What About DPS?
It wasn’t a surprise when Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick announced that he has been looking for ways to establish more charter and private schools in the city.
The mayor has made no secret of his desire to control the city’s educational system. Since dominion over Detroit Public Schools (DPS) was denied, Kilpatrick has decided he will help others build the schools he wants to see. This goes hand in hand with the mayor’s privatization crusade where he has worked to turn over the reins of many city departments and services to private corporations.
Though DPS schools targeted for closure received a temporary stay of execution from the school board, the closure plan is not dead yet. Board members told the Detroit News that they will bring a revised plan back to the table in a couple of weeks.
So the school board is determined to shutter at least 43 schools by 2008, and the mayor is working to build new schools that he can run like he wants to. What’s wrong with this picture?
The school board claims that it is working under the guidelines of a state mandated debt reduction plan, and if they don’t close the schools they may fall out of compliance. Board members claim the district’s budget deficit is only surmountable with the closings or with up to 2000 layoffs.
Most criticisms of the schools original closure plan involved its apparent randomness. There didn’t seem to be much “planning” involved in the plan.
The mayor’s insistance that he’ll just start his own schools is counter productive. Kilpatrick should work with the board and with parents to come up with a Detroit school survival plan that takes the community’s fiscal and educational needs into consideration. That is what leadership is about.
All of this infighting and back biting sets a poor example for the students who are the political football here. Why are children being penalized because adults don’t know how to manage finances?
