Moving Target?

Class sizes unlikely to hit 60

Bobb: DPS can cut costs by sharing services

By CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER

   Robert Bobb, emergency financial manager for the Detroit Public Schools, attempted Thursday to quell some of the fear resulting from a deficit-elimination plan that calls for placing as many as 62 students in a class by 2014.

   In response to a Free Press inquiry, Bobb said that class sizes will not balloon to 60 or more children. He did not say how large they might become, however.

   Bobb said the budget cuts were approved in August, when the district needed a state-approved deficit-elimination plan so it could borrow money to shore up cash flow.

   The state superintendent this month gave Bobb deadlines for implementing the plan to erase the $327-million deficit by 2014.

   However, Bobb said he is working on a new budget, due to the state by May 31, in which he expects to get savings from sharing some services with the city and the Wayne County Regional Educational Service Agency.

   Such savings — an undetermined amount because talks are ongoing — would make it unnecessary to increase class sizes so drastically, Bobb said. “At the end of the day, that will not be the case. We know academically, educationally, it’s not good for children.”

   Parents should expect school closures to continue — as many as 70 of the district’s 142 buildings — but the last budget item cut will be classroom teachers, he said.

   “We will do everything financially and humanly possible not to have 60 children in a classroom,” he said.

   The current plan calls for placing 60 students in a high school class in 2012-13, and up to 62 in 2013-14. It would increase class sizes in grades K-3 from 25 students to 31, grades 4-5 from 30 to 39 and grades 6-8 from 35 to 47.

   Juana Torres, an administrative assistant at Southeastern High whose son is a senior there, said she was outraged when she heard the plan.

   She said she doubts classrooms can physically accommodate 62 kids, and test scores are bound to go down if class sizes swell that high.

   “If they can’t control and educate 35 students in a classroom now, it would be totally out of control. I just think that thought should never have been entertained,” she said.

   Keith Johnson, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, said the plan to put 60 students in a classroom may have helped balance the budget on paper, but “will never see the light of day.”

   “I believe Robert Bobb is trying to attain leverage in order to get the state to assume a good part of the debt or figure out an alternative plan that will allow the district to eliminate its deficit,” Johnson said.

   Johnson called the deficit-elimination plan a “moving target” subject to change, and said the teachers union has been working with the school board president to propose budget cuts that could avoid huge class sizes.

   School districts with deficits typically are expected to balance budgets within five years, according to the Michigan Department of Education.

Robert Bobb, DPS emergency financial manager, says the number of classroom teachers will be the last thing cut.