To provide regulation of Detroit’s educational system, students from universities across Michigan gathered at the Michigan Association of State University Presidents’ Council meeting in Lansing to address demands of the Students in Solidarity Campaign.

Students from Grand Valley State University, Eastern Michigan University, Central Michigan University and the University of Michigan held a press conference outside the meeting on Nov. 4 to deliver a letter to the Michigan Council of Charter School Authorizers, asking for the community’s voice to be heard.

Among the authorizers are nine universities where Timothy Wood, associate vice president for the Charter Schools Office, represents GVSU on the board of directors. In addition, the charter schools are regulated by the university based on state and federal laws.

Wood said GVSU’s Charter Schools Office currently has 71 charter schools authorized, with at least 24 open in Detroit. He said the universities are not in charge of operating the schools, but monitoring the performance.

“We see that there continues to be a number of failing schools in the city of Detroit and other urban centers,” Wood said. “Those schools do not give parents a good educational option to their children. Our position is we are providing an opportunity for kids to get a better education.”

The university has been an authorizer for 21 years. Wood said GVSU has closed 15 charter schools in that time due to failure to meet the educational standards. He said the authorizing council addresses the opening and closing of these schools as a strategic plan to provide a quality education.

“A charter school has to help kids, otherwise they are closed,” Wood said. “We are just on politically different sides of the fence right now.”

Nicole Kleiman-Moran, senior at University of Michigan and member of Students of Solidarity, said the letter addressed to the council demanded the immediate end of opening and closing of charter schools in Detroit until the creation of the Detroit Education Committee (DEC).

“It’s such a complex situation and that’s not how a school system should be,” Kleiman-Moran said. “The main goal is getting these kids a proper education, but that’s not happening. There needs to be more local control and community voices.”

The campaign also asks the council to support the Coalition of the Future Detroit Schoolchildren’s recommendations. She said the involvement of community voices in Detroit’s educational system is necessary, which will allow correspondence between the authorizers and the DEC.

“I am very passionate about this issue because there are so many injustices happening to the Detroit school children,” Kleiman-Moran said. “We want the Detroit Education Commission to be created to at least allow the community a voice. It’s hard to believe these universities control something that is so ground-level.”

The unchecked opening and closing of charter schools in Detroit, Kleiman-Moran said, is an agent to complicating the school system for parents and results in the failing system. She said the Students in Solidarity group will continue to act and help influence a system for change.

To find out more about GVSU’s Charter Schools Office visit, www.gvsu.edu/cso.