From http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/latest-union-teacher-sick-tied-obamas-detroit-trip-36398081

Latest: Detroit Schools Say 45,000 Students Missed Classes

The state-appointed emergency manager for Detroit’s public schools says a sick-out by teachers caused nearly 45,000 students to miss classes.

Darnell Earley says in a release that 88 of the district’s roughly 100 schools were shut down Wednesday. The district has about 46,000 students.

More than 60 schools were closed Jan. 11 due to teacher absences.

Disgruntled Detroit educators are protesting Gov. Rick Snyder’s plans for the district, its poor finances, their low pay, dilapidated buildings and overcrowded classrooms. Some marched downtown Wednesday where President Barack Obama was getting a tour of Detroit’s auto show.

I find this story scary. Schools in Chicago have been performing better than schools in Detroit overall. How much of that difference stems from the $500,000 in deficit spending that has led Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner to threaten to take over Chicago Public Schools (CPS)? Rauner can’t be faulted. A few months ago, another rating agency downgraded Chicago Public Schools and the debt rating for those school bonds now makes them junk bonds in the eyes of the financial markets. As ratings go down, costs of borrowing go up, and Chicago has been borrowing to operate. CPS could conceivably go bankrupt.

Detroit provides an object lesson on what happens when the money can’t be found. The city’s Mayor Mike Duggan toured schools recently. Apparently, he saw a dead mouse, which I find not too surprising or disturbing. Schools are filled with food, and children who shed food as they go. But he also saw children wearing coats in classrooms and I consider that a huge flag. My classrooms have mostly run too hot rather than too cold, but I had a colleague with a corner room that frequently stayed in the fifties or even below in the winter. She wore gloves in class and the kids wore coats. At those temperatures, learning will be compromised. It’s hard to teach over the whining, for one thing. The mayor also saw a gym floor too warped for play, victim of a previous roof leak. Teachers report black mold, other mold, rodents, and cockroaches. They have problems with heating, cooling and plumbing. I know from experience that bathroom plumbing problems can prove highly disruptive, as kids cross the school or climb stairs to reach functional bathrooms. Supervisory issues then arise, as skipping and vandalism increase. To put it bluntly, kids treat junk like junk. They write on doors that are already written on. They chip floor tiles that are already chipped. They scratch mirrors that are scratched. They break pieces off water fountains that never work.  Eventually, money that might have gone into books and supplies gets diverted to camera systems and metal detectors.

(Picture of a real water fountain from a hallway where students were frequently thirsty. The poor thing kept being assaulted for months. This was in the time Before Cameras.)

On top of this, teachers in some Detroit schools are struggling with overcrowding. Cutting back on teachers helps saves money, but increases class size. Here’s another inconvenient, urban truth that seldom hits the airwaves. Those bigger classes will be more of a problem in Detroit or Chicago than in Grosse Pointe or Winnetka. In upscale suburbs, thirty-five, mostly college-bound students are likely to prove easily manageable for an experienced teacher. As we move from Winnetka to Chicago, though, the picture shifts. Thirty-five students in a classroom where maybe fifteen plan to go to college, and ten are thinking they might go to college, while eight are waiting to be allowed to drop out, and two are so sick with morning sickness that they have put the future on hold — thirty-five students in that classroom can overwhelm even an experienced teacher, especially if enough behavior disorders come into play.

Eduhonesty: Previously in this blog, I have observed that I believe a longer, year-round school calendar will be essential if we are to level the playing field between our disadvantaged urban students and their stronger suburban and rural counterparts. But if we can’t pay for 180 days, how will we pay for 220 days? How will we budget for the heating and cooling to keep schools open longer? For lunches? For busses? For all the other repairs that old buildings inevitably need?

Detroit should be front and center in educational discussions right now, because Detroit stands on the edge of an educational precipice. Chicago could potentially follow. I suspect only a full overhaul of the U.S. educational funding system will enable us to back away from this cliff. We ought to start planning that reform while we still have time for reasoned discussions and a slow, steady implementation of new funding ideas.

We ought to start planning that reform before the zombies reach the gates. They appear to have taken parts of Detroit already and, unsurprisingly, teachers are fleeing into the streets. We should be standing with those teachers.

We need to rescue Detroit.