What if Detroit were a white district?

 Detroit Public Schools, in its new IMF style of debt reduction, has placed upwards of 45 students in classrooms. Students who come from the most impoverished conditions- nearly all others have jumped ship from DPS- come to school without breakfast, without computers at home, often without the basic human needs met when they get to school. Put them now in a classroom with no books, one or no teacher- a different substitute each day- and then test them all together. The teachers were told the week of MEAP testing that there would be more layoffs coming. Despite the 40 million dollar Houghton Mifflin book contract between former superintendent Barbara Byrd Bennett and the District, students do not use the books because the District does not own the licensing for them. How is it that Byrd Bennett, Robert Bobb, countless other contractors can leave us in this condition and simply live their materially rich, morally bankrupt lives. They are on the speaking circuit. They have been rewarded for their part in the theft of Detroit's children's inheritance. Now comes their second act; The Failing District for schools that do not make the grade.
Does this look like a District trying to save its children from "failure.?" Put forty children who don't speak English into a classroom with no bilingual teacher, no aide for the teacher, a principal who speaks no Spanish and we have a wonderful source of new victims for the "Failing District."
There are people who once would have been allies, but they are keeping their council, hoping they can get a piece of the action. This helps to explain the silence of some of those who would be with us in this fight. No one has to have any particular credentials to get in on these sweet deals. Witness Catherine Ferguson Academy. Watch what happens in the other schools that simply close overnight. There are neighborhoods on the East Side with no elementary school for miles. There is no law stating that a neighborhood has to have a school. There is no law stating that a classroom has to have a teacher, or that there is a limit on the number of students in a classroom. Indeed, it was the fire marshall that shut down the Nolan Elementary School for having 57 children in a kindergarten room. If Detroit goes under the Emergency Manager rule, the fire marshall will not be able to come in to intervene. The Health Department can do nothing about the rats in the cafeteria at Academy of the Americas. The administration threatens all school personnel if they talk to the press. There is an atmosphere of fear and alienation throughout all the buildings. No teachers, no principals are protected, so children are on their own. Parents who don't speak English are absolutely on their own.
The good news is this: None of what we have recently lost just came to us. African centered curriculum, bilingual education, special education all came with great struggles. Battles were fought for school equity, which was lost before we ever got it. We had good teachers, dedicated parents, warriors in the community who fought long and hard for these things. We did not have the sinister forces of privatization, all protected by bought and paid for legislators, hidden behind anonymous foundation donors, none of whom
Then there are the Excellent Schools. These are not for everyone, though. They are for the favored neighborhoods of United Way, Skillman, Broad Foundation, and countless other merchants of misery posing as saviours. Don't forget Southwest Solutions, in its endless manifestations ( Our Kids Come First, Harriet Tubman Organization, Youthvoice, and on and on). Follow the money. Some of the most sinister forces are at work in Detroit. This is no time to our backs on Detroit schools. Foundations can decide who their favored students, schools, neighborhoods are. The rest of Detroit and its children and its neighborhood are at the mercy of forces we cannot see, elect, confront. It's a new battlefront and we have to research using our most criminal minds to understand what we are up against.
This is a good fight. Jump in.
In solidarity,
Elena Herrada
District 2 Representative, Detroit Public Schools

Chronicles of a city in Exile

This is the first of a dispatch from Detroit Public School Board member Elena Herrada, who represents District 2, Southwest Detroit. We are under an Emergency Manager. I was appointed to the Detroit School Board in July of 2010, after the elected board member was forced to step down. I was invited to request the appointment by other school board members. Since I was appointed to the board, I have been in a pitched battle to restore Detroit Public Schools' right to govern itself. We have been under Emergency Manager since 2009, when Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm sent Robert Bobb to take over our district. Since that time, we have been beset with 2/3 more debt than we had before the takeover, and have won a court battle for academic control, only to have the law changed by Republican governor Rick Snyder. In fact, the change in law also mandates that if the Board sues the State again, we cannot go to a Detroit court; we must go to Ingham County, where we would likely never get an African American judge again.
I am writing this missive to go on record. If we do not record our history, someone else will and it will not be our truth. It is important to go on the record and state who was with us, who was against us, and who stood idly by. It is important to note who, among the non profit community, who, among the activist community collaborated with the State against the children of Detroit; against public education, against the concept of equal education for all, not just those who live in the "Promise Neighborhoods" selected by non profits and foundations, leaving many out in the broken promise neighborhoods. I am seeking to engage the people of Detroit in dialogue about ideas, about justice, about ethics in our everyday dealings with each other.
Welcome to Dispatch from the Promised Land.