Robert Bobb is not working out for DPS

[eastsidechris]

I'm surprised there hasn't been more media coverage of how Bobb is holding the entire school district's staff, students and parents hostage right now because he is dragging his heels in giving official notification of which schools are going to close, and what changes will happen because of those closures.

We are now into June and the Great and Powerful Bobb refuses to come out from behind his curtain.

[firstandten]

In the long run, I don't think we can "fire" all the parents and put the kids in boarding schools without having it come back to bite us 20-30 years from now.

Besides, we've already tried this for other groups we considered degenerate:

American Indian Boarding Schools
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps...ding/index.htm

I think in this instance you are comparing apples and oranges. Those Indian boarding schools were glorified cultural assimilation camps, where education was not stressed but control and religious indoctrination of the Indian population was.

The mission of the boarding schools I'm for fall more into the lines of educational and career opportunities without the distractions of living in the hood or dealing with bad parenting.

ABC schools - A better chance is another success story. They use boarding schools in their programs

http://www.abetterchance.org/abetter....aspx?pgID=967

[English]

Right on cue with the grape throwing and trail of tears rhetoric.

Why does DYes engage in such hyperbole? I've been called Monica Conyers, and now I'm that kooky lady who throws the grapes just because I have a different point of view.

I think in this instance you are comparing apples and oranges. Those Indian boarding schools were glorified cultural assimilation camps, where education was not stressed but control and religious indoctrination of the Indian population was.

The mission of the boarding schools I'm for fall more into the lines of educational and career opportunities without the distractions of living in the hood or dealing with bad parenting.

ABC schools - A better chance is another success story. They use boarding schools in their programs

http://www.abetterchance.org/abetter....aspx?pgID=967

I understand your argument, and I definitely think that many of those who advocate boarding schools for urban children have the best of intentions. Many of the nation's elite boarding schools have had scholarships earmarked for poor and/or minority students. I'm sure that some sincerely believe if we just had enough vouchers, or places at Country Day or Cranbrook, we could transform Detroit overnight.

However, the data and results for sending poor and working class African American students away from their neighborhoods to be educated is mixed at best. One of the most comprehensive surveys of these students was published in 1991 by Cookson and Persell in the Journal of Negro Education. Although these students were admitted to selective schools, they wrestled with issues of race, class, and culture. Other studies show that this wrestling affects school performance as well as identity formation and psychosocial development.

It's never as simple as "get them out of that environment and they'll succeed in school." A case in point is the integration that is occurring in school districts throughout SE Michigan as parents flee the Detroit Public Schools. What we see happening is that these students are persistently at the bottom of the achievement gap, and under the provisions of NCLB, test score data must be disaggregated by subgroups. Instead of being able to tout test scores in the eightieth or ninetieth percentile to prospective homebuyers, these districts' test scores for the past decade have clearly shown the distance between white and Asian students' academic performance, and the performance of black and Latino students. Districts from Lake St. Clair to Jackson are now obsessed with "closing the gap." No one has come up with systemic solutions to close the gaps and facilitate quality education for these students. There are rays of light in specific settings, but no one has figured out how to scale these programs up so that all students will succeed in them.

We know how to educate poor kids who are struggling in school, and we know how to educate kids from non-Asian minority groups who are struggling as well. There are millions of pages of research documenting what's worked stateside and abroad. However, we only know how to do this in selective settings. Schools like KIPP, Bates Academy, and even the ones cited here ONLY work because they serve a selected population. None of these wonderful schools serve all students. Special ed, EBD students who aren't on IEPs, and students who are several grade levels behind in reading and/or math often find themselves out of these schools. If they can't make the grade, are regularly disruptive in class, or end up suspended or expelled, they are OUT of most of the schools and programs that reformers tout.

I think it's wonderful that people are advocating for change. I agree that the status quo is untenable. I am not even saying that the DPS ought to be preserved in amber in its current form. It's just that I have been immersing myself in this issue for years, and the answers aren't as simple as we'd like them to be.

[65memories]

English...for the record, I've met Monica Conyers and I've met you...there is no way anyone could confuse the two of you.

[Brainiac]

I'll just say this.. For parents, who for whatever the reason cannot see the big picture, who cannot see the educational payoff down the road for there kids, because they are too busy dealing with there issues on a day-to-day basis. Boarding school could take some pressure off them, plus give the kid a chance to focus on its education.

There has to be a menu of radical alternatives. This is one of them.

I would like to see a school with ridgid standards, entrance requirements, intense scruitiny, and ability to kick out students that don't succeed - the "Harvard" school.

And I would like to see a school where one parent must be on site whenever the student is in class. Empower the parent and the teacher.

I'm sure there are a ton of good ideas if we did not try to force the kids into traditional uniformity.

[firstandten]

Great points English ! Just a point of clarification. I favor the type of boarding schools that if a kid is African American, the kid will be around other AA's and not put in a situation where it would be a cultural 180 degrees adjustment . I could see boarding schools within the city limits. Any type of environment that would provide structure and safety. All kids can't handle a Cranbrook. or Country Day

Also, I could see a problem shipping a Detroit kid to Piney Woods MS which a rural area even though Piney Woods is a mostly AA boarding school.

To one of your other points. I do think more than one method will be needed to be used to educate the poorer kids in Detroit.

Also there might need to be a realization, that we cannot deliver on a K-12 education for every student. Maybe we should only guarantee a K-8 education and focus on getting each child a very basic education. Anything beyond 8th grade the kid and the family should have some "skin in the game" .

We need however to have some out of box solutions, because what we are doing is not getting us where we want to be.

[Brainiac]

I favor the type of boarding schools that if a kid is African American, the kid will be around other AA's and not put in a situation where it would be a cultural 180 degrees adjustment.

Just suppose:

if a kid is white, the kid will be around other whites and not put in a situation where it would be a cultural 180 degree adjustment.

Or how about a field trip only for AAs, excluding the students of other ethnicities?

I'm presuming you meant no harm in your comments. You might want to disect your own words and make sure they conform to your overall values.

[English]

Great points English ! Just a point of clarification. I favor the type of boarding schools that if a kid is African American, the kid will be around other AA's and not put in a situation where it would be a cultural 180 degrees adjustment . I could see boarding schools within the city limits. Any type of environment that would provide structure and safety. All kids can't handle a Cranbrook. or Country Day

Also, I could see a problem shipping a Detroit kid to Piney Woods MS which a rural area even though Piney Woods is a mostly AA boarding school.

To one of your other points. I do think more than one method will be needed to be used to educate the poorer kids in Detroit.

Also there might need to be a realization, that we cannot deliver on a K-12 education for every student. Maybe we should only guarantee a K-8 education and focus on getting each child a very basic education. Anything beyond 8th grade the kid and the family should have some "skin in the game" .

We need however to have some out of box solutions, because what we are doing is not getting us where we want to be.

You and I are on the same page. I may be kicked out of my field for this, but I agree with you that public education has to morph away from the one size fits all method, and move towards more localized, custom-tailored schooling environments. However, whenever I say this, better and wiser educators than I point out the legal issues involved. We struck down "separate but equal" in the 1950s... so if we wanted to take kids with high math aptitude and put them into a tech boarding school, while putting kids who didn't like sitting still or were disruptive in class into a more kinesthetic friendly environment that taught them other skills, there would be lawsuits in 3... 2...

[English]

Or how about a field trip only for AAs, excluding the students of other ethnicities?

Sidenote: The bolded recently happened here in Ann Arbor:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/..._ends_bla.html

Again, this is where the entire Civil Rights movement, or our latter day interpretations of it, becomes a stumbling block. Supposedly post-Civil Rights, there should be a 1:1 correspondence for everything. If, to quote the late Michael Jackson, "it don't matter if you're black or white", then putting a white student in a majority nonwhite environment might prove problematic.

We don't have many studies about white kids who attend majority nonwhite schools, but I can quote something from a staff meeting six years ago. We were being honored because our students were averaging composite scores of 21 on the ACT, which was very high for predominately black schools. Our school was 17th overall in the nation for ACT test scores, and of course, since we were in Detroit, they were astounded. Apparently even magnet schools in urban centers weren't doing as well.

The staff received the disaggregated data. Looking at the data for race was astounding. Other groups were statistically insignificant, but the white students at this 95% black school were averaging 26 or 27 composite. There are few schools ANYWHERE in the country with that stat, public or private. Here are the state averages for the ACT: http://www.act.org/news/data/07/states.html

At least academically, we weren't hurting our white students, even when there were only one or two of them in a class. I would love to know more about their social and developmental experiences.

[bailey]

Why does DYes engage in such hyperbole? I've been called Monica Conyers, and now I'm that kooky lady who throws the grapes just because I have a different point of view.

Hyperbole? you just compared a quasi-eugenics ethnic eradication program to SEED. I called you a "kook lady" [[your term) because you egregiously slandered SEED and progams like it by comparing it to a very dark and indefensible part of history. You did it and yet you are educated enough that you should know better. That is not "having a different point of view" that is having either an agenda or a tenuous grasp of facts.

I understand your argument, and I definitely think that many of those who advocate boarding schools for urban children have the best of intentions. Many of the nation's elite boarding schools have had scholarships earmarked for poor and/or minority students. I'm sure that some sincerely believe if we just had enough vouchers, or places at Country Day or Cranbrook, we could transform Detroit overnight. However, the data and results for sending poor and working class African American students away from their neighborhoods to be educated is mixed at best. One of the most comprehensive surveys of these students was published in 1991 by Cookson and Persell in the Journal of Negro Education. Although these students were admitted to selective schools, they wrestled with issues of race, class, and culture. Other studies show that this wrestling affects school performance as well as identity formation and psychosocial development.

Again SEED and the others are not plucking kids from the "ghetto" and dropping them at Cranbrook to sink or swim. This is and should only be for DPS kids in Detroit. They will see the same racial/class make up they see on a daily basis in thier own school. Hopefully with less of the distractions that come with living at or below the poverty line in the country's largest, poorest city.

It's never as simple as "get them out of that environment and they'll succeed in school." A case in point is the integration that is occurring in school districts throughout SE Michigan as parents flee the Detroit Public Schools. What we see happening is that these students are persistently at the bottom of the achievement gap, and under the provisions of NCLB, test score data must be disaggregated by subgroups. Instead of being able to tout test scores in the eightieth or ninetieth percentile to prospective homebuyers, these districts' test scores for the past decade have clearly shown the distance between white and Asian students' academic performance, and the performance of black and Latino students. Districts from Lake St. Clair to Jackson are now obsessed with "closing the gap." No one has come up with systemic solutions to close the gaps and facilitate quality education for these students. There are rays of light in specific settings, but no one has figured out how to scale these programs up so that all students will succeed in them

No one claims it's simple or that it will save every kid. However, it sure seem SEED has figured out a way to "close the gap" for a lot of them and that..what were the numbers? 35% higher in testing as compared to surrounding schools.

[quote]

We know how to educate poor kids who are struggling in school, and we know how to educate kids from non-Asian minority groups who are struggling as well.

Clearly 'we' dont if Detroit's latest test scores are to be used as a frame of reference.

There are millions of pages of research documenting what's worked stateside and abroad. However, we only know how to do this in selective settings. Schools like KIPP, Bates Academy, and even the ones cited here ONLY work because they serve a selected population. None of these wonderful schools serve all students. Special ed, EBD students who aren't on IEPs, and students who are several grade levels behind in reading and/or math often find themselves out of these schools. If they can't make the grade, are regularly disruptive in class, or end up suspended or expelled, they are OUT of most of the schools and programs that reformers tout.

Did you even read the article about SEED schools>? It's a lottery based admission. they don't skim off the top. They take every kid that gets picked and work to keep him/her there. They have virtually 100% graduation rate and college attendance rate. How is this NOT something that should be tried here in conjunction with the magnet school?

I think it's wonderful that people are advocating for change. I agree that the status quo is untenable. I am not even saying that the DPS ought to be preserved in amber in its current form. It's just that I have been immersing myself in this issue for years, and the answers aren't as simple as we'd like them to be

. you've immersed yourself in this issue for years yet you compare SEED, Piney Woods and the like to American Indian Boarding schools where they sought to "kill the indian to save the man"?

[kenp]

DPS has been the worst district in the country for a lot of years now. Administrators, board members and the like are simply going through the motions for a check, with many abusing the system for extra cash. Bobb has come in and exposed it, and tried to clean it up which obviously angers the status quo who want to keep things the same.
How can anyone use the example of test scores to judge Bobb? These same kids have been in the system for many years. Bobb’s job is to clean up the infrastructure; he can’t re program those kids. He's here to help the future kids have a chance.
Nobody wants change because it affects him or her financially; I guess I can understand that. But from an outsider looking in it’s so obvious.

[English]

Hyperbole? you just compared a quasi-eugenics ethnic eradication program to SEED. I called you a "kook lady" [[your term) because you egregiously slandered SEED and progams like it by comparing it to a very dark and indefensible part of history. You did it and yet you are educated enough that you should know better. That is not "having a different point of view" that is having either an agenda or a tenuous grasp of facts.

You are reading a lot into my original post, which was brief and general, and certainly did not warrant your response.

Again SEED and the others are not plucking kids from the "ghetto" and dropping them at Cranbrook to sink or swim. This is and should only be for DPS kids in Detroit. They will see the same racial/class make up they see on a daily basis in thier own school. Hopefully with less of the distractions that come with living at or below the poverty line in the country's largest, poorest city.

I did not critique SEED. I critiqued Band-Aids for a systemic problem.

No one claims it's simple or that it will save every kid. However, it sure seem SEED has figured out a way to "close the gap" for a lot of them and that..what were the numbers? 35% higher in testing as compared to surrounding schools.

This is not good enough for reasons that I articulated previously here and on other threads.

Clearly 'we' dont if Detroit's latest test scores are to be used as a frame of reference.
Did you even read the article about SEED schools>? It's a lottery based admission. they don't skim off the top. They take every kid that gets picked and work to keep him/her there. They have virtually 100% graduation rate and college attendance rate. How is this NOT something that should be tried here in conjunction with the magnet school?

. you've immersed yourself in this issue for years yet you compare SEED, Piney Woods and the like to American Indian Boarding schools where they sought to "kill the indian to save the man"?

Of course I know all about SEED and Piney Woods. Here is what I said.

In the long run, I don't think we can "fire" ALL the parents and put the kids in boarding schools without having it come back to bite us 20-30 years from now.

And then I provided the link to the Indian boarding schools. In my brief post, I didn't refer to specific boarding programs, but the general idea that boarding schools could do for ALL kids in Detroit what their parents could not. My critique was not for SPECIFIC programs, my critique was about the IDEA of removing the kids in Detroit from their parents so that they could learn "middle class values" that was developing in the thread. I have also looked quite a bit at issues of enculturation, so I have a different point of view.

That's all. I'm no grape thrower, just someone who has a different opinion than you do.

[bailey]

You are reading a lot into my original post, which was brief and general, and certainly did not warrant your response.

you compared an innovative and very successful program to something reprehensible and disgusting. How else is one to take it?

[Zacha341]

I would not be surprised at the true fiscal depth of trouble re. beneath the tip of this ice berg as it were.

For one there are far, far too many people not working in Detroit now for the tax base to not be far more hollowed out than projected, especially should the economic down trend continue. Last year there were discussions about the "save all" stimulus funding as though that was the magic fix without addressing the absent tax base and fallout from years of fiscal corruption.

In any event, corruption often whittles down far more than what is stated/ initially known. Eventually all the money is gone, resources stolen, ruined. Greed is like that. It runs wild taking more than originally justified in the first case. Such is not unusual, especially when born on the back of "justification". The details are but the outworking.

Give Bobb another year. He is no worse than what was there before, maybe a little better. Plus I think the city of Detroit will be taken over by the state, too much debt coming due. There is stuff not known about to the general public that Kwame did. Hold on to your seats folks.

[English]

you compared an innovative and very successful program to something reprehensible and disgusting. How else is one to take it?

Sigh. For the last time, my original post that set you off did not name any particular existing program in order for it to be compared to "something reprehensible and disgusting." That post was a general statement that you chose to disagree with by engaging in name calling.

We agree to disagree. I am aware of what you think of my position. I'll reserve further comment.

[bailey]

Sigh. For the last time, my original post that set you off did not name any particular existing program in order for it to be compared to "something reprehensible and disgusting." That post was a general statement that you chose to disagree with by engaging in name calling.

We agree to disagree. I am aware of what you think of my position. I'll reserve further comment.

Look you said the following....

In the long run, I don't think we can "fire" all the parents and put the kids in boarding schools without having it come back to bite us 20-30 years from now.

Besides, we've already tried this for other groups we considered degenerate:

American Indian Boarding Schools
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps...ding/index.htm

I would like to know exactly what you meant by that since I clearly missed your non grape throwing point. To clarify for you, I took "offense" to your characterization that the program that is topic of this thread views at risk kids as "degenerates" and your comparison to what is going on with SEED to the AIBs. You seem to not see what is wrong with that. that boggles my mind. seriously.

Saying what you said is akin to the BAMNers protesting right sizing the city by using the Trail of Tears and concentration camp imagery. It is untethered to the reality of what is being discussed.

[Danny]

Some folks in DPS is not eager for social change. Detroit Public Schools must go through educational and financial change for our children. E.F.M. and H.N.I.C. Robert Bobb is doing a EXCELLENT job fixing DPS. The school system is quite better than last year. Unless Bobb did some criminal acts with strong supportive evidence, he will not leave DPS. So deal with it.