That’s what’s going on, not in beleaguered Detroit, but in thoroughly suburban Westland, where you could win a lease on a Saturn Vue if you drag little Susie to class today. All Detroit is doing to try to get kids to show up is offering presents, pizza and ice cream.
All these schools are doing this, of course, because they gain nearly ten thousand state and federal dollars for every student they have on their books, and lose that much money each time they lose one, thanks to Proposal A.
Frankly, I am surprised there haven’t been scandals with schools signing up phantom students, bribing kids to show up at the wrong school, or smuggling illegal immigrants across the border to plump up the enrollment for count day.
This is not the way to educate the next generation. But you can’t blame the administrators; they have no choice. They are charged with providing an impossible array of services with what for most of them is an ever-shrinking pool of funds.
Not only is that unfair to them, it threatens to permanently cripple our state’s future. It also sabotages what the citizens were trying to accomplish when they passed Proposal A back in 1994.
Proposal A changed the way public education was funded in Michigan precisely because the old method of funding was unfair. It was based almost entirely on property tax-based millage. That meant you got a great education in Grosse Pointe.
But if you went to school in a poor area like Kalkaska, your district could run out money and have to close down, sometimes as early as February. By funding each student Proposal A was intended to make sure everybody got an equal chance at a good education.
That system helped poorer districts a great deal. But then came the rise of charter schools. If you put your child in a religious parochial school, they don’t get the state money – no one does.
But charter schools do qualify for public funding, and are gradually draining away resources from conventional public schools.
You can’t blame parents for taking their kids out of public schools if they think they can get a better education elsewhere.
What is less clear is whether this is, in fact the case – or whether the average parent has enough information to really evaluate which charter school may be best for their children.
I worry that in some areas, resources may be so split between charter schools and conventional schools that neither will be able to do an adequate job. Former state superintendent Tom Watkins gets it right. This needs to be all about providing our children, all of our children with the best education possible. Because in the long run, that should be worth far more to all of us than even a lease on a brand new Rolls Royce.
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