29 Detroit Public Schools to close

[rjlj]

Here is the list released today of the Detroit Public Schools that will be closing. I am not sure how many are historic buildings but these are going to be the new playgrounds for the suburban urban destroyers and income for the many twitching independent contractors if they are not properly secured. No to mention, an acute boon to Tony Soave’s scrap yard business.

Closing schools as copied from www.detnews.com:
Barbour
Joyce
Brewer
Chadsey
Munger
Cleveland
Clinton
Cody 9th Grade
Coolidge
Henderson Lower
Courtis
Detroit Open
Guyton
Stark
Houghton
Lodge
J.R. King
Macomb
Elmdale
Marshall
Northwest Early Childhood Center
Richard
Mark Twain
Winterhalter
Birney
Building closes and program relocates:
Marcus Garvey to Butzel
Fisher Magnet to Heilmann
Finney High School to McNair Middle School
Stephens to Blackwell Institute and Holmes
Program closes and building is repurposed :
McNair to Clark and

[Gistok]

I just caught the tail end of the announcement, but I did hear something about Jared W. Finney High School will be rebuilt..... did I hear right?

With the exception of the old part of the school [[former grade school) and Cannon Recreation Center... most of Finney was built since the 1960's.

What gives?

[ForeverDetroit]

Detroit has way too many schools. I'm glad that a substantial amount are shutting down.

[rjk]

Does anyone know how many high schools DPS will have after these closings?

[casscorridor]

Detroit has way too many schools. I'm glad that a substantial amount are shutting down.

you are glad? why are you glad?

detroit doesn't have too many schools, detroit has too little money and resources

if anything, detroit as too few schools. many classrooms are intensely overcrowded. distance to travel to school is also getting further and further away for many students.

a vision for a good detroit would be keeping schools open, and reopening closed schools. and having small intimate classrooms that are condusive to learning. in our current situation we are left with overcrowded, militarized schools that no student has any desire to attend. hope has been all but lost. lets reclaim what is left of it.

[ForeverDetroit]

you are glad? why are you glad?

detroit doesn't have too many schools, detroit has too little money and resources

if anything, detroit as too few schools. many classrooms are intensely overcrowded. distance to travel to school is also getting further and further away for many students.

a vision for a good detroit would be keeping schools open, and reopening closed schools. and having small intimate classrooms that are condusive to learning. in our current situation we are left with overcrowded, militarized schools that no student has any desire to attend. hope has been all but lost. lets reclaim what is left of it.

Detroit has an infrastructure built to support roughly 1.2 million more than it does. The public education system is a part of that infrastructure. It only follows that there are too many schools. Travel distances to schools are large today because there are schools were built around neighborhoods that are almost vacant. Shutting those schools down is a good thing, especially if they underperform.

I really don't think DPS is particularly overcrowded. The people at the top just don't have the students best interests in mind. It's that simple. The money and resources are there. People just don't care.

Hopefully, these schools will be shut down and give way to well-run charter schools.

[noenaim]

Hopefully, these schools will be shut down and give way to well-run charter schools.[/QUOTE]

I have sad news for you there is no such thing s a "well-run charter" school.

Well maybe few are "well-run", but most charter schools are equal to or much much much worse than DPS schools.

[DetroitTeacher]

My classes are overcrowded. DPS just doesn't manage itself properly so that students are dispersed to the proper schools. They allow students to attend ANY school and when they are kicked out of one or are failing, they school hop [[hoping to reset their grades... which never works because they do the same stuff in the new school). We don't have enough teachers in certain subjects thus the overcrowding. Some classes have 10 kids, others have 60. DPS just needs to rearrange its infrastructure so that the kids' best interests are at heart, instead of it all being about the money.

[Linda from Detroit]

This is horrible. I feel so badly for the families that are going to be affected by these closures. So often a parent moves into an area because of the school[[s) their children will attend. Now, that is taken away from them. I am afraid this will cause further erosion of the neighborhoods that people have tried to stay in. A few closing, I can understand, this is virtually unheard of.

[Novine]

Horrible or not, it had to happen. Detroit's current system is beyond broke. Even out here in Novi, which has one of the best funded systems in the state, the school board was forced to cut $2 million last week and another $1 million in cuts may follow. This is unheard of for Novi but many people think this is just the start. As state revenue continues to fall, more cuts are coming to public schools.

[Dave70]

Wow, I can't believe they're closing Fisher Magnet. I thought it was a good school, at least when I went there [['81-'85 when the school was on King Richard) you had to apply to get in.

[MIRepublic]

Wow, I can't believe they're closing Fisher Magnet. I thought it was a good school, at least when I went there [['81-'85 when the school was on King Richard) you had to apply to get in.

Performance isn't the only thing considered when a district decides to close schools. Sometimes decent and good schools get closed down. More than anything else, it comes down to costs for most districts. Some schools cost more to operate than others. Fisher may very well still be a good school; that's little immunization against it being considered for closure in this economic environment.

[Danny]

Save DPS! keep your children away from those EVIL charter schools.

[noenaim]

Fisher is not closing its moving to another building
again

[firstandten]

This is horrible. I feel so badly for the families that are going to be affected by these closures. So often a parent moves into an area because of the school[[s) their children will attend. Now, that is taken away from them. I am afraid this will cause further erosion of the neighborhoods that people have tried to stay in. A few closing, I can understand, this is virtually unheard of.

As much as I feel your pain on this, this line of reasoning is why the few board members who are working as board members stood behind Mr. Bobb when he made his announcement and said very little. Over the years they didn't have the political will to close schools over a longer time frame so that fewer schools could be closed per year. Now there is no choice. Bobb had to close a really high number of schools to make up for the years the board caved in to public pressure.

[firstandten]

[quote=casscorridor;18926]you are glad? why are you glad?

detroit doesn't have too many schools, detroit has too little money and resources

if anything, detroit as too few schools. many classrooms are intensely overcrowded. distance to travel to school is also getting further and further away for many students.

a vision for a good detroit would be keeping schools open, and reopening closed schools. and having small intimate classrooms that are condusive to learning. in our current situation we are left with overcrowded, militarized schools that no student has any desire to attend. hope has been all but lost. lets reclaim what is left of it.[quote]

Thats a vision I think everyone wants to see over time. The question is how to get to that vision in a way that makes economic sense. I think you need to close many of the schools that are at least 50 years old [[ which are most), cost too much to heat and maintain and set up for a 150,000 student district and build smaller state of the art schools. We need to get rid of the militarized schools as you stated and move to a education model thats more in line with the needs of the 21st century not the late 19th and 20th century. However to do this takes a plan and process that city leaders need to follow. What Bobb is doing is just the beginning of the process.

[casscorridor]

Detroit has an infrastructure built to support roughly 1.2 million more than it does. The public education system is a part of that infrastructure. It only follows that there are too many schools. Travel distances to schools are large today because there are schools were built around neighborhoods that are almost vacant. Shutting those schools down is a good thing, especially if they underperform.

I really don't think DPS is particularly overcrowded. The people at the top just don't have the students best interests in mind. It's that simple. The money and resources are there. People just don't care.

Hopefully, these schools will be shut down and give way to well-run charter schools.

That is really sad that you hope these schools will shut down and give way to charter schools. It is also a contridiction in your logic, because you say there is no need for these schools because there aren't enough people. But if that was true, why would they close and be replaced by charter schools? So why wouldn't you hope that DPS schools improve instead of giving up at advocating the privitization of our education system?

As other posters have noted, although DPS is severely messed up, there are many problems that are NOT unique to Detroit. Public Schools everywhere are suffering. The solution is NOT privitization. We need to dramtically transform how education works in Detroit and the entire country, and charter schools should NOT be part of this equasion.

I have one idea, why not stop funding schools proportional to property tax? I'm tired of Northville, Novi, and Bloomfield Hills having the best, most well funded schools while Detroit suffers. We need proportional funding based on number of students and need, rather than how much those students parents are worth.

Another idea... lets pay students a small wage to go to school if they pass, and promise them a 4-year schollarship to any public state university when they graduate. That will be motivation to stay in school, when many students give up thinking that their chances of going to college and lifiting themselves out of poverty is slim to none. This would give hope to thousands of students.

[OriginalG313]

In regards to charter schools, this analysis is from the Free Press on 5/10/09.

FREE PRESS ANALYSIS

Michigan charter schools fall short

Most don't live up to their promises


http://www.freep.com/article/2009051...ols+fall+short

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So, 29 schools will close this year. Bobb has said there will probably be more closings next year. So, what about the neighborhoods? And, what will happen to all of the closed buildings? Has Bobb said? We know DPS does not do a very good job of maintaining the buildings. Sure, we'll have a smaller school district. But, what about the city as a whole? Take a ride through the Chadsey-Munger area. Those schools are located on Martin near I-94. This is the area where the 6th precinct was once located. It looks nearly deserted. Now, there will be 2 more empty structures the remaining residents will have to deal with. And, a couple of weeks ago Fox2 News reported the residents are dealing with a suspected arsonist. With the school closures and foreclosures what will the neighborhoods look like in the next few years? Will families want to move into the city?

[firstandten]

That is really sad that you hope these schools will shut down and give way to charter schools. It is also a contridiction in your logic, because you say there is no need for these schools because there aren't enough people. But if that was true, why would they close and be replaced by charter schools? So why wouldn't you hope that DPS schools improve instead of giving up at advocating the privitization of our education system?.

We need to be consistant in our terms per this discussion. Charter schools are public schools and don't represent the privitization of our education system. We'll leave that to the Country Day's and U of D HS of the world

As other posters have noted, although DPS is severely messed up, there are many problems that are NOT unique to Detroit. Public Schools everywhere are suffering. The solution is NOT privitization. We need to dramtically transform how education works in Detroit and the entire country, and charter schools should NOT be part of this equasion. .

I think charter schools should have a role [[competition and choice basicially) but not the driving force behind the change of the educational picture in Detroit.
As some articles have already stated very few charter schools are even better than the DPS schools they are trying to replace.

I have one idea, why not stop funding schools proportional to property tax? I'm tired of Northville, Novi, and Bloomfield Hills having the best, most well funded schools while Detroit suffers. We need proportional funding based on number of students and need, rather than how much those students parents are worth..

I've heard that argument many times, good luck making that happen

Another idea... lets pay students a small wage to go to school if they pass, and promise them a 4-year schollarship to any public state university when they graduate. That will be motivation to stay in school, when many students give up thinking that their chances of going to college and lifiting themselves out of poverty is slim to none. This would give hope to thousands of students.

This is an idea I've been hearing more about. I don't have an opinion yet on the wages but I would like to see something like the K-zoo promise done here. On of the by-products of that program is that people moved to the city and drove housing values up just to have there kids go to that school district.

[Hypestyles]

DPS as an entity needs to be totally dissolved.. a commission needs to be appointed by the governor & mayor to reconceptualize it from the ground up, taking into account population trends, modernizing curriculums, eliminating any and all loopholes in contracts & hiring.. reinforcing strict accountability standards for students, teachers & administrators.. and it should be under direct control of the sitting mayor.. no more at-large school board of self-important bureaucrats..

*many vacated schools can be turned over to private & charter organizations.. and some just need to be demolished..
*there needs to be an adult-literacy component, to tackle the adult-illiteracy rate in the city-- use some closed schools for adult-education centers..
*foreign languages need to be taught more often and at earlier ages..
*make high technology & green-industry a priority in the curriculums.. sieze vacant plots of land to use for practical hands on training in soil science/agriculture, forestry, botany, etc.; partner with area colleges..

[Danny]

The U.S. Department of Education said that DPS is a " NATIONAL DISGRACE!" Most people criticize the majority black leadership within the DPS school board as if they playing race cards.

[zincfinger]

I have one idea, why not stop funding schools proportional to property tax? I'm tired of Northville, Novi, and Bloomfield Hills having the best, most well funded schools while Detroit suffers. We need proportional funding based on number of students and need, rather than how much those students parents are worth.

I think this would harm the city more than it would help in the long term. What you're proposing is basically to make people that don't live in Detroit pay for Detroit Public Schools. That would probably result in increased funding for DPS in the short-term [[although I'm not so sure it would result in improved education within DPS). But in the long term it would just cause people to leave the areas where you're making them pay for your schools. And those people are already paying substantial Wayne County taxes - most of which goes to Detroit - today. When they leave, Detroit suffers.

Another idea... lets pay students a small wage to go to school if they pass, and promise them a 4-year schollarship to any public state university when they graduate. That will be motivation to stay in school, when many students give up thinking that their chances of going to college and lifiting themselves out of poverty is slim to none. This would give hope to thousands of students.

The problem is, who's going to pay for that? For the scholarships alone, you could be talking a billion dollars per year. I have a hard time seeing where that money's going to come from. Do you want to squeeze that out of the suburbs too? If the mandatory DPS financing didn't kill the suburbs, I'm pretty sure that would.

[mwilbert]

If you look at the school budget you will find that very little of it is paid for directly by Detroit taxpayers already. That reform was one of the few things that Engler did that I thoroughly approve of.

http://detroitk12.org/admin/finance/...010_Budget.pdf

If you look at the graph on page 18 of the linked pdf, you will see what I mean.

I do not know how much this might change under the current governor.

[zincfinger]

If you look at the school budget you will find that very little of it is paid for directly by Detroit taxpayers already. That reform was one of the few things that Engler did that I thoroughly approve of.

http://detroitk12.org/admin/finance/...010_Budget.pdf

If you look at the graph on page 18 of the linked pdf, you will see what I mean.

I do not know how much this might change under the current governor.

Yep, the comments above were a simplification. We're not talking about making people who live outside Detroit pay for DPS. They already do. We're talking about making people who live outside Detroit pay more for DPS than they currently do.

[maxx]

Debbie Stabenow led the movement to detach school funding from the property tax.