In Detroit, strong schools make strong neighborhoods

Strong local schools are the foundation of sustainable neighborhoods. With the city moving aggressively to stabilize and rebuild neighborhoods and the Detroit Public Schools, Gov. Rick Snyder and the Coalition for the Future of Detroit Schoolchildren proposing restructuring K-12 education in Detroit, now is the time to make local schools once again the center of Detroit’s neighborhoods. It will require establishing competitive attendance zones incorporating both DPS schools and charter schools within the city’s seven neighborhood districts.

Local schools were the centerpiece of the city’s neighborhoods through the 1950s when Detroit was a leading American city with a model urban school system. They are the centerpiece of sustainable suburban neighborhoods today. In Detroit, public schools shared neighborhood attendance areas with a city-wide Catholic parish K-12 school system. Children could walk to either a public or parish school, parents and homes were close, school facilities served neighborhoods needs beyond K-12 education and school and neighborhood activities strengthened the cohesiveness among neighborhood residents.

What happened?

Busing in the 1970s and 1980s spelled the beginning of the end of schools being the centerpiece of Detroit neighborhoods. City schools were racially identifiable as African-American, integrated and white. African-American schools were performing poorly and proposals emerged to improve performance of their students. Coleman Young, as state senator and later as mayor of Detroit, promoted improving neighborhood schools through greater local control. Others favored integration as the best method. They prevailed when the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its decision in the case of Milliken v. Bradley.

The case found that DPS had contributed to the racial makeup of schools by setting local attendance lines to conform to the city’s racially discriminatory housing patterns. As a remedy, the federal court ordered mass busing of students within the city to achieve maximum school desegregation and improve educational performance of African-American students. It was a futile gesture. The DPS school population was nearly 70 percent African-American at the time and within a decade the system became entirely segregated.

Whatever racial justice and short-term benefits were achieved, the decision was destructive to Detroit and K-12 education in the long run. White flight accelerated (as forecast), the benefits of neighborhood schools were lost, children were subject to longer bus rides, overall school performance fell, Detroit’s population and income levels declined and racial integration was not achieved.

As busing ended in futility, the charter school movement began. Half of the city’s student population now attend charter schools that draw from students citywide. Open enrollment of charter schools continues the widespread transportation of children out of their neighborhoods for K-12 education.

John Rakolta Jr., co-chair of the school coalition, reporting on one family’s experience stated that “This family’s day starts at 6:15 a.m. They walk seven blocks for the nearest bus stop and wait 30 minutes. After a 10 minute bus ride, they walk five blocks and wait another 30 minutes for the second bus. The mother then walks her children to their respective schools.”

What should be done?

Organize all DPS and charter schools into Detroit’s seven City Council districts.

Within each district, cluster charter schools and DPS schools into competitive local attendance zones and give children within each zone the choice of attending a DPS or charter school close to home.

Other factors, such as improving teacher performance, engaging parents, reducing class size, providing quality materials and tailoring education to the individual needs of students are needed as well. While these improvements can be made anywhere, when focused on neighborhood schools, they can also contribute to the revitalization of the places Detroiters call home.

John E. Mogk is a professor at Wayne Law School.