Detroit School Kids Treated 'Like Mice In A Lab' Says Former Councilman, Calling For Lawsuit
DETROIT (WWJ) - A former Detroit city councilman says he'd like to sue the state for what he calls the "mis-education" of Detroit's school children.
Following the reign of a number of state-appointed emergency managers in the Detroit Public Schools, Kwame Kenyatta says the district is deeper in debt and standardized test scores are "criminal" — proving the system is failing.
Kenyatta, who is also an ex-elected Detroit school board member, told WWJ's Vickie Thomas he'd like see a class action lawsuit filed against Michigan.
"To set up an experiment, like mice in a lab, this EAA (Education Achievement Authority) project, and then you see people — whether they're here on in Chicago — former employees who have stolen millions of dollars out of the system and from the children."
Kenyatta's comments come two weeks after the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress exam results were released, showing just how poorly Detroit students are failing. Among the findings: 96 percent of DPS eighth graders are not proficient in math, and 93 percent not proficient in reading.
A mere 6 percent of Detroit fourth graders were proficient or above in reading, compared to about 36 percent nationally, and 29 percent in Michigan.
Kenyatta said the state government should be held accountable for these failings.
"I believe that the state of Michigan should be sued...I mean, I think it's a crime," Kenyatta said. "So they should be charged with a crime of mis-education; taking taxpayers' money, but not appropriately educating the children."
The Education Achievement Authority of Michigan is a fairly new statewide school system that has assumed operation of the lowest 5 percent of performing schools in the state that did not achieve satisfactory results on a redesign plan or that are under an emergency manager.
The always outspoken Kenyatta, who now lives in Mississippi, is in town this week to serve as keynote speaker at a State of Detroit forum. He abruptly quit the Detroit council in 2013.