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Granholm: Detroit council should ask voters if mayor should run schools

By Rick Pluta, Michigan Public Radio Network

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-914152.mp3

LANSING, MI –

Governor Granholm is calling on the Detroit City Council to ask voters if they'd like to have the mayor run the schools. So far, the council has refused to approve the question for the November ballot.

AUDIO:
Governor Granholm wants big city mayors to run their local schools - including hiring and firing superintendents. She'd like to start with the state's largest school district, Detroit. It would be up to the governor and the Legislature to enact a law allowing that. The governor says the ballot question would provide them with critical guidance on the wishes of city residents.

The schools are currently being run by an emergency manager whose contract is up in March. Granholm says she expects the next governor will name a new emergency manager rather than return control to a school board that she says is dysfunctional.

"These kids cannot wait," she says. "It's unfair to them to be in a school district -captive in a school district where the situation is untenable."

The governor says the choice is mayoral control, or having Detroit's schools managed by Lansing.

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