© Doug CoombeJamarria Hall, plaintiff in the literacy rights lawsuit dismissed on Friday.
Perhaps you remember the case. MT presented a cover story about it last year. With the help of a public interest law firm, a handful of Detroit students charged in federal court that educational officials in Michigan - including Gov. Rick Snyder - denied them access to an education of any quality.
The lawsuit took pains to illustrate how Detroit's schools - run under a state-appointed emergency manager - were a welter of dysfunction: overcrowded classrooms, lack of textbooks and basic materials, unqualified staff, leaking roofs, broken windows, black mold, contaminated drinking water, rodents, no pens, no paper, no toilet paper, and unsafe temperatures that had classes canceled due to 90-degree heat or classrooms so cold students could see their breath.
At times, without teachers or instructional materials, students were simply herded into rooms and asked to watch videos. One student claimed to have learned all the words to the film Frozen in high school. The lawsuit even mentions one eighth grade student who "taught" a seventh and eighth grade math class for a month because no teacher could be found.
Comment: America's public schools are, on the whole, a joke. They don't even go through the trouble of hiding it now.