Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm of Michigan is warning a committee pondering the future of the Detroit public schools not to balk at competition from charter schools.
In an Oct. 6 letter to the Rev. Wendell Anthony, the chairman of the Detroit Public Schools Transition Team, the governor also discourages the panel from supporting a lawsuit against the state for more money.
The governor named the 120-member panel in January. Its charge is to make recommendations for Detroit’s new school board, to be elected by voters on Nov. 8. The new board will replace a board appointed by the city’s mayor that had run the 150,000-student system since 1999.
The transition panel’s recommendation for abolishing charter schools, wrote Gov. Granholm, a Democrat, “suggests that the only way to bring students back to the DPS is to eliminate educational options that parents and children have today. I reject that premise.”
Instead, she calls on the panel to focus on finding ways to give parents “more, not fewer opportunities to choose good schools for their children.”
Mr. Anthony could not be reached for comment, but he told local reporters that the transition team’s recommendations, due out next month, were not yet final.
