Governor Snyder has chosen Darnell Earley, Flint's current emergency manager, to replace Jack Martin as Detroit Public School's emergency manager.
Chastity Pratt Dawsey, who covers education issues for Bridge Magazine, talked to us about what this means for DPS.
DPS has been under emergency management since 2009, when the deficit was over $300 million. Now the deficit is $170 million, but Dawsey points out this number has fluctuated up and down over the years and students continue to leave the school system.
Earley will be the district's fourth emergency manager. Dawsey says from her interactions with Earley he seems focused on being the one to transition control back to local officials. But with perpetually troubled finances and achievements, DPS does not seem to be ready for this step quite yet.
"If we have arguably the worst public schools in the country as far as test scores show, what is a new governance system going to bring to bear in the classroom? And that right now is the question that everyone should be working on," Dawsey says.
