Grosse Pointe Woods puts Property Values over Education

The Grosse Pointe Woods City Council has voted to ask that local educational institutions be allowed to opt out of any Schools of Choice legislation which may be introduced into the Michigan Legislature this fall. The intent of such a law, while allowing that local schools take care to fill their seats with pupils from within their respective districts first, would be to make local schools with available space take students from other districts to fill them.

Grosse Pointe Woods doesn't like the idea, It would ruin property values and the quality of life in their community, asserts Mayor Robert Novitke. A group calling itself Michigan Communities for Local Control has been formed, to insist that local communities keep control of their schools local.

Well, the Grosse Pointe Woods Schools certainly seem to like taking state funds for their operating costs. In that light, it becomes fair to ask exactly how local their schools actually are. If you take money from Lansing, then you are in fact under Lansing's umbrella and are subject to Lansing's demands. It's as simple as that.

While we appreciate and support the concept of local control for a quite a few things, it strikes us as inconsistent (to say the least) to claim the right of local control when you take non-local cash. At the end of the day, if local control doesn't mean wholly local support, then your argument, quite frankly, is hollow. When Grosse Pointe Woods Schools begin to support themselves entirely, then Grosse Pointe Woods Schools can legitimately argue for local control. But so long as they take from the coffers of the taxpayers from a broader geographical area, they are subjecting themselves to the will of those persons. If those persons insist on schools of choice, then you gotta take the bitter with the sweet.

Or go your own way completely. As it is, Grosse Pointe Woods Schools and any and all districts who side with them are acting from selfishness rather than in the interests of educating all who are willing. If that strikes you as contrary to the purpose of education as espoused by all those who insist on free public schools, your are struck right and true. GPWS wants the cake. Yet they are unwilling to eat it. Their hypocrisy is glaring, and we do indeed learn a valuable lesson from that.