“Sign up for Chalkbeat Detroit’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and Michigan education policy. A new lawsuit makes some familiar and some new claims that the state of Michigan has shortchanged students in the Detroit school district. The lawsuit, filed in April in state court, seeks to require the state to increase funding to the Detroit Public Schools Community District and to eliminate debt incurred by the city’s school system while it was under state control. Troy attorney Gerard Mantese filed the lawsuit on behalf of a parent of two DPSCD students and other “similarly situated students.” The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, names as defendants Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, State Superintendent Glenn Maleyko, and members of the State Board of Education. The State Board met in closed session Tuesday morning to receive legal guidance about the lawsuit. When members returned to open session, the board voted to direct Pamela Pugh, the board chair, to seek guidance and advice from the Michigan Attorney General’s office. Some of the claims in the lawsuit are similar to a “right to read” lawsuit filed against the state in 2016 that alleged the state denied Detroit district students an education because of poor building conditions, poor academic conditions, lack of materials, and use of uncertified teachers. The lawsuit was settled with the state in 2020 , and the district eventually received $94.4 million from the state to support literacy efforts. The new lawsuit makes similar claims about building and academic conditions in the district. But it also makes newer arguments that funding for DPSCD is inequitable compared to other districts in the state. “The State holds out public education as the great equalizer, a mandatory contract between the government and its youngest citizens: attend, and you will be given the tools to succeed,” the lawsuit says. “Yet, for DPSCD students, this is a broken promise. They are forced to rely on a system that the State itself helped to break, that it supervised during the running up of a huge debt, and that it now maintains as a source of ongoing constitutional injury.” The Detroit district receives $10,050 per student from the state as its base amount of pupil funding. A majority of school districts, as well as charter schools, also receive that amount. But some districts — many of them in wealthier communities — receive more. When the current funding system was created in the mid-1990s those districts were allowed to continue spending at a higher level, with voter approval. DPSCD’s total revenues do increase substantially with federal funding, but those dollars have less flexibility in how they can be spent. “DPSCD needs more funding to even have a chance at providing an equal education to students in Detroit public schools,” the lawsuit says. The state has been targeted in the lawsuits because it had some form of control over Detroit Public Schools — which was the district that educated students until 2016 — from 1999 to 2006 and again from 2006 through 2016. In 2016, because of crushing debt in DPS, a legislative initiative led to the creation of DPSCD to educate students. DPS remains to collect tax revenue to pay off legacy debt. Mantese’s legal specialty is corporate law, but he has handled civil rights cases. He told Chalkbeat Tuesday that over the years, while providing volunteer legal work in Detroit, he’s heard from many parents who’ve complained about poor school building conditions. “There’s unacceptably hot conditions, sometimes freezing temperatures, mold issues, bathrooms that don’t work — a whole host of facility issues that just makes it very difficult to have an environment that provides for a good education,” Mantese said. DPSCD has invested heavily in its facilities in the last decade, dedicating about $700 million of its federal pandemic relief funding as part of its facility master plan. But that only addresses a fraction of the district’s $2.1 billion infrastructure needs . DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti has for years pushed for equitable funding and made similar arguments as those cited in the current lawsuit. A spokesperson said Vitti “does support the underlying argument made in the lawsuit.” “Michigan’s K-12 funding formula continues to fund students unequally,” Chrystal Wilson, spokesperson for the district, said in a statement. “Governor Whitmer and recent legislatures have narrowed the gap over the years to address the inequality, but it still exists. At the same time, little has been done to support lower income districts to address facility issues. This is not fair to our students or staff.” The lawsuit includes an affidavit from Jeremy Vidito, DPSCD’s chief financial officer, in which he says the inequities in funding “have a direct and substantial impact on the ability of DPSCD to provide safe, modern, and equitable learning environments for its students.” “They also create long-term structural disadvantages that impair the District’s operational capacity and financial stability,” he wrote. School districts are barred in state law from using state funding to sue the state. Mantese said district officials played no role in the crafting of the lawsuit, and he reached out to Vitti when a draft of the lawsuit was done. He is not being paid by anyone for his legal services. LaMar Lemmons, who served on the boards for Detroit Public Schools and DPSCD, has long pushed for the district itself to sue the state. He had not read the lawsuit but described it as “not only necessary but long overdue.” Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org .
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