Detroit Considers Turning 41 Schools Into Charters

Matthew Dolan:

The emergency financial manager of the Detroit Public Schools presented a plan Saturday to turn nearly one in every three schools into charter schools as part of a bid to save the district millions of dollars and prevent massive school closings.

The 41 schools selected for independent control currently enroll about 16,000 of the district's 73,000 students and would operate as public school academies starting as soon as this fall. The district expects to release a list of the schools this week and solicit proposals for their transfer.

Recently the district led by a state-appointed manager overseeing a total of 142 schools has explored modeling Detroit on post-Katrina New Orleans, where a shrunken district was remade with mostly charter schools.

Robert Bobb, the emergency financial manager, said in a news release Saturday that the charter-school plan would reduce operating costs by $75 million to $99 million, but did not say over what period of time any cost savings would be realized.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at March 13, 2011 1:45 AM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas