Support Benton Harbor High School
Let’s put this up front: the Benton Harbor High School should stay open.
The Benton Harbor School Board, and the community at large, were given a choice recently by the Whitmer administration — close your only high school and send those students to surrounding areas but keep the kindergarten through eighth grade intact, or close the Benton Harbor school system entirely.
The Whitmer Administration didn’t create the environment leading to this choice. The proposed options were created by past educational policies that fostered neglect and eliminated opportunities for school districts to thrive. However, the choices of the past don’t need to dictate the choices of the present or our future. Let’s take a moment to reset the conversation, to pause, and to build a different path forward.
After listening to members of the school board, community, local leaders, pastors, and others, a clear message emerges:
1.) We all want our students to succeed academically and professionally in life,
2.) We can do better than what’s happening right now, and
3.) Folks are ready to come to the table to find a solution that meets the best needs of the students.
The statistics presented by the state are troubling. We know we need to see more students testing at college proficient levels by eleventh grade. We also know we need to develop more accurate and culturally competent ways of measuring success and progress in school districts across the state so that all of our young people are given the opportunity to thrive. No one is suggesting that what is happening right now is acceptable. When we hear about the large number of students in Benton Harbor who choose to go to another school district, this is both a symptom of the problem and a part of the cause of the problem.
It is impossible to understand the current state of our public schools both in Benton Harbor and across the state without putting it in the context of public policy choices made over the past thirty years — and more. With the proliferation of charter schools and a chronic underfunding of education as noted by the School Finance Research Collaborative, and the use of School Aid Fund dollars to plug other parts of the state budget as the Fresh Start Resolution adopted by the Benton Harbor Area Schools notes, districts that were struggling financially were already in a weakened state. Faced with flat or declining budgets and hard to estimate pupil counts which determines how much funding a school will receive, a cycle developed. Financial cuts hurt academic outcomes leading to fewer students choosing to stay in the district. Students leaving caused additional financial cuts, hurting academic outcomes, causing more students to leave the district and continuing the downward cycle. Now we have to deal with the result of that downward cycle. We cannot simply admit defeat and close the school.
It is also important to note, communities that have experienced redlining, “the systematic denial of various services to residents of specific, often racially associated, neighborhoods or communities, either directly or through the selective raising of prices,” the context matters even more. Communities that were shut out historically from wealth creation were left with fewer options when the state cut per-pupil funding drastically in 2011. These communities couldn’t just raise the money locally to fill the gaps as some other districts did. Now, closing the only high school in Benton Harbor would only accelerate the cycle caused by redlining by further hurting the community and the families who live there — including the families and students served by the proposed new K-8 district.
For the last five years, Benton Harbor Area Schools have been working under the control and direction of the state. Now, the state is saying their own results aren’t good enough as justification for the closure.
Under the Snyder Administration, beginning in 2014 the Benton Harbor Area Schools have operated under a consent decree. The State Treasurer at the time, Kevin Clinton said the purpose of the consent decree was to “restore financial stability to Benton Harbor Area Schools as quickly and efficiently as possible.” The primary goal of the state focused on financial, not academic, concerns.
The consent decree minimized local control. In fact, the most recent CEO, Dr. Robert Herrera, was quoted in 2018 saying, “This reform effort is going to be mostly guided and directed by the state through me in terms of how we bring the district back about. I’m fairly certain things will be much different at the end of three years.” Now the state, which just last year implied things would be better, not just different, at the end of three years, appears ready to give up.
The model used by the previous administration clearly didn’t work. The CEO turnaround model was rightfully criticized by many Democrats, including the current administration. To now use the results from the CEO turnaround mode as justification for closure of the Benton Harbor High School is inconsistent and wrong.
Turn around plans are hard. A school district cannot cut itself to greatness. At a time when more resources were required, fewer were available. However, the community is ready to help.
Over the past week, we have heard from alumni of Benton Harbor High School and followed the hashtags on social media showcasing student success. The Peace4LifeBH Facebook page has been incredible at keeping the world informed of what’s going on. Advocates like Elnora Gavin are building support for the schools through an online petition. Stories are streaming in of people who have already pitched in to try to fill the gaps the state management wasn’t filling, stories of people who are proud of their school and the success it has prepared them for in their lives, stories of people who want to be part of a solution in true dialogue with the state.
Having supported efforts to keep two of our local Kalamazoo schools open when the state threatened to close them, we know it takes everyone at the table to turn things around. It is clear that the Benton Harbor community wants to be at the table to find a solution that raises academic outcomes, provides long-term financial stability, and keeps community schools in the community. We see this in formal statements, like the Fresh Start Resolution, and the support from local elected leaders like Mayor Muhammad.
We need another option beyond the options to close the high school or dissolve the district. A truly bold solution can find a plan we can all support, a solution that puts the needs of the whole student first, asks partners to dig deep and do more, finds equitable funding from the state, and commits the Benton Harbor School Board to clearly cast a vision for academic success with sound financial management and enact it.
Let’s put a third option on the table for the June 7 meeting. Adopt a 90-day window to build a plan that takes into account the concerns raised by the state, community, and the students who will be directly impacted by the decision.
Even with the options presented by the state, Benton Harbor High School would continue to operate until July 1, 2020. However, local control would be returned to the school district on July 1, 2019. If the state is willing to trust the Benton Harbor Area Schools to run their own schools for the next academic year, they should also be willing to work with the Benton Harbor School Board over the next 90 days to find a more suitable plan.
The Fresh Start resolution concludes with, “The fate of the Benton Harbor High School and the entire School District requires careful planning by all involved parties — especially the opportunity of full community input plus input from both the state and local School Board Trustees who were duly elected by the community to represent them.” The democratic process grants the same authority to the locally elected School Board leaders as it does to the state driving the proposed intervention. As such, the authority should be recognized both ways.
It is time to be bold. A bold solution puts students, parents, and the community at the head of decision making. A bold solution may take an additional 90 days to get right, but it can reject the tactics that helped produce this crisis in the first place. Let’s be bold.
Jon Hoadley is the State Representative for MI-HD-60, Kalamazoo, MI and a candidate for Congress in MI-06.
