Dear Friends,
As members of a body that has no authority, we have fought for restoring governance of DPS so that our students would not be
subject to constant instability and expulsions due to their needs. The goal of emergency management is to privatize the entire
school district and extract much needed resources to funnel into private pockets. Excellent Schools Detroit has been in the
forefront of this movement in Detroit and we have seen the results of their work. Some schools have resources while others are
left to languish with 50 students in the classrooms. The Educational Achievement Authority should be disbanded as the Jim
Crow District that it is. The goal of Excellent Schools Detroit is to expand it, creating greater inequality among our students. The
group that has been handpicked by ESD has no authority but meets to make recommendations about Detroit schools. Why does
this group meet, usurping the role of the elected school board? This is a direct attack on Detroit taxpayers' self determination
and voting rights. State control has diminished our schools to such an extent that our students will be far behind the white
districts across the state in all areas of academic achievement. There will be no future for them if we don't take back our
schools.
No white districts contend with such chaos. No one comes to Detroit and asks for "volunteers"- most of whom are employed by
the non profits that are pushing privatization on our schools- and asks for this in the white districts. Elected school board
members are ignored and unelected staffers of those who will get money from DPS are attending meetings as if they have the
right and authority to run the schools.
No elected bodies in white communities deal with this. In District 2 of DPS, there are endless non profits with their hands in the
schools. They are convening meetings as if they are the elected school board, and are not subject to the OPEN MEETINGS
ACT like the school board is. They are not sent constant harassing memos from the dictatorial emergency manager threatening
them for holding meetings without his approval. No self respecting elected official stands idly by while their counterparts are
treated this way. This should be denounced. But instead, we have complicity.
I ask that anyone who believes the words of Martin Luther King, today stand with us in our struggle for self determination for
Detroit- all of Detroit, not just the lucky few who land a decent charter for their children while others are shoved into holding cells
like the EAA. Looking back, I suppose spending the $1.5 billion dollars in bond and surplus money of a minority community until
it faced deficit was like taking candy from a baby.
State authority over our budgets and even education, for all but two of the last 16 years threw our community plans aside,
completed ravenous construction projects which dismantled our tax base, our property values and our culture. They remodeled
buildings only to tear them down and rebuild the same buildings again for even more money, then seize what property we must
as property owners pay for.
They remodeled Finney, demolished Finney, built a new Finney and renamed a building which honored a famous abolitionist,
East English Village. The famous Finney vs. Denby high school basketball games are gone. So are the profits made by nearby
businesses on game night as the community flooded in for a historic rivalry. Denby is now an EAA school. They remodeled Cass
for a million dollars, now demolished, and built the third most expensive high school in the nation, while students around the
district needed books and teachers.
They retaliated against us and advised us we could not even speak, except about topics chosen by the agent of the State. They
nullified our letter to the Department of Justice.
We ask that this be discussed in all areas of public life in order to restore the same rights that all the white cities in Michigan
have. Autonomy.
Stand with us to rebuild the vibrant and beautiful culture of Detroit schools and neighborhoods which greed and inhumanity
destroyed.
In hopeful solidarity,
Elena Herrada
Member, Detroit Board of Education
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