Detroit Tries To Turn Around Failing Schools

[DetroitDad]

http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/national/MI121430/

DETROIT [[AP) -- Just like the auto companies that fuel this city, struggling Detroit schools are undergoing a painful restructuring to avoid complete failure and bankruptcy.

Next fall, 29 public schools will close, another 40 will be restructured, 900 teachers and staff will be pink-slipped and 33 principals fired. A former FBI agent also has been brought in to ferret out corruption and fraud. And a request has been made to declare the district a "special presidential emergency."

The changes were ordered by Robert Bobb, who was appointed emergency financial manager of the district in January by the governor. He has one year to correct a $300 million budget deficit, improve test scores and address a graduation rate that's among the nation's lowest.

Without his intervention, Bobb said, the district "would have gone into the abyss and the biggest losers would have been students and their parents."

[daddeeo]

It might also help if more than a few DPS employees went to jail for ripping off students and taxpayers.
Zero tolerance for DPS employees and contractors should be the rule.

[DetroitDad]

I agree.

Here is an artical entitled "The Latest Ideas In School Reform";

http://www.leading-learning.co.nz/ne...no03-2002.html

A good friend of mine loaned me Michael Fullan's latest book and I was so impressed I was loath to give it back. In the meantime I wrote a summary of the book for myself and thought it might make interesting reading for all who subscribe - however there is nothing like the real book!

There is no doubt that a new environment is replacing the technocratic accountability, competitive top down, market forces model. The new millennium will bring dramatic changes in all areas of life whether we are ready or not. Schools are at the edge of great democratic possibilities if educators are to play a major part in the reinvention of a fairer more inclusive society. If so it will be a time for true inspirational leadership not compliance management.....