Budget crises force Detroit, other cities to close schools

[The Northerner]

DETROIT - Cooley High School, Detroit’s third-largest public high school and a neighborhood institution since it opened one year before the start of the Great Depression, will close its doors this week, ending a family tradition for students like RaShanda Sherrer.

“This was our home, our family, our future," said RaShanda, a junior and A student. "Everyone in my family has graduated from Cooley. I'll be the first one in two generations to not graduate from there. It's part of my history. It’s not fair.”

After a petition drive failed to save her school from closure, RaShanda will say goodbye to friends at Cooley on Thursday, the school’s last day. Less than two weeks before the end of the school year, Detroit school officials announced a final list of closures in a plan to ease a budget crisis amid declining enrollment.

Cooley High, where RaShanda's family proudly carried the torch of Cardinals pride, is one of the city's oldest high schools and among 32 to be shut down by year's end; 13 more will close over the next two years.

"What you see in Detroit is a microcosm of what's happening in the country," said Daniel Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators. "We thought to bail out our banks and the auto industry, but bailing out our schools? That stops at the front door."

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37642350/ns/us_news-life

[hack89]

1. When a city loses nearly half it's population

you have to close schools - the infrastructure is simply too expensive.

[madfloridian]

2. But wait, there's more. They are going to privatize them. Full-speed ahead.

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

Mass Closures of Public Schools, Promotion of Charters Raise Fears of Privatized Detroit Education System