FP: Detroit Parents Want Convicted Principal Back

[lpg]

When the Commandment "Thou shalt not steal" was written I don't think race was a consideration.

[Vic01]

One by one, the convicted principals pleaded for mercy, insisting they lived for their students and had suffered enough already.
One called himself “a hero.”

But the judge sentenced them all to prison — longer than the defendants preferred, but shorter than what prosecutors had hoped — for helping a millionaire businessman cheat the state’s poorest schoolchildren out of $2.7 million in supplies.
“They need to know that they all deserve better than what these principals gave us,” U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts said Thursday in sentencing four more Detroit principals to prison for stealing from the students they were supposed to protect.



http://www.freep.com/story/news/loca...tter/90090762/

[Richard]

Sad part with it all is there is no way to find out the impact of how this effects the students for the rest of thier lives.

[Wesley Mouch]

Sad part with it all is there is no way to find out the impact of how this effects the students for the rest of thier lives.

Financially, I don't see that it had an impact. The taxpayers were screwed having money taken from their pockets, and diverted into the pockets of others. Students? The district is well funded -- the money stolen was excess money and if not stolen in this scam, would have been spent in some other educationally-useless way by DPS. Only if you believe that DPS spending was really mostly on students would corruption like this have harmed the students. Do you really think if this theft hadn't occurred, the money would have 100% been spent on the students and not on other administrative 'petiorks', or by hiring someone's cousin to do nothing useful? I wish it weren't so, but I believe it was, and to some extent still is. Thus, the only path is charters. Nothing else has a chance of getting cash to students. At least with charters, the 'profits/theft' is institutionalized, and controlled where with DPS, there was no limit to the amount of stupidity that could and was being applied.

[Zacha341]

^^^ The corruption that bothers me most were the ultra deep-pocket FAKE TUTORING scams play out in broad day light!

These cases involved many moving parts and entities involved spanning many years promising to provide 'supplemental' instruction they had NO intentions of providing!! This impacted many students directly.

How do you you justify that??

[lpg]

One by one, the convicted principals pleaded for mercy, insisting they lived for their students and had suffered enough already.
One called himself “a hero.”

But the judge sentenced them all to prison — longer than the defendants preferred, but shorter than what prosecutors had hoped — for helping a millionaire businessman cheat the state’s poorest schoolchildren out of $2.7 million in supplies.
“They need to know that they all deserve better than what these principals gave us,” U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts said Thursday in sentencing four more Detroit principals to prison for stealing from the students they were supposed to protect.



http://www.freep.com/story/news/loca...tter/90090762/

The most pathetic one was the one dragging his 87 year old mom into court hoping for just a slap on the wrist.

[firstandten]

There is/was an incredibly toxic corporate culture within DPS, not so much with the teachers but with folks at the supervisory levels. It is/was the type of culture were people got moved by who they knew and who liked them. Competence was many times a secondary consideration. Many of the principals who got caught up in this mess were basically good people that didn't want to go against the grain because the stuff Shy was doing was basically SOP. Now that doesn't excuse it at all just trying to explain why it was so wide spread within the district. I firmly believe that one of the missions of the EM was to break up the culture within that system, which meant breaking up the system. So as the different EM's continue to rack up higher and higher deficits Lansing didn't care because the culture was getting broken down slowly but surely.

[Honky Tonk]

There is/was an incredibly toxic corporate culture within DPS, not so much with the teachers but with folks at the supervisory levels. It is/was the type of culture were people got moved by who they knew and who liked them. Competence was many times a secondary consideration. Many of the principals who got caught up in this mess were basically good people that didn't want to go against the grain because the stuff Shy was doing was basically SOP. Now that doesn't excuse it at all just trying to explain why it was so wide spread within the district. I firmly believe that one of the missions of the EM was to break up the culture within that system, which meant breaking up the system. So as the different EM's continue to rack up higher and higher deficits Lansing didn't care because the culture was getting broken down slowly but surely.

Good points. I wouldn't be surprised if the reason Shy had the contract in the first place was because he was compelled to play the game.

[BankruptcyGuy]

Many of the principals who got caught up in this mess were basically good people that didn't want to go against the grain because the stuff Shy was doing was basically SOP.

Huh? "Good" people know that bribes, kickbacks and embezzlement are serious crimes. Sorry, these people are criminals, and should count their blessings that their sentences were not longer.

[Towne Cluber]

There is/was an incredibly toxic corporate culture within DPS, not so much with the teachers but with folks at the supervisory levels. It is/was the type of culture were people got moved by who they knew and who liked them. Competence was many times a secondary consideration. Many of the principals who got caught up in this mess were basically good people that didn't want to go against the grain because the stuff Shy was doing was basically SOP. Now that doesn't excuse it at all just trying to explain why it was so wide spread within the district. I firmly believe that one of the missions of the EM was to break up the culture within that system, which meant breaking up the system. So as the different EM's continue to rack up higher and higher deficits Lansing didn't care because the culture was getting broken down slowly but surely.

Toxic street culture -- nothing corporate about it.

[Wesley Mouch]

^^^ The corruption that bothers me most were the ultra deep-pocket FAKE TUTORING scams play out in broad day light!

These cases involved many moving parts and entities involved spanning many years promising to provide 'supplemental' instruction they had NO intentions of providing!! This impacted many students directly.

How do you you justify that??

Suppose for a moment that this scam didn't occur. Do you really think the money would have be unstolen and suddenly used perfectly?

No. This episode is but one of a nearly infinite panoply of distraction from education -- which was only the very last thing the district thought about.

If this scandal hadn't happened, another misuse and improper diversion would be erupted.

[Zacha341]

^^^ Yeah I get that. I hope there is strong over-site in the future.