Another week brings more activity both on and off Capitol Hill related to the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT). The Senate Armed Services Committee will be holding a hearing on Thursday morning at 9:45 a.m., which will feature a prominent proponent of the discriminatory policy, as well as two victims of it. The contrast should be fairly striking.

Speaking in support of DADT will be retired U.S. Marine Corps General John J. Sheehan. Those speaking in support of repealing DADT will be former Air Force Major Mike Almy and former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade Jenny Kopfstein. Both are veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and had distinguished military careers, which were prematurely terminated as a result of DADT. This will be the first congressional hearing to feature those whose military careers were ended as a result of the policy since President Obama’s call for repeal of DADT in his January State of the Union address. Be sure to check back after the hearing for highlights and our take.

This week will also see the conclusion of the Pentagon’s review of interim steps that can be taken short of repeal (which only Congress can approve) that would lessen some of the most egregious aspects of DADT, as well as make it more difficult to initiate discharge proceedings of a service member. Possibilities include eliminating anonymous tips as the basis for the start of an inquiry, and requiring that alleged homosexual conduct on which any discharge is based occurs after a service member joined the armed forces. It, of course, remains to be seen just what steps the Pentagon will be willing to take while Congress hashes out the details of a full repeal.

While no substitute for an actual repeal of DADT, the Pentagon can and should take steps to mitigate the ugliest aspects of the policy. Robert Doody, Executive Director of the ACLU of South Dakota, described just such an instance in a blog post earlier this week — “Who You Love Shouldn’t Matter When You Serve” — that discussed the case of a woman who was discharged after being outed by South Dakota’s Rapid City Police Department.

It is certainly encouraging to see all of these positive developments regarding repeal DADT. However, they must not be an end in and of themselves. Nothing short of fully repealing this policy, which states that openly gay and lesbian individuals pose "an unacceptable threat to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability,” is needed.

This morning Detroit Public Schools emergency financial manager Robert Bobb announced a new plan to stem the hemorrhaging of Detroit’s public school system by closing 45 of the district’s 179 schools. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Detroit was forced to issue a similar command just five years ago, when 34 schools were shut down to meet a $200 million budget deficit.

Enrollment in the Detroit public school system has been on a steady downward trajectory for the last ten years. Part of it has to do with Detroit as a city under assault, as a city whose depressed economy and unemployment woes are merely an amplified version of trends throughout the rest of the country. Part of it has to do with the fact that manufacturing jobs in the city dried up so badly that Detroit was topped only by New Orleans in 2007 in the rankings of U.S. cities’ population loss.

In the 2002-2003 school year, DPS’s pre-kindergarten through 12th grade student population was 164,500, but estimates for Detroit’s public school enrollment this year stand as low as 84,000 students. Experts project that in five years’ time, the number of students in Detroit Public Schools will be 56,000 students.

But Detroit also has a robust charter school industry with a student enrollment of 54,000 kids. That’s right, Detroit’s charter school enrollment is set to outpace its public school enrollment. That alone is so mindbending that it eclipses the fact that when the charter school population and public school population of Detroit is combined, Detroit’s pre-K through 12 student population has actually increased in recent years.

Declining enrollment rates have a major bearing on the school district’s ability to function since state education funding is allocated based on classroom attendance. As enrollment has declined, investment in public education has decreased. Public schools that were already struggling are being abandoned by both the state, with its wrongheaded priorities, and parents, who are (and must) demand the best education for their kids. Increasingly, charter schools in Detroit are seen as the answer.

So what we’re looking at right now is the worst-case scenario of the confluence of many factors: the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, already-entrenched poverty in a job-starved city, underfunded and failing public institutions that are being taken over by publicly funded but privately owned companies, and low-income and kids of color that are left out in the cold. It’s not just happening in Detroit, either. Folks even have a name for it: “Black Flight.” If only the same kind of implied choice could explain the mass exodus of Black students from failing city schools.

Last week, Kansas City, Missouri announced that it will be closing half of its 61 schools by year’s end. These drastic moves sound unavoidable. They sound necessary. But they reflect the misplaced priorities of how and where government chooses to invest money.

What remains to be seen is how many more cities will be making similar announcements in the coming months as local and state governments balance their budgets on the backs of students and families and communities of color.