Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
The GELT-ART of the LINCHPIN!
Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.
LINCHPIN by Seth Godin
A linchpin, as Seth describes it, is somebody in an organization who is indispensable, who cannot be replaced—her role is just far too unique and valuable. And then he goes on to say, well, seriously folks, you need to be one of these people, you really do. To not be one is economic and career suicide.
No surprises there—that’s exactly what one would expect Seth to say. But here’s where it gets interesting.
In his best-known book, Purple Cow, Seth’s message was, “Everyone’s a marketer now.” In All Marketers Are Liars, his message was, “Everyone’s a storyteller now.” InTribes, his message was, “Everyone’s a leader now.”
And from Linchpin?
"Everyone’s an artist now."
By Seth’s definition, an artist is not just some person who messes around with paint and brushes, an artist is somebody who does (and I LOVE this term) “emotional work.”
Work that you put your heart and soul into. Work that matters. Work that you gladly sacrifice all other alternatives for. As a working artist and cartoonist myself, I know exactly what he means. It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it.
The only people who have a hope of becoming linchpins in any organization, who have any hope of changing anything for the better in real terms, are those who have the capacity to do “emotional work” at a high level—to be true artists at whatever they set their minds on doing. The guys who just plod around the office corridors, just turning up for their paycheck.... Well, those guys don’t have a prayer, poor things. The world is just too interesting and competitive now.
And Seth then challenges us, the readers, to become linchpins ourselves. To make the leap. To become artists. To do emotional work, whatever the sacrifice may be. It’s our choice, and it’s our burden. Seth won’t be there to catch us if we fall, but to become the people we need to be eventually, well, we probably wouldn’t want him to, anyway.
Congratulations, Seth. You have penned a real gem of a book here. Rock on.
--Hugh MacLeod
Thursday, June 23, 2011
WISDOM Underlined!
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.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
DPS EAS (Burp!)
EMU staff: We won’t work in Detroit
Union leaders wary of plan for new district
As Eastern Michigan University’s Board of Regents voted Tuesday to take part in a new school district to reform Michigan’s worst performing schools, faculty leaders promised not to do any work in Detroit that might help bust union contracts.
Detroit Public Schools emergency manager Roy Roberts would lead the new district , called the Education Achievement System, or EAS. And he has the power to nullify or change union contracts — a sore point. EMU President Susan Martin said no faculty would be assigned to any work in a school in Detroit. But union leaders were skeptical, saying Monday’s announcements appeared to pledge faculty involvement to help turn around Michigan’s failing schools, starting with 34 DPS schools. The new district idea resembles others created to deal with failing or troubled school districts. One of its key tenets is to increase money spent on classroom instruction from 55% to 95% of a school’s budget. It’s unlikely the EAS will be able to reach that goal, predicted Mike Griffith, a senior analyst at the Education Commission of the States. He said the national average is 65%. “There are things you need in a school — administrators, lunchroom staff, secretaries. … Those come to more than 5%.”
EMU faculty to respect union deals
Promise comes as board OKs DPS plan
Eastern Michigan University faculty members are promising not to do any work that might help bust existing public school teacher contracts, possibly crimping plans to use the faculty in a new statewide school district run by the university and the Detroit Public Schools. “We won’t have our membership involved in breaking union contracts,” said Howard Bunsis, the treasurer of the EMU faculty union. Gov. Rick Snyder announced a plan to create an Educational Achievement System, which would take in Michigan’s failing public schools, possibly starting with 34 DPS schools in about a year. At issue is the power of DPS emergency manager Roy Roberts, who would also be chairman of the new district’s governing authority. As a governor-appointed emergency manager, Roberts has the legal power to end or modify DPS union contracts and to negotiate contracts for the new district. A key ingredient of Snyder’s plan would be EMU’s willingness to move faculty from its college of education into struggling public schools to help train teachers and to work in other ways. Roberts said he was particularly interested in using faculty and their expertise to help students with special needs. EMU’s union leadership balked at the Board of Regents meeting Tuesday. Despite the protests, the regents approved the agreement to take part in the new district. The role of outside union members in a district run by a leader with legal powers to cancel contracts is but one gray detail that needs to be worked out. Some parts of the plan might need legislative approval and others are still in the planning phase. Louisiana’s example The Michigan district would be a new animal but based on an existing structure in Louisiana, which took in New Orleans Public Schools following Hurricane Katrina. A major difference between Michigan’s EAS and Louisiana’s Recovery School District is that the RSD transformed most of its New Orleans schools into independently-run charter schools. Chartering would be a possible course for Michigan’s future EAS schools. A school that shows adequate progress in five years may seek approval to become a charter school, return to its original school district or remain under the jurisdiction of the EAS. Some performance indicators are positive for New Orleans . The Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University studied 44 New Orleans charter schools’ test scores from 2005-06 to 2009-10. It concluded that the RSD charter schools were making gains in reading and math at a faster pace than others. Sen. Phil Pavlov, a Republican from St. Clair, said he’s working on draft legislation to help solidify the EAS. “I’m working on legislation to require the highest level of accountability and transparency,” Pavlov said. He predicted that the earliest the legislation would be introduced is late July. Communication worries EMU faculty members didn’t learn about the EAS until Monday morning from a news release, union President Susan Moeller said at the Tuesday meeting. “I am not here to debate whether the EAS is a good idea or not for Detroit. What I want to bring to your attention is that, again, President (Susan) Martin has ignored the faculty and violated the contract. … “Faculty need to be involved in the development and discussion of what is going to happen with this plan. They are the experts, and it cannot succeed without them. “There still has been no communication from President Martin or the dean of the (college of education) to the (college of education) faculty regarding what this agreement is all about.” The EMU faculty union wasn’t the only one to complain about lack of information before Snyder announced the plan on Monday. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, sent out a critical news release. “We are troubled at the lack of teacher and school employee voice in the current plan, especially in light of the hard work Detroit’s education unions and school district have already done in collaborating to develop and implement workable solutions for the city’s schools.” EMU President Martin said no faculty would be assigned to any work in a school in Detroit. “This is an opportunity. We certainly hope that faculty would be willing to work in some of these struggling schools,” she told the Free Press. Martin also said there was no intent to bust the teachers union or to exclude the faculty union from the process. “This came together very quickly. We certainly want to work with the faculty union going forward on how we can take advantage of this opportunity.”
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
A NEW DPS Conversation (Begins)
NEW START FOR WORST SCHOOLS
STATEWIDE DISTRICT 34 low-performing Detroit schools would be first inSCHOLARSHIP PROMISE Plan calls for DPSgraduates to get free college tuition NOT JUST DETROIT Snyder plan eventually would cover 200 Michigan schools
A plan announced Monday to remake the Detroit Public Schools by transferring the district’s worst-performing schools to a new authority is a model unique to the nation.
It builds on a trend toward independent schools with more control at the individual school level. A new statewide district would be created, similar to the Recovery School District that took over most New Orleans’ public schools after Hurricane Katrina.
The DPS plan, unveiled by Gov. Rick Snyder, includes provisions for fund-raising to provide college scholarships for DPS graduates.
The plan is not a done deal. Some of it might need legislative approval, and details must be worked out, such as how to eliminate DPS’s $327-million debt.
The new district, called the Education Achievement System, would start with DPS schools and then absorb the worst-performing 5% of state public and charter schools, numbering about 200.
The plan would go into effect in 2012-13. Once transferred, schools would operate longer school days. And principals would have wider authority over budgets and hiring.
DPS emergency manager Roy Roberts will continue to run DPS and also be chairman of the new authority. The plan comes amid growing support to recast DPS into a system of independent schools.
“I’m telling you, the bullshit’s going away!” Roberts said.
Editorial
Stronger medicine for sick schools
Detroiters inevitably experience a sense of déjà vu whenever elected officials, business leaders, philanthropists and clergymen unveil yet another initiative to save the state’s largest school district — a sense, as state Schools Superintendant Mike Flanagan, a principal in the latest such initiative, acknowledged Monday, that “we have seen this movie before.”So what is different this time? More specifically, what do the plans Gov. Rick Snyder and DPS Emergency Manager Roy Roberts outlined Monday offer to the families that have been leaving DPS like beach dwellers fleeing an approaching tsunami?
In December 2009, long before Snyder won election as governor, the Legislature authorized his office to create a new, statewide school district to which the state’s 200 or so lowest-performing schools could be dispatched, like trauma patients facing imminent death, for intensive care.
Although fewer than a quarter of those failing schools are DPS buildings, Snyder’s decision to make those 39 schools the nucleus of Michigan’s new Educational Achievement System (and his decision to make Roberts its acting CEO) recognizes that DPS is the epicenter of educational failure, not just in Michigan, but nationwide.
Or, as Arne Duncan, President Barack Obama’s secretary of education put it bluntly in a live TV message to those gathered for Snyder’s press conference Monday: “Detroit is, frankly, the bottom of the barrel.”
Snyder and Roberts propose to quarantine Detroit’s sickest schools from the financial and administrative dysfunction that plagues the entire DPS system and exploit Roberts’ powers under Michigan’s supercharged emergency manager statute to impose dramatic change — longer school days and school years, more autonomy for building principals, and the suspension or abolition of any union work rules that Roberts regards as obstacles to his turnaround prescription.
Schools assigned to the failing schools district would remain under Roberts’ or his successor’s supervision (and, ultimately, the state’s) for at least five years, at the end of which time those schools demonstrating improved student performance would be allowed to rejoin DPS, remain in the statewide system, or reorganize as independent charter schools. Roberts proposes to support the 80 or so schools that would remain in DPS by giving principals and teachers in those buildings greater autonomy and underwriting a sort of Kalamazoo Promise Light — covering two years of community college or technical training — for students who graduate from any Detroit-based school. Snyder and Roberts say the philanthropic support for the so-called Detroit Promise is already in place, and that they look forward to expanding it to the sort of four-year tuition guarantee high school graduates in Kalamazoo enjoy. Snyder and Roberts say they’ve given themselves until the beginning of the 2012-13 school year to address such fundamental questions as which Detroit schools will be part of the new state system, what curricular guidelines and work rules will prevail there, and how the interests of Detroit taxpayers who’ve authorized bonding for new construction and improvements in the DPS plant will be protected when failing DPS schools join the new state system. Failure to overcome any one of these challenges could, of course, doom the new district and its mission aborning. But DPS has hardly been able to check its disintegration, much less reverse it, using milder medicine. “This is the same thing that General Motors and Chrysler went though,” Roberts told a group of Free Press reporters and editors Monday afternoon. “Fifty years of crap — that’s what we’re fighting.” What Roberts and Snyder are fighting for, both men insist, is not the solvency of a school district but the survival of a city and its young. Whatever legitimate questions Detroiters may have about their strategy and tactics, no one can dispute that that is the right objective.
Roy Roberts, emergency manager for Detroit Public Schools, makes a point about proposed reforms for failing city schools to members of the Detroit Free Press editorial board, education writers and editors Monday.
Statewide district will give more control to each school
TEACHERS, SCHOOL BOARD WAITING TO SEE HOW SNYDER PLAN PLAYS OUT
The new education reforms that officials announced Monday would place more authority with individual schools rather than central-office bureaucrats and create a two-tiered public school system for the city of Detroit— one district operated by the state and Eastern Michigan University, existing alongside a leaner Detroit Public Schools district.
Gov. Rick Snyder, who announced the reforms in a news conference Monday with an assist from the U.S. secretary of education, said officials studied what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, where schools were placed into a special district.
Under Snyder’s plan, a new statewide district called the Education Achievement System will be formed to take control of the worst-performing 5% of Michigan schools, or about 200 schools.
The 2011-12 school year will be a planning year, and the new district would start in 2012-13 by taking over the worst-performing DPS schools first. As of Monday, 34 DPS schools — 14 of them high schools — were eligible to be placed under the control of the statewide EAS. The principals at the remaining 80 or so DPS buildings also will be given more control over their budgets and hiring through what is commonly known as site-based management. Roy Roberts, the DPS emergency manager, will continue to run DPS and will be chairman of the EAS, Snyder said. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan joined Snyder, state Superintendent Michael Flanagan and Roberts in a news conference via an Internet teleconference at Renaissance High on Monday. Duncan, who has called DPS arguably the worst urban district in the nation, called the plan courageous. “We’re fighting to save the city of Detroit,” Duncan said. “By virtually every measure, Detroit is at the bottom of the barrel. … Five years from now, there’s no reason Detroit shouldn’t be leading the country.” The federal government is asking districts across the nation to focus on the bottom 5% of schools, he said. All facilities — including any new construction — that are placed under the control of the EAS will remain property of DPS, Roberts said. The DPS teachers’ contract will remain intact, and teachers should be recalled before July 29, said Keith Johnson, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers. (All DPS employees were laid off as of July 29.) The teachers’ contract expires in June 2012. Roberts, by law, could cancel or modify union contracts, but so far has said he has no plans to do so. The 11-member DPS school board will continue to exist, but it has no authority under the emergency manager law that the state Legislature passed this year. Seven board members are up for re-election this year, but a majority have not filed to run again. How it will work The EAS will be governed by an Educational Achievement Authority that will be established through an agreement between Eastern Michigan and DPS, according to a statement released by Snyder’s office. The authority will be an independent, free-standing entity. The EAS schools will offer a longer school day, as well as access to the arts, music and physical education, according to a statement released by Snyder’s office. Businesses and nonprofit organizations, including the California-based Broad Foundation, which has $2 billion in assets and paid a portion of the former DPS emergency financial manager’s living expenses, have said they are interested in providing support for the reform effort. DPS, EMU and the governor will appoint 11 board members to oversee the EAS as well as an executive committee that will select a chancellor to run the system. A parent advisory council will be formed at each school. After five years, if a school has made adequate progress, it can return to DPS — or its original district; remain within the EAS, or become a charter school. Labor contracts for employees under the EAS will be negotiated by the chairperson, who initially will be Roberts. The new district will have more money for classroom instruction because it will not be saddled with any of the DPS deficit. Also, DPS currently spends about 55% of its funds in the classroom, with the rest going to administration and debt repayment. The EAS would seek to spend 95% of all funds on classroom instruction. The plan is not a done deal and many details are yet to be hammered out, officials said. In 2009, the state Legislature passed an education reform law that would allow for the formation of an office that would oversee the worst-performing schools. However, Snyder’s office is working with legislators, especially state Sen. Phil Pavlov, a Republican from St. Clair, to create legislation that would make the EAS and the partnership between DPS and EMU legally binding, according to Snyder’s office. The plan is separate from other action plans under way to restructure education in the city. Excellent Schools Detroit could be tapped to coordinate fund-raising for the EAS, according to the details released Monday. Excellent Schools Detroit is a coalition of local leaders that plans to raise $200 million to open 70 high-performing schools for Detroit students by 2020. Carol Goss, a leader of Excellent Schools Detroit, said at some point its leaders and state officials will have to meet to determine the best way to move forward without replicating services. Also, the DPS Renaissance 2012 plan and deficit-elimination plan that call for closing or chartering up to half of the district’s 141 schools by 2012 will continue, depending on the financial outlook. The DPS budget is due June 30. A public meeting on the budget will be postponed from Thursday to Monday. As part of the plan, the $327-million DPS deficit would be eradicated by refinancing much of that debt and paying it off in five years, Roberts said. He did not say that any entity planned on writing a check to help pay off the debt, but added, “If they do, I’ll take it.” A fund-raising effort will focus on finding enough money to ensure that all DPS graduates would have a scholarship to cover costs at two-year colleges or for two years of post-secondary training. The ultimate goal is to provide four-year scholarships similar to those offered by the Kalamazoo Promise, which has provided more than $17 million in scholarships to students in that city. School board reacts Six DPS board members met with Roberts in two separate meetings early Monday morning to hear about the reform plan. Board member LaMar Lemmons III, the board’s finance committee chairman, said Roberts lost his cool and let go a few expletives during the first meeting. Roberts told board members that $200 million of the district’s deficit would go away and the books will be balanced in five years under the plan. Board President Anthony Adams said the board favored some of the ideas that Roberts told them about, such as plans to rebid some DPS contracts and the plan to give students scholarships. But board members would not go so far as to say they support the new reforms. “We don’t have a lot of information,” Adams said. Monday’s announcement at Renaissance High was invitation-only. Several teachers were not allowed to enter and at least two people were escorted from the building by police. “This system is broken, and I can’t fix it, and you can’t fix it,” Roberts told dozens of stakeholders allowed to attend Monday’s announcement. The announcement comes after two years of wrangling and proposals over how to restructure DPS to eliminate the deficit and improve the 62% graduation rate and national test scores that rank at the bottom compared with those of students in17 other cities. DPS has been under two forms of state takeover in recent years — one from 1999 to 2006 and another from 2009 to present. Sharlonda Buckman, executive director for the Detroit Parent Network, said she was pleased that the EAS plan is a statewide proposal. “It’s not just about Detroit.” • CONTACT CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY: 313-223-4537 OR CPRATT@FREEPRESS.COM
Roy Roberts, Detroit Public Schools emergency manager, explains some of the details of a dramatic educational restructuring proposal during a news conference held Monday morning at Renaissance High School in Detroit.
Behind the scenes
How Snyder’s spark of an idea grew into this plan
The proposition made over steaks during a dinner was simple, yet complex.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder wanted to make bold changes in Detroit Public Schools, but needed help. Would Eastern Michigan University be interested? That May 16 dinner at the Chop House in Ann Arbor marked the explosion of activity leading to Monday’s announcement of the establishment of a new statewide authority to run Michigan’s failing schools, likely starting with 34 Detroit public schools. Snyder chose EMU based on its history of teacher education efforts, personal relationships with Snyder and DPS, and Lansing connections, people involved in or familiar with the discussions said. There are still details to be worked out, and some of Snyder’s sweeping plan might need legislative approval. In order to form the new authority, Snyder needs to use the Urban Cooperation Act of 1967, which requires that another governmental agency be involved in the plan. In stepped EMU, which has one of the oldest teacher education schools in the country and has trained a significant number of Michigan’s public school teachers. Snyder’s proposed authority — called the Education Achievement Agency — would be a joint effort between DPS and EMU but be its own free-standing public policy entity. EMU’s Board of Regents will be asked today to approve the 27-page agreement. The first spark for the idea goes back to when Snyder was running for governor. During his discussions with various education leaders, the concept of creating a new system of schools to try to reform the worst performers was discussed and then more fully developed once he took office. About the time Roy Roberts was named emergency manager on May 4, Snyder asked whether Roberts wanted to go down this road. Roberts agreed to it. And that fast-tracked the work. At the May 16 meeting, representatives from EMU met with state Superintendent Mike Flanagan and representatives from Snyder’s office and the Broad Foundation, which is run by philanthropist Eli Broad and focuses on education reform. Broad had been meeting with Snyder about education issues. In the days following that May dinner, EMU regents who were involved in the meeting — Jim Stapleton, Roy Wilbanks and Mike Hawks — got President Susan Martin involved, along with attorneys. There were meetings with Roberts and his attorneys. “It’s an aggressive plan, and it needs to be,” said EMU Regent Jim Stapleton, the chair of the university’s finance committee. “From our perspective, given our long-standing reputation as a teachers college, we were the perfect partner. “And it’s not lost on us the benefit of having a presence in high schools across the state can have on our enrollment goals.” Stapleton knows Roberts, and Hawks is a prominent Lansing lobbyist. “We like EMU,” Roberts said. “We signed up to (get) this done together.” Throughout June, meetings were held, hammering out the details of the agreement. On each side, there were questions about money, legal protection, length of the contract and a million other details. The resulting agreement is a contract between DPS and EMU for 15 years. It spells out who will be on the authority — two people from EMU, two from DPS and seven appointed by the governor. It spells out the members of an executive committee to be led by Roberts. It makes the authority subject to Freedom of Information Act and Open Meetings Act laws. It mandates that no member of the authority committee or executive committee be paid for his or her work. On Friday, attorneys spent the day in Lansing hammering out the final details. On Sunday, Roberts briefed teachers union officials. Then, on Monday morning, he briefed Detroit school board officials, and shortly thereafter, stood in front of the news media and invited guests to spell out the plan. “Today, we change the game,” he said. • CONTACT DAVID JESSE: 313-222-8851 OR DJESSE@FREEPRESS.COM
Detroit Public Schools emergency manager Roy Roberts talks about restructuring the district. His receptiveness to the concept of creating a new system of schools to try to help the ones struggling most helped fast-track the plan. There are still details to be worked out, and some of Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposal might need approval from lawmakers.
What they said
Here’s what decision-makers and stakeholders had to say about a plan announced Monday to create a special authority that could control 34 of the lowest-performing Detroit public schools and raise money to provide college scholarships for DPS graduates.“We’re not fighting just to save children or to save the public school system, we’re fighting to save the city of Detroit. … Everybody has to own this process.” U.S. Education Secretary ARNE DUNCAN “The time is now to establish a permanent solution and to provide teachers in our most challenged schools and students of all backgrounds with the tools, resources and safe learning environments they need to flourish.” Gov. RICK SNYDER “As state superintendent, it’s one thing to say take over those 200 schools. The question in my mind for the last year has been, ‘And then what?’ This is the what. ... This time we have to get it right.” MICHAEL FLANAGAN, state superintendent “The devil’s in the details. … Our contract will remain intact, but it expires in June 2012.” KEITH JOHNSON, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers “Eastern Michigan University is ready to roll up its sleeves and commit to this initiative and deliver its expertise in support of improved learning environments and student achievement for all students, including those who are educationally disadvantaged students. Our kids and our state will be better off because of it.” ROY WILBANKS, chairman of the EMU Board of Regents “More questions than answers remain at this point, not the least of which include … what will happen to the collective bargaining rights of employees. … We are ready to roll up our sleeves and work with Detroit Public Schools emergency manager Roy Roberts and community groups. … We are not prepared to be treated as bystanders.” Joint statement from KEITH JOHNSON, president, Detroit Federation of Teachers; RUBY NEWBOLD, president, Detroit Association of Educational Office Employees, and DONNA JACKSON, president, Detroit Federation of Paraprofessionals
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