Michigan Class Action Alleges State Failed Detroit Schools

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A class action lawsuit alleges that the state of Michigan, its governor, its Board of Education, and other state officials have violated the rights of Detroit students by underfunding their schools for years.

The complaint asserts that “Decades of State disinvestment in and deliberate indifference to Detroit schools have denied Plaintiff schoolchildren access to the most basic building block of education: literacy.”

The Michigan literacy failure lawsuit seeks to certify a Class of schoolchildren from three Detroit Public Schools (Osborn Academy of Mathematics, Osborn Evergreen Academy of Design and Alternative Energy, and the Medicine and Community Health Academy at Cody) and two Detroit charter schools (Hamilton Academy and Experiencia Preparatory Academy).

According to the complaint, students at these schools “sit in classrooms where not even the pretense of education takes place, in schools that are functionally incapable of delivering access to literacy.”

Moreover, 97 percent of the students at these schools are low-income children of color, and the class action alleges that Michigan has segregated these students into schools that are “both separate and unequal.”

The class action cites numerous studies and state achievement data that place the plaintiffs’ schools as failing to provide even basic literacy to most of their students.

The complaint cites the state of Michigan’s “accountability system” which gave the plaintiffs’ schools ranks of between zero and six on a 100-point scale.

The literacy failure class action lawsuit contends that Michigan is responsible for these poor achievement rates because state officials have been “the de facto administrator of the school district for most of the past fifteen years.”

In 1999, the Michigan legislature passed a law disbanding Detroit’s school board and replacing it with a “reform” board. In addition, the complaint states that in 2008 the governor of Michigan declared a fiscal emergency and appointed an “Emergency Financial Manager” over the Detroit schools that had authority over financial decisions and some educational decisions.

The class action argues that for 11 of the past 15 years, the Detroit schools have not been run by educators, but instead by politicians with no ties to the community.

According to the class action, while under control by the state of Michigan directly, the Detroit schools have not had sufficient teaching staff, school infrastructure, or safety.

Specifically, the complaint alleges that in 2013 “the administration ignored specific requests by teachers for support in providing literacy instruction to struggling first-graders.” In addition, in 2015 Detroit admitted that “none of the school district’s buildings were in compliance with city health and safety codes.”

The 136-page complaint cites numerous other failures in these schools, including the state’s failure to oversee the 96 charter schools operating in Detroit.

The Michigan literacy failure in Detroit schools class action seeks injunctive relief requiring the state to implement “evidence-based programs for literacy instruction and intervention,” “appropriate literacy instruction at all grade levels,” and  “universal screening for literacy problems” in the plaintiffs’ schools in Detroit.

Plaintiffs are represented by Mark D. Rosenbaum, Kathryn A. Eidman, Alisa L. Hartz, and Anne M. Huson-Price, Public Counsel, Michael C. Kelley, Mark E. Haddad, Joshua E. Anderson, Jennifer M. Wheeler, Carter G. Phillips, Scott R. Lassar, Tacy F. Flint, and Jennifer M. Wheeler of Sidley Austin LLP, Bruce A. Miller of Miller Cohen PLC, Evan H. Caminker, and Erwin Chemerinsky.

The Michigan Literacy Failure In Detroit Schools Class Action Lawsuit is Gary B., a minor, et al. v. Richard D. Snyder, et al., Case No. 2:16-cv-13292, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division.