DETROIT — Michigan lawmakers trying to glue together a plan to fix Detroit Public Schools using taxpayer money are staring down more than a decade of failure with what was once among the largest public education systems in the nation.
It’s a story that stretches back to the 1990s, when poor academics, abhorrent graduation rates and low test scores opened the door for the state to wrest control from an elected school board. The district was set free in 2005, but budget missteps, corruption, financial mismanagement and enrollment losses ushered in the current state oversight — yet debt and deficits continue to rise.
“It hasn’t worked. It clearly hasn’t worked,” Juan Jose Martinez, a Detroit school board member in the late 1990s, said of state oversight. “It’s a shame things are in the condition they are in. … I’m a man of faith, and I have to keep praying that it’s going to get back on solid footing.”
The latest of five state-appointed financial managers has said the district can’t continue unless legislators pitch in to pay off the debt and include funding to allow resources to be directed back to classrooms.
With encouragement from Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, the state Senate has approved a plan to pay off the district’s estimated $467 million debt and provide $200 million in transition funds for a new, separate district that would educate students and have its finances overseen by a commission of state appointees. The plan effectively commits Michigan to a decade of new spending until the old DPS debt is retired. The House version would pay off the debt and provide $33 million for transition costs.
“We recognize that the future of Detroit’s schoolchildren is on the line,” said Republican Rep. Al Pscholka, House Budget Committee chairman. “There’s never been an indication … that we would not help the children of Detroit. It doesn’t matter to me today who’s to blame. Assigning blame doesn’t solve it.”
Academics are improving as some test scores have inched up and 4-year graduation rates moved over the past decade from 58 percent to 77 percent. Fiscally, things couldn’t be worse: The state hired retired bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes in February to complete the job that four other emergency managers couldn’t. If the legislature’s plan is approved, a locally elected board could regain control by next year, though a financial review commission still would oversee finances.
But state control over Detroit’s schools has failed, said Craig Thiel, of the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, a nonprofit policy research group.
“The model is focused almost exclusively on the finances and has very little to do with the academics,” he said. “If you don’t give time for academic reforms to work, the revenue comes down too quickly.”
