from “le détroit” · the strait
A class action filed on behalf of DPSCD students argues the state has underfunded Detroit's schools for decades and should erase the debt run up while the state ran the district.
Parents of Detroit Public Schools Community District students have sued the State of Michigan, arguing the state has spent decades underfunding the district and should be forced to pay more and to wipe out the debt Detroit's schools carry from the years the state ran them.
The class action was filed in state court on April 8 by Troy attorney Gerard Mantese on behalf of a parent of two DPSCD students and other students in the same position, according to a release from his firm, Mantese Honigman. It names Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, State Superintendent Glenn Maleyko, and members of the State Board of Education as defendants. The suit asks the court to order higher state funding for the district and to eliminate the debt accumulated while Detroit's schools were under state control.
The core argument is constitutional. The complaint says the state has failed its obligation to provide an adequate and equitable education to Detroit students, and it points to consequences it ties to that gap: salaries and benefits that struggle to compete for teachers, aging buildings, and literacy rates that trail the rest of the state. The filing notes that only about 16 percent of Detroit high school freshmen read at grade level, and roughly 22 percent reach reading proficiency by graduation.
"Education lays the foundation for a student's success throughout their life," Mantese said in the firm's release announcing the suit. He framed the case as consistent with the governor's own stated goals, saying the litigation "carries out Governor Whitmer's vision of providing a fair and equitable education to all students in Michigan."
Much of the money at issue traces back to how Michigan funds schools. DPSCD receives a base state allowance of about $10,050 per student, per Chalkbeat's reporting on the filing. Districts that were spending more before Proposal A capped local property-tax-driven school funding in the mid-1990s kept higher allowances under a grandfathered structure, leaving a built-in gap that Detroit has long pressed the state to close.
The debt is the other half of the case. Michigan held some form of control over Detroit's schools from 1999 to 2006 and again from 2006 to 2016, when emergency managers ran the district and borrowed to keep it open. That borrowing left obligations that have shaped every district budget conversation since Detroit returned to local control. The district's infrastructure backlog runs to roughly $2.1 billion, and about $700 million in federal pandemic relief was put toward facilities, covering only a fraction of the need, according to Bridge Detroit.
District leadership did not write the complaint. Mantese said officials played no role in crafting it and that he contacted Superintendent Nikolai Vitti only once a draft was ready, per Bridge Detroit and Chalkbeat. Vitti has argued for years that the state funds Detroit students unfairly, and a district spokesperson said Vitti supports the underlying argument. Mantese said he is not being paid for the work.
The case is in its early stages and the state has not responded publicly. It joins a long line of Michigan school-funding fights, including the 2020 right-to-literacy settlement, none of which has rewritten Proposal A. If a judge grants class certification, the case would expand to cover similarly situated students across the district.
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