In the six weeks six this blog's first post, current events have continued to alter the landscape of what could be called the state of the Detroit Public School District.
First, the Michigan Senate sent wide-sweeping DPS reform bill to the house of representatives.
The bill represents the latest attempts by state government to tackle the long-entrenched troubles of DPS. The Districts debt directly contributes to the poor state of DPS buildings and a general lack of resources, including staff members and faculty.
But this bill primarily serves to add to the confusion surrounding the future of DPS, and the state's role in defining that future. The aforementioned Detroit Free Press story by Lori Higgins documents definite opposition against this senate bill in the house, who has been developing a reform bill of their own.
Michigan's legislature seems to still be a long way from developing a plan of action to deal with DPS. In the story, Higgins quotes Sen. Geoff Hanson (R-Hart).
"Today, we have the opportunity to change the lives of 47,000 children," Hansen, the primary sponsor of the legislation, said. "The time for blame is well past. Now is the time for solutions," (Higgins, 1) .
While solutions are still being searched for, the DPS schoolboard does not seem to agree that "the time for blame is past". On April 6, DPS filed a lawsuit against more than 20 plaintiffs including Michigan Governor Rick Snyder.
I was able to speak with Lori Higgins, who covered the lawsuit for the Detroit Free Press.
"(DPS's) perspective is that the state has been in control of the school district, at least since 1999 except for about three years, when the school board had control of the district.
DPS is a peculiar case in Michigan. It is the only district run by un-elected officials (read Emergency Managers) as opposed to the democratically elected school board.
The lawsuit, filed by Thomas Bleakly of St. Clair Shores, alleges 14th amendment violations as well. This echoes the call of previous lawsuits filed against Governor Snyder by DPS.
In an Detroit News article by Shawn D. Lewis, Bleakly describes the situation with DPS as, "The Flint water crisis on steroids." Bleakly is working the case pro-bono.
“As I was drafting the 103-page case, I felt tears well up in my eyes on a half-dozen instances,” Bleakly told the Detroit News. “I want to set the record straight on just who is responsible for this mess.”
Higgins confirms that the lawsuit, bleakly and DPS were clear when they stated at a press conference that they would not specify how much, if any, they are seeking.
"They said that the priority is trying to have the lawsuit address who is really responsible for the district's financial problems," Higgins said.
The contemporary issue of the lawsuit perfectly frames the larger failures of democracy that I have outlined with the philosophies of Jean Jacques Rousseau and James Madison.
The DPS schoolboard wants the state to assume responsibility for their actions while in control of the district, and not leave the district to cope with the negative consequences of The State's and Emergency Manager's financial decisions.
The lawsuit explicitly claims that Michigan's controversial emergency manager law and "related practices," have been used to, "compromise and damage the equality of education received by all DPS students with life-long consequences in the name of financial urgency."
The Lawsuit brings its claim under the Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment, as well as the Rehabilitation act of 1973 and the Civil Rights act of 1964.
I propose that we should see that amendment and those acts each as individual agreements made, in the fashion of Rousseau, between all the people in the United States as represented by elected officials and determined by democratic vote.
In the previous two posts, we have used Rousseau's ideals of social contract and the Madison's theory that the "vigour (sic) of government is essential to the security of liberty," to illustrate how failures in democracy have painted a devastating educational reality for the roughly 50,000 students of Detroit Public Schools.
It is fitting that the final post of this blog should be recording this recent lawsuit, which is alleging the same types of governmental deficiencies that a rousseauian or federalist analysis of Michigan's relationship with DPS, via stripping the school board of autonomous power enjoyed by all other districts in the state and failing to provide the Citizens of Detroit with their agreed upon civil rights.
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