My Perspective: The End of Public Education in Detroit

Detroit Public School’s Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb has did the unthinkable when it comes to public education. Bobb has decided to enlist private firms to overhaul 17 high schools which is virtually 85% of DPS High School’s. Last Thursday, Robert Bobb declared an academic emergency at a news conference where he announced the hiring of four private education firms that will immediately help overhaul 17 failing high schools. The outstate firms have a proven track record of raising student achievement, Bobb said, and they will be held accountable if they don't improve the test scores and academic culture at the schools. District officials touted the overhaul as the largest of its kind in the nation.

"We have not been making the grade," Bobb said at a press conference at Central High School, where a student was shot in the hallways less than five months ago. "The 20,000 students at these 17 schools have, to this point, have not been placed in an environment to be successful." Calling the 11th grade Michigan Merit Exam test scores for the 17 high schools "abysmal" and "shameful," Barbara Byrd-Bennett, Bobb's chief academic and accountability officer, said swift action is needed to ensure all children can succeed. The educational organizations overseeing the restructuring are New York-based Edison Learning, Cincinnati-based Ed Works, New York-based Institute for Achievement and Washington-based Model Secondary Schools Project. They were hired under multiyear and "several-million-dollar" contracts, funded with the $20 million in federal stimulus money DPS set aside for restructuring efforts, Bobb said.

The schools that will be targeted for the fall are Central, Crockett, Henry Ford, King, Western, Cooley, Denby, Finney, Kettering, Mumford, Southeastern, Pershing, Detroit Tech, Southwestern, Cody, Northwestern and Osborn. All have new principals, but it's unclear which teachers at those schools will stay, an issue that will be addressed with the Detroit Federation of Teachers, Bobb said. "If we are going to hold individuals (principals) accountable for the results in their buildings, they should have the authority to choose the people who come to work with them in these buildings," Bobb said.

However Bobb’s steps signal that this is the end of public education in Detroit with the hiring with private firms to overhaul 17 Detroit high schools. The move was not discussed with the community and the only sign of any such private company being over a high school was Bobb Thompson’s company takeover of Mumford once federal stimulus money was used to makeover Mumford. But this move by Bobb and district officials is a clear sign that they feel hiring out of state educational firms to look over the high schools will change the educational environment at those schools.

Still what isn’t being discussed is how will these four out of state firms deal with the environment the students in these 17 schools come from. How will f out of state firms who have never seen the likes of poverty, violence, babies having babies having babies, and the drug era of this generation right along with the new gang culture which breeds the type of students that go to these 17 area high schools that have abysmal test scores. At the news conference, not anyone from the community was invited and no elected officials were in attendance besides Mayor Dave Bing. In fact, district officials tried to block people such as teachers and other district personnel from the meeting but they couldn’t. The district however denied material strictly for the media to be given to anyone besides the media that showed information that was pertinent to why the district is handing over 17 Detroit high schools to companies.

What isn’t being discussed though is that one of the four companies has a history in the Southeast Michigan area. Edison Learning which is based in New York has had several charter schools throughout Michigan and the proven track record of educational success that Bobb spoke of is untrue because the Edison Schools in Inkster were a complete failure and the ones that they still have in Ferndale and other areas are failing as well. In fact their test scores are just as bad as those in DPS. Then another one of the companies who Bobb taunted as having a proven track record of success in Education isn’t stellar as Bobb wants the news media to think. The New York based firm of the Institute for Student Achievement results are not great in the city of New York and other areas.. This is a company that has as one of leaders, Dr. N. Gerry House who is the former superintendent of Memphis City Schools and is the main reason why Memphis City Schools declined so drastically. Any Memphis resident will tell you that House is best known for destroying Public Education in the City of Memphis before she bolted to work for this company. The Institute for Student Achievement even without House as a key figure has played a role in education reform in New York, Louisiana, New Jersey and other areas but its success is not as proven in terms of results as Bobb tried to make it sound. In fact the areas of education success where they have been successful is simply in writing proposals and grants on education but not on actual academic success. They are a smaller learning community ideal based company that until now has not shown any real success in dealing with traditional high schools which is what they will undertake with Northwestern High School.

So when Bobb announced about two or three weeks ago that he would be sitting and talking to private companies about taking over a few DPS schools, no one knew he meant 85% of DPS’s high schools. Seventeen Detroit Public Schools high schools are being turned over to professional educational management companies as part of what DPS officials are calling the most dramatic restructuring of the troubled district’s history might sound good to some but the truth of the matter is that it signals the end of public education in Detroit as we know it. Unless the citizens of Detroit and the community around it rally against such a move than it seems as if Bobb has literally turned over Detroit to privatization from all over. In fact this could mean that people like Thompson and others in the local Detroit area who were thinking about starting charter schools could find it hard to do because of this recent move by Bobb because if it is successful, these companies will look to inherit more schools within the district.

Now what is still unclear is how in the world these companies will get paid because Bobb tried to make it sound as if these schools won’t receive any funds from the $20 million in stimulus that the district will get until toward the end of the school year when test scores from the state are given back. As Bobb tired to paint it, these companies will only be paid based off of their results and successes but any common sense person knows that no one works hard for 9 months and then gets a check at the end for all their hard work. So looking at it from a common sense perspective, these 4 companies will receive some of their money upfront but in terms of how much is unknown. Thus we can speculate that majority of the money that these companies will receive will come after the state scores are submitted and their success in terms of academic progress is submitted. That would be the best option in terms of paying the 4 companies.

Nonetheless, these four companies each have at least 3 schools with EdWorks having 5 and Edison Learning have 6 but what I hope Bobb and these 4 companies understand is that one educational model for learning doesn’t fit all. Each of these 17 high schools will face various types of problems within them from attendance to gang violence to community issues so I hope that these 4 companies don’t try to apply the same structure to all the high schools they are over because they will be sitting themselves up for failure from day one. In fact Bobb hasn’t quite figured out why nearly 60-75% of the district’s schools are failing because he figured if I change the principals in schools than this should help in fixing the problem but that is so far from the truth. That’s equivalent to us a nation changing a President every 4 years but not changing members of Congress. We have to understand the communities around each school and by understanding these communities we can build an educational model for each school that encompasses some of the general principles of education.

A one fit all educational model is out of date and that is why schools need to have the flexibility to use some core principles of education along with their own principles to fix the problems that they deal with in their schools because each school in Detroit has its own problems because of the communities they are and the various environments that their students come from. For instance, Pershing High School next year will not just have to worry about 6 Mile, 7 Mile and the Outer Drive to 8 Mile culture but they have to worry about other cultures that where around Cleveland Intermediate High School such as Davison and the Hamtramck border. This will create a different environment at Pershing than it was last year and if the Model Secondary School Project doesn’t do it research, it won’t matter what academic policies they create, it won’t succeed if fighting and violence in the school isn’t taken care of.

Thus, the culture of education must change but the climate of the environment from which 20,000 students at these 17 high schools come from will not change until we change it both socially and academically. That’s why it is hard for me to understand why Bobb would hire out of state companies to do oversee 17 high schools when this plan could cause more harm than success. Now if Bobb wanted to give each of these companies one high school each as a test run than that perhaps would be more welcoming to the Detroit community. But what Bobb has done is simply tell the citizens of Detroit, “F*** you” because I am going to do things may way and you all are going to accept.

Bobb’s plan is revolutionary but it could be disastrous for public education in Detroit because if it doesn’t work than where will DPS go from there. What is Bobb’s motivation in making such a move and paying these 4 companies with money from the federal stimulus package that could be used to remodel many schools within the district? Is this a move by Robert Bobb to save his political future in Oakland, California where is he trailing in the polls and is financially behind bad? Why would Bobb want to bring in out of state management companies who are known to give millions to political campaigns?

So is this how public education in Detroit will go down with the swoosh of a pin and mic by Robert Bobb. Who will save public education from such a takeover that could leave not only our youth in a worst condition than it is now but us the taxpayers seeing more of our funds go toward drastic moves that haven’t been thoroughly thought through? Where’s the community outrage? Is this the final breath for public education in Detroit or is this just the beginning to more company based charter schools rather than community based charter schools? These are the questions that we the people of Detroit have to ask ourselves as we look at this latest move by Robert Bobb, the state appointed EFM. Why isn’t Granholm saying anything and why hasn’t any elected official tried to reign Bobb’s actions in for not dealing with what he was brought in to deal with which is finances.

Now some might say you can’t deal with finances without dealing with academics but when the finances still haven’t been fixed and no academic master plan has been talked about, than it makes me wonder what is really motivating Robert Bobb when he has thought about bankruptcy as an option for nearly two months prior to saying it is a option to the public just last week. Robert Bobb hasn’t been honest with the community and it seems he is more interested in being on television and in newspapers as he prepares to enter the world of politics in 2010 with his mayoral campaign for Oakland. This is the type of disservice that we the citizens of Detroit are getting from Robert Bobb and those on the state level who appointed him. Detroit we are being reaped off yet again by those we entrust to take care of us. But what is being done to us now is what was done to us the citizens of Detroit in 1997 when the state took our right to elect a school board.

Now 12 years later, it seems that public education in Detroit is on a respiratory and the plug is about to get pulled any day now with the latest move of handing 85% of DPS high schools over to 4 private out of state management companies and the option of chapter 9 bankruptcy being on the table. This could be it folks and this is a sad ending because the State of Michigan still hasn’t acknowledged that they played a role in all of this while they are trying to pretend they are saving our educational district. This is the type of sad events and political posturing that we the citizens of Detroit have to weed out and call out when we see it. Still if nothing happens to stop Robert Bobb’s actions than this is the end of public education in Detroit and here comes the Charter movement of company based ownership which has corrupted education already.

Seventeen high schools will be run by educational management companies, Detroit Public Schools officials announced today.

EdWorks
• Central
• Crockett
• Henry Ford
• King
• Western International

Edison Learning
• Cooley
• Denby
• Finney
• Kettering
• Mumford
• Southeastern

Model Secondary Schools Program
• Pershing
• Detroit High School for Technology at Pershing
• Southwestern

Institute for Student Achievement
• Cody Campus
• Osborn Campus
• Northwestern