<P> Detroit Public Schools suffered from underfunding and racial discrimination before the riots . Underfunding was a function of a decreasing tax base as the population shrank while the numbers of students rose . From 1962 to 1966, enrollment grew from 283,811 to 294,653, but the loss of tax base made less funding available . At the same time, middle - class families were leaving the district, and the number of low - scoring and economically disadvantaged students, mostly black, were increasing . In 1966 - 67, the funding per pupil in Detroit was $193 compared to $225 per pupil in the suburbs . Exacerbating this inequity were the challenges in educating disadvantaged students . The Detroit Board of Education estimated it cost twice as much to educate a "ghetto child properly as to educate a suburban child ." According to Michigan law in 1967, class sizes could not exceed thirty - five students, but in inner city schools they did, sometimes swelling to forty students per teacher . To have the same teacher / student ratio as the rest of the state, Detroit would have to hire 1,650 more teachers for the 1966 - 67 school year . </P> <P> In 1959, the Detroit School Board passed a bylaw banning discrimination in all school operations and activities . From 1962 to 1966, black organizations continued to work to improve the quality of education of black students . Issues included class size, school boundaries, and how white teachers treated black students . The Citizens Advisory Committee on Equal Educational Opportunities reported a pattern of discrimination in the assignment of teachers and principals in Detroit schools . It also found "grave discrimination" in employment, and in training opportunities in apprenticeship programs . It was dissatisfied with the rate of desegregation in attendance boundaries . The school board accepted the recommendations made by the committee, but faced increasing community pressure . The NAACP demanded affirmative action hiring of school personnel and increased desegregation through an "open schools" policy . Foreshadowing the break between black civil rights groups and black nationalists after the riot, a community group led by Rev. Albert Cleage, Group of Advanced Leadership (GOAL), emphasized changes in textbooks and classroom curriculum as opposed to integration . Cleage wanted black teachers to teach black students in black studies, as opposed to integrated classrooms where all students were held to the same academic standards . </P> <P> In April and May 1966, a student protest at Detroit Northern High School made headlines throughout the city . Northern was 98% Black and had substandard academic testing scores . A student newspaper article, censored by the administration, claimed teachers and the principal "taught down" to blacks and used social promotion to graduate kids without educating them . Students walked out and set up a temporary "Freedom School" in a neighborhood church, which was staffed by many volunteer Wayne State University faculty . By May sympathy strikes were planned at Eastern, and Rev. Albert Cleage had taken up the cause . When the school board voted to remove the principal and vice principal, as well as the single police officer assigned to Northern, whites regarded the board's actions as capitulation to "threats" and were outraged the "students were running the school". City residents voted against a school - tax increase . </P> <P> Under the Cavanagh administration, the school board created a Community Relations Division at the deputy superintendent level . Arthur L. Johns, the former head of the Detroit chapter of the NAACP, was hired in 1966 to advance community involvement in schools, and improve "intergroup relations and affirmative action ." Black dominated schools in the city continued to be overcrowded as well as underfunded . </P>

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