YPSILANTI, MI - As the U.S. Department of Education looks for ways to expand school choice programs, Michigan educators testified Monday to how the state's Schools of Choice policy has contributed to inequities among schools and uneven outcomes for students.

Two panels of educators and other experts presented to the Michigan Civil Rights Commission during a hearing on discrimination in schools Monday, May 21 at the Eagle Crest Conference Center in Ypsilanti.

The commission plans to hold at least two more public hearings on discrimination in schools before issuing a report on whether Michigan's education system is violating the civil rights of some students. The next two public hearings have not yet been scheduled.

About 20 people - including a group of Ypsilanti Community Schools supporters who presented to the commission last July on racial segregation among Washtenaw County schools - addressed the commission Monday, with the conversation centered on Michigan's school funding system and the impacts of consolidating or merging school districts.

"How can we not be outraged? How are we not banging on the doors of legislators and demanding better outcomes (for students). This is very embarrassing," said Commissioner Rasha Demashkieh. "Everything that I hear is school of choice - charter schools, virtual schools. I want to ask you, what is your take on all of that? How has that improved our performance?"

School choice - and the resulting competition for students and the state funding that follows them - has contributed to disparities in the resources and quality of education offered at competing schools, said members of one of the panels that addressed the commission.

Under Michigan's school choice policy and funding model, students have the option to transfer to a charter school, or at times another traditional public school outside the geographical district of their home school - and at least $7,600 in state funding follows each student wherever he or she decides to enroll.

A drop in enrollment means schools have to make cuts to balance their budgets, which can result in lower-performing districts and further loss of students.

Students whose families do not have the means to send them to another school or who choose to stay at their home school district for other reasons can be left at under-resourced schools.

Consolidation can also backfire, Ypsilanti Community Schools Superintendent Benjamin Edmondson told the commission.

One district annexing another with a large population of minority students often prompts "white flight" - where families of white students decide to enroll their students elsewhere, Edmondson said. YCS was created in 2013 from the consolidation of Willow Run and Ypsilanti schools. Currently, 77 percent of YCS students are students of color and 75 percent are from low-income families.

"The work that you do right now is critical in establishing equity and equal access for all children to pathways to success, and it is a civil rights issue," Randall Davis, superintendent of Marshall Public Schools, told the commissioners. Marshall schools annexed Albion Community Schools in 2016.

Washtenaw Intermediate School District Superintendent Scott Menzel, another of the panelists, suggested a change to the funding model that would keep $2,000 of the per pupil foundation allowance from the state within students' home districts - even if they transfer to a different school.

This would provide more financial stability for struggling school districts and create less of an incentive for for-profit charter school organizations to open schools, he said. Menzel also said it would be worth re-evaluating how Michigan structures K-12 education overall, in an effort to provide a more uniform quality of education across the state.

"We don't have system coherence. That's what we need to change if we want to be able to ensure that every kid's successful," Menzel said. "The idea of competition to improve an educational environment has been tested since the mid-90s, and it doesn't work. It's not about competition. ... What it's about is ensuring that we have the resources in every community so that wherever a kid lives, they're able to go to a school that can meet their needs."