Oh, this is sure to work. Detroit removing principals, reassigning half the teachers...

[madfloridian]

at 20 schools. They are doing this to get stimulus money that requires such transformation and turning around. This is part of Arne's discretionary billions.

Here are the requirements to get a part of the DOE money:

One is school closure: a poorly performing school would be closed and its students sent to another school in the district.

Another would involve closing a school and reopening it as a charter school or under an education-management organization.

The other two options involve firing the principal. The first would require at least half the faculty be dismissed, and the second would involve intensive teacher training, curriculum revision or a longer school day.

Race to the top requirements

So here is what they are doing in Detroit.

Reassignments part of district's drastic reform efforts

Detroit -- Detroit Public Schools is restructuring more than a quarter of its schools by removing principals, reassigning at least half the staff and boosting academic programs as part of a program to improve the lowest-performing schools.

At 20 schools, at least 50 percent of the staff will be new in the fall, and at another 20 schools instruction will be reformed. At least 16 principals also were removed to meet strict requirements for the grants that could net the district, facing a $363 million deficit, about $112 million over three years.

But the anticipated staff turnover has drawn the ire of some who believe the reforms are too dramatic, too rushed and cause further upheaval in an unstable district. The Detroit Federation of Teachers is challenging whether half the staff must be reassigned to fulfill requirements for the federal grants.

Apparently they did some drastic upheavals last year, and they don't seem to waiting to see if they even worked.

"We just did something radically different last year," said Mark O'Keefe, executive vice president of the union, referring to 36 schools that were reconstituted. "We need to give that a chance to work."

But the district's academic chief says the changes are necessary to qualify for money that could lead to reduced class sizes and bring in math and literacy coaches.

If schools refuse to participate, they risk state takeover if they continue to miss academic targets, said Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the district's chief academic and accountability auditor.

Wait to see if last year's changes worked before barreling ahead with more of them.

There is no education crisis, and there should be no rush to take drastic measures.

At least they admit it is about the money.

[LWolf]

1. It's amazing what things desperate people do.

Public education suicide for cash.

:(

[madfloridian]

6. Just amazing.

And they have cut educators out of opinion making roles.

[LWolf]

7. Because they know our opinions won't suit the agenda. nt

[madfloridian]

9. Exactly right.

[dsc]

2. so that is where Byrd bennett wound up

she got run out of Cleveland on a rail after financial hanky panky.

[madfloridian]

3. This Byrd Bennett? Wow.

If schools refuse to participate in reforms, they risk state takeover if they continue to miss academic targets, said Barbara Byrd-Bennett, Detroit Public Schools chief academic and accountability auditor. (John T. Greilick / The Detroit News)

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100804/SCHOOLS/8040354/1409/METRO1/Detroit-schools--staff-shifts-rile-teachers-union#ixzz0vqcakZt9

Thanks for that comment. That is amazing she is chief academic and accountability auditor in another state. :wow:

[truth2power]

35. This is just appalling! Obama should have to justify why he thinks

Byrd-Bennett is qualified for her position, given that she left another under a cloud. WTF is Obama thinking? Or does he just not care?

[madfloridian]

8. You know, I was trying to search for stuff on that topic.

I can't find a thing. Hmmmm...it doesn't matter what you did wrong if you are a "reformer"...I guess. Interesting.

[madfloridian]

18. Finally I did find something. Ohanian wrote about Bobb and his 40 mil for advisors.

Back in October of last year. I just found it, long and involved.

http://www.susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=8904

Mentions Byrd Bennett...she's really well connected.

Here is more good research from Ohanian.

http://www.susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=8964

[Starry Messenger]

4. This is such a ridiculous statement

But Byrd-Bennett said children adapt. "We as adults get wedded to the people we are comfortable with," she said. "Children just seem to be far more resilient."

What the hell is she even basing that on. In my experience children absolutely bond to the adults they trust.

Speaking of that deficit, is Byrd-Bennett going to be volunteering to take a pay cut?

http://www.detroit.k12.mi.us/admin/finance/cp/docs/contracts/Consulting%20Services%20-%20Barbara%20Byrd-Bennett.pdf

LETTER OF ENGAGEMENT
Between
Barbara Byrd Bennett
And
Detroit Public Schools


ARTICLE IV, COMPENSATION "
A. For Services rendered satisfactorily pursuant to the terms and conditions of this Agreement* Consultant shall be compensated as follows:

Monthly compensation of services—


May 11, 2009-May 31, 2009 (9 days) $ 6,990.30

June 1, 2009-February 28,2010 (9mos. x $16,828.48/mo) $151,456.30
March 1, 2010 - March 2, 2010 $ 1,530.40
--------------
$160,000.00

Monthly Compensation

June 1,2009-February 28, 2010 (9 mos.) $16,828,48

10% of monthly compensation $ 1.683
total monthly compensation: $16,828
total monthly expenses: $ 1,683
--------------
total monthly compensation & expenses $18,511

[madfloridian]

5. "June 1, 2009-February 28,2010 (9mos. x $16,828.48/mo) $151,456.30"

That's a lot for a district in severe economic turmoil.

Thanks for looking that up.

[salin]

10. I agree that there is not a national education crisis... but there is and has been one in Detroit

for more than two decades. When I worked with the DPS in the early 90s - only one in three entering freshman would make it to senior year, and in some highschools only one in three seniors had passed the state graduation test (so those 2 in three got a 'certificate of completion' rather than a diploma.) Factor in a high rate of dropout at fifteen (when many kids would enter high school due to retentions in primary and middle school) and the odds of graduation with skills commiserate with going to college were quite depressing for parents of elementary students.

From what I have read the statistics on ed performance in the Detroit Public Schools has not changed much (if someone can give me info to the contrary it would be appreciated, as I would love to see greater student success.)

While I think that such drastic measures have potential negative consequences... will they be worse than the current results for the students in this district? Until I hear substantive alternatives to how these results (ala kids being able to progress to graduation with the ability to go on to college or other career tracks) I can't jump on the dump on the reform threads - per Detroit. Because the subtext is "we don't give a damn how few kids are educated per the point of someday being able to obtain (and maintain) employment that can work out of poverty." I can't stand with that.

I would agree that such drastic measures are not called for in the great majority of school districts.

For those who think this should not happen in Detroit, and who can not offer substantive (and realistic) changes that the DPS district could make (and the DPS can not change society and its willingness to pay taxes to pay for improvement - or it already would have done so), than please put your feet in the shoes of the parents in this district. If you couldn't get your kid into one of the scarce seats in district magnet schools, would you send your own children to school in the Detroit Public Schools?

[madfloridian]

11. Do you think switching teachers and principals around will solve anything?

Would it help if they took the money going with students to schools other than public and gave the money back to the public school system?

They are being required to make all the switcharoos to get Arne's money. There is no proof that any of that works.

It is giving a punitive environment for teachers and students already under stress.

I find it hard to accept that Bobb is bringing TFA teachers for which 2000 dollars a head must be paid to the company....while they are laying off so many teachers already.

Teach for America, the national corps of college graduates who teach in underserved schools for two years, will come back to Detroit this summer.

One hundred graduates -- 80 in Detroit charter schools and 20 in Detroit Public Schools -- will descend on the city during one of the most highly charged climates Teach for America has ever seen, officials acknowledge.

As the school board battles Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb over academic controls, the president of the teachers union is threatening an injunction to stop aspiring teachers from entering classrooms if it's at the expense of laying off current teachers in those subject areas.

...""We look forward to a successful partnership and will do all we can to make sure it is a lasting one," Bobb's chief academic and accountability auditor, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, said in a statement.

Bobb is returning TFA to Detroit, even while experienced teachers laid off.

I find it hard to accept that Gov. Granholm is threatening the pensions of experienced teachers if they don't retire early....and is allowing Robert Bobb to bring in TFA teachers.

[salin]

12. My question is what you suggest be done differently that is not more of the status

quo?

What realistic changes would you make, or none? If none, what is the message you send to these families - that it is cool as cake that they send there kids to school where few will make it (graduation) with marketable skills (proficiency for college, or for todays workforce?

There are a few areas which are in high crisis. Asking for a) acknowledgement that while the overall crisis is overblown - there are some places where there are crises, and b) that real solutions have to be found, or we acknowledge that to protect the system everywhere that we accept that some parents have hard choices per sending their kids to a system where few are really educated.

One of the reasons this environment is possible, imo, is that for several decades to protect *all* public school systems, few serious policy initiatives have been offered to address the serious educational inequalities that exist in the poorest performing systems. Now a blanket is being swept across many schools based on the serious problems in a very small per cent of schools.

We keep our head in the sand about schools in places like Detroit at our own detriment.

[LWolf]

13. Here:

To be honest, I don't know why so many people ask this question. It indicates that they haven't been paying attention, since few of these suggestions are new, or that the anti-public ed propaganda has been so successful that people just don't credit anything that doesn't come from the "standards and accountability" "school as a business" promoters.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=219&topic_id=26493

[madfloridian]

15. The propaganda that schools are bad has succeeded. With Obama's help.

And that is a tragedy.

[LWolf]

17. It IS a tragedy.

I listened carefully during his campaign. I heard him say he thought Republicans were better on education than Democrats. I heard him voice support for charters and for merit pay. So I didn't trust him, even though he also said somethings downplaying standardized testing a little and suggesting that parents also had to be accountable, and that "good" teachers need to be supported. He didn't mention "turning around," or mass firings, of course.

It's one of the main reasons I opposed his nomination so strongly.

So many of my colleagues heard the part about de-emphasizing testing, about holding parents accountable, about "supporting" teachers, and they didn't hear, or discounted, the rest. Because we were desperate for political support, and we just didn't believe a Democrat would support a destructive Republican agenda.

The propaganda has been out there, and successful, long before Obama hit the national scene, of course. He's just making use of it, and doing so to advance a harmful agenda.

"Disappointing" is not a strong enough term.

[salin]

21. Agreed *except* regarding Detroit.

In Detroit - they really are that bad. Didn't discover that through press or President Obama. Learned it by working there and doing research there later. All long before Obama's election.

Lumping in all articles about the real crisis in Detroit with "propaganda" by definition admits that you are indifferent to the plight of these students and families.

[JDPriestly]

27. What is working in Detroit?

Last I heard, the mayor (maybe the previous mayor) was accused of corruption. The biggest industry -- cars -- declined severely over a number of years.

The schools in Detroit are just a reflection of the social and economic decline there.

And Detroit is a harbinger for the future of our country. Meanwhile, it is so much easier to try to "fix" the schools than it is to try to fix our energy crisis or create jobs or rethink trade policy.

And, of course, by fixing the schools is meant removing experienced, well-trained teachers and putting in pretty, young things who don't know what they are doing but are new and fresh and therefore enthusiastic. This is not the kind of change that will make a real difference ten or twenty years from now when the new, fresh and enthusiastic are old, stale and just even more frustrated and jaded than the current teachers.

Repair society and the schools will take care of themselves. Charter schools and privatization are a distraction from the real problems we face as a country.

[salin]

20. I have - and I worked for a number of years with the Detroit public schools.

considering detroit schools as being in crisis is a personal matter. I am always careful to state that the DPS crisis is unique, not universal and that I am afraid that decades of inaction per that crisis has led to this environment where a broad blanket is used per schools in general.

item 1 can't be tackled by the Detroit Public Schools - so how does this address the real crisis there?

item 2 while I am concerned about the high stakes testing movement - I worked there before this movement (in the early 90s) fewer than a third of entering ninth graders graduated - so the absence of high stakes testing doesn't seem to be a factor in Detroit.

item 3 agreed. However this is challenging per many state's finance laws so that when a community has a shrinking tax base there are often limitations per raising the money to fully fund. Again, this is a societal priority thing, not something that can be done to improve the Detroit public schools in the short term. I am fully with you, however, to pursue any long-term state and fed efforts to this end.

item 4 absolutely! Have long thought this is a way to go and that districts (at what ever size) should take on more of a service purchasing agency where economy of scale matters to be able to get services (school-determined PD, for example) and goods (can by much more paper, get much better rates on copying machines - when buying on a larger scale) rather than large governing entities that often become territorial self-preservation zones for cronies, too far removed from students to keep students as central focus (this was a big problem with DPS when I was there, and as I have read stories over the years has remained so. However, this is again often a state level thing and DPS can't do this alone.

items 5 and 6 flow from 3 and 4 on which we agree, however with the caveats per action, now to try to address the immediate crisis of kids in those schools in Detroit right now - while working to achieve these items.

Very little to quibble with you per your secondary list (after item 6). And I vow to fight with you for those approaches.

However it doesn't acknowledge there is an immediate social justice crisis in Detroit (far greater than in almost any other school district in the country, imo) and one that has gone unaddressed for decades. Detroit's problems are critical. The following is a news release from the Detroit Public Schools in December 2009 (before the controversial Bobb was brought in): http://detroitk12.org/news/article/1840/ headline: On national test, 69 percent of Detroit children score below basic on fourth grade math; 77 percent below basic on eighth grade math

Note I don't jump in on many of these threads... mostly only those involving DPS - because we have to respond differently where there is a real crisis and acknowledge short term solutions have to be found. It is unique.

I don't have the answers.

But I do know that if ever there was a place where more short term responses are needed, and that are in need of long terms structural changes such as those you write about, it is Detroit. I can't get outraged at efforts to try to do something in Detroit, in the same way as I can about RTTP efforts more broadly being applied in ways that have many obvious unintended (or intended) negative consequences.

Here is where we may differ on charter schools and where we agree about grave concerns per Race to the Top with an over empahsis on charter schools. There are some schools that have been able to do many of the things that you suggest. However they are mostly independent, small start-up locally created and operated (no EMO or CMO). In places in great crisis like Detroit - those type of schools could create an alternative while working to change the other laws and funding priority (states taxing/school funding and districts defined (in my state to break up districts would be a state legislative issue). My concern is that the emphasis of bringing charter schools in is about big chains that have little to no quality control. The mom and pop start up charters that have been successful are not what are being brought in. And that is too bad, imo.

So how do we get started at the state levels to address funding constraints and other legal/governmental constraints (per breaking up districts) to get at the long-term structural changes that are needed?

[LWolf]

24. I appreciate your thoughtful response.

Your questions, concerns, and points are all inter-related.

#1? Poverty? Schools CAN'T address poverty, which is just one reason #2, high-stakes testing, has to go. We know that SES is the greatest predictor of academic performance; if we can't address ALL the sources of under-performance, then high-stakes testing aren't measuring schools' successes, or failures, but our society's.

# 3, full funding, is critical to the success, and to doing what is appropriate at the public school level, (#s 15 and 18) to address # 1. Much of the rest can't be accomplished without it.

So what do we do?

Well, to begin with, there has to be a fundamental change in philosophy coming from the top. The factory model, the business model, have to go. Politicians need to start listening to educators instead of Bill Gates, Eli Broad, etc.. How do we make them do that? This problem is bigger than education. It's happening in so many different arenas. The only way I know of to make them listen is with my vote. But the applied use of votes needs to be organized. To have a voice, there have to be enough people doing so, and targeting issues, to threaten the status quo. So I stay connected to groups that are willing to stand with us, and I try to bring more people in.

With full funding, we can accomplish much on that list. I'd suggest that the place to start is here:

Instead of "racing" and "competing" for grants, or allowing SOME schools to operate outside of the authoritarian regime (charters) while others can't, I'd take a page from Arne and Obama's play book and attach funding to changes that would really help.

There are layers of bureaucracy to be addressed. The first is at the top. Without a fundamental change in philosophy from those writing legislation and deciding funding, it isn't going to happen. But once it happens there, change has to happen at each level on down. State depts of ed also have to let go of bad policies. They have to be removed from the interests of those pushing factory and business models, and charters. Then, so do districts. While I'm a strong supporter of local community involvement, I am also aware that local control leads by school boards in some conservative communities would like to see their schools privatized and christianized. Every level of the education bureaucracy has to be part of enacting change.

So attach federal funding to items # 4, 5, 7, and 8. Encourage every district to allow and encourage customization of schools, and parental choice within district. That does away with the need for charters and allows all schools the same benefits, while leaving enough oversight in place to protect students and staff.

What to do NOW? I'd start with #s 10 - 12, plus 15 and 18. 10-12 help build a climate of community/school partnership, buy-in, and commitment to success. This is the most powerful impetus to immediate positive change that I know. 15 and 18, even in a limited way, help address the SES gaps.

[madfloridian]

14. I am sorry you think I have my head in the sand about Detroit.

It's really telling me that nothing I post has made any difference, and I thought it had made a little.

It is not about Detroit anymore than any other city. It is about taking resources away from public schools that are in crisis and calling it reform.

I can not overcome the massive propaganda machine that is the media.

I have tried, but apparently not made a difference.

I know Detroit is in crisis. I understand that.

Could you tell my why they will bring in teachers from TFA while laying off those they already have? They can hire local teachers for free, and they are good teachers most of them in spite of the Duncan propaganda.

Yet they are bringing in elite graduates to work only two years, and they are going to have to pay the private company a price for that hiring.

I have tried, and I feel like just putting my head down and giving up.

I believe in the long run Obama will be considered the president who harmed public education, and that breaks my heart.

[salin]

22. Bring me evidence that the Detroit public schools are doing well.

That all of the teachers being laid off there are quality (I have first-hand stories to raise hair). Many of the pervasive problems there emanated from the District level and were perpetuated down to the school levels. I have never worked at a place that had less emphasis or concern with their students, that felt no urgency or obligation about student progress, where the sense that "if I reach 1 child I have done my job" - condemning the other 24-29+ students. This started at the top (Board) spread to Supts who came and went, and spread throughout the system.

I will make no claims of knowledge of other large districts. I have been compelled and appalled by the items you have posted per decisions about rating and closing schools in NYC - ass-backwards and certainly also not done with any concern for students. I stand with you on most issues.

However, I stand differently on Detroit. And I am no victim of propaganda. I *lived* the Detroit public school experience.

[madfloridian]

31. No, no evidence. I make the point that switching teachers won't matter.

I don't think I said the schools were doing well? I don't think I made a statement about quality except that they were switching teachers, laying them off, firing principals....and hiring TFA brand new inexperienced teachers at cost to the taxpayer to a private company that claims it is non-profit.

I said wait to see if the turnarounds they did last year worked.

You are apparently not going to see my point, and you are taking it personally when it was not.

It IS pure propaganda that so many teachers are bad, and unfortunately it is spreading more rapidly under this administration than it did under Bush.

I don't mind a good argument if it is addressing my point, but you are reading stuff that is not there.

Going to back off before I get in trouble here again or before the post too confrontational.

In fact they are moving faster in Detroit to privatize because of the poor economy. Reason has been thrown out the window.

If you are the same Salin from years ago, I hate to have differences with you. We used to see eye to eye on so much. We respected each others' ideas.

[JDPriestly]

32. Way back in the early 1950s, my dad was a pastor and social worker

not in Detroit, but in another midwestern city to which poor southerners were migrating in large numbers. The migrants (all American born, all very, very poor) brought with them generations of poverty and ignorance.

It was obvious at that time that the discrimination (and not just against African-Americans) and the social and economic disadvantages that the people had suffered for generations would not disappear even in the course of several generations.

Culture is learned. It is handed down from generation to generation. And the culture of the migrants I met through my father's work was one of failure, of submission to wealth, of hopelessness, of brutal family structures -- neglect, abuse, impulsive behavior, anger, the need for immediate gratification -- passed down from generation to generation.

That culture is alive and doing well not just in Detroit but in pockets of the inner cities across America. Our modern technology does not speak to that culture and makes no effort to lift it up, to give those who are caught in it hope or courage.

In fact, our media is full of programming that uses that culturally dispossessed part of our society as a source of entertainment. It is those culturally dispossessed who are the hunted in the many programs about bounty hunters. It is the culturally dispossessed who are blamed for the things that are ugly in our society.

The culturally dispossessed fill our prisons and cram our courthouses. In fact, if you want to see the culture I am talking about, take a day off work and go down to a criminal department of your county courthouse. Just sit and listen to case after case and watch the defendants and their public defenders as they plea another chunk of the empty, hopeless life of Loser in People v. Loser's life away.

Inner city schools are teaching the children of the Losers in People v. Loser. Replacing public schools with charter schools is not going to make a difference in the Loser's child's life. There may be some improvement in the first decade, but unless you drastically change the culture that Loser's child is living in, just changing the school is not going to help. You have to teach the Loser parent to believe in a different story about him- or herself if you want to change Loser's child into a winner.

I don't see charter schools doing that. And all this testing that is going on now is just cementing the divide between the Losers and the Winners. You have to change the culture of the home and of the street.

Charter schools are not the way to change the culture. It's been at least 55 years since my father served in that midwestern inner city area, and it hasn't changed much since then.

I guarantee you that in ten years, the charter schools will be worse than the public schools are now. Wait until the newness wears off. The only difference will be that the charter schools are a lot more expensive than public schools are now.

[JDPriestly]

26. Have you ever noticed that the poorest performing schools

are almost always found in the poorest areas of our country? Almost always.

Why are people so shocked about the poor performance of the schools and so utterly disinterested in the poor performance of the social and economic structures of the areas in which the poorly performing schools are located?

This mania about privatizing schools is just an avoidance mechanism. The real problem is the social and economic inequality.

Wealthy strata of society blame the poor for their lack of education. Some people, a minority, will seek to learn out of simple curiosity and a hunger for information and understanding.

But many people are not motivated by the desire to learn for the sake of learning. They need to believe they have opportunities in order to make the effort to learn, to become educated. This is particularly true of people who have suffered discrimination or who come from homes in which there has been a struggle -- either due to health difficulties, a difficult family history or domestic violence, imprisonment, economic failure, mental illness or joblessness.

Education is important but education alone will not lift a person or a region unless there are suitable jobs and an otherwise good, healthy, hopeful environment. Arne is just wasting our time.

He is, as I said in another post, just rearranging the chairs on the educational Titanic. We need to move the whole ship away from the icebergs.

[kwassa]

34. I agree with this analysis, the mistake of the one-size-fits-all approach to reform.

Different problems call for different solutions. What is needed in high-poverty areas is different than in other public school systems.

This is spot on:

One of the reasons this environment is possible, imo, is that for several decades to protect *all* public school systems, few serious policy initiatives have been offered to address the serious educational inequalities that exist in the poorest performing systems. Now a blanket is being swept across many schools based on the serious problems in a very small per cent of schools.

Detroit has dire problems, and half the population of 50 years ago. I was born there, during it's golden era, but it has been in serious decline for a very long time.

[JDPriestly]

25. Have the TFA teachers taken education courses?

Have they done student teaching? My daughter was accepted into that program and she had absolutely no educational training. That was some years ago. She took another opportunity and did not go into TFA.

Why are we putting so many TFA teachers into our schools?

Check out the TFA website. They are looking for "leaders," young people who either did well in college academics or were "leaders" whatever that means. They are not looking for students who bothered to take education courses.

Here is what they call training:

Our training is designed to give corps members the foundational knowledge and skills they need to become highly effective teachers. Teach For America provides rigorous pre-service training during the summer institute, one-on-one coaching throughout the two-year teaching commitment, and an extensive bank of online resources to help corps members succeed in the classroom.

Institute
A five-week intensive training program designed to set corps members up for success from their first day of teaching.

Coaching
Throughout their two-year commitments, corps members receive one-on-one coaching from program directors and meet in learning teams to further develop the knowledge and skills needed to lead their students to success.

Online Resources
TFANet, our online hub for corps members and alumni, includes thousands of lesson plans, videos, and other resources and is a forum for corps members and alumni to connect.

http://www.teachforamerica.org/the-corps-experience/training-and-ongoing-support/

I got an education degree many, many years ago. I never taught in public school, but for some years I taught privately -- music. I taught in a situation in which the other teachers were not trained in education. The advantage I had in conveying information due to my understanding of educational psychology and planning a lesson was very evident to me.

Is this attack on our public schools really an attack on the field of educational psychology? Why are we putting untrained teachers into the schools with such glee? Are we just throwing out decades of research about how we learn and why? What kind of fools are leading this movement? Surely not people who learned anything about how children learn.

[madfloridian]

33. You make so many good points about the real goal...TFA is a stepping stone

not for students but for the TFA teachers.

They are also after college education departments to try and close them down, apparently to have for-profit academies for training...like TFA.

[JDPriestly]

23. And how high is the unemployment in Detroit?

only one in three entering freshman would make it to senior year, and in some highschools only one in three seniors had passed the state graduation test (so those 2 in three got a 'certificate of completion' rather than a diploma.) Factor in a high rate of dropout at fifteen (when many kids would enter high school due to retentions in primary and middle school) and the odds of graduation with skills commiserate with going to college were quite depressing for parents of elementary students.

Last December, it was reported to be close to 50%.

Officially, Detroit's unemployment rate is just under 30 percent. But the city's mayor and local leaders are suggesting a far more disturbing figure -- the actual jobless rate, they say, is closer to 50 percent.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/16/detroits-unemployment-rat_n_394559.html

1 in every 182
housing units received a foreclosure filing in June 2010

http://www.realtytrac.com/TrendCenter/default.aspx?address=detroit,+mi

Why should kids stay in school when there are no jobs after they have graduated?

What do the kids in Detroit have to look forward to, to plan for, in their lives?

When a child believes that doing well in school will lead to a good life, a life that is meaningful and productive, the child will work hard and study. But if not, if life is just going to be a struggle in the here and now, a struggle for the basic necessities, what is the use?

And if mom and dad are struggling, possibly cheating, ashamed of their lives, looking for food in dumpsters, drinking too much, taking drugs, just waiting for something to happen, what child is going to work hard or achieve anything in life?

Changing kids from one school to another, switching teachers, privatizing, none of that will do a bit of good in a society in which people have no future. And Detroit is one of the cities in America in which many, many people see no future.

What is the Obama administration doing to insure that Americans have a vision for the future? Instead of moving the chairs around on Titanic America, we need to be moving our ship of state away from the icebergs. The privatization of the schools, the charter school movement is a waste of our time and money. We simply can't afford such nonsense.

We need to rebuild our country, not restructure our schools.

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. Typical that they don't give reforms enough time to work

That crap has been going on for years. Long before Arne.

[defendandprotect]

19. These measures are forcing self-destruction . . . !!!

How are parents reacting to all of this???

[proud2BlibKansan]

28. They want to put the teachers in jail

A parent group in Detroit is advocating arresting the teachers.

[madfloridian]

29. Yep, video...a group founded by Skillman Foundation calls for jailing them.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/5392

Article and video. This is not a grassroots group. It was founded by a corporation that helps pay the financial fellow, Robert Bobb.

The schools are being hijacked more quickly there than other places because of the economic problems.

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

[defendandprotect]

41. OK . . . got it .. but still . . .

this would be like repeating what bought and paid for "T-baggers" have to say --

Don't any of the real parents understand what's going on?

And still -- idea of arresting teachers is far-fetched even for this propagandist outfit???

[madfloridian]

42. I think few understand.

And I just despair about it.

[defendandprotect]

44. How can rw propaganda work this well . . . !!!

and how can I even ask that question given how much destruction it's

caused thru millennia?

Unbelievable!!

ugh!

[madfloridian]

45. I know why. Because there is no opposing party.

[defendandprotect]

46. That's the kind of truth that makes you feel like crying . . . . !!

Really sad, Mad -- !!

Really sad . . .

Heartbreaking -- and so unnecessary --

[defendandprotect]

39. Completely insane . . . on what basis would they be arresting teachers???

For what?

[madfloridian]

40. Watch the video I posted just above your post.

[proud2BlibKansan]

43. For not doing their job I guess

I wasn't too clear on the reason.

[madrchsod]

30. reformation begins with the community.....

at home, on the way to school, then the classroom. if the first three are`t addressed all the plans for the reformation is just dust in the wind.

[madfloridian]

36. Moving teachers and principals around only a cosmetic solution.

That was my point.

It breaks the spirit of public school teachers and it is not a solution to the real underlying problems.

[truth2power]

37. Neither Obama nor Arne have the expertise

to be making such decisions about public education in this country.

Tell you what...Turnabout's fair play...

I have a degree in education. There's plenty of empirical evidence that, while there are some lawyers who are brilliant, there are a significant number who are demonstrably incompetent. Some, horrifically so.

What say I get together with some other educators and we decide to reform the legal profession. We could revamp the law school curriculum, revise the bar exam, and, in the interest of making sure that everyone has a right to EFFECTIVE representation, we could fire, i.e., disbar, lawyers who, by our standards are incompetent. Works for me!

Funny thing...if you start handing out legal advice, the legal profession will find you, and they will make you very sorry you did so. On the other hand, anyone can claim to be an expert on the teaching profession .

ETA> Thanks, madfloridian, for your ongoing efforts.

[Overseas]

38. Another sad K&R. //nt