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September 22, 2006

Detroit strike fallout

That teachers strike in Detroit may have dealt a critical blow to an already struggling school district:

A 16-day teacher strike may have cost Detroit Public Schools 25,000 students, district officials said Thursday, a potential loss that would mean a cut of $190 million in state aid and almost certainly another dramatic downsizing of schools and employees.

The gloomy estimate, which school officials acknowledge is not exact, comes in advance of Wednesday's official count day, when enrollment numbers are used to determine the amount of state funding to be allocated to districts across Michigan.

The district is embarking on a massive campaign to woo students back, with phone calls and letters to every student's home, enlisting the help of community groups and churches, in addition to count-day pizza and ice cream parties to make sure students are in school Wednesday.

There are charter schools in Detroit.  Public school choice also exists (Detroit students can enroll in suburban school districts that opt to take them).  So that's where those 25,000 students went.  Right?

Detroit Public Schools may have lost 25,000 students, but few suburban school districts or charter schools are reporting large influxes of new students this year.

Only Oak Park had reported a significant influx -- with 266 additional students as of Sept. 7, when Detroit teachers were in the midst of a 16-day strike. Oak Park officials did not return calls on whether they've seen significantly more since.

So where did all the DPS students go?

Detroit school officials acknowledge they could have a bad number, but high numbers of dropouts also are possible.

"If (Detroit) lost them, they didn't lose them to us," said Jan Brill, superintendent for Warren's Fitzgerald Public Schools, which has not enrolled any Detroit students for the 2006-07 school year. The district reported 100 students from Detroit last school year.

25,000 students--enough to make up a suburb of their own--have left the district.  Most of them are unaccounted for.  Gone.  Vanished. 

The Detroit Federation of Teachers' single hope at this point is that the number of AWOL students ends up being wildly inaccurate.  If it isn't--or worse, if it's understated--the union will have education blood on its hands.  Period.  (Mike Antonucci has more.)

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