Per the Detroit News, Michigan taxpayers will pay off $114 million in old debts for five school districts in urban areas as part of a $615 million spending bill that the Democratic-controlled Legislature fast-tracked to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s desk on Thursday.
The Democratic-written spending bill would direct the Michigan Treasury Department to pay off $42.2 million in debt owed by Ypsilanti Community Schools, $31.3 million owed by the Muskegon Heights School District, about $18.4 million owed by the Pontiac City School District and more than $10 million owed by Benton Harbor Area Schools. The spending bill also would pay off $12 million in debt owed by the former Inkster School District, which a Republican-controlled Legislature dissolved in 2013.
The $42.2 million for the Ypsilanti school district includes $19.36 million in debt it inherited from its 2013 merger with the former Willow Run Community Schools, according to an analysis of the bill by the nonpartisan House Fiscal Agency.
While school district consolidation can, in theory, save taxpayers money, it can be complicated by old debts of the district that is dissolved, said Sen. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor.
“As a product of this consolidation, this school district was saddled with a tremendous amount of debt,” said Irwin, who represents Ypsilanti. “With this appropriation today, we’re going to lift that debt off the backs of these children and these schools, and we’re going to allow them to put millions of dollars back into the classroom instead of wasting those dollars in interest payments.”
I cannot speak about the other districts, but I can speak about the Ypsilanti Community Schools district.
The merger of the Willow Run and Ypsilanti Community School Districts initiated by the State was an ill-conceived idea which sounded good on paper but was never going to work. It was the merger of two poor school districts, with the hope that they could become less poor if they were combined.
What the State didn’t count on was the impact school-of-choice would have on the combined district. Within the first five years following the merger, nearly 3,500 students left the combined district to attend neighboring districts. For each student that left, the district lost over $10,000 per student in annual state funding. This amounted to over $35,000,000 in reduced annual funding for the district. Improved operating efficiencies were not going to make up this deficit, yet the district remained saddled with the $19 million in debt of the Willow Run district. The district was paying debt on school buildings that were no longer in operation because of the departure of the 3,500 students. The State created a new district that was now poorer than before and had a much different racial and economic makeup than the overall Ypsilanti community it because the students that left the district were those who had the means to do so.
Since the merger, the district has had multiple superintendents, at least five different high school principals and three athletic directors. Teachers were leaving at a much higher rate than other districts. Who could blame them as they were underpaid and overworked with little or no consistent leadership in the administration.
The biggest loser in the merger was the students. While living in one of the wealthiest counties in the state, with two major universities and two major health systems, the school district of Ypsilanti struggles to compete with other districts in the county in both academics, athletics, and extra-curricular activities. The YCS district and the parents of students do not have the same resources that other school districts have available to them. It is especially discouraging since the district is in the same city as Eastern Michigan University, which produced more teachers than any other university in the country for the longest time.
The passing of this legislation relieving the Ypsilanti Community Schools of the debt that was inherited in the ill-conceived merger is a step in the right direction.
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The following appeared in the NY Times last week, Robert Card displayed a textbook set of warning signs: He was hearing voices. He told people that he was planning violence. And his behavior had markedly changed in the months leading up to the mass shooting he carried out last week. His family, his superiors in the military and the local police knew all of this. Yet no one stopped him.
His killing of 18 people with an assault-style rifle in Lewiston, Maine, points to how shortcomings in the mental health system, weak laws, and a reluctance to threaten personal liberties can derail even concerted attempts to thwart violence in a country awash in guns.
“So often I think we’re talking about how to get people on the radar,” said Jillian Peterson, the executive director of the Violence Project, which studies mass shooting perpetrators. “And in this case, he was on the radar of a lot of different systems, and they still couldn’t get him intervention.”
Police records, including the accounts of family members and colleagues in his Army Reserve unit — one of whom sent an anguished late-night text message to his supervisor six weeks before the shooting — show that Mr. Card’s friends and relatives had grown increasingly alarmed about his mental condition. But even as they communicated with each other and law enforcement, even as he was confronted and hospitalized and had a sheriff’s deputy come knocking, nothing went far enough.
The above story about the mass killings in Maine is a story that continues to play out across our country. It is a story of warning signs which for some reason were discounted, ignored, or just plain got caught up in the bureaucracy. It is not unique to the Maine killings. The warning signs existed in the Oxford High School shooting, the MSU shooting, as well as many others.
A similar situation existed within the U.S. intelligence agencies prior to 9/11 where there were so many warning signs, but no person or agency was able to take action to prevent the action.
The creation of “Red Flag” laws is not enough. Like how the federal government significantly improved the coordination among their many agencies, more needs to be done at the local and state level, with law enforcement, mental health agencies, social agencies and school systems. It will not be easy, but it must be done if we care about preventing mass shootings.
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Katy and the grandkids were up this last weekend starting on Thursday which is why I didn’t write my blog on Thursday and Friday. It was a great weekend for all, but by the time they left on Sunday, I was exhausted. During the weekend, Nolan, Kaylen, and I found over 200 golf balls on holes one and three of Crooked Tree Golf Course. On Saturday night we had a tailgate party in the basement prior to all of us watching the Michigan/Purdue game. The highlight of the weekend for me was going to see The Taylor Swift: Eras Tour movie. The 2 hour and 40-minute movie was too long for the rest of my party, but I absolutely loved it. Her talent and ability to connect with her fanbase is as good as it gets. What she has accomplished in her 34 years is amazing.
One of the highlights of the weekend was the tee-shirt Nolan made, which on the front said, “Real men love Taylor Swift” on the back it said, “Taylor Swift + Travis 87 Kelce” with hearts all around.
During the movie, I kept mentioning to Leah, that I could not help but think that Travis Kelce is eventually going to be immortalized in one of Swift’s revenge breakup songs. Poor guy.
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Orchid of the Day: The Texas Rangers. With their World Series win last week in Arizona against the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Rangers set a MLB playoff record by going 11-0 in road games during the playoffs and World Series. They surprised everyone but themselves in accomplishing this.
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Quote of the Day: “It’s been a year since state lawmakers considered replacing the American Robin (Turdus migratorius) as our state bird. That effort, like more meaningful endeavors such as expanding right to know laws, went nowhere. Now that the Michigan Legislature (Turdus on de populace) finally unveiled a bill requiring state lawmakers to tell us something about where they get their dough, it has become clear the avian mascot that best suits them is a chicken.” Detroit News columnist M.L. Elrick.
Orchid of the Day: Texas Rangers for winning their first ever World Series.
A second Orchid of the Day: The Michigan legislature for finally addressing the debt that Ypsilanti Community Schools was saddled with due to an ill-conceived merger with the Willow Run School District.
Question of the Day: What will it take to get rid of the semi-annual absurdity that we do changing our clocks forward and hour in the Spring and back an hour in the Fall?
Video/Image of the Day: The Rolling Stones keep on producing.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/the-rolling-stones-new-album-hackney-diamonds/