When Detroit Public Schools published an
audit last November that projected the district’s bankruptcy before summer,
government officials from Lansing to Detroit began wondering what to do. The
state’s "takeover" of the district in 1999
was a "radical" reform that was supposed to have solved the district’s
financial problems, not leave it $200 million in debt. The $200 million question now becomes, What do you do when
radical reform fails?
Gov. Granholm responded to this financial morass the way government usually
responds: She started forming a committee to study the problem. Instead, she should embrace a straightforward strategy.
First, the state should be forthright with Michigan
citizens about the cause of this fiasco:
The district is rapidly losing students. This ignominious trend started
before the Legislature created the district’s reform board in 1999, but the
exodus has continued unabated. With fewer students, the district gets less state
money.
Exactly how bad is the student loss? In the past a
half-dozen years,
the district has lost more than 30,000 students — a decrease of nearly
one-fifth of its student body since 1998. A
Detroit Free Press review of census data in 2002 indicates that Detroit
families are fleeing the district for charter schools and better public schools
in neighboring districts.
And why shouldn't they? What possible incentive would
parents have to keep their children in a district with a
roughly 50 percent graduation rate and a history of some of the worst
standardized test scores in the state?
Second, the Legislature and the governor should recognize
that more state intervention in the district — a "takeover
of the takeover," as the Detroit NAACP puts it — will be an abject failure.
The district is simply too big, too complicated and (frankly) too intransigent
to be straightened out by any one guru — or even a gaggle of them. At this
point, one hopes no elected official would consider another "takeover" to be an
option in a city
that just voted to end the reform board model imposed by the state.
Third, the Legislature and the governor should realize that
borrowing money to repay existing debt will not solve the district's problems
anymore than a Band-Aid will alleviate internal hemorrhaging. Michigan law
requires schools to eliminate debt within two years, and there isn't any
compelling reason why Detroit Public Schools should be given a pass, especially
given
the district’s practice of hiring personnel while losing students in recent
years.
Fourth, laying off employees and closing school buildings
is appropriate. "Rightsizing" — a buzzword for reducing the size of government
to match demand for its services — is a sensible first step.
Granted, Detroit Public Schools is the largest employer in
the city, presently employing more than 22,000 people. But the school system is
not a jobs program. If a district doesn't have the students, it shouldn't employ
the staff.
Fifth, it's time for the Legislature and the governor to
amend Michigan's charter school law and allow the unrestricted competition of
charter schools in the city. This will signal the unions that the halcyon era of
uninterrupted taxpayer funding for lousy schools is over.
What does it matter if the Detroit Federation of Teachers
can't — or won't — accept this? They will continue opposing charter schools out
of
unabashed self-interest until the last gavel falls. Nevertheless, forcing
schools to compete for students is the only viable solution, both economically
for the state and academically for the students.
Sixth, Detroit's — and Michigan’s — best hope is for the
Legislature to enact an
education tax credit like the one we've long-proposed at the Mackinac Center
for Public Policy.
With such a credit, more families can choose successful
private schools, such as Detroit's nationally famous
Cornerstone Schools. Students succeed at these schools at a fraction of the
cost of the public system. There is no valid reason to prohibit families from
directing some of their own tax dollars (or a contributor’s tax dollars) to
schools they choose.
The months ahead are going to be bumpy. The district’s CEO,
Ken Burnley, is apparently leaving at the end of the school year. The reform
board will probably name an interim CEO after he leaves. A few months later, in
January 2006, the district will then revert to an elected board that will, in
all likelihood, hire yet another superintendent.
As important as these things are, what matters most is
giving Detroit's children the chance to attend schools that will educate them
properly. Whether Michigan’s leaders will finally enact meaningful reforms to
accomplish this is the real question.
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Brian L.
Carpenter is director of the leadership development initiative for the Mackinac
Center for Public Policy, a research and educational institute headquartered in
Midland, Mich. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted,
provided that the author and the Center are properly cited.
