Detroit Public Schools: A Case Study in American Apartheid

‘Since 1999 the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) system has been under siege by successive Republican and Democratic state administrations. Politicians and business interests have viewed the district as a political and economic resource to the detriment of the city residents, students and parents.
Under the guise of improving the system, correcting inefficiency and stamping out corruption, the worst case-scenario has emerged leaving the largest per capita African American populated major city without an independent and self-governing school district. When the Michigan state legislature took control of the DPS in 1999, the district had a $93 million surplus with a voter-approved $1.5 billion bond issue aimed at school improvement.
Today after 17 years of undemocratic control and interference, the system is broken, largely insolvent and incapable of making rudimentary repairs to its buildings leaving students, teachers and administrators to work in deplorable conditions.’
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