Rev. Edgar Vann: Faith and policy

Fixing Detroit schools is vital to city's future

Uncomfortable questions must be asked if solutions are to be found

Amid the multiple crises facing Detroit and Michigan, it becomes increasingly difficult to prioritize which crisis is most crucial.

It seems these days that many things are so precarious, we find it hard to begin the process of solving our problems.

The timetable for economic recovery is impossible to predict. And we are all just trying to "hang in there" amidst the crisis in the auto and manufacturing sectors.

Still, there is a crisis in Detroit that is unconscionable. The virtual collapse of our school system threatens our ultimate economic recovery and our quality of life for years to come.

For many of Detroit's children, we have failed to provide a school system that meets their need for the academic proficiency this global economy demands. We have not put the interests of our kids above the rights, privileges and priorities of the adult population. The games that adults play lead even the teachers in the system to send their children elsewhere. The perennial power struggle between self-appointed activists, opportunistic stakeholders and a citizenry that has basically disengaged is a dysfunctional combination.

Education must be viewed as a civil right, not a broken promise. Often heard in many quarters of the Detroit community is the euphemistic phrase, "that won't work here. This is Detroit." Well, what's here doesn't seem to be working, so why aren't we, as a community, open to the kind of change we say we can believe in?

Washington, D.C. has a transformational leader making great strides in their school system. Michelle Rhee is the appointee of Mayor Adrian Fenty. Her efforts to bring true reform to that school system have drawn acclaim from a wide range of supporters with a minority of usual suspects still stuck in the old paradigm. She has closed underperforming schools, fired more than 30 underperforming principals and given notice to teachers that there will be no lowering of academic standards -- putting the interests of the children first and making radical changes in the classroom.

Eighteen of nineteen high schools in Detroit are on the failure list; the graduation rates are absolutely abysmal, and we change superintendents and CEOs like changing socks. Well, let's ask ourselves some tough questions. Does the school district's leader have to be an educator? Should we take another look at labor issues that may be distractions to the reform process?

Does the leader have to be exclusively African-American to be successful? For the system to survive, we will have to answer questions that previously we may not have wanted to deal with.

We will have to understand that if it's really about kids then it's about good schools and quality education whether schools are public, private, charter, parochial, or otherwise.

The overwhelming majority of our teachers work hard, love kids, but work in an archaic, unproductive system. Let's give the kids and the teachers a structure that will help produce a 21st century education.

The Rev. Edgar Vann is pastor of Second Ebenezer Church in Detroit.