DETROIT
Fight brews over cuts
By Cheryl LaBash
Detroit
Angry student and community demonstrators forced the
state-appointed Detroit School Board to cancel its meeting Nov.
17. The issue was 4,000 proposed layoffs and 40 school closings
announced Nov. 15 by the state-appointed board--even though
Detroit voters on Nov. 2 had resoundingly rejected this board's
right to run the city's schools.
Demonstrators called for the appointed board to resign, and
for immediate election of a community board to fight for more
state funding.
The struggle for quality education for the majority
African-American youth is a key part of the crisis facing
Detroiters. Detroit schools have suffered underfunding for
decades. The Detroit district receives only $6,584 per pupil
while wealthier districts receive as much as $11,378 per
student.
In the five years since the state takeover of Detroit's
schools, the appointed board ran through a budget surplus and a
$1.5 billion bond issue.
On election day, Detroit voters overwhel mingly rejected
continuing the so-called reform board. They voted by 65 percent
to establish an elected school board equal to the other 249
Michigan school districts.
The massive campaign to restore an elected Detroit school
board was led by the NAACP, the Council of Baptist Pastors, By
Any Means Necessary student coalition and most Detroit elected
officials.
Although Detroiters won back the right to select their
school board, Detroit News columnist Nolan Findlay raised the
threat of state receivership if the city administration doesn't
cut 2,000 to 4,000 jobs: "Changing the way the city sees its
role requires strong leadership. If the leadership isn't there,
there's no way Detroit can avoid receivership. A
state-appointed receiver will be free of politics and will cut
without mercy until the budget balances."
Also on Nov. 17, City of Detroit union representatives met
with City Council members to discuss the city's budget deficit,
which is nearing $300 million. The president of one union local
proposed a national conference of municipal unions and city
governments to demand funds for the cities and human needs, not
the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
The crisis of jobs, municipal services and infrastructure is
not isolated to Detroit. Every major metropolitan area and
state government is slashing jobs and benefits to solve budget
deficits.
Twelve hundred people swamped a Michigan Welfare Rights
Organizers meeting on utility shut-offs on Nov. 18. If these
people were polled on whether money should be used to fund
human needs, not a war in Iraq, the vote would be a thunderous,
"Yes!"
Maureen Taylor, a MWRO leader, predicted that within a
month, just as happens every year, a Detroiter will die in a
house fire resulting from using kerosene or candles for heat or
light. Taylor reported that an estimated 50,000 people are now
without water service.
Reprinted from the Dec. 2, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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