Robert Bobb Gets $81K raise

[Buy American]

Robert Bobb gets an $81K raise, bringing his salary to $425,000 a year, more than the President of the U.S. makes.

Teachers are forced to "loan" DPS $500.00 a month for the next 2 years, interest free, plus pay more for their medical benefits. RB feels that DPS teachers should be grateful they have jobs. Something is definitely wrong with this picture. Everything is broken!

http://detroitnews.com/article/20100...ets-$81K-raise

[DetroitTeacher]

I am pissed right about now. I don't have novels for my kids and he gets a raise?? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!

[Det_ard]

His salary is now what Connie Calloway made, $280K. The extra money from private foundations like the Broad Foundation increases his income to over $400K, but that extra money isn't DPS money. Apparently they think he's on the right track and want to support him, as does Gov. Granholm who approved the $280K salary.

I think he's the best the DPS has seen in a long time and he's cheap at the current price, given the herculean task he has in front of him. If he can blow up the entrenched incompetence that is DPS administration then maybe Detroit Teacher will get her books.

[DetroitTeacher]

I agree that Bobb is doing a fabulous job. I am just upset that he's getting a raise when my kids don't have the things they should have. I wasn't even upset about the 10 grand loan...as long as it was for the benefit of my kids. Eveyone is yapping about teacher accountability but I really don't have the tools necessary to do my job properly.

[Det_ard]

I hear there's an old warehouse with tons of new books just getting dusty, moldy, or burned for heat. There's also a bunch of supplies still scattered around the closed schools. Maybe the DFT could team up with some urban explorers and liberate those teaching materials.

[DetroitTeacher]

I asked if I could go and pick up what I could find and needed from the closed schools. I was told NO and that if teachers were found taking anything, we would be fired. The warehouse doesn't have the novels and such that I need. The "new" books that are in the warehouse are not the editions of textbooks we are currently using, either. They have adopted new editions of most of the textbooks. They only sent enough for about 3 classes [[I have 5 classes). the publisher refused to send more until the invoice was paid in full. I guess it hasn't been paid, yet.

[gnome]

DetroitTeacher, I'm confused, are you looking for textbooks or novel or both? If you are in need of novels, you should let us know ...I bet you'd find a box of them on your front porch.

[Zacha341]

I am usually not one to reflexively begrudge someones salary, but this seems odd... Why the secrecy about the private additional raise source? Who is it? What is their AGENDA? Are they a future charter school fiduciary or planner which is where all this seems to be headed...?

If so, just be open with it and everyone involved can attempt to adjust and adapt accordingly. Well that is not going to happen, and I am not naive...

Not that I agree with full union itinerary and DPS infrastructure, but this mega raise against the seeming incremental shrinking of the district and the draconian cuts such as teachers salaries ala the $250 "give back" Termination Incentive Plan [[what a name), spells a death of thousand cuts....

I mean you have continued closing of schools [[which is inevitable due to a shrinking populous), against mass funding to build new schools; the rumor of mass layoffs still looming [[withstanding the TIP plan), and many sending their kids to charter schools to at least "get ahead" of the perceived "final" collapse of DPS/ union etc, ETC, indeed makes for a death by a thousand "tiny" cuts...

This cannot be a stable environment for otherwise committed staff to function under, especially teachers. Can it?

As DPS is under financial crisis it simply does not bode well for an appointed emergency financial manager to be making so much money, but such has been and continues to be the fiscal pattern of DPS... So at least it is consistent. Yep.

Withstanding of the culture of theft, and payroll corruption etc. at the individual school building level, the big wigs "downtown" having always gotten paid, pulled in their peeps, um-I mean "consultants" et al -- in the good times and even now as the whole thing is winding down to the end...

We see that has indeed NOT CHANGED... has it?

Robert Bobb gets an $81K raise, bringing his salary to $425,000 a year, more than the President of the U.S. makes.

Teachers are forced to "loan" DPS $500.00 a month for the next 2 years, interest free, plus pay more for their medical benefits. RB feels that DPS teachers should be grateful they have jobs. Something is definitely wrong with this picture. Everything is broken!

http://detroitnews.com/article/20100...ets-$81K-raise

[kenp]

It really irritates me with all the grief this guy gets. People want him out so that they can continue and go on their merry way. Parties over DPS.
Probably not a good time for a pay increase, but its from private funding. We need to keep this guy at all cost.

[Retroit]

Eli Broad, founder of the Los Angeles-based foundation, is a graduate of DPS' Central High School. The private support represents a competitive investment to keep Bobb in Detroit and to offset the cost of the salary to the district, said Erica Lepping, spokeswoman for the foundation.

But that is not what is being done. Their "support" is not offsetting his public salary.

[TKshreve]

In a perfect world, he would not have accepted it.

[Danny]

Good for Bobb, he deserves a raise for a job well done in Detroit Public Schools.

[artds]

Bobb has his enemies [[i.e., all the DPS employees who can no longer fraudulently skim money from the DPS pot) so it was inevitable that this raise was going to get criticized.

Bobb has been doing an outstanding job, and the worst thing that could happen to DPS at this point would be for another troubled district to outbid Detroit for his services. If this private money helps keep him here, then its hard to criticize.

I understand that DPS employees recently had to take a paycut, but the fact is, they were FAILING MISERABLY at their jobs, whereas Bobb is SUCCEEDING at his.

This mentality that public employees have where they expect to receive pay increases simply for being there needs to end. Deliver some results, DPS employees, and THEN bring up the issue of pay. That's what Bobb did.

[artds]

I agree that Bobb is doing a fabulous job. I am just upset that he's getting a raise when my kids don't have the things they should have.

If the issues facing DPS were a simple matter of a lack of supplies that could be solved through a little bit of additional funding, it wouldn't be necessary to even have to pay someone like Bobb to come in and clean up the mess in the first place.

The fact is, there's been fraud everywhere in DPS for a long time and the teachers have failed miserably at their task.

You admit he's doing a fabulous job, but in the same breath you don't want to pay to keep him here.

The fraud that has contributed to budget problems has been getting cleaned up and the poor track record of DPS teachers would justify the pay cuts even absent a budget crisis.

[Retroit]

If the DPS teachers were in suburban school districts, I don't think they would be "FAILING MISERABLY".

[artds]

If the DPS teachers were in suburban school districts, I don't think they would be FAILING MISERABLY.

Nobody holds DPS to the same standards as suburban school districts. DPS has DECADES worth of work to do before it can get hope to get to that point.

The public holds DPS to the same standards that other urban school districts that face similar issues are held to, and DPS consistently comes in at or near the bottom of the pack in that respect.

[Retroit]

I agree with you, artds, but I think a distinction needs to be made between the dedication of DPS teachers and the dysfunctionality of the system and population that they are working with.

[Detroitnerd]

I agree with you, artds, but I think a distinction needs to be made between the dedication of DPS teachers and the dysfunctionality of the system and population that they are working with.

It's a fair point. Imagine taking the educational staff of any "performing" school district and putting them in a troubled city like Detroit, in a district run by powermongers, where students' parents are often functionally illiterate and uninterested, where students' peers denigrate book knowledge, where children are undernourished, weakening their bodies and brains. You can work as hard and intelligently as you want and still make only a small difference.

[artds]

^you both are losing site of the issue and excusing DPS teachers' poor performance in the process, and this is precisely part of the reason that DPS has been able to become one of the worst districts in the nation.

As I stated three posts ago, nobody is holding DPS to the standards of a typical suburban school district.

A large part of the problem is that the people who DPS teachers are accountable to focus too much on the fact that the environment in which the teachers are placed is difficult to succeed in compared to a suburban school district.

Instead, the focus should be on DPS teachers' performance compared to other urban school districts that face similar issues, and even when you make that appropriate comparison, the failure of DPS teachers is evident..

[Retroit]

How do you measure teacher performance? By their ability or by the ability of their students?

[artds]

How do you measure teacher performance? By their ability or by the ability of their students?

By the ability of their students, relative to the ability of similarly situated students.

[Retroit]

So, by comparing them to students in other dysfunctional cities?

[artds]

So, by comparing them to students in other dysfunctional cities?

Exactly.

And when DPS students record the lowest scores ever recorded by the NEAP test, as they did just this past year, it's sickening to see the public jump in to defend the teachers' performance on the grounds that they don't have the same resources as suburban districts.

No one is comparing them to suburban districts. These students can't even compete with the other URBAN school districts around the country that face similar challenges.

[DetroitTeacher]

I really need the novels Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies. I need about 180 of each. My porch is lit and covered

DetroitTeacher, I'm confused, are you looking for textbooks or novel or both? If you are in need of novels, you should let us know ...I bet you'd find a box of them on your front porch.

[Roq]

In my opinion, he deserves every penny of it since he has to deal with functional [[and that point is debatable) illiterates like Otis Mathis and Reverend Murray on a daily basis.