My Perspective: Celebrities won’t save DPS

My fraternity brother Dr. Bill Cosby is volunteering his time to come back to Detroit help turn the city’s ailing schools around. While I commend Cosby for his efforts and his passion for the last few years about education and teaching black people especially parents to be responsible and active in their children’s lives. I have to be honest that Bill Cosby and the Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb don’t understand what is plaguing Detroit Public Schools yet alone the educational climate in Detroit. Now comedian, actor and philanthropist Bill Cosby, who has a Ph.D in education, is scheduled to meet with Detroit Public Schools officials, parents and students during a series of appearances today. Cosby, known best as his role as Dr. Huxtable on NBC-TV's "The Cosby Show," held a noon news conference with Robert Bobb, the district's emergency financial manager, at the district's Welcome Center that was more like a bully pull pit preach than anything of substance.

Cosby criticized parents and students as well as people like me who don’t agree with everything Bobb is doing. I love my fraternity brother and I agree that education is important and both students as well as parents are responsible for making sure students get an adequate education but at the same time as Cosby said it takes a village to raise a child and teachers, administrators, politicians and community leaders have failed at helping students achieve a good education as well. Cosby ‘s celebrity status is sure to draw attention but Detroit Public Schools don’t need celebrities or anymore rhetoric but it needs real solutions. Robert Bobb isn’t doing anything new that other superintendents as well as board members have suggested. Nonetheless, not everything Bobb is doing is right for the district or the children.

The problems in Detroit Public Schools will not solved with star experiences by Cosby who will join Bobb for a neighborhood walk in the area of Evergreen and Pembroke at 5 p.m. tonight. The problems of DPS will not be solved by Cosby participating in a 7 p.m. rally at Henry Ford High School, on the city's northwest side where violence and gang activity has plagued that area particularly last October, a Henry Ford student was shot to death and three others were wounded near the school. While Cosby should be commended for taking an interest in DPS after seeing a report about DPS' problems on CNN but what Cosby don’t understand is that Bobb was brought to DPS to fix a budget that he can’t fix and all the while has added to the district’s financial problems by bringing in his own people while laying off the little people in the district as well as many qualified young teachers who will never come back to DPS.

The reality is that DPS has launched a $500,000 “I’m In” marketing campaign that Cosby’s visit is a part but this is all aimed toward student retention or stopping the loss of students. Still the bigger problem in DPS is not retention of students but it that it doesn’t have an academic foundation that the district runs off. The district doesn’t have an academic plan to go along with academic vision of building state of the art technological schools. While Cosby and Bobb will visit and meet with students, parents and city leaders during Cosby's visit here today, it is not enough to simply talk about action needs to be taken to fix the district’s budget and to put together an academic plan that will make students in DPS compete not just locally or national but internationally. Now Detroit has been a frequent stop for Cosby in recent years during his cross-country tours to talk to African Americans about taking back their communities and raising their children. Cosby has encouraged parents to take more responsibility for their children's education and well-being, as well as becoming more active in building safer neighborhoods. All of that is fine but as Cosby said, it takes a village to raise a child and DPS has been failing because we are always reacting rather than acting.

Also the news that came out today that EFM Robert Bobb wants Mayor Bing to run Detroit schools is another problem that is hurting DPS and the future of it. Who is actually going to run Detroit Public Schools after Robert Bobb leaves in March 2010 is truly a big question mark of why the district won’t be saved from celebrities simply speaking and telling people to be more responsible and become more active in helping Bobb. Why should the Detroit community help Robert Bobb when he can’t balance the district’s budget and wants a mayor to run the school district after he leaves when the mayor can’t even run the city properly and neither one of these man have an academic plan on how to educate DPS students.

Then celebrities won’t save DPS when you got the Emergency Financial Manager suing the school board over the hiring of a superintendent when the district has had an acting superintendent getting paid top dollar since they removed Connie Collaway as superintendent of the district late last year. So the school board decided to remove the interim or acting superintendent title form Teresa Gueyser so that she could properly perform her duties as superintendent and while I am not for Gueyser being superintendent but she has been getting paid top dollar for nearly 6 months since Bobb has been here for doing nothing. So for Bobb to want to sue the board over this a waste of time and a waste of money of district funds that could go toward educating our youth.

Also what isn’t being talked about is how successful was the Summer School Academies that used Title 1 money to pay for students to go to summer school for either failing the MEAP or not meeting GPA or attendance requirements to move on to the next grade level. So with less than a week before classes open for students, data has not been released on how successful the district summer school program and what were the academic goals of the summer school academy. Plus Detroit Public Schools emergency financial manager Robert Bobb said Monday he hopes the mayor takes control of the struggling district, stripping the elected board of its powers after his one-year appointment ends. "I'm hoping that the mayor takes the helm and takes control over these schools," Bobb said in an interview with The Detroit News. "The governance structure in Detroit is going to have to change one way or another, whether they are under control of the mayor, under control of the state or under control of the courts. The current government structure is not working here."

Bobb is right, the school board hasn’t worked in its current format but putting the schools under the governing body of the mayor will not solve the districts nagging problems. Also mayoral control of schools don’t solve the academic problems plaguing many urban school districts just look at Chicago Public Schools where the charter academies are working but the regular public schools are failing under mayoral control. Now New York Public Schools and D.C. Public Schools are working to some degree but that is because the mayor helped to put academic standards in place that give students the chance to compete globally in the 21st century. Mayoral control of schools is not the answer when the mayor has no idea on how the school district should function or what academic standards they want to achieve. In fact Robert Bobb’s idea of mayoral control is flawed when Bobb has not set out any plan whatsoever to improve the district’s academics.

Thus while Bobb wants to continue to express his dissatisfaction with the board for promoting Teresa Gueyser from acting to general superintendent Aug. 13 without his approval or a national search so he plans to sue them is just ludicrous and crazy. "They violated my order and they've been given an opportunity to cure it, and they chose to thumb their noses at it," Bobb said. Board members balked at Bobb's comments. Marie Thornton said removing the board could "reopen wounds" and reignite fears over the previous state takeover, from 2000-04. She defended Gueyser's promotion and said Bobb's proposed legal action is another example of a "communication breakdown" between the board and Bobb. "As long as both parties don't come to the table, there's a problem," she said. "Some of it needs to be decided in court -- his role, our role. ... But it's supposed to be about the children. With fighting on both sides, the kids are losing."

In a wide-ranging interview with The News, discussing his first six months, Bobb said he will double his efforts in the final six months of his term to transform the district, which is plagued by a $259 million deficit and dwindling enrollment. Key to his vision is achieving radical reforms in the teachers’ union contract that would challenge cherished provisions, such as seniority. "It's the Holy Grail for the union," Bobb said. "For us, it is a monumental problem." Great teachers with less than 10 years of experience are losing their jobs while some longtime, but ineffective, teachers are retained, he said. Principals need to be able to keep the best teachers, he said. Using the teachers' contract in New York City as a model, Bobb wants to create a special "chancellor's district" for the lowest performing schools -- an estimated 50-54 schools out of the district's 172. The schools would operate under new rules: no seniority for teachers, extended school days and prescribed teaching techniques. Performance-based bonuses would be instituted for schools that achieve goals. Everyone, including custodians and cafeteria workers, would be eligible, based on a formula.

Among other provisions Bobb and Chief Academic and Accountability Auditor Barbara Byrd-Bennett are seeking: peer review to weed out underperforming teachers, an extended school year and mandatory professional development. Bobb is seeking $86.8 million in concessions from the district's 10 unions and 16 bargaining units, including $45 million from the Detroit Federation of Teachers. The teachers' contract expired June 30. Both sides agreed last week to a 60-day extension to ensure classes could start on time. Keith Johnson, DFT's president, said he hopes a long-term agreement can be reached without major concessions or additional cuts. He said the $45 million figure could change, depending on changing enrollment figures and state aid. "We're not going to negotiate cost savings (district officials) don't need," he said.

Now all of Bobb’s suggestions are needed and it is clear that both principals and teachers need to take responsibility for the educational process. However at the same time, Bobb needs to take responsibility too and that is the district continues to try to fix the deficit on the backs of unions but the top heavy staff are getting paid for doing what. Everyone including the assistant superintendents needs to take pay cuts. In fact what Bill Cosby doesn’t realize that is the problems facing DPS aren’t the fault of the people of DPS but the state that created this deficit we are in when they took over DPS and apart of the blame is on the current school board as well. Now at the time, what needs to be said that Bobb hasn’t went after all the corruption in the central office of DPS and he hasn’t improved the conditions of academic standards when people like former NBA player Derrick Coleman are employed as an assistant superintendent for the district. Why isn’t this being researched and discussed by Bobb. Nonetheless Bobb is bringing in celebrities to attract more students to the district but that alone won’t solve the academic problems and violence problems in the district when metal detectors in the school are not working.

Now to Bobb’s credit, Byrd and him are working to reduce class sizes in kindergarten through third grade and working out financial details to reduce class sizes for grades 4-8 and high school as soon as this fall. The plan is possible through federal stimulus dollars. In all, the district is going after about $800 million in federal funds. Still what is more troubling is that Bobb wants the voters of Detroit to pass another bond mileage totaling well over a half a billion to improve many buildings in the district but at the same time Bobb has completed all the legal work to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy to alleviate the district's deficit. The district has not yet filed because "we'll have to see how we get through the contract negotiations," Bobb said, adding that he intends to bargain in good faith. "We are working hard to squeeze every nickel and every penny we can." Bobb is continuing to reduce costs with vendors, ranging from lawn service to natural gas. "Many of our creditors are falling in line," he said. The deals so far would allow the district to trim $6 million, Bobb said. In the midst of an enrollment campaign that will bring comedian Bill Cosby to Detroit, Bobb said he realizes he's asking parents to trust that his rapid reforms will make a difference. Mayor Dave Bing, who has supported mayoral control of the schools, was unavailable for comment, said press secretary Edward L. Cardenas. Gov. Jennifer Granholm has said she supports mayoral control and legislation is pending in Lansing that would eliminate the school board by July 1 and give authority to a mayor-appointed chief executive officer. "Give the Detroit school system a chance," Bobb said. "New leadership is coming into these buildings. ... I am not living in Alice in Wonderland. If we don't get a good teacher contract, that's going to have a negative impact on parents."

Still Bobb’s efforts are not flawless because while he is advocating for squeezing every nickel and dime he can to trim the district’s budget, he is giving multi-million dollar contracts to companies like Armark and Compuware who have delivered poor quality of service to the district for several years now. While Bobb says he’s cleaning house, but he’s actually cleaning out the cash drawer, handing out multi-million dollar no-bid contracts to Compuware and to the firm Bobb worked for until riding into Detroit as a privatizing hired gun. It makes it very questionable as to what Bobb is really doing for our struggling district. Bobb’s plan for DPS is very unclear and the fact that all his plans to lower class sizes among a host of other things sounds good in theory, these are not new solutions to any educational system.

In fact no new ideas have emerged as to how to improve attendance in the district to how to improve academics have emerged since Bobb’s tenure and if Detroit youth are to be able to compete nationally, it doesn’t want type of great teachers you bring in the classroom, if they don’t have a template as to what the academic goals of the district is yet alone how long their job will be protected as well as how to deal with disruptive students, DPS will continue to fail. Even with Robert Bobb as EFM, he has done some things that I commend but at the same time, I am not going to applaud all his efforts when he isn’t going far enough to weed out corruption and thief and he isn’t going far enough to improve academic standards in the district. So while I applaud Dr. Bill Cosby, my frat brother for making another stop in Detroit, it will take more than just rhetoric and recruiting students back to the district but it will take real solutions to the ailing problems plaguing our district. It will take a real hands on approach to dealing with what plagues DPS and that will have to be principals as well as teachers investing in the communities they teach and it will take administrators at the central office to stop playing politics or favoritism when it comes to making decisions regarding how to deliver better educational services for our youth to be able compete in the 21st century. Detroit Public Schools has some serious problems and has had it for the last 11 years but they won’t be fixed with rhetoric or celebrities and it definitely won’t be fixed with temporary people like Bobb doing a job than riding off into the sunset without truly caring about the lives it affects and the youth who’s future it impacts. For far too long state officials and others have dismantled DPS and even when we got our right to vote for a school board, many of those who were on the board or are still on the board didn’t improve DPS academic standards or financial problems but many of only cared about their own selfish gains.

This is why it will take more than just a celebrity to change the climate or culture in Detroit Public Schools. A culture of corruption and being apathetic takes a counter culture to change it and that is what is missing right now as a new school year gets set to open.