Chrissie Thompson, Michelle Miller, Maite Amorebieta and Joseph Annunziato

USA TODAY and CBS This Morning

Jamarria Hall's Detroit high school reminded him of a state prison: chains on the doors, disgusting food and dirty water, bathroom stalls without doors. No computers, tablets or SMART Boards. The few books he saw in the school were older than he was.

"Is this really a school? Like, this has to be a movie," Hall said he thought. "People were getting set up to fail."

The 2017 graduate of Osborn High School in Detroit says he had a B+ average. But his SAT score was a 930, not high enough to get into college.

Desperate for change, students from five of Detroit's worst-performing public schools – including Osborn – sued the state of Michigan in 2016, saying they had a constitutional right to be educated. Literacy, the argument goes, is necessary for voting, accessing the courts and serving in the military.

Their argument failed this summer in U.S. District Court in Detroit, but they're appealing. They feel they have no other choice.

"It's not worth it to this student, to the family, to sacrifice another generation of kids in Detroit," said William Koski, a law professor who runs the Youth and Education Law Project at Stanford University. "The thinking is, 'The situation really is quite desperate. We've got to shake things up somehow. ... So let's go for it.' "

When Hall was in high school, Detroit's schools – essentially bankrupt – were run by state-appointed emergency managers as part of a bailout. The new superintendent, Nikolai Vitti, who is starting his second year, agrees with Hall's assessment.

The school system wasn't receiving enough money from the state, so teachers weren't trained in how to teach to current education standards, Vitti said. The curriculum was inappropriate for each grade level and was several years outdated.

Only 10 percent of students are reading at grade level. The school district needs $500 million to update its crumbling schools, and the district's financial structure post-bailout only allocated $25 million to spend on such endeavors.

That wouldn't be allowed at suburban schools, Vitti said. In other words, he said, "racist" policies created the mess at Detroit's public schools – a mess he's trying to fix, although with a limited budget.

"When people aren't listening at the legislative level, if former governors don't listen and don't take heed to the challenges that children are facing, then you have to resort to other measures," Vitti said. "And so parents resorted to the courts in order to hear their voice."

Hall knew other students had it better, even students nearby in metro Detroit.

"Grosse Pointe is right across the city border line. Right across," Hall said, describing a well-to-do suburb. "iPad, tablet, SMART Boards everywhere. Their floor is glossy. Glossy clean. There's no metal detector, no security guard. And it's right across the border line."

He himself had experienced better schools, as a child growing up in California and at charter schools he had attended in the Detroit area. Hall and his classmates wrote letters to Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, at the suggestion of their teachers.

"We never heard a response," Hall said. "It really makes me very angry. Why, like, why is this happening to us? They really just don't care."

Snyder and Michigan's Department of Education declined to comment for this story. In court, they have argued the Constitution doesn't guarantee a right to literacy. The suit, they say, asks the court to "peer over the shoulder" of teachers and school administrators. By siding with students, the court would be "dictating educational policy in every school district and school building throughout the United States where an illiterate child may be found."

Nevertheless, the students' suit is worth a shot, Koski said.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that education is not an equal right under the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law. But other U.S. Supreme Court cases have said states have the responsibility to provide some kind of education.

"You can't completely shut kids out of an education," Koski said.

The Detroit suit focuses on literacy as a minimum threshold for education – a skill that is more relevant to today's economy than in the past, Koski said. Ultimately, the success of the suit will depend in part on the makeup of the Supreme Court.

In the meantime, Hall has charted a path for his own education. He moved to Tallahassee, Florida, and is in his second year at the local community college.

In high school, he only had to write a three- to five-page essay once. In community college, he has written three in a month. He tries to read novels every day.

His reading level has improved from that of an eighth grader to that of a junior or senior in high school, he said. His goal: attend Florida A&M University.

"Every day I would have to go get help. It got even to the point where I had to take an extra writing class just to help out with my writing," Hall said.

"It makes me feel like I'm dumb sometimes or I'm not as smart as I need to be. But I know it's not my fault. I know it's the school system I came from. I'm far behind from everybody else."

This story is part of an education reporting partnership with CBS This Morning.



