Dive Brief:

• Teachers who are participating in the massive sickout in Detroit say that overcrowded classrooms and dangerous conditions currently exist in district schools, and Mayor Mike Duggan, who visited four schools in the wake of the protests, is calling for an inspection of 97 district buildings.
• The protests, which happened because teacher strikes are illegal in Michigan and punishable by $5,000 daily fines, have resulted in area schools being shut down for days.
• Michigan State Senator Goeff Hansen told the Detroit Free Press that two separate bills aimed at helping Detroit Public Schools will be introduced this week.

Dive Insight:

The sickouts staged by teachers from Detroit Public Schools are emblematic of desperation. According to the Free Press, broken classroom windows, mold, and other safety hazards plague school buildings, and the mayor himself said that the conditions in some schools "break your heart."

The protests, which closed 60 schools earlier this week, are also indicative of larger problems in the state's government. One of the reasons behind the movement is an education reform proposal from Gov. Rick Snyder that proposes chopping the Detroit school district, which has been under emergency state management for the last eight years, in half in order to create two districts. 

And because federal authorities are currently investigating alleged vendor kickbacks in the Snyder-created Education Achievement Authority district, which oversees DPS, implementation of the governor's wider $715 million reform package is likely to be delayed. The EAA is now considered a failure by many, since it has failed to turn around Detroit's worst-performing schools.