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Freep’s Rochelle Riley on challenges facing Detroit schools

Darnell Earley photo
Michigan Municipal League
/
flickr creative commons
Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Darnell Earley was formerly EM for the city of Flint.

Detroit Public Schools’ debt has been ballooning for years. Now, officials say Michigan’s largest school district could be bankrupt by April. Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley joins us to talk about the proposed plan to help Detroit schools avoid that fate.

Detroit Public Schools are in crisis. That’s something that people from both sides of the aisle seem to agree on. Governor Rick Snyder urged the legislature to take swift action to deal with the district’s mounting debt during his State of the State address Tuesday evening.

Yesterday, over 85 DPS buildings were closed as teachers staged “sick-outs” to protest rundown buildings, class sizes, and other problems.

But while everyone seems to agree that something needs to be done to fix Michigan’s largest school district, it’s not clear what that something will look like yet.

Current State talks about the future of DPS with Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley, who has written extensively about the state of education in the city.

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