The Michigan Supreme Court decided that the petitions for a referendum on the emergency manager law are valid, and the referendum will happen in November.
In the meanwhile, the judges said, the EM’s powers are suspended.
Detroit has an emergency manager. What happens there, this teacher wonders:
(I’m a teacher in Michigan.) It also leaves hanging what will happen to Detroit Public Schools, which are currently being run by an Emergency Financial Manager. The EFM fired all teachers (requiring them to reapply for their jobs), imposed a 10% pay cut on all teachers, removed class size maximums from the contract (allowing up to 60 students per class at the secondary level), and more. Since these measures were imposed under a law which has now been suspended and whose fate won’t be decided until well after the new school year begins, what will happen? Will the measures be abrogated as if they never existed? What happens to the salary of the EFM? Will he have to pay it all back? (I have my doubts there, but wouldn’t that be nice?) If the EFM isn’t allowed to work for three months and quite naturally finds other work and the public–heaven forbid–votes to keep the law, will the district hire a new manager or try to bring back the old one? This will be interesting to see played out, but it’s disgusting that this legal footwork is dancing on the backs of our children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A bit of review and commentary from Chris Savage.
Slightly off topic, but look what else is going on in Detroit at one of my almae matres:
http://abetterworldisprobable.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/why-students-should-care-about-the-battle-over-tenure-at-wayne-state/
Now that the Board of Canvassers has officially placed the Emergency Manager referendum on the ballot, suspending the law, political gamesmanship is escalating rapidly. This blog describes it as of this morning:
http://eclectablog.com/2012/08/stuff-beginning-to-hit-the-fan-in-the-fallout-of-suspending-michigans-emergency-manager-law.html
On another interesting note, I was watching the live stream of the EAA (Michigan’s low performing school system) board and executive committee yesterday when they were presented with an agreement between the EAA and the Highland Park School District (whose EM has decided to turn the entire district into a charter) which would, apparently, allow the EAA to authorize a charter for the district schools, This is just in case the EM in Highland Park doesn’t have the authority to do it.
This was not, apparently, given to the members ahead of time. An interesting discussion was just getting started when the live stream stopped, so I don’t know what the result was.
This is a very complicated problem, both legally and practically. It was created by the sense of urgency to take emergency measures for school districts, and municipalities, that had been having increasing problems for years. I can’t help but think that something could have, and should have, been done sooner to sort out the problems. And the state bears its own share of responsibility for this. This complicated and controversial law was pushed through in a hurry – just 5 weeks from introduction to effective date. It could have benefited from more deliberation and more inclusion. A perfect example of “haste makes waste.”
Dr. Ravitch,
The following two links show what is happening in Detroit right now. I find it interesting that the first link (which is to the later article), has comments to the effect that the two sides are committed to working together (presumably for the benefit of the students), yet the second link (which was posted a few days earlier) shows exactly the opposite. I so wish these adults would quit acting like three year olds.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120826/SCHOOLS/208260307/DPS-interim-superintendent-waiting-for-PA4-defeat
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120824/SCHOOLS/208240360
By the way, is there any indication of what actual class sizes will be in DPS this year?