The one thing everyone can – or should – agree on when it comes to the perpetual malodorous brown storm surrounding Detroit’s public school system is that while all the ‘helpful’ governmental and governmentally-appointed entities continue to feud and struggle over how to navigate the minefield of politics and finances on their way toward providing Detroit’s children with a functional school system, the children continue to pay the ultimate price for the incompetence of the adults involved.
A bit too harsh? Perhaps. But it’s been how many years now? And the children are still suffering beneath the burden of the colossal failure created by those whose job it is to protect them, namely the adults. And it’s those same adults who continue to dicker around all these years later still trying to solve this problem that they created. Which means that in many ways the so-called problem solvers are the problem.
So for those whose feelings might possibly be hurt by such a brutal assessment, just imagine what the children might have to say about this whole miserable situation if they weren’t otherwise occupied trying to survive this world with what little skills DPS, the charters, and the Educational Achievement Authority have managed to equip them with.
Moving on.
Monday morning, during a press conference held in his offices at Cadillac Place, Gov. Rick Snyder announced his latest plan to improve all of Detroit’s public schools. The most recent version does not differ much from the earlier announcement made six months ago, which likely means that Mayor Mike Duggan will continue to have issues with the governor’s plan because it does not provide a quick enough time frame for when Detroit schools can be returned to the control of an elected school board. Specifically, according to a press release provided by the governor’s office, the proposed reforms for Detroit’s schools would be as follows:
- Creating a new, traditional public school district — the Detroit Community School District — to teach students, with the current Detroit Public Schools district existing only to address the debt. All students, employees, contracts, employee benefits, and assets will move to the new district, which will be governed by a seven-member board initially appointed by the Governor and the Detroit mayor, switching to elected members. An all-elected board would be in place by 2021.
- Creating a Detroit Education Commission, appointed by the mayor and governor, which engages with the community and hires a chief education officer.
- Driving academic achievement and increasing access to quality schools by allowing the chief education officer to, with community input, hold low-performing schools accountable and reward and increase the number of high-performing schools.
- Calling for the chief education officer to operate a common enrollment system with common forms, enrollment periods and notification dates that will help parents identify and evaluate their school options and choose schools that best fit their children’s needs.
- Partnering with the city’s current Financial Review Commission to oversee finances until the debt is repaid in full.
Duggan, as well as the governor’s own appointed Detroit Education Commission, would like to see the return of an elected school board by spring of 2016 rather than waiting another six years. Snyder, who insists he isn’t opposed to local control, still isn’t willing to commit to what he considers a sped-up time table for a return to local governance. He is, however, willing to offer the enticement that DPS Emergency Manager Darnell Early will be removed permanently by June 30, 2016, if the Michigan Legislature approves his proposed reforms before the end of the year.
“I would like to see emergency management end in Detroit Public Schools, and this solution allows us to do that,” he said, adding that the ‘NewCo’ appointed school board would take over.
So in keeping with the original proposal, what is now known as DPS would be phased out, to be replaced by the Detroit Community School District. This would be the ‘NewCo’. The ‘OldCo’, essentially the remaining bones of DPS, would be kept in place solely to absorb the crushing debt of more than $500 million. Add in the approximately $200 million of estimated start-up costs needed to launch the new and improved (we hope) DCSD, the now $700 million in debt would supposedly be paid off over the course of 10 years through a millage that would provide $70 million annually for that purpose.
Confusing? A bit. Moving on.
As for why the governor isn’t willing to commit to a quicker return to local governance:
“I don’t think I’m arguing against an elected school board, it’s a question of when,” said Snyder. “I’m not trying to show disrespect to that. Part of the issue is, I get pushback from a lot of other people in the state that if we’re making this huge investment, shouldn’t the governor have some say during this time period in the transition? So we’re trying to strike a balance.”
Snyder also suggested that he wanted to see a stronger qualified group of individuals be included in the pool of school board applicants/appointees. While no one would argue that qualified school board members are preferable to less-than-qualified, the question still persists about why it is that the governor’s entitlement to “have some say” should translate into an additional six years with no elected school board. Detroiters have been under emergency management since 2009, which means that even if Mr. Early is removed in June of next year, Detroiters still will have had virtually no say-so in who makes decisions about the education of their own children for a total of 12 years if Gov. Snyder’s proposal is accepted as is.
So then the thorny question becomes (if the governor’s plan is considered viable), what’s more important, self-governance or the welfare of Detroit’s children? And why do the two have to be mutually exclusive?
Unavoidably, the issue of the recently-publicized FBI investigation into both DPS and EAA operations was raised, specifically as to how this ugliness will complicate the governor’s reform efforts. Snyder admitted that the investigation presents a hurdle, but he also pointed out an element of the story that has barely been mentioned – if at all – in any other press accounts of the scandal. The governor said that it was actually through the EAA’s own efforts that the scandal even came to light. In other words, it was the EAA that discovered the problem, and it was the EAA that actually asked the FBI to come in and investigate the problem. To say the least, this is not an insignificant aspect of the story, particularly in light of all the self-inflicted woes the EAA has endured since its inception.
But as commendable as this incident of self-policing may be, it is questionable whether this alone can be considered enough of a good deed to signal any sort of true turnaround.
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