Dive Brief:
- Detroit Public Schools (DPS) will run out of money with which to pay teachers by April 8, 2016 due to an ongoing funding crisis that includes a $515 million operating debt and total debt of more than $3 billion.
- Politicians are now considering legislation to restructure the school system, the Washington Post reports, returning school control back to the local level after nine years of state control.
- The latest emergency manager for DPS, Steven Rhodes, assumed his new position in March and is urging lawmakers to act quickly.
Dive Insight:
Rhodes' position is certainly not enviable. His predecessor, Darnell Earley, resigned four-and-a-half months early on Feb. 29 after shouldering much of the blame over the Flint water crisis in Michigan and taking heat for his handling of teacher sickouts and crumbling building conditions in Detroit's schools. Yet Earley said Gov. Rick Snyder's proposal to chop the DPS district in half and restructure debt played a primary role in his resignation. A recent lawsuit filed by the Detroit Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers accused both Detroit Public Schools and Earley himself of helping to create unsafe learning conditions in DPS schools.
A wide variety of problems plague DPS. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan's visits to a few DPS buildings led to subsequent calls for a district-wide investigation of 97 different buildings. Questions over funding were raised back in January, with a projected April school shutdown date.
Two state bills, Senate Bills 710 and 711, are based on Gov. Snyder's controversial ed plan. Critics of the plan include the state superintendent of schools, who say the effort doesn't do enough. DPS has also been under emergency state management for the last nine years, due to a plan Snyder created that put in place the Education Achievement Authority district. Snyder's wider $715 million reform package also faces threats of delays because federal authorities are currently investigating alleged vendor kickbacks in the EAA.
