ROY ROBERTS ON DPS FUTURE
Every job, contract on line
He’s ready to trim — starting at the top
It had only seven jobs, down from the current 30. But we ain’t seen nothing yet. Roberts, the former General Motors executive who has been with DPS for only five weeks, said he expects to make massive employee cuts. He also plans to cancel and rebid every major contract in an effort to eliminate a $227-million deficit and run the city schools like a business — a business that will pay dividends to the community by successfully educating its children. Roberts, who said his prime mission is to fully educate children, said the district will keep only the number of employees it can afford, including all 4,400 teaching positions. “We’re the biggest employer in town. We need to figure out an organization structure,” he said in an exclusive interview. “We’re going to go through and say what’s needed in every functional area and every job under that functional area. And we’re going to put a name on every job. And when we run out of jobs, those left over are excess people.” Regarding contracts with DPS, he said, “a lot of people had set up a little industry inside of this company. We’re going to stop it. We’re going to take every contract, every major contract that is in here, and we’re going to cancel it and ask people to keep working with us for 60 days. And we’re going to bid it. That’s the only way we’ll get the best price.” New statewide district The revelations came two days after Roberts joined Gov. Rick Snyder in announcing that some of Detroit’s worst-performing schools would be assigned to a special statewide district to help them improve. Roberts praised Snyder for understanding that Detroit is the state’s largest city and for helping people understand that Michigan cannot succeed without Detroit succeeding. “I was a county commissioner, city commissioner and I’ve been a Democrat all my life,” Roberts said, “and a Republican called me and said, ‘Michigan runs through Detroit, and if I don’t help get Detroit on the right track, then I can’t reinvent Michigan. And the biggest single problem I have in Detroit is the Detroit public school system.’ … Every time we talked, it was about educating the kids first.” Snyder also announced that Eastern Michigan University had signed on as a partner in the agreement to create the Education Achievement System because the agreement needed two government entities to create a statewide one. Responding to immediate pronouncements from some EMU faculty that they would not teach in city schools as a show of support for DPS unions, Roberts said no one has asked them to. “Eastern was selected because of its long history of being a great teaching school,” Roberts said. “I haven’t heard one person, including the governor or anyone else, suggest that Eastern Michigan would have people in Detroit. There was no expectation for them to do that. But we would welcome their help.” Unlike former emergency financial manager Robert Bobb, who spent a great deal of time rooting out corruption as he fought to change academics, Roberts said he would not be looking for criminals with DPS. He said his staff would certainly pursue prosecution of anything that comes up, but the primary focus will be on creating an accountable system that educates children, pays its bills and supports teachers, whom he said had been “castigated” in recent years. ‘You still need the teachers’ Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson said Roberts broke the news over dinner Sunday night that he didn’t plan to lay off any teachers. “He said he didn’t see the need to alter our collective bargaining contract because he recognizes that’s not the problem,” Johnson said. “You still need the teachers because he’s budgeting for 68,000 students.” Johnson said that the decision now means class sizes would be about 17-25 in kindergarten through third grade, 30 students in fourth and fifth grade and 35 students in sixth through 12th grade. He said that projections of 60 students per class, which made national news, “were never going to happen.” Roberts said the Legislature has given him more tools than Bobb had. He can cancel union contracts and doesn’t have to work with the school board, “not because they’re bad people but because it’s a bad process.” And he said he’s operating on a stopwatch, not a calendar . “I know how to do this. I have people who know how to do this. None of us woke up this morning and said, ‘I think I’ll change today.’ People change because there are external stimuli. I’m going to provide the stimuli. This is not rocket science, and I’m not a rocket scientist. This is having a reasonable degree of intellect and the guts to get it done. You’ve got to call it.” A personal matter Roberts said his decisions, whether about personnel or finances, are all to make academics easier. For him, he said, it’s personal. “I was one of those kids once,” he said. “My wife was one of those kids. I was raised in public schools in Muskegon. My father had a third-grade education. We were on welfare from time to time. We didn’t have books in our home because we couldn’t afford it. … And somewhere along the way, I got the bug for education. Education is what turns dreams into reality and if I can help a youngster get that same bug, then I’ll get my reward in heaven.” • CONTACT ROCHELLE RILEY: RRILEY99 @FREEPRESS.COM
Detroit Public Schools emergency manager Roy Roberts said the primary focus will be on education, rather than corruption.
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