Dive Brief:
- Big-money foundations and national charter networks have largely stayed away from Detroit, a city with failing schools and great need, but little of the attention that New Orleans, Memphis and others have received.
- The Atlantic reports Detroit has 100 city schools and almost the same number of charters, which leads to a key problem — too many schools to compete with and little quality control over which get to stay open.
- While some education advocates in Detroit are happy the major foundations and charter networks have stayed away, others say it points to a level of dysfunction that needs to be addressed.
Dive Insight:
The charter school movement has often been framed as a matter of school choice. Families should be able to choose the best schools for their children. This, advocates say, creates healthy competition among schools and improves conditions across the board. Yet Detroit is perhaps one example of how too much choice and not enough quality — or quality information — ends up hurting families and the entire school system.
One of the latest reform efforts in Detroit was creating a new, debt-free school system, and leaving $467 million of debt in the old system to continue to be paid for with property taxes. The new district, unburdened by debt payments, is expected to spend more on students, though it may come with a range of other problems.