Nducu wa Ngugi / Detroit's deepening education deficit

 

Industrial decline in Detroit, Michigan has been harshly reinforced by recession since 2008;
the city faces a budget crisis, with a knock-on effect for its schools system.
Photograph: Spencer Platt

Detroit's deepening education deficit

Nducu wa Ngugi
Wednesday 26 January 2011

I

t seems that every time there is a financial crunch in federal, state and local government coffers, every politician looks first to cut education funding. So, what do you do when your public school system has racked up a $327m deficit in an economy that shows little hope for resuscitation?

If you are Robert C Bobb, the emergency financial manager for the Detroit Public Schools, you look to closing and abandoning half the city schools within the next two years. Such a drastic move would increase classroom size from 35 students per class to 62 in high school, and 45 for middle grades. K-3 would see an increase from 17 students to 31 by the year 2012. This measure would save the district some $33m dollars by the fiscal years of 2012-2014. Bobb also contends that the district would net an additional $12m in savings by abandoning vacant school buildings altogether.

The increase in class size will, however, mean an increase in teacher pay for working in oversize classes, as contracted with the Detroit Federation of Teachers Union, at a cost of $10m over the next four years. But Bobb will still count the savings from DPS spending of approximately $35m as a significant part of his mission accomplished: he was hired in 2009 in part to reduce the schools budget deficit to zero in the next few years.

Some now criticise the teachers for their contractually mandated pay increases for teaching oversize classes, while others laud the efforts of Bobb and the DPS administration for finding ways to steer Detroit Public Schools away from fiscal wreck. But what has been left out of the discussion is how all this is going to affect students and learning in the long run.

Research has shown that learning takes place when a student is engaged in the learning process. We also know that all our students learn differently, and so to convert our middle and high school classes into lecture halls runs directly against the reasons why we have kept class sizes at a national average of 35 (a number that many of us already regard as way too high). One can only begin to imagine how one teacher in front of 62 restless souls can succeed in guiding them through their formative years. No one doubts that students fare better in smaller class units that allow teachers to pay closer attention to individual students' learning needs.

It is very possible, then, that these measures will impose other social costs down the line that will add up to more than the modest savings in the short term. The immediate effects of over-crowdedness will be obvious: discipline problems, students falling through the cracks, shoddy instruction and lack of individual attention, together with increased truancy and school dropouts.

But the long-term effects will be far more extensive: educational under-attainment, unemployment, crime, incarceration, ill-health, the welfare cost of unproductive, unskilled youth, the democratic deficit of an uninformed citizenry and so on. All these will have huge social and economic costs for the city, the state, and the federal government, as the millions they might save now will be spent on other services tenfold later on. Spare the dollar, spoil the child.

This is not the way to create a well-educated workforce worthy of 21st-century challenges. According to President Obama:

"Education is an economic issue – if not the economic issue of our time. It's an economic issue when the unemployment rate for folks who've never gone to college is almost double what it is for those who have gone to college. It's an economic issue when eight in 10 new jobs will require workforce training or a higher education by the end of this decade. It's an economic issue when countries that out-educate us today are going to out-compete us tomorrow."

Most school systems are having to find ways to cut their budgets because of the economic downturn, but measures such as those being planned by Bobb and the DPS administration to increase class size, close down and abandon school buildings are unconscionable. If we can find billions to bail out Wall Street banks and the auto industry, then surely we can find a few million to save the Detroit Public School system from sinking into chaos. Otherwise, the young people of Detroit – who, we all know, ought to be learning the skills they will need to find a place in the competitive modern economy America needs – face a very grim future, indeed.

Nducu wa Ngugi is an educator currently based in New York. He has a BA in black studies from Oberlin College, an EdS in Teacher Leadership and a MEd from Mercer University. His commentaries on social issues have appeared in the Business Daily Africa, Pambazuka News, Wajibu and other online journals

THE GUARDIAN