Detroit's Head Start program in peril

BY STEVE NEAVLING

DETROIT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

The Detroit agency being investigated by the FBI following Free Press reports of misspending and mismanagement is placing the city's preschool Head Start program at risk by failing to pay rent to classroom providers and allowing federal violations to persist.

Head Start providers worry that they may have to shut down their programs that serve about 7,000 low-income children in Detroit. They said the beleaguered Human Services Department, which receives $47.8 million a year in federal grants to administer the programs, hasn't paid June rent to at least eight Head Start agencies -- which the mayor's office has acknowledged. Head Start officials say their phone calls to the department have not been returned.

"If the money isn't there, then the organization can't function, which means Head Start will stop serving kids," said Janet Windemuth, a Head Start volunteer and Wayne State University instructor who specializes in urban education of early childhood. "We have no idea what's going on with the city."

The city may give up the program. City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson and Wayne County Commissioner Kevin McNamara, who serves on the county's Head Start Board, said the city has floated a plan to transfer its Head Start money to Wayne County.

Spokesman Dan Lijana said the mayor's office is aware of no such plan.

http://www.freep.com/article/2011062...-program-peril

Why can't anything ever be managed right in the City of Detroit?

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Originally Posted by Patrick

Why can't anything ever be managed right in the City of Detroit?

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Jobs awarded by nepotism, cronyism, favoritism, race, and there being a total lack of accountability or standards; ineffectual, waffling leadership that pays lip service to the population to keep cushy jobs; redundant bureaucracy which is often literally impossible to navigate that serves little purpose other than as a jobs mill.

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Originally Posted by DetroitPole

Jobs awarded by nepotism, cronyism, favoritism, race, and there being a total lack of accountability or standards; ineffectual, waffling leadership that pays lip service to the population to keep cushy jobs; redundant bureaucracy which is often literally impossible to navigate that serves little purpose other than as a jobs mill.

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Wow you nailed that down very nicely, it aint just Detroit either.

If any place needs Head Start it's Detroit. I don't understand why the city is paying rent to 8 HS agencies. That sounds like bureaucratic overkill.

Is Anyone Surprised....:confused:

I would think that this issue, however it plays out, should be directly addressed by the city council. How could it be dealt with otherwise in any remotely believable sci-fi novel?