Legislature lets tragic failure in Detroit schools go on
It is outrageous that our state Legislature could deliver year-end partisan holiday goodies like ending straight-ticket voting, and finding new ways for money to win elections while failing to deliver what is most needed in Detroit — a real plan to help Detroit school children learn once again.
Detroit kids aren’t getting the most important thing they need to make it in life, a great education. Years of exodus of students from the Detroit Public School system have left diminished resources and teachers to support those students with arguably the greatest needs. DPS is the lowest academically performing large urban district in the country.
But the proliferation of choice and new charters hasn’t led to better outcomes for most of the families seeking something else. And the proliferation of new schools, willy-nilly, over the years — with the charter lobby and Republican legislative allies rejecting quality control on who gets to sell education — has led to financial chaos and academic decline.
Detroit has an educational marketplace where all public schools, including DPS and the good charter schools that do exist, can’t fill their classrooms, are under-resourced, and underperforming.
That’s why a coalition of Detroiters led by the Skillman Foundation's Tonya Allen, and Walbridge’s John Rakolta joined together last year and formed a plan to end the madness. The State Board of Education supported the coalition’s recommendationsto end state control, give decision-making back to Detroiters and bring financial Legislature lets tragic failure in Detroit schools go on:
