Children of Detroit deserve a quality education and the EAA has not delivered
The American Federation of Teachers Michigan released the following statements regarding the decision by the Eastern Michigan University Board of Regents to postpone the vote on the university’s future with the troubled Education Achievement Authority district in Detroit.
“It’s extremely frustrating that the EMU Board of Regents did not take the opportunity to end the failed experiment of the EAA,” said David Hecker, president of AFT Michigan.“The evidence is clear that the EAA has not worked and these schools must be returned to where they were taken from, the Detroit Public Schools, and be governed by a democratically-elected and empowered school board. The EAA was not needed in the first place and there is no reason for it to continue.”
“We’re very disappointed that the board has once again not listened to the voices of faculty and students,” said Lisa Laverty, president of the EMU Federation of Teachers and AFT Michigan vice president, who spoke at the board meeting today.“The board’s own benchmarks to determine whether the district has been a success have shown that the EAA is an abject failure. The board’s actions don’t reflect the interests of the university and it’s a failure of leadership to ignore the voices of those of us who teach, work and learn in Southeast Michigan. Delaying this decision delays justice and a quality education for the students of Detroit.”
