Detroit’s ‘Chicago model’ CEO plan ruining Motor City’s public schools 

By Norine Gutekanst and George N. Schmidt
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On February 11, 2005, the Detroit Public Schools announced the closure of 34 public schools. According to press reports, 10,600 Detroit students will be shifted to other public schools for the next school year, if they decide to stay within the public school system. Teachers and staff will either be reassigned or laid off.

There are currently 252 public schools in Detroit. Administrators have announced they plan to close 95 schools by 2009, 37% of their schools. Previous to these announced closures, the Detroit school system had announced 2,100 staff cuts as they seek to close what they claim is a $200 million budget deficit.

The Detroit Public School system has lost 33,000 students during the past six years, since Detroit was forced by the state of Michigan to end its elected school board and adopt the “CEO Model” that had been pioneered in Chicago. Since 1999, when Detroit got the CEO Model of school governance, the emphasis has been on privatization, charter schools, and regular attacks on the city’s once proud public school system.

The 33,000 students who left Detroit’s public schools have gone to charter schools, school-choice districts and have moved out of Detroit, according to Detroit sources. It’s estimated that over 40,000 Detroit students attend charters and school-choice district schools.

The schools to be closed this year were supposedly chosen based on enrollment, age of building and “academic performance” — test scores on the MEAP (the controversial Michigan Evaluation of Academic Progress), according to press reports. But at least 13 of the 34 schools were closed despite their academic status as “meeting standards” under Michigan law.

The beginning of the assault on Detroit’s public schools came in 1999, when an elected school board was eliminated after a massive media campaign in favor of the “CEO Model” under which the mayor appointed a school board and a “Chief Executive Officer” to run the system. Many of the arguments in favor of the alleged success of the CEO model came in news reports that claimed that Chicago’s public schools had been “turned around” under the CEO model. At that time, union officials (including former Chicago Teachers Union president Tom Reece) and others (including many “school reform” leaders) were quoted in the Detroit press claiming the “CEO Model” have turned around a “failing” public school system here in Chicago.

Massive closing of existing public schools and the elimination of public school workers could be dubbed Detroit’s “Renaissance 2009” plan, since the projections go until the year 2009. The parallels to the Chicago Public Schools “Renaissance 2010” plan are chilling. Under Renaissance 2010, 60 public schools are to be closed by the year 2010. The Chicago Public Schools officials say that they plan to replace them with approximately 30 charter schools, 30 contract schools, and 30 “performance” CPS schools, which can be closed if they don’t meet prescribed “performance standards” as measured by students scores on controversial and racially and economically biased multiple-choice tests.

As the Detroit dismantles its public school system, Chicago school advocates need to look carefully at the Chicago Public Schools’ plans to begin to dismantle our public school system. Chicago’s “Ren 2010” (as it’s been dubbed by its critics) plan proposes closure of 10 percent of CPS schools. In their place, Chicago’s CEO and school board say they hope to to create charters and contract schools. These can hasten the closure of even more public schools.

In January, 18 “new” schools — charter, contract and performance schools — were announced for fall 2005 opening by CPS officials. Exact numbers are difficult to pin down, because many of the entities are “small schools” within existing schools. With the financial backing of Chicago’s biggest corporations, some of these schools are being infused with cash grants, although recent press reports indicate that promises of upwards of $50 million in corporate donations to Chicago’s schools have not been kept.

On February 22, a business-based group called “New Schools for Chicago” announced it is awarding $3.7 million to seven charter schools and one new CPS “small school”. New Schools for Chicago claims that it has raised $24 million so far to help dismantle Chicago Public Schools and replace them with charters and contract schools. Critics have charged that the manipulation of corporate taxes — both property taxes and corporate real estate taxes — and government subsidies to corporations under the administration of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley have cost the taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. In the view of these critics, corporate giveaways have cost the city and its public schools much more than the corporations (and foundations they control to help dictate public policy) are returning in what is being reported as charity.