September 7, 2006 By Chastity Pratt
Detroit Free Press Education Writer
Schools are shuttered indefinitely. Thousands of teachers picket outside schools where they're supposed to teach. And leaders at Detroit Public Schools say the crisis is likely to worsen the district's already dangerous financial outlook.
The only way to save the state's largest school system from financial ruin is for politicians and school leaders to make new and tough decisions about funding, school closures and organizational structure, education experts said Wednesday.
But sweeping action is unlikely.
"Politically, people don't want to talk about it," said Tom Watkins, a former state superintendent who served on the Detroit school board in 2001-04 during the state takeover.
Options under consideration that could help sustain the district include: a ballot issue that would guarantee school funding; shuttering 50 more of the district's 225 schools in the next four years; additional cuts in pay for teachers, and reducing staff.
Leaders with the Detroit Federation of Teachers say cutting pay is not an option.
School and union officials are scheduled to appear in Wayne County Circuit Court today for a fourth time since teachers voted Aug. 27 to strike and court-ordered negotiations began Aug. 28.
And if bargainers have not reached a tentative contract agreement by Friday, the union plans to hold a rally in front of the Fisher Building to show support for the bargaining team, according to a union Web update posted Wednesday.
School district lawyers today will present arguments that the strike, which is illegal under Michigan law, is creating irreparable harm for the school system. The district is facing a $105-million deficit and says it is in danger of losing at least 9,300 of its 129,000 students this school year.
By many accounts, the strike is snuffing out the light at the end of the tunnel for the system.
Yvonne Hunter-Ross said she pulled her children out of the Detroit Public Schools in the last two years because her daughter wasn't being challenged academically and her son was twice a theft victim at Cass Technical High. She also worried about frequent fights outside Detroit City High, where her daughter attended.
If strikes become routine, Hunter-Ross said, "essentially all the parents will get tired of sending their kids there."
Now Hunter-Ross sends her kids to University Preparatory Academy, a charter school in Detroit that serves 1,200 in kindergarten through 12th grade.
"It's a beautiful thing," she said. "The teachers push them to do their best. I don't have a safety issue with them. And I don't have to worry about the teachers going on strike."
The issues Detroit schools face
Detroit is caught in a vortex of ailments that feed one another -- declining enrollment, declining state funding and worsening public perception.
This year, about 30 schools may be slated for closure. By 2009, the school system is projected to close another 20 schools, said Dori Freelain, the district's chief financial officer.
That would mean one-third of the district's schools will have closed from 2005 to 2009, and the district still is likely to have budget problems like the one it faced last year, when it had to file a deficit-elimination plan with the state.
And in the current crisis, school officials have yet to decide what to cut if they can't get teachers to accept $88 million in concessions, Freelain said.
Watkins said that school leadership will have to consider long-term solutions instead of short-term agreements -- like last year's 1-year deal, in which teachers agreed to $64 million in concessions such as lending the district five days of pay. That means school officials should consider more outsourcing and the Legislature may have to rework Proposal A, the school funding law that passed in 1994.
"It's like a car. In 1994, it was sharp. Today, it's 2006 and it's got some dings and needs a tune-up," Watkins said.
The Detroit district is "going to have to be leaner and smaller and that's the reality unless you're going to find a new way to fund schools," Watkins said.
One nugget of help may come in November if voters approve a measure to ensure schools get funding increases to cover the costs of inflation.
Tom White, executive director for the Michigan School Business Officials organization and a leader in the coalition to get the measure passed, said it's the best help the Detroit district can hope to get for now.
"It would help give them a softer landing," he said. "If the state were in better shape, they might have a better chance of getting more money. ... I don't see it happening."
White said school districts need 15% of their budgets in reserve to be in good standing. But 68 districts statewide had 5% or less in reserve, 162 had between 5% and 10%, and 14 school districts were in deficits at the end of 2005, the most recent information available.
Detroit has not ended in a deficit since 2004, but has teetered on the brink. It would have about 1% of its budget as savings if it's able to cut its targeted $105 million this year.
"There could be special legislative action to help," White said. "It justifies special attention in my mind, but I think it's highly unlikely. ... Financially it's complicated and politically it's even more complicated."
Several school board members have said that the state should step in with a big check or legislation because the deficit cropped up during the state takeover in 1999-2005. The Legislature acted to replace the elected board with an appointed one, citing the board's inability to manage its money and improve student achievement.
"The state created a monster and now they're telling us to dance with the monster," said school board member Reverend David Murray. "It can be resolved but it's going to have to be resolved from the top."
But Liz Boyd, spokeswoman for Gov. Jennifer Granholm, said the governor isn't considering sending any extra money to Detroit schools.
That means other painful cuts likely lie ahead for the district, said Monte Piliawsky, associate professor in the College of Education at Wayne State University. He said the district ended up in this dire situation by making the wrong decision to maintain programs -- such as all-day preschool for 3-year-olds -- to keep parents from enrolling children elsewhere.
"It's always painful to downsize because there are fewer resources to have a quality enterprise," Piliawsky said. "But Detroit has no choice because at some point you have to balance the budget. The question is: What can you do to cut costs without interfering with the quality of delivery of services?"
Sharif Shakrani, codirector of the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University, is not optimistic.
"The Detroit school district has other problems they must deal with -- first and foremost the achievement of students. The only way you can ensure that is to show that instruction is being achieved in earnest. This strike just diverts the attention from the main purpose of the schools," he said.
"This is the wrong time for that; I don't see anything positive in this situation."
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