The idea is to try and assume the best about peoples’ motives, even when you haven’t necessarily been given reason to do so.
The proposed Detroit Education Commission is part of the so-called Return To Excellence package of bills that passed the Michigan Senate last month. The objective of the bills is to improve the educational system in Detroit, which is obviously a necessary thing. The obvious question, of course, is how exactly this improvement is supposed to take place. Because, as has become rather clear amidst the sound and fury surrounding what to do about Detroit schools, what one person defines as improvement, someone else may define using terminology that cannot be reprinted in a family newspaper.
From Crain’s Detroit Business:
Steven Rhodes, the transition manager who began overseeing Detroit Public Schools this month, supports establishing a commission led by a “cross section of Detroiters who have a vested interest” in its education system.
“The advantage of a (commission) is its ability to rationally organize and allocate the public and charter educational assets in the city so that education in Detroit can compete with education elsewhere,” he said in a statement to Crain’s last week. “Once that is done, I believe Detroit will be in a better position to attract families.”
First of all, it would actually be more accurate to refer to Steven Rhodes as Emergency Manager #5, because there really isn’t any such thing as a transition manager. I understand that Rhodes probably feels this terminology might be less offensive to those who aren’t paying quite as close attention, but it doesn’t really change the fact that he is essentially doing the exact same thing as the four guys before him. It was the creation of their emergency manager positions 1-4 that even made his position (#5) possible. Not that I blame him for not wanting to be associated with that label after what it has meant for Flint and DPS but, well, it is what it is.
Anyway, to the point. What’s wrong with the idea of the Detroit Education Commission should be relatively easy to spot by anyone who still believes that the governing bodies of public schools should be elected by the people living in the municipality where those schools are located. And the Detroit Education Commission would be appointed, not elected. The fact that they would be a “cross section of Detroiters” means little if it is not Detroit residents who are given the opportunity to vote for that cross section. Because otherwise, what is the point of having an elected school board as soon as this fall, if they have to now answer to yet another governing body from whom they must seek approval for their actions?
The goal here is obviously to improve Detroit schools. But it is also to give the schools back to Detroit. That must be the goal. Trying to say that some new layer of bureaucracy is representative of Detroit because the mayor gets to appoint some members and the people voted for the mayor is smoke and mirrors.
It’s simple. Or at least it should be. Give Detroit schools back to Detroit.
About Post Author
