When I wrote about the end of public education in two districts in Michigan, I pointed out that the state’s emergency manager law is a mechanism to end democracy when there is a fiscal crisis. That strikes me as draconian.
Surely we don’t want to see governmental entities running up deficits that they can’t pay, but there is another side to the story. Some districts don’t have the property tax base to provide an adequate education. When that is the case, it is the state’s responsibility to assure that there is enough money to educate the children and to make sure that the money is spent responsibly. A fiscal monitor or a financial control board could perform that function. When New York City teetered on the edge of bankruptcy in 1975, the governor did not shut down democracy in New York City; he appointed a financial control board that helped the city to return to fiscal health.
What is happening in Michigan is extremist and anti-democratic. The governor has the power to appoint an emergency manager and to end the functioning of democratically elected and appointed bodies. Is it mere happenstance that in both instances cited, Muskegon Heights and Highland Park, the emergency manager made the same decision to close down public education and to outsource the children to privately managed charter corporations? In Muskegon Heights, the only offers came from for-profit corporations that have poor track records.
In a Michigan article about my blog, several conservatives (I assume they are conservatives as who else would be happy to privatize school districts) expressed their approval at the idea of ending democracy and local control in these two districts. This is simply bizarre. Don’t conservatives prefer local control to the heavy hand of government? Don’t they usually defend the rights of people to determine their own destiny?
According to the article in Michigan, I and others “have not condemned the behavior that led to the deficits or proposed solutions.”
Yes I do have a solution.
My solution is this: The state of Michigan should preserve public education for future generations in every school district, as the founding fathers intended when they passed the Northwest Ordinance. If they suspect fiscal irresponsibility, they should appoint a fiscal expert to make sure that the district is returned to fiscal health. But if the district lacks the resources to educate its children, then the state should supply what is needed to take care of the children.
And yes, I do condemn the behavior that led to the deficits. I condemn Governor Rick Snyder and the Michigan Legislature for heedlessly cutting the funding for public schools and plunging dozens of school districts in Michigan into fiscal distress. I condemn Governor Snyder and the Michigan Legislature for giving tax breaks to corporations instead of funding public schools. I condemn Governor Snyder and the Michigan legislature for fiscal irresponsibility. I condemn them for not caring about other people’s children. I condemn them for preferring privatization over public responsibility.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
These privatization folks and those who cheer them on like Mr. Murray aren’t conservatives, they are regressives. They give true conservatives a bad name. Hell, I consider myself conservative in a lot of ways. They want to go back to a time that they believe was golden but never was. So not only are they regressives but they are delusional regressives.
Mr. Murray and his ilk want to blame the victims of unjust underfunding instead of looking at the root of the problem which is the trickle down (which I call pissed on) voodoo economics that has been the modus operandi of said regressives for 30 years. How long does it take before this country realizes that trickle down really means torrent upwards like a waterspout for the top !%.
Murray is a reporter and he was trying to give both sides a hearing. I don’t criticize him for doing so. But I do question the judgment of those people he quoted who seem to think that if people don’t know how to control costs, then they don’t deserve to have public schools or local control. They are quite pleased to see a dictator take control of those districts. This is not conservative. It is something else.
Since 1994, Michigan’s policy towards urban and rural public schools has been one of indifference and, in my opinion, too often abandonment. That is not to say that before (and after) 1993 these school districts were performing well for their students. For the most part, they were not. But the policies of schools of choice and charters have hastened the financial and academic downfalls of these districts. In Berrien County, the Galien schools have voted to shut down. Detroit, Muskegon Heights, Benton Harbor, and other urban and many rural districts have lost thousands of students (and the revenues that flow with those students) in the last 20 years. Detroit alone has lost over 100,000 students in 20 years. Has there been poor management and sometimes mismanagement in these districts? Yes. But I also believe that the continued enrollment declines and financial duress due to the draining of students has added to the woes.
I would like to correct or clarify for Diane in regards to one aspect of Michigan school funding. True, there is a great disparity in property tax base in Michigan. However, since 1994, most of Michigan’s funding for operations has come from the state. (The wealthier districts in Michigan are indeed wealthier because of their legacy property tax bases. And it is true that these wealthier districts, most likely suburban, often “ring” the property poorer urban districts.)
The disparity of property taxes per student in Michigan’s schools primarily impacts a district’s ability to fund facilities. Property poor districts like rural Hartford in Van Buren County and Benton Harbor in Berrien, e.g., do not have the property tax base that would enable them to maintain or improve facilities like some of the suburban districts, e.g., Forest Hills in Kent County or even a Bridgman in Berrien.
Robert Burgess
retired Michigan School Business Official
former business manager for an urban district, Grand Rapids,
and a suburban district, Lakeshore Schools
If education becomes just another consumer good, a private commodity that parents buy for their own children, then there is no reason that everyone else should have to pay for it. Parents will then get the private schools that corporate con men are trying to sell them, and they will pay for them out of their own pockets. The education gap will then match the income gap, and what little democracy we have left in this country will spiral ever downward and die.
That is where we are headed if the People do not rise up and put a stop to this madness.
“Don’t conservatives prefer local control to the heavy hand of government? Don’t they usually defend the rights of people to determine their own destiny?”
Yes, they do; but, apparently only when it suits them.
Smaller, more rural school districts whose tax base was formerly founded in agriculture, are now struggling to keep up. Unlike other districts with more robust tax bases, they cannot be “bailed out” with a temporary loan from the state, because there is really no way for them to pay it back. A combination of a shrinking tax base, growing requirements for technology and innovation, possible poor management of available funds, AND the nation’s economic downturn have proved challenging at best, and at worst, nearly fatal.
Similarly, larger, more urban districts that have lost their inductrial/commercial tax base are in the same boat.
It was back in the late 60s and early 70s when the Big Three and other major corporations hit on the plan of black-mailing cities with the threat of moving their operations to other States and countries unless they were granted property-tax abatements for extended periods of time — periods of time that I’m guessing never really ended. Of course, these corporations moved whatever they pleased whenever it suited them, no matter what promises had been made. That is one of the reasons why even cities with major industries sitting on their lots have the impoverished tax bases they currently have.
Why do you assume that choice in education would kill public ed? I would think it would improve education as it’s done in other countries that have true school choice.
Plenty of us have school choice right now. It works well but it’s not perfect. Even with the imperfections, I sure appreciate that I can pull my kids out of their school if I don’t like what I see and move them to a better school.
This isn’t Conservative vs Liberal, 71% of Moms prefer school choice.
I have YET to hear any real reform solution that would fix public education. As we can see, the Progressives are destroying it so let’s not pretend that it takes vouchers to destroy public ed.
Ms. Abrain,
One of the reasons that Michigan voters rejected ballot proposals for voucher systems on a couple of previous occasions is that people of good sense recognize that all such Monopoly™ Money™ schemes are an obvious attempt to introduce market dynamics into a domain where market dynamics do not belong.
Regardless of Michigan’s funding method for public school districts, it is broken and perpetuates the inequity of school funding that has helped led to the mess in Highland Park (lowest property values per pupil in the state) and Muskegon Heights. As superintendent of Godfrey-Lee Public Schools, which has the highest poverty rate in our county and highest limited English proficiency percentage in the entire state, I know first hand the effects of this inequity.
The recent 2012 version of the National Report Card on school funding points out that Michigan’s method of funding schools is regressive and rewards affluent suburban districts while penalizing urban poor and rural districts. The report is based on two-year old data that doesn’t include the draconian cuts to K-12 education in Michigan by a Governor and legislative leaders bent on rewarding their business friends. An earlier edition of the report put out a couple years ago placed Michigan in a similar ranking yet nothing has been done these past two years to change anything and provide for the kids who need the funding support the most.
Our small district is battling with a $1 million deficit for the coming year and the larger neighboring Grand Rapids Public Schools district is facing a much greater sinkhole. None of this has been caused by mismanagement or so-called union-greed that is every conservatives whipping boy right now. It’s caused by a greater need for more time, more resources, and equitable opportunities for our students while at the same time costs (e.g., services and materials from private businesses) have risen and state funding has declined by 15% in the past ten years (we now receive less per pupil than we did seven years ago).
There will be more Highlands and Muskegons in Michigan and other states if we don’t focus on real reform (instead of fattening the pockets of test makers) in the coming months. If you want to really know what’s going on with public education, come out to my district and spend some time seeing for yourself.
David Britten
Lieutenant Colonel, US Army, Retired
Superintendent of Schools
Godfrey-Lee Public Schools
Bless you Diane for entering this debate in Michigan. What is happening is truly sad.
I miss the days when I was allowed to teach my students what each student needed to succeed; the days when we were allowed to pause and wonder about the world and take time to explore a topic of keen interest. Now our days are filled with nothing but test pressure. Combine this with ever decreasing funding, children who come to school hungry from homes that are desperate and living on the edge, and you have a formula for failure. What we are facing now is part of a plan that was set in motion long ago and it has absolutely nothing to do with school reform/improvement, school choice or putting students first. This is about keeping the poor poor and enriching the already rich.
The people trying desperately to privatize education are not ‘conservative’. They are right wing. If they were conservative, they would not be in favor of radical change- they would want to preserve and protect. Calling them ‘conservative’ makes them sound quaint and well-meaning. In fact, they are right wing radicals hell bent on doing away with the commons and shared responsibility.
I agree. I made the same point. They are radicals who want to tear down an essential public function and privatize it.
Michigan voters are using the referendum option to counter what the legislature is doing. They are facing a lot of opposition. First is the referendum to repeal the emergency manager law, which is in limbo between the appeals court and the state Board of Canvassers. The fate of Detroit, Muskegon Heights, and Highland Park Public Schools is waiting on that. The second is an initiative to amend the state constitution to protect collective bargaining rights. The politics in Michigan are very, very interesting right now.
Emergency manager law opponents want repeal on ballot now
http://www.freep.com/article/20120621/NEWS05/206210445
Group delivers nearly 685,000 signatures backing ballot measure to enshrine union rights
http://www.freep.com/article/20120613/NEWS06/120613055
Business groups protest Michigan union-backed ‘Protect Our Jobs’ initiative
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120622/POLITICS01/206220357