While most of the anxiety you’re surely feeling today is appropriately directed at the presidential race, people who care about Detroit should also be paying attention to the city’s historic school board election.

Voters on Tuesday will choose seven Detroiters to help shepherd our schools out of a difficult period that’s been defined by financial distress, academic turmoil and emergency management.

“Most important will be to choose a majority that wants to look forward, to the day when full democratic control is restored, to the elevation of educational outcomes, rather than one that wants to re-prosecute arguments of the past.” – Detroit Free Press

How will voters choose? A Chalkbeat review of campaign finance records found that the vast majority of the 63 candidates have raised no money at all and will be entering Election Day without tools to get their message across to voters.

To help you make sense of the candidates, we’ve compiled nine endorsement lists from the city’s major newspapers and political organizations. Read on to see which four candidates made six of the lists, as well as the rest of the week’s headlines. And — please — don’t forget to vote!

Four days away

Of the 63 candidates running for school board, most are running shoestring campaigns — though one union-connected candidate will benefit from $127,000 in campaign spending.

There are also a number of statewide and local school issues on ballots throughout the region. Among the most contentious: the Wayne County tax hike that could mean an extra $385 per student in county school districts.

Three suburban superintendents explained why they’re urging voters to support the measure, calling it “one of the most significant and necessary investments in … public schools in generations.” But critics charge that Wayne County school leaders are misleading voters.

Meanwhile, WDET looked at what the tax vote says about the way we fund schools in Michigan.

In other news:

Critics have charged that the state’s tougher new promotion requirements for third-graders are
punitive without extra resources to help kids who’ve fallen behind. But the GOP chair of the House Education Committee defended the measure, saying the state spends
hundreds of millions of dollars on early literacy programs to help kids read. “The fact is that our educators are receiving adequate funding,” she wrote, “but their mind-sets and focus need to change.”

Endorsement tallies:

In the race for Detroit school board, there are lots of candidates. To help sort them out, Chalkbeat synthesized the endorsement lists from nine organizations — three newspapers (The Free Press, the News and Michigan Chronicle) and six community and political groups: the Detroit Federation of Teachers, the Greater Detroit Chamber of Commerce, the Fannie Lou Hamer (FLH) political action committee, Declare Detroit, the Black Slate and the 13th Congressional District Democrats.

Though many of these groups have different agendas, quite a few candidates appeal to endorsers across the political spectrum.

Candidates with six endorsements:

Candidates with five endorsements:

  • Iris Taylor: Chamber, DFT, Black Slate, FLH, 13th District

Candidates with four endorsements:

Candidates with three endorsements:

Candidates with two endorsements:

Candidates with one endorsement:

There are surely other endorsement lists that didn’t come across our radar, but the vast majority of candidates — 46 candidates, or nearly three quarters of the total — don’t appear to have outside support at all.

Chalkbeat Detroit

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. The content is reposted here on Daily Detroit with the permission of the publisher.

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