Every single DPS teacher gets a pink slip

[English]

Because, believe it or not, good people tend to think that if you do the right thing and stick around to do the hard work you will eventually be rewarded for it. Unfortunately, there are too many people who would rather go the easy route for the cash. It's a sad testament to where this country is going when doing the right thing is frowned upon and not rewarded because "they should have known what they were getting into".

Pathetic.

Exactly. I didn't choose to be a teacher for any kind of financial reward or recognition. I did, however, believe that I would spend my adulthood in a nation with a social contract much like the one of my 1980s and 1990s childhood [[which even then was a shadow of what the Boomers had enjoyed), and consciously chose what I thought was a secure job doing something I loved in the district where I received my own K-12 education.

I foolishly believed that the city of Detroit had hit rock bottom before I was of legal age. I believed -- again, foolishly -- that a takeover of Detroit Public Schools by outsiders [[see, for instance http://www.educationreport.org/pubs/...e.aspx?id=2227) would turn things around. I thought that people were altruistic, not endlessly self-serving. What a young, naive fool I was.

When I saw the handwriting on the wall, I got out while I still had options. DPS broke my heart, and it's only NOW, a good six years after I cleaned out my desk in that crumbling building on Second Ave, that I've achieved some semblance of catharsis. But DPS taught me two things. First, no matter where I go or what I do, I AM a teacher, and always will be. Second and most importantly, in a dog eat dog, late capitalist nation, there is no solid ground, so you have GOT to look after yourself, be flexible, and as a very famous book once said "don't panic."

[DetroitTeacher]

I did know what I was getting into when I took my job some 15 years ago. DPS was doing fine, financially. it wasn't until the state took over that we ran into finanical chaos. Maybe it started long before that, but I had no idea...as we had a surplus when I took my job.

My mission was to do some good for some kids who deserved something better. Sorry, I can't abandon ship. It's my heart and soul, those kids. I COULD find another job, paying much better. I was not the person who was bitching about my pay. I was simply explaining that I deserve a wage I can live on. I was also responding to someone else who thinks I have puppy dogs and unicorns in my paycheck and with my perks. Don't chastize me for doing something I love to do and expecting a living to come with it. I work damned hard for whatever money and health care they give me. I am grateful to have a job [[well, sans layoff notices) in these economic times. Just explain to me where you saw me bitching about my pay. **and I am a she, thanks.

[Al Publican]

The Detroit school system is one of the great failures of Americana, not because of teachers or unions, but more because of the collapse of the family structure in Detroit.

The absence of a stable family structures also has led to the demise of the small business class. I've been all over East Asia. Even in poor areas of Vietnam and Cambodia, I noticed small businesses everywhere and kids walking home from school in orderly fashion, not like the after school chaos that I often witnessed in Detroit.

As long as the lumpen underclass is not challenged in places like Detroit, school systems will be irrelevant.

[Meddle]

Y'all can try to sugar coat it any way you want, but DPS was doomed in the 60s. Sure there were isolated success stories and maybe even an occasional temporary turn around.

But when you come out of Cerveny Jr. High and see 10 or more 4 man TMU riot cars waiting along Puritan almost every day, you know something isn't right. And Cooley was a very bad place even then. So bad, I refused to go and other arrangements had to be made. Every teacher I can remember at Cerveny was just there occupying space and going through the motions. One of them came in drunk several times. Some were robbed inside the secured faculty parking lot.

When I picture DPS now, I see the kind of places featured in "The Principal" or "Lean On Me".

[Wesley Mouch]

And what do they get for all that dedication and effort? A freakin' pink slip.

Not far to blame management for sending out pink slips required by Union. Although its hard to hear, the media has indicated that these slips are sent out as a requirement of the Union, by management if there is any even slight possibility that the individual might be made redundant. So let's not blame management for pink slips, please.

[Zacha341]

I've never heard of teachers locally not paying health car premiums? What planet is that? In any event here we are not talking about ending or even curtailing the high cost of funding for education, really. The money is simply going to go to the new entity [[charters) and the administrators and associated bureaucracy therein, in charge. The new set up may not be called DPS but it will have large stake holders financially, with the teachers probably making less... got that...

Bottom line: Education is [[and will remain) a big money infrastructure and grab in 'someones' agenda. No replacement entities are rushing in without a thought of big compensations! It's a matter of WHO will make more or less. It's not a default that there not be a the continuance of very large salaries, and compensation at the administrative and consultancy levels et al. However, perhaps many may feel better that the front line teachers will be making less. I suppose that all works out.......

80k for 9 months sounds high to me.

I know it's a tough job, but most teachers have supplemental income [[summer school, sports, whatever). And no health care deductions? That's gold-plated insurance.

Teachers should be well-treated, but is that really the average pay for suburban districts?

So a household of two teachers with summer/afterschool gigs make a household income of 200k, with no medical deductions? I'd say that's pretty damn good for Michigan standards.

[Zacha341]

Yeah, the '80K' figure is tossed out as though that is the base salary, as a parroted talking point by which many other assumptions can be made - without question.

I don't think DPS teachers are overpaid. I know some, and I think I know the top pay scales. They sure aren't making 80k.

And I agree that Detroit teachers should probably receive extra. I know the subs receive extra, which they call "combat pay" [[I know, not very nice). I don't have a problem with some system where teachers in struggling districts receive extra pay and support.

[Zacha341]

Precisely. I wonder if the top heavy 'administrative' compensation issues with regards to public education will ever be fully addressed? Or will the faces, names and acronyms change only...

Pretend that all teaching positions in the state were auctioned off and the bidding for every position in the state was started at, say, $30K. If there are no takers the auctioneer raises the price until it is grabbed. I will guarantee you that the bid amount to teach a school system like, say, Northville would bid out far lower than the same position in a DPS school. Yet the opposite occurs.

So many yammer on about how overpaid DPS teachers are. It if were true it should be true. The challenges are greater.

[Zacha341]

Yes, what's up with that?

How is Bobb allowed to be paid by these outside forces?

I know most govt. employees have strict rules about the nature of outside income, obviously to discourage outside forces from influencing public decision making.

A building inspector, for example, usually can't accept so much as a cup of coffee from a building owner. A govt. manager cannot receive any sort of benefits [[financial or otherwise) from contractors and the like.

[stasu1213]

This is the beginning of union busting. Wisconsin is protesting the things that are really happening in Michigan. Union busting is so prevalent. The ole "layoff and rehire for less pay trick" Does this affect the $500 a month that the teachers had put into the pot? This is the beginning of Michigan becoming a "Right to Work" state and Detroit will be it's first experimental city.

[13074Glenfield]

I watched the movie "Waiting for Superman" last night. It's a documentary about the public school system made by the same guy who made "An Inconvenient Truth" with Al Gore. It's quite an eye opener. He makes a very convincing case for laying the failure of the public school system not on the teachers, or the parents, or the administrators, but squarely on the teachers' unions. I don't know if the intent of this move at DPS is union busting or not. My guess is that it's not but they probably should be busted.

[oldredfordette]

Because of a piece of propaganda you saw, you want to bust the teachers unions? How short sighted. When there is a crime, do you watch the skies for a bat sign, just because you saw it in a movie?

[13074Glenfield]

Because of a piece of propaganda you saw, you want to bust the teachers unions? How short sighted. When there is a crime, do you watch the skies for a bat sign, just because you saw it in a movie?

It's only propaganda to you because you disagree with the conclusion. The director was going to make a movie about the heroes of the inner city schools but he found something quite different. And I have known that the teachers' union protects the bad eggs since I went to DPS 50 years ago.

[English]

Because of a piece of propaganda you saw, you want to bust the teachers unions? How short sighted. When there is a crime, do you watch the skies for a bat sign, just because you saw it in a movie?

I found it interesting that in Waiting for Superman, not one single teacher was interviewed.

WfS told a compelling story, but it only told part of the story. I'd love to see the lottery schools like KIPP and HCZ take on some of the kids that we worked with in DPS. I am waiting for a charter operator to step up and take over Catherine Ferguson or the Detroit Day School for the Deaf... I'm not saying that one won't, but it certainly eats at your corporate profits to care for the neediest of our kids instead of those with motivated parents and intact homes who are reading and doing math at or above grade level.

[mwilbert]

I would say Waiting for Superman was propaganda. Not that it was necessarily false, but that it was one-sided. The good thing about it [[I thought) was that it showed parents who really wanted the best for their children even though their means to achieve that was limited. I think that the existence of such parents is often overlooked. Conversely, it didn't show parents who were largely uninterested or even destructive, even though we know they make up a substantial portion of the parents in a system like the DPS.

The other main theme was about problems with the schools those kids would have gone to by default, and how wonderful and important it would be for those kids to get into charter schools, when the statistics really don't indicate that charters as a whole are reliably better than the schools they compete with, not that I would want to criticize the particular schools they were lauding.

[13074Glenfield]

One of his main points was that the teachers' unions stifle innovation. Whether those innovations can be broadly applied is not the issue. The issue is that the status quo doesn't work and DPS are broke.

[English]

One of his main points was that the teachers' unions stifle innovation. Whether those innovations can be broadly applied is not the issue. The issue is that the status quo doesn't work and DPS are broke.

To the contrary, this is the issue. Say we choose as a nation to end public education and 20 years from now, the underclass is in even more dire straits because of our decision to introduce the profit motive [[called "innovation") into education. Will we, as a society, admit our mistakes? I don't see anyone owning up to the mistakes that destroyed entire sectors of the American economy.

There are reasons why public institutions are necessary, and why unions formed by and for workers in many of those institutions. I agree that without the DFT, perhaps I could have kept my job, and a coworker with more seniority who just read and watched TV all day while her class did worksheets might have gotten the ax. But without the DFT, it's likely that I would not have had due process when a student's mother accused me of cheating her child out of a grade during my first year, and I would not have been compensated enough to free up time to do afterschool activities and write grants. Instead I would have taken the second job I was offered at Super KMart... I love the kids, but I have to pay my bills, too.

In undergrad, I was a bit of a conservative who sniffed at unions as "stupid." After being in the classroom and teaching 125-150+ kids per day, you couldn't pay me to teach anyone under age without the protection of a union. That is why I didn't go to a charter or private when I left DPS... I left altogether.

There is scum in every profession, and teaching is no exception, but in today's litigious world you have all kinds of kids accusing people of all kinds of things. I've found that most kids and teens are great and easy to deal with even if their parents are ______, but there are always a few.

For instance, I had a guy friend who was accused of touching a student inappropriately. This kid was widely known as a liar and was always involved in some mess -- her reputation preceded her from elementary school until high school -- but word was among students and staff that she was inappropriate with my [[handsome) friend, who was never alone or behind closed doors with her. He put her in her place, and she went to tell a lurid tale to her parents. Even her friends said she was lying -- "I was there, and that isn't what happened." Everyone, including the principal was sorry, but after the investigation [[which was ruled in his favor), he was transferred to another building as a long-term sub. Without the union, he would have been collecting unemployment.

Then there was the kid who told her parents that I called her "stupid" in front of the entire class. She said that I took her homework from her every day and "lost it" and her prominent parents were calling for my head. [["Miss English denigrates the children and she bullies them.") No one in my class had any recollection of this happening at all, but my building administrators were savvy and I began to document everything. Nothing happened to me, but the girl was eventually transferred.

Some teachers suck, I'll admit that. But the general public should admit that some people are totally irrational when it comes to their kids. The parent will know full well that their child is a sociopath, but will use any excuse to sue. I loved the classroom and miss teaching badly [[there is nothing like the light in kids' eyes the first time they hear a piece of great literature or have written a superb essay), but the second I left K-12 teaching, my health improved. Those who want to destroy the unions and pay all teachers $30K with no protection or benefits deserve the kinds of schools they're going to get.

[Det_ard]

To the contrary, this is the issue. Say we choose as a nation to end public education and 20 years, the underclass is in even more dire straits because of our decision to introduce the profit motive [[called "innovation") into education. Will we, as a society, admit our mistakes? I don't see anyone admitting to the mistakes that destroyed entire sectors of the American economy.

What the hell are you talking about? There are all kinds of innovations that don't have anything to do with eliminating public education or introducing the profit motive. Innovations resisted by a self-centered and short-sighted teachers' union. For example, we all agree how important education is yet the union consistently rebuffs efforts to actually measure teacher performance. That's just stupid. The unions favor measuring and compensating inputs [[years of service, masters degree) instead of results. The system is broken. It's been broken for a long time. I'm dumbfounded that such an important part of our society, one that plays a pivotal role in our future, is held hostage to antiquated approaches dictated by an industrial-era labor model that's been failing for decades.

You ought to know better, being a former/current educator.

[65memories]

English...well said. During my 42 years with DPS, both as a DFT Building Rep and as an administrator, I saw all kinds of similar situations.

[English]

You ought to know better, being a former/current educator.

And apparently, you don't know any better. If the teachers' union resisted these "innovations," then we wouldn't have entire public school districts doing Everyday Math.

I am now one of those "innovators" -- you know, most educational reforms are birthed at universities and think tanks, invented by people with the fancy letters after their names. If you'd read any of our [[many) threads about DPS and public schooling, you'd be aware of some of the issues. But I'm not going to debate with someone who hasn't done their homework, let alone been a public school teacher or administrator.

I just came back home from the most elite educational research conference in the world. Finer minds than yours and mine are debating about the best ways to measure teacher performance. That debate continues. And yet, the average Joe and Jane on the street believe they've got it all figured out. Of course.

Detroit schools are failing, so [[supposedly) Detroit teachers deserve nothing. Troy schools are excellent, but I don't hear anyone offering Troy teachers $120K+. That is not the rhetoric among teachers. In the field, at our meetings around the state and the nation, and in my classes, there is a great deal of solidarity among teachers. The teachers in outlying counties respect those who are Detroit, and that respect only grows as the Detroit diaspora continues to move north and west.

If we were actually respected as a real profession, the best teachers and professors would teach under the most difficult circumstances and our newbies would get plum jobs in the upper middle class and wealthy 'burbs. That's how medicine, law, nursing, etc. work -- the very best wrestle with the toughest cases. I'd be willing to bet that Guggenheim and all of those in favor of inner city public school district abolition would be more than willing to staff their tony schools with eager 22 year old Teach for America grads, and let Detroit, Inkster, Pontiac, and Ecorse have all the National Board certified vets who are golden at discipline and can teach calculus and Shakespeare in their sleep.

[English]

English...well said. During my 42 years with DPS, both as a DFT Building Rep and as an administrator, I saw all kinds of similar situations.

You are welcome! Thank you so much for your service. If my generation of educators does not take a stand, everything you worked so hard for is in danger.

[stasu1213]

A good book to read is titled "Weapons of Mass Instruction" by John Taylor Gatto. He was a teacher in the public schools. Very interesting book.

[mwilbert]

One of his main points was that the teachers' unions stifle innovation. Whether those innovations can be broadly applied is not the issue. The issue is that the status quo doesn't work and DPS are broke

I didn't claim there were no valid points in the film; I explicitly said there were. That doesn't mean it isn't propaganda. And as I have repeated ad nauseum I agree the DPS is broke [[and broken) and should not exist. But, apparently unlike some people including the creators of the film, I don't believe that the main problem with public education is teachers' unions, or that eliminating those unions would do much of anything to improve that education.

[DetroitTeacher]

Innovation can happen in classrooms, too. I try and do that each and every day with my kids. I constantly have to come up with innovative ways of reaching each and every child that crosses my path. It's hard, at times, but somehow I [[and my colleagues who give a damn) get it done.

There aren't too many folks in the real world that would put up with the issues that we teachers put up with each and every day. I have great kids and I have kids who need help [[of the psychiatric variety). I have kids who are broken and some who come to me in tip top shape. I have kids who, if they were a product in the free market, would be recalled. I have kids who would make it all the way to the sales floor. Unfortunately, I have to take the broken kids [[who far outnumber the perfect kids) and make something out of them. In business, they would have been scrapped and the business would have taken a loss. I can't do that with my kids. They are kids. I have to keep trying until something happens. I think it's unfair to measure MY performance if I am working with damaged materials. I can only do so much with a kid who is hungry, abused, homeless, being the adult in the home, working 2 jobs to support a drug addicted mother, and on so many psych drugs they can't stay awake in class, etc. I don't think test scores matter to those kids. If you ask my kids, they will tell you that they learn in my class, even though they may not do very well on a standardized test. If you ask the kids, they will tell you who the top performing teachers really are. Don't base my worth on test scores. Base my worth on my kids and what they do after they leave me.

I kept tabs on each of my kids I had last year [[they were all seniors). 95% went on to college or training [[ya know, the training that gives one an opportunity to charge 150.00 just to pull into the driveway of your house so they can fix something that you can't), and are doing well and sticking with it, 2% went into the military, the rest are working [[they had training at the Voc-Tech centers that allowed them to land an apprentiship or some other employment). Not one kid is sitting around doing nothing with their life. Many contact me for help with their classes in college, others want some referrals for networking, others keep in touch to let me know how they are doing. THAT is the real test of what I am worth. The big question is, "did what I do help the kids do what they want to do?" The answer is, "yes". The kids who return to see me, after their first semester of college and thank me for helping them "get" the research paper, organizational skills, time management, study habits, the love of a piece of literature, the strategies needed to read, the information to study what they really love...that is all the thanks I need.

The union issue is one that I can't really comment on. I view it both ways. Sure, they assist folks when they need it and fight for our rights. On the other hand, they do support seniority at the expense of good teachers [[not saying all senior teachers are bad but there are some that really need to go and the union makes that task difficult). DFT has made concessions after concessions. I'm not angry or mad. I am willing to pay what I need to for my health insurance, I am even willing to loan DPS money. I do, however, need a wage I can live on and support my family since I am a single parent. It's only fair that I be paid a wage and offered health care benefits [[since my job is the main reason I need them, with all of the sick kids who attend school each day) that is acceptable for my level of education and dedication and expertise. If DPS wants to attract and retain good teachers, they must be willing to stop playing games with us.

[DetroitTeacher]

Just so everyone knows that the sickout that is being rumored to be happening on 4-26 is NOT sanctioned by our union. This was on the DFT website today:

Sickout is NOT Sanctioned [4.16.11]
Someone is sending a notice of a sickout by DFT members on April 26. This action IS NOT sanctioned nor endorsed by the DFT. Anyone who participates in such action does so at his own peril and may be subject to disciplinary action.