I asked for news about Detroit.

Detroit is one of the trying grounds for corporate reform.

It is a petri dish for reformers to try out their theories.

The district has an intense concentration of racial segregation and poverty and low test scores.

For reformers, this toxic combination suggests that what is needed is school reform, meaning, charter schools run by private management. No part of the reform plan addresses racial segregation and poverty.

We previously learned that the emergency manager decided to create many new privately managed charters. And he imposed a new contract that laid off teachers and will allow class sizes to soar in K-3 to as high as 41 and in 6-12 to as high as 61.

We also noted that charter leaders in Detroit are compensated with higher salaries than public school leaders.

Here is the latest report from Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley. The “reform” plan abolished a small school for the deaf, probably because it cost too much. The parent of the profoundly deaf student in this article has been told that her daughter should go to school in Flint, not Detroit, or should be mainstreamed.

And inexplicably, a teacher rated effective, who happens to be one of the few black male elementary teachers in the city or state or nation, doesn’t know if he will have a job. Hundreds of teachers are waiting to hear if they have a job when school starts in a few days.

In short, as Riley observes, “Detroit schoolchildren are caught in a chaos of power, lawsuits, lack of staff and major confusion.”

As a general rule, chaos is not good for children.