DPS board OKs settlement with Bobb — with changes

[begingri]

Jennifer Chambers / The Detroit News

Detroit — The Detroit Board of Education approved a settlement Monday night that would return academic control to its members and limit the role of the emergency financial manager in the district to fiscal management and control.

The agreement, which still needs approval by Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb, says the board, not Bobb, gets the final say on a superintendent and changes the document to say the board has "authority and control over" the academic personnel, not just "significant input," as Bobb had proposed.

"His language still allows the EFM to keep running things," board attorney George Washington said.
In a statement, Bobb spokesman Steve Wasko questioned the board's action.
"This agreement apparently includes language that was not agreed upon through our negotiations with the board president and board members [[LaMar) Lemmons and [[Carol) Banks, including requiring a new set of negotiations if the EFM statute changes in the future, and paying the board's attorney fees," he said.

Washington said the document was altered to preserve a December ruling by Judge Wendy Baxter, who ordered Bobb to relinquish academic control.

The agreement also calls for the board, in consultation with the emergency financial manager, to hire a new superintendent by May to oversee academics.
The board sued Bobb in 2009, saying he violated state law by not consulting members on finances and infringing on their duties with his academic reforms.

Monday night, the board voted 10-1 to approve the controversial document, which was drafted by Bobb and his attorneys and amended by the board and its attorneys last week.

Annie Carter dissented, saying that not all of her questions were answered.
Board President Anthony Adams said the seven-page plan won't please everyone but advances academic performance. "This is a settlement to a lawsuit. This is a compromise of positions but not over positions in [the judge's] ruling," he said.

Activist Helen Moore said the document returns control to the board. "I don't like compromises but I also don't like the unknown. Going back to the judge is the unknown," Moore said.

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110124/SCHOOLS/101240416/DPS-board-OKs-settlement-with-Bobb-—-with-changes#ixzz1C1OT2000

[DetroitPole]

Thank God that academic control of Detroit Public Schools has been firmly cemented in the hands of people like the child abuser who changed his first name to Reverend, Reverend David Murray, former Deputy Mayor under Kwame Kilpatrick and all-around scumbag Anthony Adams, and the babbling Lamar Lemons, what number is he, III, IV, V, VI?? I'm only sad that that illiterate masturbating guy who didn't graduate from Wayne State isn't the board president anymore.
I hope they can still find some money to decorate their expensive rented office space with expensive art. It is also my hope that they can continue to graduate about a quarter of their students, and maybe some of them will be literate upon graduating. Most of all I hope their board gigs, in which a tiny fraction of the population votes for, provide them with both graft and kickbacks and a stepping stone to future political office.

I'm not kidding when I say that they'd put my kids in DPS over my dead body. I say this as a Detroiter. Dismantle Detroit Public Schools.

[Hypestyles]

.... What I'm waiting for is when state testing results come in for next year, 2-3 years from now when Bobb is gone, hopefully there will be real progress-- and for any shortcomings, theft, etc., the current board cannot blame Bobb's "intervention".. the "activists" who show up to meetings cannot blame state interference, especially if Snyder keeps at arm's length from DPS's problems..