So the year's off to a bad start. Standard and Poors lowered the city's credit rating to junk bond status, requiring the city to pay its creditors $400 million dollars to prove the city's solvency. Bear in mind the city was already projecting a $300 million budget shortfall. This year's budget cuts will be brutal.
Over at the Metrotimes, Jack Lessenberry has a devastating column on Detroit Public Schools. "Detroit's only hope lies in fixing the schools," he writes. "It's as simple -- and as maddeningly difficult -- as that." Mass transit, urban gardens, downtown lofts -- those are all great developments, but without functioning public schools, the city is doomed. DPS is not functional.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Never get too optimistic
Posted by
Cooper
at
1:53 AM
Labels: City politics, Education
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2 comments:
He's right. I know lots of people with kids the age of mine (4 and almost one) who would have bought homes in the city but just couldn't swing private school tuition. We bllithely bought here anyway, and now we can't sell the house for what we owe on it, and DPS is even worse, if that's possible, than when we bought our house six years ago. And in this economy coughing up $8,500 a year for Friends or Waldorf isn't such a great option.
We have friend who are leaving, and schools are why.
I think the whole district should be disbanded --just tear it down and start over. It's that dysfunctional, with layers of bureaucrats sucking resources out of the classroom, a culture of baseless pride without achievement, and too many teachers who should not be teaching at all. I have friends who are DPS teachers and they are awesome, but they are just struggling upstream. And let's not even discuss the school board--all I have to say is: Marie Thornton. PLEASE.
Meanwhile generations of bright kids who deserve so much better languish, their promise unrealized. It's an enormous injustice and these kids deserve better.
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