“House Republicans are playing games with the Detroit Public Schools, and the children of Detroit are the ones who will lose”, House Democratic Leader Tim Greimel said.
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Critics questioned provisions that would allow the schools board to hire noncertified teachers to fill hundreds of vacancies and require the financial commission to sign off before a superintendent is fired.
“Unfortunately we don’t have an agreement [on how to help DPS] with everybody”, says state Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof [R-West Olive].
But House Republicans and many charter school advocates adamantly oppose inclusion of the DEC, calling it another layer of bureaucracy that would inject too much politics into the DPS district.
Gov. Rick Snyder said Wednesday he still supports empowering a commission to make decisions about the opening of Detroit schools but called it a “newer concept”, while there is common ground on paying down the state-managed district’s massive debt and returning control to a school board.
While business leaders and policymakers convene to discuss the many issues faced by the state at the Mackinac Policy Conference held by the Detroit Regional Chamber, state representatives in the Michigan House are still in Lansing to work on a funding and reform deal for Detroit Public Schools.
The bills will send $617 million to the district – $467 million to help pay off the DPS’ operating deficit and $150 million in transition costs for the new district. Emergency aid for the district will run out by June 30. It was proposed more than a year ago and is billed as a way to better locate and promote higher-quality schools in a fragmented system with 14 separate charter authorizers.
Planet M, as the campaign is called, was unveiled Wednesday at the Mackinac Policy Conference – where Gov.
I just want to have a standard that the good ones can grow but somebody actually deals with those that arent performing.
“Whoever’s doing the governance today, it’s not working”, said John Rakolta, chairman and CEO of the Walbridge construction company in Detroit and co-chairman of a coalition backing an overhaul of the district.
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“Having some entity to provide a rational approach to the opening of new schools and the location of new schools in the city is critically important to the future of the education of Detroit school children”, he said. “We all realize you have a model going forward that’s different”.
