DFT Calls for DPS Sick out - schools closed

[BankruptcyGuy]

Then subtract the extra legacy costs, transportation costs, special needs instruction and the bloated administration, and it's not hard to see why this situation never gets any better. Hint, it's not the teachers that are the problem.

DPS has no extra legacy costs. Health care and pensions are all state administrated, unlike for the City of Detroit employees.

They do owe the State back payment for pension obligations. Don't know how or why that was allowed to continue. It isn't allowed in any other district, rich or poor.

[BankruptcyGuy]

EFM's who server multiple years is nonsense. I think the EFM law is seriously flawed.

The left has clearly decided that EFM's are political creatures -- no doubt since they have powers in conflict with workers and unions. But I think the truth is that EFMs actual aid workers and unions by keeping alive their hosts. Of course its not as nice as a healthy host -- as we see in this paycheck crisis. But better than a dead host.

A world without EMs would be far harsher. And that might just be what our public bureaucracy needs. I hope the teachers don't get paid this summer. Not because they deserve the pain -- but because unless we stop propping up dysfunctional entities, we are doomed to get a lot of more them.

How about this? As a bureaucracy goes into debt or starts carrying more than appropriate future burdens, its workers and administrators and vendors all start taking reductions in pay. The money gets put into a fund to pay workers after the collapse. Maybe some early pain is the trick. Nah, its just nonsense too. But so is what we have now.

More coffee, please.

One of the points of the EM law was that the EMs were supposed to cut costs, in a way that politically-elected officials were unable to do, to put the entity in a position where revenues and expenses were relatively balanced. It's worked in some places.

But with respect to a school district, they were not capable or willing to plan for the future of declining enrollment. Since revenues fell and are continuing to fall, it was like catching a falling knife.

None of this, however, excuses the gross over-capacity, the excess in administrators, and the blatant incompetence of being unable to figure out what your payroll would be for the coming months. The teachers, when they show up to work, deserve to be paid.

[swingline]

Well said. Average public school size in the USA is 600 students per. So step one would be closing another 17-18 schools.

But you forgot a biggie,.... THE PARENTS.
A lot of a child's education should be done at home. That's also where the discipline comes from.

And regarding finances,... 47% of Detroit residents don't pay property tax.

Even still,.. Detroit schools don't lack for money. The average spending for K-12 students in Michigan is $9,500 per pupil. BUT IN DETROIT,.. it's $14,000 per.

So Detroit gets much more money per pupil than pretty much anywhere else,... in spite of 47% of residents not paying their taxes.

This isn't the governor's problem,.. it lies with the teacher's union and the management of DPS.

One of the biggest reasons the taxpayers of Detroit and ultimately the whole State are not getting their money’s worth out of the $14k/per student being spent is that hundreds of millions are being spent to pay back relatively recent bond debt that was taken on to build or renovate dozens of buildings that are now abandoned, scrapped and worthless. Something like $1.8 billion [[with a B) was raised and spent by DPS from the early 1990s through about 2004 on these new buildings and renovations. Local elected leadership reasonably sought to improve achievement at least in part by improving facilities, many of which had been abysmally maintained for many years.

So what did the State do to assist this effort? Before the new paint had barely dried and well before meaningful results could be measured, it completely undermined DPS’ [[expensive) effort by effectively eliminating limits on new charter school openings. Good old competition will shape up those lazy Detroit educators, right?

With the floodgates opened, DPS started bleeding 15,000 students or more per year to charters. Without students and the foundation grant funds that go with them, it became impossible to service the new debt and properly educate the remaining children at the same time. Thanks to policies created and promoted by politicians in Lansing, DPS became insolvent. Sure, leadership and administration at DPS could have been better while under local control. But even the best leadership in the country would never have made the numbers work while at the same time confronting 15-20% annual enrollment declines. To repeat, because of Lansing’s [[not Detroit’s) decision to open up education to the glories of “competition” and the “marketplace,” hundreds of millions of borrowed dollars were spent on facilities that now lie in actual ruins. Given that these policies came from Lansing, it seems only fair that now taxpayers across the entire state will share in the pain of repayment.

[Bigdd]

One of the biggest reasons the taxpayers of Detroit and ultimately the whole State are not getting their money’s worth out of the $14k/per student being spent is that hundreds of millions are being spent to pay back relatively recent bond debt that was taken on to build or renovate dozens of buildings that are now abandoned, scrapped and worthless. Something like $1.8 billion [[with a B) was raised and spent by DPS from the early 1990s through about 2004 on these new buildings and renovations. Local elected leadership reasonably sought to improve achievement at least in part by improving facilities, many of which had been abysmally maintained for many years.

So what did the State do to assist this effort? Before the new paint had barely dried and well before meaningful results could be measured, it completely undermined DPS’ [[expensive) effort by effectively eliminating limits on new charter school openings. Good old competition will shape up those lazy Detroit educators, right?

With the floodgates opened, DPS started bleeding 15,000 students or more per year to charters. Without students and the foundation grant funds that go with them, it became impossible to service the new debt and properly educate the remaining children at the same time. Thanks to policies created and promoted by politicians in Lansing, DPS became insolvent. Sure, leadership and administration at DPS could have been better while under local control. But even the best leadership in the country would never have made the numbers work while at the same time confronting 15-20% annual enrollment declines. To repeat, because of Lansing’s [[not Detroit’s) decision to open up education to the glories of “competition” and the “marketplace,” hundreds of millions of borrowed dollars were spent on facilities that now lie in actual ruins. Given that these policies came from Lansing, it seems only fair that now taxpayers across the entire state will share in the pain of repayment.

Your point and Shai Hulud's are well taken,.. and great info. But I'm not sure I agree with your last statement on the State needing to pick up the bill.

When a competitor to me opens up next door and siphons off 1/3 of my business,... do they have to make up my lost profits?

When the City or the Feds use my tax dollars to subsidize my competition [[which they do),.. and siphon off my customers [[which they do),... do they step in and write me a check for my lost income?

Of course not.

Charter schools were the right thing to do.

If the DPS teachers had done a better job of educating,.. this wouldn't have happened. There would have been no push from the residents to do it,.. nor the political will in Lansing. The teachers and the DPS administration failed us. And now they're crying at the consequences. And they're not even the victims here. the students are.

You HAVE to be able to fire the bad teachers. When you can't [[because the teacher's union won't allow it),.. the quality of the product devolves into what we have today. And it's not just Detroit. The nation as a whole ranks behind ALL developed nations,.. and even 1/2 dozen developing nations [[3rd world).

[renf]

Swingline's comments are, in my view, on the mark. Those living in Detroit approved the bond issues that provided at least 1.5 B for new schools and for renovations to the old ones. And
then enrollment dropped rapidly. Some of that decline was foreseeable since the suburbs
have been open to African Americans since about 1990. Did any one doubt that the out-migration of whites from the city would be followed by an eventual out-migration of blacks?
There is still some who advocate federal court bankruptcy for the DPS. If that were to
happen and the bankruptcy judge ruled that DPS would not pay into the state run pension system, who would suffer a loss of retirement income? Does that system co-mingle all funds such that if DPS did not contribute, all retirements pensions would be cut a small amount or
are the retirement funds maintained on a district-by-district basis in which case Detroit retirees would suffer a substantial loss of pension income? Thanks

[BankruptcyGuy]

Swingline's comments are, in my view, on the mark. Those living in Detroit approved the bond issues that provided at least 1.5 B for new schools and for renovations to the old ones. And
then enrollment dropped rapidly. Some of that decline was foreseeable since the suburbs
have been open to African Americans since about 1990. Did any one doubt that the out-migration of whites from the city would be followed by an eventual out-migration of blacks?
There is still some who advocate federal court bankruptcy for the DPS. If that were to
happen and the bankruptcy judge ruled that DPS would not pay into the state run pension system, who would suffer a loss of retirement income? Does that system co-mingle all funds such that if DPS did not contribute, all retirements pensions would be cut a small amount or
are the retirement funds maintained on a district-by-district basis in which case Detroit retirees would suffer a substantial loss of pension income? Thanks

Bankruptcy is neither possible nor helpful for DPS for a number of reasons:

1. DPS has very little in the way of direct tax revenue. Most comes from the State. And State revenue is expressly, by statute, subject to the right of offset if the district does not pay the State money it owes. I think that happened in Buena Vista before their district was dissolved.

2. DPS debt, or a big chunk of it, is issued under state bonding authority, so it carries a State guarantee. The State will not be defaulting on that or any other debt any time soon.

To answer your questions about pensions, DPS and all other state school districts are participants in MPSERS, a joint pension fund. So there is no connection between DPS's unwillingness or inability to pay and the rights of pensioners under that fund. The way the State is protected is that they can withhold foundation allowance if or when a district does not pay what is owed under the pension. DPS has deferred some payments with state approval, but that is generally not allowed.

[swingline]

A few points in response to Bigdd and Renf.

Bigdd, we clearly have differing viewpoints about the role of charter schools. I don’t believe that the constitutional responsibility of the state of Michigan to deliver education to its children should be handled like it is a business subject to typical market conditions and behaviors. Public education is not a marketplace but instead is a service designed to benefit the entire community young and old. Cliché alert: An educated citizenry benefits us all. Public education should not have to deal with the extra costs of competition and the profit-making motives of adults.

Renf, with regard to the State picking up the bill for Detroit’s bond debt and/or the possible alternative of DPS bankruptcy, it’s important that every Michigan citizen understand that the bond debt is backed by state government. This is different from City of Detroit bond debt. A default by DPS triggers a repayment obligation of the State. A DPS bankruptcy won’t relieve the State of Michigan of its obligation.

Some might say this sucks. Why do we have to pay for Detroiters screw-up? Well yeah, Detroiters could’ve handled things better. No question. But the debt wasn’t just created by a bunch of rogue DPS idiots who didn’t know what they were doing. The State was involved all along the way. School districts must get Treasury Department approval for all bond debt. I think that the State Bd. of Education has a small oversight role as well. In other words, Lansing signed off on the debt. It had a significant review and oversight role precisely because it was essentially a guarantor of the debt.

Of course, this makes Lansing’s subsequent decision to open up Detroit to the Wild West of the new open charter school landscape that much more stupid. One minute Lansing is guaranteeing over $1billion of debt and in the next minute it is enacting policies making it impossible for the principal borrower to repay the debt. [[I’ll resist the temptation to blame Republican Lansing for this blunder because in the late 90s/early 00s there were lots of Democrats on board too. The last decade or so though, it’s been pretty much all Republican policies that are pushing for charter expansion.)

[Bigdd]

A few points in response to Bigdd and Renf.

Bigdd, we clearly have differing viewpoints about the role of charter schools. I don’t believe that the constitutional responsibility of the state of Michigan to deliver education to its children should be handled like it is a business subject to typical market conditions and behaviors. Public education is not a marketplace but instead is a service designed to benefit the entire community young and old. Cliché alert: An educated citizenry benefits us all. Public education should not have to deal with the extra costs of competition and the profit-making motives of adults.

We do disagree.

In my opinion,.. the state MUST treat Education as a business,.. and MUST constantly consider market forces in their decisions. The goal should be to provide the best possible product at the lowest possible cost. You do this by being quick to close unneeded or under-performing schools, firing of poor performing teachers,.. etc. Failing to treat it as a business is what got us into this mess.

Obviously because of unions,.. a lot of this is out of the DPS and State's control.

[BankruptcyGuy]

We do disagree.

In my opinion,.. the state MUST treat Education as a business,.. and MUST constantly consider market forces in their decisions. The goal should be to provide the best possible product at the lowest possible cost. You do this by being quick to close unneeded or under-performing schools, firing of poor performing teachers,.. etc. Failing to treat it as a business is what got us into this mess.

Obviously because of unions,.. a lot of this is out of the DPS and State's control.

I think it might be easier to explain it the other way: parents have a choice. DPS does not have a monopoly on educating Detroit kids. Parents can choose private schools [[if they can afford tuition), schools of choice [[if they have transportation), and now, they can choose charter schools. Without the choice of a charter, DPS still isn't a monopoly, and they will still lose kids, but it will only lose those whose parents have means.

Since parents have a choice, DPS has to be mindful about what their parents want. And for whatever reason, many, many parents have made that choice one way or the other. No system will survive unless that is fixed.

[Bigdd]

DPS does not have a monopoly on educating Detroit kids. Parents can choose private schools [[if they can afford tuition), schools of choice [[if they have transportation), and now, they can choose charter schools. Without the choice of a charter, DPS still isn't a monopoly, and they will still lose kids, but it will only lose those whose parents have means.

True,.. but it's close. As you mentioned,.. only parents of means,... and by that you mean the means to pay for school TWICE. Once with property taxes,... then a second time to a private school.

Perhaps parents should get a big tax break during years when they send their children to private school?

Perhaps the tax break could be a sliding scale,.. where there is no break if the school district it great,.. but gets bigger as the schools get worse?

The real answer of course if vouchers. These failing schools would have closed decades ago,.. and been replaced by great schools. With tuition based on their results. Have no money? Use the voucher to go to a 1/2 way descent school. Have a couple grand to kick in [[in addition to the voucher),.. go to a very good school. Have 8 grand to kick in? Go to one of the best couple of schools in the state.

Competition breeds greatness. Monopolies [[or near monopolies) breed abject failure.

[BankruptcyGuy]

True,.. but it's close. As you mentioned,.. only parents of means,... and by that you mean the means to pay for school TWICE. Once with property taxes,... then a second time to a private school.

Perhaps parents should get a big tax break during years when they send their children to private school?

Perhaps the tax break could be a sliding scale,.. where there is no break if the school district it great,.. but gets bigger as the schools get worse?

It's been proposed--but it would require a change to the Michigan Constitution. HRJ2 would make the rule apply to special education students.

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/[[S[[hyf...ame=2015-HJR-B

[jmarie]

The real answer of course if vouchers. These failing schools would have closed decades ago,.. and been replaced by great schools. With tuition based on their results. Have no money? Use the voucher to go to a 1/2 way descent school. Have a couple grand to kick in [[in addition to the voucher),.. go to a very good school. Have 8 grand to kick in? Go to one of the best couple of schools in the state.

Competition breeds greatness. Monopolies [[or near monopolies) breed abject failure.

So where are all these great schools that have opened via charter? I sure haven't see any. Maybe some OK schools, but no great schools.

The problem you keep ignoring is student population. Kids with involved parents will perform better. You can move students from a failing DPS school into a thriving Troy school and they will not perform up to the thriving school's standard. It simply doesn't work that way. Teachers do their best to make up that gap, but you only have students for so many hours per day. If a parent doesn't interact, talk, read with their child, they will likely continue to struggle, especially if paired with a large group of similar students. Take a single struggling student out and put them in a 'great' school, and you will likely see a marked improvement. They have resources to remediate the student, plus their peers will help them thrive. But, take a large quantity [[aka a whole school), and the results will not be the same. Resources will be spread thin. Their peers will not have a large positive effect.
Motivated students will thrive regardless of their environment, but self motivated 8 year olds are hard to find.

When I taught kindergarten [[2013-2014 school year), I had a student that knew 8 letters at the end of the school year. 8 LETTERS. [[His peers were all reading on or above grade level.) He had 1:1 time with parapros every single day. I made sure to spend time with him multiple times per week. I'm trained in Orton Gillingham [[a tactile method of literacy especially helpful with struggling readers and even dyslexic readers). We practiced and practiced and practiced. He received about 8 hours of 1:1 time with an adult each week. I sent home materials with detailed instructions for practice at home at least once per week. His parents did nothing. I do literally mean nothing. He came to me not knowing colors. His parents said "that is what school is for." They also refused to help because his older sister was retained in kindergarten the previous year and they didn't want them to be in the same grade. They wanted him to be retained. My point is that you have to consider home life.

Charter schools are not the answer. Allowing schools to profit off of educating children is unacceptable.

Education is becoming a scary place. Urban education, even more so. The key to fixing it? Education. Not for the kids, but for the parents. Parents need to be taught simple ways to help boost their kids academically. The most basic solution is so easy- talking. People have their faces in a screen of some sort all the time. When I had struggling students, my first suggestion with parents was always to talk. Running errands, make grocery shopping into math. "How many cucumbers can I buy for $5?" "If I bought 2 gallons of milk, how many quarts would that be?" My niece turned 2 years old in February. I keep her talking all the time. Mostly colors and shapes at this point [[What color is that sign? Where is the blue car?), but she can count to six as well [[to ten with some inconsistency).

I'm rambling, so I will stop. My point is that there is no magic solution. There is not a certain combination of teachers in a new school building that will miraculously turn things around. Teachers keeping jobs because of unions and/or tenure is a thing of the past. I switched school districts in 2014. My job became available because a teacher with 15 years was let go. She had been on an action plan for three years and failed to improve. It happens. The reason you don't hear about it is because the gross majority of teachers give 110% every single day.

[archfan]

We do disagree.

In my opinion,.. the state MUST treat Education as a business,.. and MUST constantly consider market forces in their decisions. The goal should be to provide the best possible product at the lowest possible cost. You do this by being quick to close unneeded or under-performing schools, firing of poor performing teachers,.. etc. Failing to treat it as a business is what got us into this mess.

Obviously because of unions,.. a lot of this is out of the DPS and State's control.

So, okay. If government shouldn't run the schools, they probably shouldn't run the police and fire departments. We should open those up to competition, too, and have our neighborhoods protected by a patchwork of companies. Your home can be protected by the lowest bidder.

[Bigdd]

So, okay. If government shouldn't run the schools, they probably shouldn't run the police and fire departments. We should open those up to competition, too, and have our neighborhoods protected by a patchwork of companies. Your home can be protected by the lowest bidder.

If the police didn't respond to calls,.. and the fire department couldn't put out fires? Yeah,.. sure.

[Bigdd]

So where are all these great schools that have opened via charter? I sure haven't see any. Maybe some OK schools, but no great schools.

The problem you keep ignoring is student population. Kids with involved parents will perform better. You can move students from a failing DPS school

Absolutely [[on all you said). [[But I thought it wasn't PC to bring up Detroit parent's lack of education,.. lack of caring,.. or that more than 70% of households have only one parent, etc, etc, etc)

My sister was a teacher [[and substitute teacher of the year for Michigan some 10 years ago),.. my wife was a teacher,.. my 2 best friend's wives are teachers,.. my dad taught here and there,.... so I'm familiar with some the challenges. Most weren't in Detroit schools though.

I do feel for the teachers. So many children in Detroit were born because of programs like ADC,.. where single women were bribed into having lots of illegitimate children. I knew some. One worked for me 26 years ago. Pretty gal,.. she had like 6-7 children, and was pregnant again when I last saw her. Only one or two lived with her,. the rest with her mom. She would only work part time,. because she was receiving 8 or more checks from the state. She had the nicest car of anyone I knew. Always going to clubs and wearing fancy clothes.

You just knew that her children would have a rough time in this world. They would grow up thinking that "normal" was sitting around waiting for the checks to arrive in the mail. They would grow up thinking there was no point in education as they could tell a $20 from a $5,.. and all they had to do was scribble their name on the check and cash it. What more did they need to learn in their eyes?

So imagine being their teacher,... where the child truly believes in the depth of their soul that you're just wasting their time?

If I were king,.. I'd make a law that if anyone that dropped out of school before graduating high-school would permanently be barred from receiving any form of government assistance. If you REFUSE to help yourself,.. then don't expect the rest of us to carry you all your life.

[SDCC]

I’d piss on a spark plug if it would ensure students are supplied with the rudimentary supplies every child needs to feel good about themselves, feel good about going to school, and excel. Self-esteem and human dignity come into play when a child [[or teenager) walks into a restroom to take care of personal business, and there is no door on the stall for privacy, the seat is broken, no toilet paper, no hand soap. To remedy this, parents are forced to purchase these personal items, and place them in the students’ backpack.
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If I were king,.. I'd make a law that if anyone that dropped out of school before graduating high-school would permanently be barred from receiving any form of government assistance. If you REFUSE to help yourself,.. then don't expect the rest of us to carry you all your life.

While I embrace the hard line approach, and you are 100% correct that a person has to help themselves prior to anyone helping them.
I would however, certainly allow any young person that walked away from high school, to get their GED and restart their education @ any junior college. If you [[the king) don’t allow it, then you the King, will end up paying their room and board in one of Michigan’s fine correctional facilities.
I have a soft spot for the young; empathy, understanding, and compassion at a young age goes a long way as the young adult matures.

[Bigdd]

I’d piss on a spark plug if it would ensure students are supplied with the rudimentary supplies every child needs to feel good about themselves, feel good about going to school, and excel. Self-esteem and human dignity come into play when a child [[or teenager) walks into a restroom to take care of personal business, and there is no door on the stall for privacy, the seat is broken, no toilet paper, no hand soap. To remedy this, parents are forced to purchase these personal items, and place them in the students’ backpack.

So why do you suppose the doors missing? Or the toilet seats? Did suburbanites break in and steal them? Did they simply evaporate?

In Detroit,. you can't get paper products at a gas station or most fast food restaurants either. If they put them out,. they get stolen immediately.

Not all problems can be solved simply by chucking increasingly larger heaps of cash at them.

In China for instance,.. there's no toilet paper in any bathroom. Not even in most fancy restaurants. In fact,.. most places don't have toilet seats or even toilets,.. just a hole in the floor. There's no napkins at restaurants,.. no door on most hole stalls,.. and no soap. You bring your own. Yet the children there learn just fine. MUCH more-so than American students. In fact until recently most schools in Southern China didn't have heat. My wife went to college at one of the prestigious universities in one of the most prestigious cities. The dorms didn't have heat in the winter,.. and the electricity went off at 10 pm. To take a bath you had to repeatedly travel to where there was warm water and haul it back in buckets and fill a tub. So the girls would take a bath at most once a week. She was top in her class and the U.S Government brought her here to teach.

Having to toss a 1/2 roll of TP in your child's backpack is no excuse for them failing to do their homework,.. or for being disruptive in class,.. or for parents failing to teach their children.

[SDCC]

China is a communist country, and their school administrators would have a natural fear of the consequences of stealing from the government.

[Bigdd]

China is a communist country, and their school administrators would have a natural fear of the consequences of stealing from the government.

Well,. only a tiny fraction of their people are members of the Communist party. It's VERY hard to get in. People have to have VERY high grades,.. and be the best of the best to even be considered. Also,.. you'd be surprised at how capitalist they actually are. I'd say close to the USA in that regard. The one big difference is land ownership. They get 70 year leases instead of an actual title. Though it's expected that when those start running out,. the state will just renew them. It would be economic disaster if they didn't.

Corruption was rampant,.. people talk about their incomes in terms of regular pay, and grey money,... which is the bribes they customarily get. For many it's more than 1/2 of their income.

The new president Xi [[pronounced "she") has been cracking down on that though,.. so there is a LOT less of it in the last 5 years.

The point being,. having to toss that almost used roll of TP in your child's backpack [[just in case) is no excuse for them not having done their homework,. or for not showing up to class,.. or for the parents not having taught their children anything.

Nearly 100% of the blame for what's wrong with DPS lies with the parents, teachers, administrators and liberal policies,.. and not simply money. The State and the Feds chuck obscene amounts of cash at DPS,.. to the point that DPS officials probably need to wear helmets to keep from getting injured. Chucking even more cash at them isn't gong to do anything to change the scholastic results.

[Wesley Mouch]

...Parents can choose private schools [[if they can afford tuition), schools of choice [[if they have transportation), and now, they can choose charter schools. Without the choice of a charter, DPS still isn't a monopoly, and they will still lose kids, but it will only lose those whose parents have means.
...

I've always been amused that the left is willing to let the poor suffer with bad schools, presumably in pursuit of some lofty ideal world where DPS smells like roses.

[DeLemur]

Well,. only a tiny fraction of their people are members of the Communist party. It's VERY hard to get in. People have to have VERY high grades,.. and be the best of the best to even be considered. Also,.. you'd be surprised at how capitalist they actually are. I'd say close to the USA in that regard. The one big difference is land ownership. They get 70 year leases instead of an actual title. Though it's expected that when those start running out,. the state will just renew them. It would be economic disaster if they didn't.

Corruption was rampant,.. people talk about their incomes in terms of regular pay, and grey money,... which is the bribes they customarily get. For many it's more than 1/2 of their income.

The new president Xi [[pronounced "she") has been cracking down on that though,.. so there is a LOT less of it in the last 5 years.

The point being,. having to toss that almost used roll of TP in your child's backpack [[just in case) is no excuse for them not having done their homework,. or for not showing up to class,.. or for the parents not having taught their children anything.

Nearly 100% of the blame for what's wrong with DPS lies with the parents, teachers, administrators and liberal policies,.. and not simply money. The State and the Feds chuck obscene amounts of cash at DPS,.. to the point that DPS officials probably need to wear helmets to keep from getting injured. Chucking even more cash at them isn't gong to do anything to change the scholastic results.

Nearly 100%....wow. Nothing in this world is 100% of anything. You talk about China and toilet paper. China has factories and an abundance of jobs. We have an abundance of $8 fast food jobs, parents in prison [[some deservedly so, some no) and a housing stock in total disarray in Detroit. Nah that doesn't effect anyone.
Of course it does.
Listen lots of blame on DPS. Lots of blame on the state controlling it for 14 of the last 17 years. But this latest step to move forward? - another catastrophe from the state.

[BankruptcyGuy]

Nearly 100%....wow. Nothing in this world is 100% of anything. You talk about China and toilet paper. China has factories and an abundance of jobs. We have an abundance of $8 fast food jobs, parents in prison [[some deservedly so, some no) and a housing stock in total disarray in Detroit. Nah that doesn't effect anyone.
Of course it does.
Listen lots of blame on DPS. Lots of blame on the state controlling it for 14 of the last 17 years. But this latest step to move forward? - another catastrophe from the state.

Do you mean the House plan or the Senate plan? As I mentioned, only one stakeholder's fortunes are improved by re-instituting a monopoly on education of poor children in Detroit in favor of DPS. Not the kids, not the parents, not the taxpayers, not the business community. Not even the teachers themselves, who need to have the administrative nonsense stopped. The only stakeholder who benefits is the DFT.

[detroitsgwenivere]

One of the biggest reasons the taxpayers of Detroit and ultimately the whole State are not getting their money’s worth out of the $14k/per student being spent is that hundreds of millions are being spent to pay back relatively recent bond debt that was taken on to build or renovate dozens of buildings that are now abandoned, scrapped and worthless. Something like $1.8 billion [[with a B) was raised and spent by DPS from the early 1990s through about 2004 on these new buildings and renovations....

I recall back in the early 2000's when Grayling on State Fair was packed to the gills, had over a million bucks pumped into it's building, and about 4 years later it was vacant. With no warning, Grayling was razed and the entire block wiped clean just 3 years ago.

http://www.detroiturbex.com/content/...ing/index.html

[Wesley Mouch]

I recall back in the early 2000's when Grayling on State Fair was packed to the gills, had over a million bucks pumped into it's building, and about 4 years later it was vacant. With no warning, Grayling was razed and the entire block wiped clean just 3 years ago.

http://www.detroiturbex.com/content/...ing/index.html

The million bucks was not wasted. The DPS bureaucracy certainly made sure that the contractors were Detroit-based, and the workers were also from Detroit, probably with quotas for minority workers, and most certainly at 'prevailing wage'. Thus, the money was an investment into the Detroit economy. The fruits were enjoyed by all.

[DeLemur]

Do you mean the House plan or the Senate plan? As I mentioned, only one stakeholder's fortunes are improved by re-instituting a monopoly on education of poor children in Detroit in favor of DPS. Not the kids, not the parents, not the taxpayers, not the business community. Not even the teachers themselves, who need to have the administrative nonsense stopped. The only stakeholder who benefits is the DFT.

How is this a monopoly when you have an abundance of charter schools?

The House plan is the one I read about.
Why no Education Commission? We have Charters with poor behavior in other states opening up here and we can't prevent bad actors like that from doing so. Plus pushing all of the special needs children to DPS is terrible. We have charters are fine, they bring some competition and micro-environments that can sometime be good but these two elements that benefit them don't make sense.