Across America, crises over money, schoolroom violence and forced busing threaten to overwhelm the cities' public schools. In Chicago and Philadelphia, the school districts are reeling under deficits totaling tens of millions of dollars. In New York and Los Angeles assaults on teachers and students were at an alltime high. In Washington and Richmond, so many white families have fled to the suburbs that the city schools are being left, de facto, segregated.
A.L of these problems—and some uniquely its own—are reflected in Detroit. Put bluntly, Detroit's public education system is close to...