Post by Logan on Feb 19, 2016 11:43:07 GMT -6
Bankruptcy unlikely prescription for DPS trouble
With Detroit Public Schools on track to run out of cash by spring, threats of another Chapter 9 spectacle are coming again from leading Republicans in Lansing.
They’re idle threats.
A financial restructuring of the district in federal court would not implement academic reforms or address chronic governance issues. Nor would bankruptcy relieve the district’s debt because it is backed by the taxpayers of Michigan, a sharp difference from the Chapter 9 case the city completed in roughly 15 months.
“Without these serious reforms, the option of bankruptcy must remain on the table,” House Speaker Kevin Cotter, R-Mount Pleasant, said in a statement. “Cutting a check without reforms does nothing but buy time for us to fall further behind.”
He may be exactly right about the cutting-a-check-without-reforms part. But officially bankrupting the state’s largest district risks imposing a remedy just as bad as the disease it is allegedly intended to cure — and leaving Detroit’s kids essentially to fend for themselves.
Read more: www.detroitnews.com/story/business/columnists/daniel-howes/2016/02/18/howes-bankruptcy-unlikely-prescription-dps-troubles/80584380/
With Detroit Public Schools on track to run out of cash by spring, threats of another Chapter 9 spectacle are coming again from leading Republicans in Lansing.
They’re idle threats.
A financial restructuring of the district in federal court would not implement academic reforms or address chronic governance issues. Nor would bankruptcy relieve the district’s debt because it is backed by the taxpayers of Michigan, a sharp difference from the Chapter 9 case the city completed in roughly 15 months.
“Without these serious reforms, the option of bankruptcy must remain on the table,” House Speaker Kevin Cotter, R-Mount Pleasant, said in a statement. “Cutting a check without reforms does nothing but buy time for us to fall further behind.”
He may be exactly right about the cutting-a-check-without-reforms part. But officially bankrupting the state’s largest district risks imposing a remedy just as bad as the disease it is allegedly intended to cure — and leaving Detroit’s kids essentially to fend for themselves.
Read more: www.detroitnews.com/story/business/columnists/daniel-howes/2016/02/18/howes-bankruptcy-unlikely-prescription-dps-troubles/80584380/