Time March 2–9, 2020INEQUALITY| EDUCATION
negotiations. By last fall, the state agreed
to restructure the school’s debt.
Tiffany Brown, press secretary for the
governor, says that Whitmer’s “top prior-
ity” is “making sure every child in Benton
Harbor has a path to postsecondary suc-
cess.” The governor, she added, engaged
“with Benton Harbor school-board mem-
bers, community leaders, students and
parents” and will continue working with
a special committee charged with making
recommendations for the district’s future.
The district still faces enormous finan-
cial and educational challenges. Contin-
ued loss of enrollment and money could
yet lead to bankruptcy and dissolution.
The special committee’s recommenda-
tions are expected in March. Nobody has
proposed changing the underlying prob-
lem that forced Benton Harbor students
to plead for a better high school in their
community: the segregation of children
into school districts with dramatically dif-
ferent levels of poverty and wealth.
The Trump adminisTraTion has
made a point of deprioritizing places
like Benton Harbor High. After helping
make Michigan an educational free mar-
ket, DeVos as Secretary of Education has
called for the same nationwide. In his
most recent State of the Union, Trump
proposed private-school tax credits for
“children trapped in failing government
schools,” but did not mention giving
public schools equal funding or provid-
ing extra resources to schools whose stu-
dents have extra needs.
To truly level the ground between
St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, the fed-
eral government would have to fund K-12
education in the same way it funds health
care, transportation and other vital public
services, providing significant resources
to lower-income states and communi-
ties. Currently, only 8% of school funding
comes from the U.S. Department of Edu-
cation. States also have to do more. Many
students in places like Benton Harbor need
intensive, expensive support. But Michi-
gan still gives the district less money per
student than it gives to communities ben-
efiting from a wealthy property-tax base.
Both Benton Harbor the city and the
school district have at various points been
controlled by state-appointed emergency
managers and consent agreements. As
more than one Benton Harbor resident
notes, it was an emergency manager who
infamously decided to switch the water
supply in Flint, Mich., which poisoned
the city’s children with lead. The Benton
Harbor school district only regained full
control of its schools recently, just in time
for the state to declare it bankrupt and
unfixable and suggest that the high school
be shuttered—which still might happen.
Benton Harbor and St. Joseph repre-
sent 21st century America in miniature,
divided by inequality past and present,
struggling to overcome a legacy of dis-
crimination and mistrust. There is no se-
cret explanation for why Benton Harbor
High School came to be this way, and no
shortcut for how to make it better. Fixing
public schools requires money. Buildings
need to be renovated and modernized.
Teachers need to be paid enough to take
and keep a challenging job. And admin-
istrators need to focus on, and be held ac-
countable for, the hard task of education,
not managing endless financial crises. It’s
not as if there’s no money available to pay
for these things. The students can see it,
right across the river, across that invisible
line that separates their poor school dis-
trict from the rich one a half mile away.
In the music video that Asia Tillman,
Cameron Gordon and their classmates
created, you can hear both their fear and
conviction. Asia comes in near the end,
standing in the school gym, wearing a
T-shirt with the Tiger logo that says We
can do anyThing. The mood darkens,
the students lower their gazes, as she be-
gins to rap, her voice furious and young:
Our city is burning
And we have no options
They do not care about us
The history of Benton Harbor over the
past half-century has been dominated by
loss—of people, institutions, money and
faith—and the victims of this transforma-
tion have gone deliberately unseen. Asia
raps on:
To the world
We is a ghost to them
Asia wants the school she deserves,
not nearby, but in her hometown.
You cannot take me up out of my city
Move me, try me
She doesn’t want to be the last to leave.Carey is a writer, analyst and director
of the education policy program at the
nonpartisan think tank New America8 RADICAL IDEAS
FOR EQUALITY NOW
3. UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME
What if the government gave
all citizens a set amount of free
money, with no strings? That’s
the idea behind universal basic
income (UBI), which proponents
say would help families cover
their basic needs, alleviate
poverty and lift up society at
large. Thomas Paine proposed
a version of it in 1797, and
figures from Martin Luther
King Jr. to Richard Nixon have
supported it. But in
recent years, UBI
has been gain-
ing currency.
Andrew Yang
championed
it during his
presidential
campaign, and
Stockton, Calif., Mayor Michael
Tubbs is already in the midst
of his own pilot program to see
whether cash infusions can
help struggling residents.- BRING BACK THE DRAFT
The idea of conscription has
never been very popular, and
yet some argue that America’s
all-volunteer force has created
more problems than anyone
anticipated. The U.S. military
draws heavily on working-class
and nonwhite residents—and
with fewer than 1.3 million
active service members, most
Americans are not involved.
Some advocates, like retired
Army major general Dennis
Laich, argue that reinstating
a draft would close the divide,
reduce recruiting costs
and increase foreign-policy
engagement. A judge ruled
in 2019 that a draft for men
only is unconstitutional, and
a commission is examining
potential changes to the future
of the draft, with a report due
in March.
42