Consider how DPS wound up in this mess: In 1999, Detroit’s democratically elected school board was financially responsible, with a rainy-day fund of more than $70 million and a $1.5 billion bond initiative on tap. Despite this, Gov. John Engler signed Public Act 10 of 1999, leading to a takeover of Detroit’s schools by the state. Only five years later, DPS was $200 million in debt, most of the bond money was gone and the takeover’s goals had not been accomplished.
Lost in the current discussion is how Bobb’s plan affects what arguably has been DPS’ most successful initiative: Africentric education. Slated for closure is the Malcolm X Academy, or MXA, the first public elementary school in the country to have implemented this pedagogical approach.

What’s Africentric education? Ask Dr. Geneva Smitherman, head of MSU’s African American and African Studies program and founder of the My Brother’s Keeper program, a mentoring initiative that partners MSU students with children from the Malcolm X Academy: “Africentric Education approaches knowledge from the perspective of Africa as the origin of human civilization and the descendants of Africans as subjects, rather than objects, of history.”

African history and culture are integrated into the school’s curriculum, giving students (who are virtually all black) a sense of cultural identity and pride. This doesn’t mean that the history and culture of other ethnicities is ignored. “At Malcolm X Academy in the early years,” Smitherman says, “students studied Swahili, Spanish, Japanese, as well as English.”

Africentric education is a proven solution to the crisis facing black students, and is now featured at five Detroit public schools. Even as 69 percent of the district’s schools failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress standards in 2008-09, four of its five Africentric schools did. One Africentric school, the Marcus Garvey Academy, outperformed most of the state on the MEAP last year — despite having been moved or merged with other schools three times in the past eight years, with 86 percent of its student population identified as “economically disadvantaged.” Three of Detroit’s Africentric schools — including Malcolm X — have been recognized by the Skillman Foundation’s campaign The Good Schools: Making the Grade, with grant awards of $100,000.

Given Bobb’s claim that he wants to preserve schools identified for development by the Skillman Foundation, his decision to close MXA is odd. The reason given is the school’s low enrollment; context suggests this has little to do with the school’s quality. Dr. Jeffrey Robinson, vice principal at Marquette Elementary and formerly at Malcolm X, points out that MXA has been moved four times in its history, most recently five years ago. The last move put the school out of reach for many of its students, prompting the city to promise transportation assistance that was never delivered. Given the school’s success, its ties to MSU and its symbolic value as the nation’s first public Africentric school, merging or moving the school makes more sense than closing it.

Although it can’t be denied that Bobb has cleaned house in a very corrupt city school system, the history behind his appointment can’t be ignored, nor are his motivations entirely clear. He is the owner, President and CEO of the LAPA Group LLC, an educational consulting firm, and has already privatized DPS’ bus system in his role as emergency financial manager. Only time will tell whether his “reform” really is concerned with the students of Detroit or part of a larger effort to privatize education.

Joel Reinstein is a State News guest columnist and Residential College in the Arts and Humanities junior. Reach him at reinste5@msu.edu.