School Daze in Detroit: Gov. Snyder Hefts Fiscal Ax on Public Schools
He succeeded at imposing an emergency manager on Detroit—forcing it into bankruptcy and usurping all local authority in order to pave the way for its comeback as a “re-imagined” city, preferably for “new’ Detroiters. Now, almost five months after a federal judge approved the city’s onerous restructuring plan, Gov. Rick Snyder takes aim at Detroit’s public schools.
In the same way that Kevyn Orr, a partner in a politically connected private law firm, was given full decision-making authority over the city, a “citizens group,” the Detroit Coalition for the Future of Detroit Schoolchildren, is the stalking-horse “advisory” group Snyder will rely on to recommend what to do about Detroit’s public schools.
A big clue as to how this will turn out: None of the people actually elected to the Detroit Public Schools board, which serves the largest school district in the state, has been included.
Elena Herrada, a self-described “member-in-exile” of the Detroit School Board and an activist with Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management, discusses Snyder’s plans for public-school education in Detroit and the intense grassroots battle against it.