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Harmful DPS Restructuring Plan Passes Senate, Goes to Snyder

Jun 13, 2016

Gov. Rick Snyder says he's set to sign legislation allowing Detroit schoolchildren to be taught by uncertified teachers - no high school diploma, no college degree, no training required - as part of a DPS restructuring plan that passed the Senate Wednesday night with only Republican support. 

Detroit lawmakers were denied the right to speak about the legislation on the House floor by Republican leaders who have spent the last several days cobbling together the bare minimum of votes to move the package to Snyder's desk.

Even with the Flint water crisis still looming, Snyder said he would sign the package into law despite its lack of support from Detroit parents, community leaders, and educators. In echoes from the Flint water scandal, some are asking critical questions of the DPS plan: If legislators would not allow this to happen in their home districts, why is it acceptable for Detroit?

"This is a cowardly act," Sen. Morris Hood III (D-Detroit) said of the plan.

In addition to allowing uncertified teachers, the plan passed by both chambers fails to include a Detroit Education Commission to oversee the siting of new charter and traditional schools in the city. The DEC had been sought by a broad coalition of policymakers working on the issue to bring under control the "Wild West" atmosphere of for-profit charter schools operating with little oversight or accountability