Cleveland; Detroit; Newark; Toledo; San Bernardino, Calif; Stockton, Calif.; Milwaukee; Buffalo; Memphis; and Cincinnati or a similar smaller city like Camden or Gary or Youngstown or Hartford or Flint. What is alarming is that Detroit’s public school crisis has not created any kind of urgent public sense that it must be remedied immediately.
The situation in Detroit’s schools has been a long time in the making. A lot of deplorable choices have been made by politicians over the years. Here are some of the major problems.
First, the school district has a staggering $3.5 billion long-term deficit.
Second, fifteen of Detroit’s schools were, several years ago, turned into a state Education Achievement Authority that has never encompassed more than this small group of the city’s Detroit Schools’ Pending Fiscal Collapse Endangers Over 45,000 Children | janresseger: