Detroit School Closings:
A Transfer to Private Hands

Jan 8, 2007

The Detroit Public Schools announced plans to close 47 schools this summer and another five next year. That includes eight high schools, six middle schools and 38 elementary schools.

The district has already closed 36 schools in the last two years.

The closing of so many elementary schools means the district will be sending younger kids longer and longer distances to get to school. And in schools not being closed, interesting programs are being ended.

All of this can only serve to drive more students out of the public schools into private schools–and above all, charter schools. And these charter schools perform even worse than the public schools.

What’s really going on is not a school closing, it is a transfer of the schools into private hands. The district has already handed many of the buildings it closed before over to charter schools. Now it is clearly poised to do the same thing again.

It’s not that there is no money for the schools. The politicians who run the schools have plenty of money–for their friends–the same friends already making big bucks out of lucrative contracts from the schools and big bucks running charter schools.

The politicians running the city and the schools just have no money for the kids.