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Saturday, June 1, 2019

Michigan: State Attorney General Will Take a Position Opposite to the Governor in Detroit Literacy Lawsuit | Diane Ravitch's blog

Michigan: State Attorney General Will Take a Position Opposite to the Governor in Detroit Literacy Lawsuit | Diane Ravitch's blog

Michigan: State Attorney General Will Take a Position Opposite to the Governor in Detroit Literacy Lawsuit


Now, this gets interesting.
Two days ago, I posted about the battle in Michigan over who is responsible for the deplorable conditions in the public schools of Detroit. Critics claimed that Governor Whitmer was abandoning her campaign promises.
The new Democratic Governor Whitmer disappointed some supporters by asserting that the state was not responsible for the miseducation of the children of Detroit, although Detroit has been under state control for nearly 20 years.
Mackinac Island — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said she will file in opposition to the governor’s position in a lawsuit alleging that the state deprived Detroit students of their right to literacy due to deplorable conditions at the facilities and dwindling numbers of teachers and textbooks.
At the Mackinac Policy Conference Wednesday, Nessel told The Detroit News that while her office has a duty to represent the governor she also is an independently elected official with an obligation to represent the people of the state of Michigan.
She intends to file parens patriae, or on behalf of the residents of Michigan, “to do what I think is best for them personally.”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Friday argued in a response to the lawsuit filed by the attorney general’s office that because Detroit schools have been returned to local control the state should not be subject to the lawsuit..