A Legacy of Education Reform in Detroit

A Legacy of Education Reform in Detroit:

An Archival and Field-based Case Study of the Current State of the School District and Reforms in Detroit, Michigan

Maple Kirby

Advised by

Edward St. John, Ed.D.

Senior Honors Thesis Organizational Studies Program

University of Michigan March 9, 2012

Acknowledgments

I want to give my thanks to Ed St. John who volunteered to advise an undergraduate who had no background knowledge or experience in education. There would be very little in the following pages worth reading without his deep knowledge on the topic and the vast number of times his was willing to repeat it to me, his connections to seemingly every important person at UM and in Detroit involved with education reform, and the fact that he pushed me to do more than I thought I could.

The Organizational Studies program gave me the push that motivated me to begin this thesis and the support, of every manner, to finish it. Michael Heaney was an invaluable guide. Good luck to my fellow thesis writers who are remarkable researchers and humans.

I am so inspired by and grateful to the ten individuals who agreed to be interviewed and share their remarkable knowledge with me. I have more hope for our education system knowing that these people, and people like them, are working to improve it.

It is almost impossible to express my full gratitude to Lauren Snoeyink, the angel who did my transcriptions. My mother struck the right balance of pushing me then calming me down and was her usual impeccable editing self. Michael Pienta will remain a hero for reading the whole thing, as will Jud Gilbert, Rachel Hankus, Anya Karpov, Rachel Kramer, Aaron Mills, Dina Nassar, Keith Okimura, Jamie Steis, and Marianne Vu for each taking a chunk.

Throughout this undertaking, I was on a constant loop of stressed and anxious discussion about "my thesis," "Detroit," and "education." My last thank-yous go to my dear dear family and friends who listened to my broken-record and yet still supported me the entire way.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................................. i

Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................1 Background: Two Current Detroit Education Reforms...................................................................... 2 Methodology: Case Study.............................................................................................................................. 3

Historical Perspective on Detroit Education Reform ...............................................................4 Methodology: Archival Analysis................................................................................................................. 4 National Context.............................................................................................................................................. 6 Detroit's History ............................................................................................................................................11 1919--1929 .......................................................................................................................................................................12 1929--1940 .......................................................................................................................................................................16 1940--1949 .......................................................................................................................................................................21 1949--1964 .......................................................................................................................................................................27 1964--1981 .......................................................................................................................................................................33 1981--1999 .......................................................................................................................................................................39 1999--2002 .......................................................................................................................................................................42 2002--2012 .......................................................................................................................................................................46 Conclusion of Detroit's History ...............................................................................................................................63

Interviews on Current Detroit Education Reforms ................................................................ 64 Methodology: Field Study...........................................................................................................................64 Interviewees' Basic Information .............................................................................................................65 Interviewee Analysis ...................................................................................................................................67 Interviewees' Vantages on Detroit..........................................................................................................69 Interviewees' Implicit Stances on Reform............................................................................................70

Analysis of Current Detroit Education Reforms...................................................................... 77 Emergency Financial Manager .................................................................................................................77 Charter Schools..............................................................................................................................................93 Detroit Context ........................................................................................................................................... 101

Conclusions on Detroit Education Reform ..............................................................................114

References..........................................................................................................................................117

Appendices............................................................................................................................................... I Appendix A: Takeaways................................................................................................................................. I Appendix B: Partial Chart of Interviewee's Responses .................................................................... III

Introduction

Even after years of policy and reform attempting to decrease debt and increase

achievement, Detroit Public Schools are still considered to be in a state of near crisis. In 2010,

Detroit students scored the lowest out of every U.S. urban school district on U.S. Department of

Education achievement exams (Foley, 2010). Detroit has one of the lowest graduation rates in

the country, if not the lowest (at 25%) (Headlee, 2007). In the beginning of 2011, the district

reported a legacy deficit of $363 million (Detroit Public Schools, 2011b). In 2010, Arne

Duncan, United States Secretary of Education, called Detroit Public Schools "arguably the worst

urban school district in the country" (Oosting, 2010). A year later, he said that he "couldn't be

more hopeful, more optimistic about where Detroit can go" (Oosting, 2011).

This thesis is a case study of the Detroit education system focusing on two current reform

initiatives, the role of Emergency Financial Manager and the push to bring charter schools into

the district. These two initiatives are rooted in an evolution of education reform in Detroit and

across the nation. Thus, a large part of this thesis is an historical case study of the national

context of education reform today and a presentation of the history of education in Detroit

starting in 1919. This thesis reveals how the national educational movements have affected the

history of and current identity of reform initiatives in Detroit's schools. This national and

historical context also teaches us about what makes a reform successful or not. Through this thesis, takeaways--best practices and cautions--are summarized in bold1. These conclusions are

relevant to school districts across the nation.

The research for this thesis also included field study interviews. Presented in this paper is

a process of reform--based on categories of interviewees' stances on education reform--that

1 These takeaways can be found together in Appendix A

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serves as a guide to thinking about the most effective ways to implement reform. This thesis concludes with evaluations, takeaways, and improvements tailored to the Detroit school district based on the analysis of the interview data. These conclusions specifically address the Emergency Financial Manager position and the increased presences of charters schools in Detroit as well as larger challenges that cannot be addressed only by the two initiatives focused on in this paper.

The identity of powerful education reform in America has changed from one of coalitions to one of increased communication and collaboration today. To enact the solutions and face the challenges presented in the following pages, every actor in our education system, from community members to national leaders, needs to begin working together to improve the schools of Detroit and our country.

Background: Two Current Detroit Education Reforms To focus my interviews and subsequent analysis of Detroit's schools, I chose to

concentrate on two different reform efforts going on in the Detroit school district: the Emergency Financial Manager position and the increase in charter schools in the district. These were the two reforms that characterized the current educational reform in Detroit. The Emergency Financial Manager (EFM) of the Detroit Public Schools is a leadership position created in 2009 for the purpose of improving the financial situation of the school district. Today in 2012, the schools still have an elected school board as well as a superintendent of schools, but the EFM has the power to overrule them not only in fiscal matters but matters directly concerning academics as well. The position is controversial in Detroit partially because it was created by the state, not the city, brings in someone with expertise in business instead of education, and gives them

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