Anatomy of a Failure: The Detroit Public School System

For a few short years in the 1920s, a remarkable coalition of the city financial elite, politicians of all stripes, and the unions, united behind school improvement, and the system flourished, at least financially. Then came the Depression, and the elite were the first to pull out. Since that time, there has been a continual conflict over control of the school system, with the State, the mayor, the city council, the school board, and the unions jockeying for power. Especially today, with an annual budget of over a billion dollars, the plum is well worth fighting over.