Class Size Reduction… the Detroit Way
Detroit school officials are in a panic because next Wednesday is the day the state counts the number of students enrolled to determine the amount of state funding each district gets. And, due to the illegal 16-day teachers’ strike, enrollment is roughly 25,000 students below projections.
It’s a measure of just how much of a mess Detroit is in that people can’t decide whether this is actually true, or a manipulation of the numbers by various players in order to apply political pressure.
Daniel Howes of the Detroit News nails it with his assessment. After noting that since 1994, Detroit’s enrollment dropped 23 percent, but its per-pupil revenue increased 94 percent, Howes spells it out for everyone involved:
“No work means fewer students. Fewer students beget less money. Less money
promises fewer jobs. Those are pretty powerful economics, which overwhelm all
the picket signs, finger-pointing and administrative begging now under way, just
days from the dreaded ‘count day’ that determines state funding.”
UPDATE: Something is rotten in the state of Michigan. Where did the 25,000 students go?
September 23rd, 2006 at 10:24
You don’t know the half of it. Or maybe you do but don’t want to thought a liar.
I don’t know much about other cities but DPS is grotesque. Payrolls months behind, rampant theft of school supplies, deals so overpriced that you have to be familiar with the district’s record of incompetence to not assume corruption, DPS employees laying out in the sun snoozing or playing cards with fellow employees during work hours.
There there’re the spats between board members which wouldn’t be tolerated between seven year-olds but occurred with embarrassing frequency between board members.
I don’t think that even this latest debacle will be enough to get the legislature looking for a solution to the DPS problem but at least it pushes the state in the direction of more rational policy.
Maybe the worthies at DPS will piss in the soup once too often and force the legislature to act like they did when they disbanded the district and replaced the incumbent nincompoops with a new set of nincompoops.
September 23rd, 2006 at 10:26
Hey! I guess I didn’t log in properly.