Rick Snyder Signs Law Giving $4 Million To Highland Park Students, Not School District

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder on Friday signed emergency legislation passed by the state legislature on Thursday to offer $4 million in state funding to Highland Park Schools students. Each pupil would get about $4,000 to move to another school district or charter school. The catch: The money can't remain in the Highland Park School District under its current elected leadership.

Snyder's statement following the signing was clear:

Money from the Distressed District Student Transition grants can go to another school district or a charter school that accepts Highland Park students, or if the student remains in Highland Park schools, the money must go to the operating entity that is brought in to run the school. The money will not be used for the Highland Park district itself.

Snyder had declared earlier in the week that the state would not front any more money to the cash-strapped school system, after a court decision forced the removal of the district's state-appointed emergency manager, Jack Martin.

In a lawsuit brought by Highland Park School Board Secretary Robert Davis, a circuit court judge ruled Feb. 15 the team that recommended Martin's appointment had violated Michigan's Open Meeting Act and nullified its work. Snyder was forced to "deactivate" Martin as the system's emergency manager.

The action prompted a race to figure out how to fund Highland Park Schools, which needed at least $40,000 to make payroll on Friday. The state had already lent the district money to make payroll in January, after Martin's appointment. And with him out of office, Snyder and other Republican lawmakers said the district couldn't be trusted to manage its own funds.

Critics say the new law draws more money away from financially struggling Highland Park. Stand Up For Democracy, a group that opposes Michigan's emergency manager law, released a statement slamming the decision to withhold money from the district in favor of letting it follow the students to other schools.

"Money from the bill should go to people who are democratically elected to help those children," the statement read, referring to Highland Park's School Board. "Kids shouldn't be moved into different districts in the middle of a school year because it increases class sizes for surrounding districts and places financial hardships on our schools which are already struggling with the unnecessary cuts passed by lawmakers last year."

The group said the legislation was simply a workaround for the successful legal challenge to Martin's appointment to run Highland Park Schools, and "a naked power grab by state politicians that created emergency managers."

Highland Park Schools' state-appointed financial review team did have to restart its process Wednesday to meet the requirements of the Open Meetings Act. At a public meeting, members again declared their assessment that the district faces a financial emergency.

The Highland Park School Board had seven days to oppose that recommendation and request a hearing. At an emergency school board meeting Thursday, members voted against such a move, allowing the state to move forward with the emergency manager process.

But by law, the soonest Snyder could reinstate Martin as Highland Park Schools emergency manager is late next week. The governor says the legislation signed Friday is designed to keep students in school -- any school -- until then.

Highland Park School Board President John Holloway said he personally opposes the emergency manager law, but explained why the board voted Thursday night against requesting a hearing that would have delayed the process.

"We felt it was the thing to do. No sense in dragging it out," he said. "Let the governor's office, whomever, expedite matters as they see fit because it was in the back of their minds to do what they were going to do anyway."

More than a hundred people packed into the tiny hearing room Thursday night, and opinion seemed roughly divided between emergency manager opponents and parents, teachers and others who seemed inclined to accept the state's decision, if it would stabilize the district's financial situation.

Members of the Financial & Academic Reinvestment Commission (FARC), a recently-formed group that opposes an emergency manager in Highland Park Schools, also attended, after holding their own event just prior to the school board meeting.

At the FARC meeting, Rev. David Alexander Bullock, president of Detroit Rainbow PUSH and the Highland Park NAACP, argued that state rules allowing inter-district transfers of students had bled Highland Park of students and funding tied to their enrollment in the first place.

"I worry that politics has failed," he said. "The real question of math and reading proficiency and how we bring that to rural and urban communities around Michigan will never be debated as hotly as who controls the money."

Comments

[fightfascismnow]

02:46 PM on 02/27/2012

I'm not about to defend the Highland Park administration, but it is obvious to most in Michigan that Gov. Snyder is far more authoritarian and dictatorial then he claimed to be when running. Education funding was cut 6% last year and no dollars have been re-instated even though the Budget came in nearly $500 million in the black thanks to the auto rescue plan which saved the domestic auto industry and Michigan's economy. What is more, tax dollars that were dedicated to public schools by Proposal A were diverted to Community Colleges in order to starve the public school fund. Then he gave businesses a tax cut and raised taxes on Senior Citizen pensions. Unfortunately, Michigan isn't Wisconsin and hasn't been able to rid itself of the destructiveness of total republican rule.

[eceresa]

09:04 PM on 02/26/2012

Wow. Snyder sure got in a snit when the court told him that he couldn't take away THESE particular people's rights.

Which is sort of understandable, when you think about it. He's been so successful in stripping nearly every other group in Michigan of their rights (with the exception of corporations and the wealthy) that it was probably a surprise to him to see his whims balked.

[Gromvort]

12:07 PM on 02/25/2012

Robert Davis invoked the 5th Amendment 18 times during a deposition about how the Highland Park School Disctict's money was used. Davis is portrayed to be a hero but is is nothing more than a crook stealingmoney from children. The board is playing chicken with the children, not the state.

http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/highland-park-school-board-member-who-got-em-removed-questioned-under-oath-about-missing-money

[Ariel Bonzai]

04:10 AM on 02/26/2012

What do you mean by playing chicken? I believe the school systems in America are infested with white chalk criminals and have been for decades. The Federal Government has thrown far too much money at the problems and failed to provide accountability and oversight. They essentially created criminal incentives, cronyism and conditions Where failure is lucrative . Now as economic collapse looms likely, the EducRAT$ and Philanthropists have joined forcces to get more money.
It's our money. We pay taxes as both parents and as teacher's , but make no mistake they've had so much so long at their disposal the educRAT$ feel entitled to it and need it to support their admin. the philanthropists will not stop until they have all the money.if the Feds were true they'd cut off the well and audit LAUSD, NYC, CPS, Philly etctheyre just gonna let teachers and parents struggle to rescue kids and we are going to call them out .

[madame48]

09:23 AM on 02/27/2012

hahahahaha...tinfoil hat too tight? of my children, the 2 who teach earn LESS, with the exact same degree, than the 3 who work in private sector. What, you think there is a black market in chalk? hahahahahahaha

[Edward MillerRoth]

09:43 AM on 02/25/2012

Class warfare at it's best. This is just a taste of what will happen if a financial manager is put in Detroit. Snyder himself said he is a business man not a politician...and that is showing. If you have an under performing worker that you cant fire, you make life as difficult as possible by cutting hours and benefits till they move on to some other job. I think this his plan, but instead of under performing workers he's decided to go after the lower and middle income Detroiters'. I'm guessing this is why he's pushing for the high speed bus system that will mostly be based in the burbs. To get rid of the poor and leave Detroit empty for "Gentrifiers" to come in and take hold of it, they don't need a bus system, they can afford their own transportation and education. This sucks really bad for Highland Park and I'm afraid this isn't the last bad thing that's going to happen:(

[Euges]

09:09 AM on 02/25/2012

"More than a hundred people packed into the tiny hearing room Thursday night, and opinion seemed roughly divided between emergency manager opponents and parents, teachers and others who seemed inclined to accept the state's decision, if it would stabilize the district's financial situation.

This makes it sound like the opponents were not part of the parents and teachers involved in the district.

[miaontia]

02:45 PM on 02/25/2012

Nope. The opponents are primarily the hand in the cookie jar folks. Primarily politicians, clergy and corrupt administrators.

[Oakland]

05:25 PM on 02/24/2012

Leave the District? How? They going to take a bus in Detroit? That's a good one. Snyder and the creeps in Lansing need to be removed. They don't care one bit about anyone's kid. These kids didn't have enough problems that they just had to come in and take a meat cleaver to these kids. Jerks. All they want to do is destroy the public schools and teachers union.

[miaontia]

02:43 PM on 02/25/2012

I'm sure they care a lot about the children. So much so, they are willing to call out the local folks that are running the schools to the ground and robbing them blind. Lucky for us, they care about the "bang for the buck" received by those who pay State income and property taxes, too.

[eceresa]

09:07 PM on 02/26/2012

If the locally elected board is really robbing the schools blind, the state should certainly investigate and prosecute. That's still not a good excuse to strip citizens of their right to vote. Snyder and the Republicans in Lansing really do need to go. They weren't elected to take people's rights away.