My Perspective: Robert Bobb is Not the Man

The state appointed Chief Financial Officer of Detroit Public Schools is not the answer to the problems that plague DPS. In fact Bobb is just continuing many of the same policies that the State Takeover Board and past DPS superintendents have did or wanted to do. Simply closing schools, firing teachers and changing around principals as well as firing other principals will not solve the achievement gap in Detroit Public Schools or fix the financial woes of the district. Also the state giving Bobb funds for a summer program will not help DPS and asking the federal government to declare Detroit Public Schools as a national emergency in order to get much needed federal funds will not resolve the issues plaguing DPS.

Bobb was hired to fix the financial status of DPS such as balancing the books and weeding out corruption. While Bobb started off his job by firing one employee downtown for double dipping and putting another on leave for changing the number of sick days one he/she had. Bobb has not fired any other central DPS staff but instead has focused majority of his time on interviewing principals and assistant principals privately before publicly firing. Bobb has spent his other time trying to hire new teachers straight out of college while sending pink slips to other teachers on Good Friday to those currently employed by DPS.

Therefore it is clear that until the central DPS staff is fired or pay cuts are made downtown, I have lost all faith in Robert Bobb to be the type of change that Detroit Public Schools needs. In fact I have lost all faith in the State of Michigan to help public education in Detroit because it is the state’s fault that DPS is where it is now and for Mike Flanagan the Michigan Board of Education to act is if they didn’t know DPS was abusing Title 1 funds is inexcusable. In fact, the State of Michigan needs to wheel in Robert Bobb like they did the new Highland Park’s Financial Manager who came in with his own agenda and not the agenda laid out by the state. Therefore why hasn’t any of our state legislators and the Governor said anything about what Robert Bobb is doing in terms of laying the key components to education off such as teachers and principals while creating new central staff positions that DPS had never had.

Where are Detroit state leaders in Lansing staying about what Robert Bobb is doing? Robert Bobb has not once met with the community in the community but instead has chosen to meet with community advocates at Wayne State which to me was nothing but a publicity stunt. Robert Bobb has continued to show me that his agenda is not to necessarily make public education stronger but instead to break DPS completely down that the only answer to the woes of public education or education in the city is alternative choice. Now if this is Bobb’s agenda, I am not mad about it but I am mad that he is being the pawn used to make this happen because it is clear that the state has given him this power and he will use this power until someone demands that he stops.

The Board of Education members will not stop them because majority of them are two week to even articulate a good statement and the one member who is vocal enough to challenge him has been gagged and defeated at every corner by her fellow board members. Therefore I am here to say what Marie Thornton would say and that is firing Calloway was the wrong idea and bringing Bobb is not the solution because he is only implementing old policies of previous DPS superintendents such as Burnley and Coleman. Therefore anyone who thinks that Bobb has the right agenda have to wake up and realize that, how in the world can DPS improve when hundreds of thousands of teachers are being shown the door and I’m not talking about the older teachers but young teachers who haven’t been in the district long at all.

Also how can Bobb fix DPS by closing down many of the schools that DPS has invested millions of dollars in over the years? How can Bobb fix DPS when he hasn’t shown any intentions of fixing the budget in order to find out where the funds was misappropriated and mismanaged? In fact Bobb has spent more time interviewing and firing those who deal with our students on a daily basis or being a media king rather than actually doing the job he was chosen to do which was fix DPS finances since we couldn’t do it. However what many people don’t realize is that from 1998-2004, DPS books were managed by the state and during that time, is when DPS books became so mismanaged and damaged that even when our incompetent and corrupt elected board took over, they couldn’t deal with balancing the budget so they continued out the agenda of those who paid to get them elected which is sell off the assets of DPS.

Thus Robert Bobb to me is not the man that will fix Detroit Public Schools and it is clear to me that our Detroit leaders in Lansing have no interest in stopping him because none of them have publicly criticized his actions or have taken any action toward wheeling Bobb to do the job he was hired to do which is fixing and balancing DPS’s budget. So for anyone who thinks Bobb is the guy or the man that will change DPS around, I’m here to tell you, you are sadly wrong and it clear in many of his media appearances and his actions. Anytime Bobb tells the public that he wants to restore King High School back to its former days, makes me question what about the rest of DPS High Schools, you don’t want them to succeed or be the new King High School of today.

Old thinking got DPS in the financial and academic mess it is in today and it clear that Bobb has been tainted and he is not thinking in the best interest of DPS when he fires good principals and promotes weak principals such as Cleveland’s principal who lied about her school meeting AYP at the same Wayne State forum that Bobb was at. In fact politics played a vital role in Cleveland’s principal keeping her job because Carla Scott’s sister works at Cleveland and is good friends with that school’s principal. Nonetheless if Bobb had done has research properly he would have seen that Cleveland Intermediate High School has lost more students since the beginning of the school year than any other school besides Henry Ford. Plus Cleveland’s principal has not made any type of community connections during her tenure at Cleveland and parental involvement in the school is virtually none.

Robert Bobb is just a guinea pig and an imposter of positive change. The state didn’t appoint Bobb to rescue DPS but to destroy it and to destroy public education in Detroit once and for all. What Engler and his cronies didn’t complete, Granholm and her goons will make sure is done? Therefore it is up to us as community leaders, educators, students, parents and residents of Detroit to help make sure public education and education in general in Detroit is vibrant & stronger for future generations. Both public and private education can exist in Detroit but private/charter education can’t exist at the expense of getting rid of public education. Our country was built on public education and it is through public education that we can ensure that Detroit becomes a center of prosperity and by strengthening DPS academics and fixing its finances once and for all than it will make it easier to slowly put in place charter/academy schools that work for the city of Detroit.

However at this state in time, Bobb is not doing that and he is more concerned with spending money and bringing in more money to spend rather than cutting salaries and waste at central DPS offices. In fact instead of Bobb moving DPS offices from three separate buildings in the New Center area where we are leasing, he could have issued a declaration that advocated for DPS central offices to be disturbed across the city in some of the schools slated to be closed. I know Cleveland Intermediate High School and previously closed Courville can be used to house central staff departments since DPS used millions of dollars to fix up those schools over the years. Robert Bobb didn’t think to do and hasn’t thought about how he will fix DPS finances outside of firing educators. So it’s clear, Bobb is not the man to help improve DPS and our state leaders are not going to reign him to do the job that he was appointed to do which was to fix DPS finances.

Therefore it is up to people like us to fix DPS finances and the culture of education in this city and I look forward to having many conversations with former and current DPS educators, parents, students, community leaders and elected officials to put together a plan that will ensure that we create a stronger and better public education system in Detroit that will survive the tests of time and political interference from Lansing. Now is time to silence and limit Bobb’s momentum and to demand from our Detroit Caucus in Lansing wheel Bobb to put him back on task which is to fix and balance DPS’s budget. Martha Scott, Bert Johnson, Coleman Young Jr., Tupac Hunter, Irma Clark-Coleman, Shanelle Jackson, Rashida Tlaib, David Nathan, Jimmy Womack, Hansen Clark, Tim Bledsoe, Bettie Cook-Scott, Buzz Thomas, Lemar Lemmons Jr., Fred Durhal Jr., George Cushingberry Jr., and Gabe Leland all need to step and let Governor Jennifer Granholm & State Board of Education Superintendent Mike Flanagan know that Robert Bobb was hired to fix DPS finances and to balance the books, not to hire and fire teachers as well as principals without just cause.

This is a new day and Detroit needs to stand up now if we are going to finally get the education system in Detroit right.