The Hell-Hole Spectator
Motor City Dropout Factories
Has there ever been a worse school district that Detroit Public Schools?
By the time Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced Monday that she was looking to place full control of Detroit Public Schools into the hands of her duly-appointed financial czar, Robert Bobb, its reputation as America’s most-abysmal traditional public school district had already become as much a national joke as the Motor City itself.
Last month, Detroit Public drew cackles after news came out that the average math scores of its 4th- and 8th-graders trailed behind every one of the 18 school districts — even notorious laggards such as D.C. Public Schools and Cleveland — measured on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal benchmark for academic performance. Smarmy Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith succinctly summed up national sentiment when he declared that he would “burn the place down” if his children were in school there.
Motown parents, on the other hand, demanded jail time for the district’s teachers and administrators after learning that 69-percent of the district’s 4th-graders — and 77 percent of 8th-graders — performed at or below NAEP’s standard for “basic” proficiency. Given that just three out of every ten high school freshmen attending its dropout factories graduate four years later, Bobb admitted that the district’s woeful performance is “a failure of leadership.”
By the end of the month, Detroit was raked over the coals by school reformers when it struck a new collective bargaining agreement with its AFT local that features new perks such as a three-minute reduction in average working day for elementary school teachers. The fact that the contract will allow laggard teachers kicked out of classrooms to continue collecting a salary while ostensibly rehabilitating their performance — a much-mocked feature of New York City’s expired contract with its AFT affiliate — led Education Sector cofounder (and Eduwonk proprietor) Andy Rotherham to call the contract “cheap” and “far from revolutionary enough.”
Certainly Detroit is far from the only urban school system where systemic failure is coin of the realm. But four decades of school reform has forced longstanding cellar-dwellers such as D.C., New York City, and even Los Angeles Unified to overhaul curricula, improve the quality of its teachers and turn the tables on teachers unions and graft-grabbing politicos that have long called the shots. Detroit, on the other hand, has remained stubbornly mired in stunning depths of academic, bureaucratic, and fiscal incompetence.
Whether or not Bobb — or even a possible takeover of the district by the equally scandalously incompetent city government — will lead to a turnaround remains to be seen. It may be just as likely that the Motor City will follow the same path as New Orleans, where the traditional public school district has been all but abandoned by parents for charter schools since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
With four-fifths of black and white male freshmen dropping out of high school by senior year, according to the Schott Foundation for Public Education, Detroit ranks alongside an equally-notorious Midwestern school district, Indianapolis Public Schools, as the worst public system for young men to attend. But this woeful statistic doesn’t even fully convey the depths of the district’s dysfunction.
Within the past decade, Detroit has twice-landed in de facto state receivership after spates of degenerate corruption and incorrigible theft. Last month, a former truck driver for the district was indicted for allegedly pilfering $70,000 in computer equipment. In August, five employees were arrested on embezzlement charges; one staffer managed to allegedly grab $25,000 in checks and cash withdrawals during her employ. An audit found that the district paid $2 million to provide health insurance for ineligible dependents of district employees.
The criminality, alleged and proven, has been matched by stupendous fiscal mismanagement. An audit found that Detroit bought 160 BlackBerries and 11 motorcycles on the taxpayers’ dime. The misspending goes back years. In 2002, three years after the state had first removed the school board for widespread graft, the district still managed to strike a deal to buy five floors in the landmark Fisher Building for $24 million, more than the $21 million price tag paid by its owner for the entire building.
Meanwhile the quality of teaching inside Detroit schools can only be described as disgraceful. Back in 1999, the Detroit Free Press found that 14 percent of teachers were absent on any given day during the school year, with the average teacher out of school 10 days each year; the statistics haven’t likely changed. Fourteen percent of Detroit teachers conducted classes outside of their subject area. As a result, students are often being taught by substitute teachers — who often have less training than their fully employed colleagues.
The school district’s dysfunction has grown so noticeable that it has even made the city government’s spate of indictments and convictions — including former city councilwoman (and congressman’s wife) Monica Conyers’ guilty plea for collecting $6,000 in bribes from a city contractor — seem like child’s play. As the Detroit Free Press noted last month in one of its editorials: “Detroit has no future, if this is allowed to stand.”
Like the city it serves so poorly, Detroit Public Schools wasn’t always synonymous with urban school failure. During the early 1900s, then-Superintendent Wales Martindale introduced the first wave of standardized testing and kindergarten classrooms, along with revising its English curriculum and introducing commercial math classes so children would stay in school till graduation. But Martindale’s heavy-handed politicking would annoy that era’s progressive activists; their successful effort to oust him would lead Detroit to become the trailblazer in the development of the modern public school district.
But by 1999, suburban flight and ill-fated efforts to decentralize the school bureaucracy would expose the school district to the kind of racial politics and graft that poisoned city government. The rise of the AFT’s Detroit local as a force in school board and local politics also complicated efforts to improve the district’s academics and operations. That year, the union went on strike after the district proposed to hold back annual pay hikes for teachers absent more than eight days during the school year; the district would eventually back away from the proposal. Seven years later, the union staged another strike that shut down schools for 16 days.
By then, students and their families began fleeing the district in droves; Detroit lost 54 percent of its enrollment between 1999-2000 and 2008-2009. Many would flee to the city’s charter schools, which have proven to provide better opportunities for rigorous education; charters now account for 32 percent of public school enrollment, the third-highest after New Orleans and Washington, D.C.
Granholm’s plan would likely abolish Detroit’s already-waylaid school board once and for all, placing control in the hands of Bobb, who already controls the district’s finances. But while Bobb has won over Granholm, the state legislature has already rejected one effort to give him a free hand. In any case, his tenure has shown that he’s done little more than adopt the tactics of shutting down schools and laying off teachers already used with little success by his predecessors. He also negotiated the district’s much-derided teachers’ contract.
Handing over control to onetime Detroit Pistons guard-turned-Mayor Dave Bing — an approach that has proven successful in New York City and D.C. — isn’t likely to be palatable to either state legislators or taxpayers mindful of the city government’s widespread corruption. Memories of Bing’s infamous predecessor, Kwame Kilpatrick — now facing a second tour in prison due to alleged parole violations — also makes mayoral control unlikely.
Granholm may be better off adopting the tactic of former Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco, whose one sterling success may have been enacting a series of moves that has made New Orleans the leading hotbed for school reform even amid its sluggish recovery from Hurricane Katrina’s man-made and natural disasters. Given the desperate straits in which Motown is currently mired, shutting down the school district and adding more charters wouldn’t exactly be any worse than shutting down General Motors.
About the Author
RiShawn Biddle the editor of Dropout Nation , is co-author of A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data for the Post-NCLB Era. He can be followed at Twitter.com/dropoutnation.
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Pingback| 1.6.10 @ 6:25AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Motor City Dropout Factories [specta links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Eric Cartman | 1.6.10 @ 6:55AM
It's clear that he problem is money. The teachers are clearly being paid too little, as are the welfare-queen single- mothers who need to dump their brood at the school's doorsteps as their daycare answer.
And where are the pimp-daddies? They are really scamming the system. They get to lay around in jail with 3-hots and a cot while the mommas have to hit the bars all day and night and push both cracks for the cell phone bill, Ipod and Caddie payment! Where is the justice? Where is the Obama money? Where is the Obama stash when they need it?
And of course this is all Whities fault ! They all moved out 40-years ago and took all their Obama money with them! They should pay back Detroit for the stolen funds! How dare they move to the suburbs and create good schools and neighborhoods!
And I don't want to hear about how these little darlings should have to study, learn and achieve through hard work from you right-wingers! these children need self-esteem through affirmative action and set asides! They need more Black History months, Motown Record Museums, sex education classes, social workers, community organizers and Casinos! All you right-wing nut jobs offer is self-respect, self-control, hard work and no alcohol or drugs! What kind of lesson is that?! Merit pay for teachers! Phhhhht! How old fashion!
But Obama's here! Hallelujah! The One will fix this mess caused by George Bush! Only when He, with his money and his stash, walks across the Detroit River to feed the hungry with his Mighty Black Hand will there be peace in Motown! Praise Obama!
It's clear that until Obama makes Whitey pay reparations to the City of Detroit for not wanting to live in among the vermin in the sewer that Colman Young made, things are going to get a lot worse! You've been warned!
Frank Marschino| 1.8.10 @ 8:34PM
Eric, you have outdone yourself on this one. If you wrote one more paragraph, I would have split my gut. Oh, pardon me, I have to leave and worship the altar of BO.....
Jim Mulcahy| 1.6.10 @ 7:30AM
A couple of comments:
Dave Bing should be identified as a former Detroit Piston -turned successful businessman -turned mayor.
In the 1980s or 1990s, some concerned parents petioned to have a boys only school established. Evidence had been accumulating that many boys do better when they don't have girls in their classes for a variety of reasons. The ACLU and other self-appointed losers threatened litigation which made the idea stillborn.
As long as there is no penalty for lousy perfromances, performances will continue to be lousy. Teachers should be held accountable. The incompetents fired. Students should be told that failure to graduate means no drivers license and no unemployment or welfare benefits. Society shouldn't continue to subsidize lousy performances.
Recto Ratio| 1.6.10 @ 7:31AM
"My kid is a blockhead and it's the government's fault! I put him in that government building for six hours a day like they told me and he didn't come out smart like they promised. I wanna sue somebody!"
When was it that we, as a free people, became comfortable with the notion that "Public" - as in, public school, public housing, public toilet - was just a euphemism for "Dirty, Decrepit and Dangerous"? If a foreign power - like those dastardly Canadians - had swarmed across the border and ravaged an American city we'd be grabbing our muskets and assembling on the Battle Green at Concord. But, in the case of Detroit, we did it ourselves, with the very best of intentions, mind you. And so we just shrug and move on. 'Too bad about Detroit,' we say to ourselves. 'Must be some flaw in the nature of those Detroiters.' 'That couldn't happen in a place like New York City. Not in the home of the educated class.'
Ron Hemmer| 1.6.10 @ 7:31AM
Eric,
Is Detroit a precursor to what is to become of the entire country when an incompetent, corrupocrat takes over government.
MikeF1| 1.6.10 @ 11:35AM
Ditto
Appleby| 1.6.10 @ 7:37AM
Detroit is a theme park version of what Obama wants America to become.
You have been warned.
Eric Cartman | 1.6.10 @ 8:09AM
Ron & Appleby:
Are you guys telling me that the Obama Way doesn't work and that all we have to do is look at Detroit as a harbinger of things to come for the Dear Ole USA? WOW! That is scary! Someone should warn the country about these giant failures due to stupid Liberal practices, because the Stupid GOP sure ain't!
MikeF1| 1.6.10 @ 11:39AM
I mean "Ditto 2" (Sorry. DPS educated)
MikeF1| 1.6.10 @ 11:35AM
Dotto 2.
Richard Baker| 1.6.10 @ 7:37AM
Using any public school system as a model of virtue is ridiculous. The entire public school system is a disaster and the country is ill served by this method of education. Close the entire public/government school system and put all the kids in private or parochial schools. The entire system is just a giant daycare.
WRTolkas| 1.6.10 @ 7:56AM
Gentlemen,
I've lived in Michigan since 1976. Incompetence in government is Michigan's number one cottage industry. We have two houses of elected morons that meet most of the year to spit out biased and little thought out laws and regulations that hobble industry and creativity to enrich unions and lobbies. Therefore, to me it is of no surprise that detroit's school system is the worst in the country. Although, one lesson detroit has learned well. They have learned from the state government how to govern incompetently.
No driver's license, no jobs, and no welfare if no diploma. It is that simple.
In the last ten years, Michigan has lost 500,000 residents. If I happen to loose my job, I will follow that train out of this failed Blue state.
One bright spot is Gov. Grandholm's pols: 34% approval. And to think about six-years ago there was talk to amend the U.S. Constitution so that a foreign born could run for president. Grandholm is Canadian born and was a rising start in democrat circles. How times have changed. Sorry for the rambling. The coffee hasn't kicked in yet.
Regards,
WRTolkas
JoshInHb| 1.7.10 @ 5:50AM
"And to think about six-years ago there was talk to amend the U.S. Constitution so that a foreign born could run for president."
And then we realized all a foreigner has to do is hide their birth certificate. So much easier than actually amending the Constitution.
JP| 1.6.10 @ 7:59AM
The Detroit School System is the least of the city's worries. Just Google Detroit and Urban Praire. The city is rapidly devolving into some kind of desolate urban community one used to see in Sci Fi movies. Entire nieghborhoods are gone; its once famous skyline is filled with skyscrapers long abandoned -many now must be torn down. Even the gentified upscale near -suburbs are filled with stately mansions now empty -that is, except for the looters. Fireman get calls to put out an arson fire only to return to find that urban looters (who set the fires) robbed the fire station. Not even cemetaries are immuned. Grave robbing has returned as a vocation.
One of the bright spots in Detroit's tragic recent history is Dr. Ben Carson. Dr. Carson was one of the typical "youths" of the Detroit ghetto. He ran wild, refused to learn, and did pretty much as he pleased. That is until his mother put down the law. Dr. Carson's mother ordered that the TV remain off, that he and his brother come straight home from school and actually do thier homework. Additionally, Dr. Carson was ordered to read one book a week and write an essay for his mother to grade. Dr. Carson went on to become the world's premier pediatric neuro-surgeon -all thanks to his mother, who by the way was illiterate.
explosion proof light | 11.25.10 @ 1:29AM
That's the way it went in the U.S. for decades. People in poor communities were convinced that the police and justice system didn't give a hang about crime in their neighborhoods.
Les Norsemorbles| 1.6.10 @ 9:35AM
"...JUST 68 percent... performed at or BELOW NAEP's standard..."??? Rishawn, you want MORE to perform BELOW the standard?!? I think not. Please review your logical construction of your statement.
RiShawn Biddle | 1.6.10 @ 4:40PM
My apologies. The "just" has just been taken out.
Dustoff| 1.6.10 @ 9:39AM
Government at it's best.
Tony in Central PA| 1.6.10 @ 10:01AM
Ah yes, Detroit. The Democrat's City on a Hill.
Here, in PA, its not much better in many respects. We have a state government riddled with graft and incompetence, yet people duly reelect the same crooks who fill the news between elections with their shenanigans. Maybe in our country people get the government they deserve.
Pingback| 1.6.10 @ 11:41AM
The American Spectator : Motor City Dropout Factories login bing links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Glen H| 1.6.10 @ 11:59AM
"14 percent of teachers were absent on any given day during the school year, with the average teacher out of school 10 days each year"
This statistic only makes sense if the Detroit school year is 70 days long. Maybe that is the problem!
Derek Leaberry| 1.6.10 @ 1:40PM
A community reflects the moral values of its residents. Detroit is what it is because a vast majority of its people are socially dysfunctional. Never forget it was the people of Detroit who elected the wildly popular, incompetent, racially divisive and morally squalid Coleman Young for two decades. It was Young who claimed that "it's our turn" to his voters and that he was "M.F.I.C", the I.C. meaning "in charge". The M.F. of Mayor Young's self-description I'll leave to everyone's imagination. Detroiters wanted Young and they got him. They deserve the seeds they planted.
MI Man| 1.6.10 @ 2:07PM
The problems with Detroit Public Schools (DPS) really began with the City of Detroit. For about 30 years, the city was run by Coleman Young, a self-proclaimed communist. He and his administration ran the city into the ground, eventually unable to collect the garbage, light streetlamps, or provide police service. The city remains challenged today, long a place of communist-inspired graft and corruption, largely by Democrats. Once upon a time, black Michiganians were proud to inhabit what they called "their" city, and really tried to make it a nice place to live. But they were foiled by this communist-style government. Over the past five years or so, black residents of Detroit have begun to realize how bad things are, and have been moving out to the suburbs, to the tune of about 10,000 residents per year. Just like everyone else, they want a better life for themselves and for their children. What has happened since these folks (who could afford to move) left Detroit is that what remains in Detroit is more and more only those who can't afford to leave. This has had a major deleterious effect on the public school system.
When my wife first began teaching in DPS, about 50% of her classes were children raised in two-parent families, from lower-middle to middle class families. These children were well-behaved, and performed reasonably well on the MEAP tests (some of them excelled). Over the past few years, the children she teaches are more and more solely the children of the poor, coming mostly from single-parent families, and from foster parent situations. Children born addicted to crack are becoming more commonplace in the classrooms of DPS, and almost every child is on the government food breakfast and lunch programs. Because of the extreme graft and corruption in DPS administration through the years, special needs children are now mainstreamed, as DPS can no longer afford to maintain Special Education classrooms.
First, the teachers of DPS are not the problem there. While DPS has its share of a handful of slackers, as does every suburban public school district, its teachers can teach circles around those employed in suburban school districts. Why is this? Because DPS teachers have to deal with more "situations," the types of problems suburban teachers have never encountered. How do you deal with the fact that the children you teach have no books or supplies (due to DPS' administration's graft and corruption)? DPS teachers find ways around that. How do you deal with a child who was born addicted to crack, and spends the schoolday writhing on the floor and gurgling? Can you make him pass the MEAP? DPS teachers find ways to make this child learn something. How do you deal with children who come to school hungry and sleepy, unable to sleep the night before due to the constant cold where they live, after the heat has been shut off? DPS teachers are able to get these children to learn something, too. What I'm saying is that DPS teachers are able to teach most of their children, even though the learning environment is ripe for failure.
How about charter schools? These schools have made things better for a few Detroit children. You see, the charters are able to do what DPS cannot: they can kick children out who are a distraction in the classroom. So, what happens is that Detroit parents send their kids to charter schools. The well-behaved (mostly, girls) get to stay there and learn; the ill-behaved (mostly, boys) are kicked out. Due to its charter to "teach every child," DPS ends up with the unruly boys who have been kicked out of the charter schools, and, more and more, does NOT have any of the good children, who would normally serve as a good example in a DPS classroom.
So, what do you do? First, allow the public schools to deny an education to children who are disruptive to the learning environment, just as charter schools are allowed to do (for the sake of the many, remove the few fools from the learning environment). At the very least, put these disruptive children together into a military-type school, where they can learn the disciplinary skills necessary to be a success in life. But remove them from the public school classrooms, for the sake of the majority of the other children who are there to learn.
Second, allow teachers in public schools to discipline children again. At a very young age, children learn that the teacher really can't do anything to them, and, being children, they take advantage of this. DPS teachers, and good teachers everywhere, find ways around this, but it's becoming more and more difficult to teach children who come to school without the basic disciplinary skills even to remain in their seats.
Finally, the latest contract with DPS teachers. It's a good contract, allowing for such things as peer review of teachers, and incentive bonuses/raises for good teachers. However, as DPS remains over $200 million in deficit, due to the graft and corruption of former DPS administration officials, each DPS teacher is now required to give $10,000 to the district over the next two years, to help with the deficit situation. The teachers did not cause the deficit. They are paid about in the mid-range of what Michigan teachers are paid. But they are helping to resolve the problem, coming up with about $64 million of the deficit with this giveback.
As conservatives, we learned many years ago the things which will make inner-city schools work. Two-parent families, with a father present who will instill discipline into his children works every time. This has been documented in such past works as, "Fatherless America" and other studies. When are we conservatives going to listen to our own studies? Put incentives in place to keep inner-city fathers at home. Take unruly children out of the learning environment, for the sake of the majority of the other inner-city children who want to behave and learn. We can do it. Our representatives in Washington simply don't have the guts to do so.
Eric Cartman | 1.6.10 @ 5:51PM
A lot of good stuff, MI Man. But after reading your post, all I can think is: "It will suck worse next year, and worse the next, etc., etc. The only change will be the velocity of DPS crap spiral."
MIMan| 1.7.10 @ 10:40AM
Eric,
Exactly! However, we conservatives can change the downward spiral. 1) make changes to Welfare which state that a single woman may NOT get additional welfare money for children she has unless the children's father lives at home; 2) allow public schools to deny an education to unruly children for the sake of the majority(this is what makes charters and private schools so effective: accountability for student and parent); 3) allow all schools to discipline children again. When parents and children learn that there will be accountability for the children's unruly behavior, when the "free child care" ends because of a kids bad behavior, inner city schools will begin to turn around.
Roy| 1.6.10 @ 7:20PM
"and, more and more, does NOT have any of the good children, who would normally serve as a good example in a DPS classroom. "
Tough cookies. Students are there to get an education, not to "set an example" for disruptive jackasses.
Not that the above poster is doing this, but this argument is used a lot as an argument against school choice, and it is really abominable. By the same logic, people should shop at crappy grovery stores because otherwise they won't have enough customers who demand high quality and won't get better. No - people have an absolute right to go where they are better served.
However, I agree that the ability to get disruptive kids out of the classroom would be the most productive reform.
Roy| 1.6.10 @ 7:22PM
Oh, and as far as "how do you deal with" a number of urban horror stories, the answer is: It kinda cuts into your teaching time. I'm sure they are very compassionate, but as far as learning math from them, when do they teach it?
If I sound bitter, it's a little bit because I remember being a public school student. The attitude then was, if you already know everything you're being taught..great! You won't cause any trouble for the teacher, so they can spend all their time on others. Well that's fine, but then what precisely is the point of being there at all.
PAT| 1.6.10 @ 5:00PM
What do you get when the intelligent, the industrious, the thrifty, the law abiding, the mentally balanced move away - you get Detroit. And the national media has recently discovered America's own version of a third world city - Time Magazine even has reporters and their bodyguards living within the ghetto absorbing local color and reporting on various aspects of the "tragic demise of Detroit".
The city is steadily losing residents, they move to the subs or to other states seeking work and probably a form of self-government that actually works. No one chooses to live in Detroit - it's not "would I rather live in Beverly Hills or Detroit?" - the people who remain or are forced by circumstances to move there don't have Detroit at the top of their "Ten Best Cities to Live In" list.
The "D" has almost 40 square miles of deserted areas within the city limits, street after street inhabited only by deer, placidy grazing in the backyards of long abandoned homes. Vegetation has overgrown some homes, prompting strange and fascinating scenes like a Hobbit home from Lord of the Rings. The old abandoned Packard plant catches fire periodically, from fires set by copper salvagers or vandals, and will burn unabated for days since it's too dangerous for fire fighters to enter the property.
The city has an estimated 30% unemployment rate and many of those employed work for the government or social agencies, rather than private firms. The school issues were covered within this article, one horrific result of Detroit's education system is graduating only 25% of entering high school freshmen.
But shrugging off Detroit's plight is a mistake, it really does affect you. You see, Detroiters have a primary talent, besides murdering each other - they can play "helpless" with a skill unsurpassed by any other urban enclave. The "We're helpless" schtick started in the 60's, show a few kids shivering in the January winds after Detroit Edison or Consumer's Power turned off their heat or electricity - usually because mom spent the welfare check on necessities like booze or drugs. Let the media slow cook the story for a few days and then demand "help" - because we're "helpless" you understand and with a little outside help we'll be back on our collective feet in no time - except getting off the mat has taken over 40 years.
The latest hustle is turning the vacant areas of Detroit into an English countryside complete with small villages surrounded by truck farms growing fruit and vegetables - at least according to the Detroit Free Press. But who will pay for clearing the land, bulldozing the houses, checking for toxic waste, all the expensive chores associated with reclaiming urban land? You will, assuming you pay federal taxes. Why not let Detroiters clean up their own mess - well, according to the Free Press and most Detroiters it's because "we're helpless".
Roy| 1.6.10 @ 5:01PM
"a three-minute reduction in average working day for elementary school teachers"
I like that, make it sound really small and hope the morons(AKA taxpayers) don't notice.
3 minutes a day X 180 school days = 540 minutes = 9 hours = an extra day of vacation per year, is what this benefit really was. For pete's sake.
Pingback| 1.6.10 @ 8:36PM
Decatur, Alabama | Alabama Real Estate links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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More on Motor City Dropout Factories || Dropout Nation links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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Read: New Year Edition || Dropout Nation links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
CJohnson| 1.7.10 @ 1:44AM
I think that putting your child in public school is more harmful than exposing them to second hand smoke.
"THANKS MOM FOR THE PRIVATE EDUCATION AND 2ND HAND SMOKE EXPOSURE WHILE ENROUTE".
Mike| 1.7.10 @ 2:18AM
I love Detroit. Despite all of it's many, many, many shortcomings. It's not DPS per se, the same way it isn't GM per se. The rapid downfall of Detroit can be blamed on two things. Liberal/progressivism and...THE UNIONS! These two things coupled together spell disaster for any city with the misfortune of being dominated by them. If you look at the sad state of the Big Three, the decline can be traced back to the rise of the Unions. The auto industry was forced to meet all their demands, when they didn't the unions went on strike, eventually forcing the Companies to cave. It truly is a tale as old as time. Soon enough the cost of production and the Unions becomes to much and it eventually collapses under it's own pressure...CrAsH!!! That is what is going on with DPS. It's not about what is best for the kids, it has become what is best for the teachers.
And as far as Liberalism/Progressivism is concerned, well, this is the American Spectator. I don't think I need to elaborate much. The readers here get it. But when You have a city and state controlled by leftists who can't see past their noses, the Unions are free to run roughshod. And the result? Detroit.
With all that said, Go Tigers, Go Lions, Go Red Wings and Go Pistons!!!!!
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The American Spectator : Motor City Dropout Factories American Me links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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The American Spectator : Motor City Dropout Factories Heat just to Me links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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The American Spectator : Motor City Dropout Factories | EduDemand.Com links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Remie| 1.7.10 @ 12:04PM
Detroit children are products of their parents and their environment. If we as a nation continue to provide the same type of welfare/assistance programming that we do today, people will continue to abuse it because there is no incentive (or consequence) to try to become self-sufficient. Most of the people in Detroit are products of the welfare system: generations of families have known only this way of life and have not had appropriate role models. They see that pimping, stealing, drug dealing, etc. makes you money. They do not see family members going to bed and getting up at routine hours to go to work. They do not sit down as a family for dinner. They do not make sure that the children have regular bedtimes, study times, breakfast, etc. They do not keep their neighborhoods clean. It is a fact. People have to change and the system has to change. Detroit is not alone, however. I have an Aunt who lives in Taylor and on her street alone, about 75% of the people are on welfare, "disability" (what a joke that is - take enough drugs and alcohol and you too can be declared disables for life!), and abuse substances. The schools are little better than Detroit's. The primary thing they have in common is a system which allows and perpetuates these behaviors.
Les Norbles| 1.8.10 @ 2:37PM
Not to belabor the point but 69% of fourth-graders and 77% of eight-graders performed BELOW BASIC, not "AT or below." For instance, 100% of children have IQ's that are "at or below" 300000. This is true but doesn't mean anything.
alin | 1.11.10 @ 1:12AM
They do not sit down as a family for dinner. They do not maknike outlete sure that the children have regular bedtimes, study times, breakfast, etc. They do not keep their neighboadidas outletrhoods clean. It is a fact.
Pingback| 1.16.10 @ 3:05AM
Man Tries to Jump Out Courthouse Window, Fails | WeCharts.com links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 1.17.10 @ 11:07AM
. o O ( Home Staging Courses & Home Staging Certification Review: Scam or Serious? ) links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 1.21.10 @ 7:24AM
Dropout Nation » Blog Archive » Read: Briefly Noted Edition links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
ms office 2007 | 3.21.10 @ 12:20AM
Office 2007 Professional
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gh| 11.21.10 @ 11:44AM
AD user management
dedy | 12.10.10 @ 3:11PM
A lot of good stuff, MI Man. But after reading your post, all I can think is: "It will suck worse next year, and worse the next, etc., etc. The only change will be the velocity of DPS crap spiral."
Converse | 8.11.11 @ 9:34PM
is good