Word: detroits
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Detroit's school system also is faced with a declining tax base. In addition to the exodus to the suburbs, homes and businesses worth $64 million were burned down during the 1967 ghetto riots and never rebuilt. Thus, the school district lost $91 million in revenue over the past five years-a bit more than the present deficit. The schools also have lost $2,000,000 a year in revenue because in the past decade Detroit has taken $150 million worth of private property for 23 miles of freeways to take suburbanites to their city jobs...
...effort in 1970 to give blacks their fair share of representation in the school system caused a near revolt by white voters. The liberal-dominated school committee divided the city into eight school districts, each governed by a board made up of local residents. The committee also insisted that Detroit begin desegregating its high schools by busing 3,000 white children to predominantly black schools. "That was the crucial thing," recalls Golightly. "When the plan leaked to the press, all hell broke loose...
...effects of Roth's order were immediate. Sales of suburban housing plummeted, and Detroit's housing starts continued to decline. Apparently parents were abandoning both the city and the suburbs and moving to rural areas to escape the turmoil of busing. Michigan Senator Robert Griffin proposed an antibusing amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and state legislators prohibited state gasoline-tax revenues from being used to pay for busing to integrated schools...
...Detroit schools' problems, the answer is obvious: Detroiters must help themselves. Certainly little help can be expected elsewhere. The Federal Government, which today pays about 10% of the Detroit school bill, will be contributing less next year if President Nixon's proposed 9% cut in federal school aid is passed by Congress. Nor will funds from revenue sharing be available; they will be spent on other city services. Says Mayor Roman Gribbs: "Sharing the federal money with the schools would be like getting a lifeboat and then cutting it in half...
...state legislature is not likely to help either. It is dominated by rural and suburban interests who resent contributing taxes to Detroit's schools, particularly when its school tax rate is less than half that of some suburbs and far below the state average of 26 mills. Snaps Democrat William Copeland of suburban Wyandotte: "I don't see how you can expect me to tax my people for Detroit when they are already paying their fair share for the schools, and Detroit is only paying 15 mills...