Detroit Rep. Harvey Santana, the Democratic vice chairman of the appropriations panel, said his colleagues can’t avoid the looming financial crisis in the state’s largest school district much longer.
“What happens when they’ve got no money and they can’t open their doors?” said Santana, a graduate of the former Chadsey High School.
“Are you going to send them to Canton, Livonia, Grosse Pointe or Royal Oak? Take your pick. That’s going to wake everybody up. … You don’t have enough charter schools in Detroit to take all of these students.”
The 36-member Detroit coalition, whose ranks include influential business leaders like General Motors executive Mark Reuss and Cornerstone Schools co-founder Clark Durant, plans to put on a full-course press to get the Legislature to consider its sweeping recommendations for repairing Detroit’s fractured system of public schools.
In addition to assuming state-backed Detroit district debt, the group wants Gov. Rick Snyder to remove the district’s emergency manager and return power to the elected Detroit school board, shutter the state-created Education Achievement Authority and return its 15 city schools and 6,500 students to DPS.