Emergency Manager Needed in Highland Park

Due to a severe budget deficit, it has been recommended by a review team that Highland Park Public Schools be brought under an emergency manager. Described as being in a financial free fall, the action would make Highland Park second to the Detroit Public Schools as the only districts under a Michigan emergency manager.

Yet refreshingly, the response of Highland Park School officials has been rather conciliatory. Superintendent Edith Hightower has said that they must live with Lansing's recommendation, and that her first job is to see that the students in her district are educated. The District is in trouble despite its efforts (it has done several things called for by the state in attempts to remedy its problems on its own) yet has acknowledged they aren't working. School board Chairwoman Alma Greer echoes the point.

Of course, someone always wants to protect their turf, and this is no less true with the Highland Park Schools. One Board member, Robert Davis, speaks of legal action to prevent an emergency manager from stepping in. He's an elected school board member, you see, and Highland Park parents will be losing their right to elect their representatives if the situation plays out as seems likely. That's garbage, of course: Highland Park citizens have and will express their opinions about state actions through their state legislators whom they elected. No one's right are being violated; Mr. Davis is simply grandstanding. A lawsuit will only drive the district further in debt or, at the best, delay necessary actions.

It is good to see that the reaction to this difficult situation is, on the whole, positive. Such an approach is best, for Highland Park, for its students, and its taxpayers. The rest of Michigan, and we will pointedly include the City of Detroit in this, should taker note. Sometimes it is best to take our medicine and get on with things.