Detroit to Close Half of its Public Schools, 60 students per classroom now Options

[misspenguin]

^ Synder didn't promised 3000 in college money. That was Mike Cox who was defeated in the primary last year. Even Granholm cut education in her years (there were protests in my home town over teachers contributing more to their retirement plans last year). So its unfair to blame this just on republicans. Still I hope my tuition doesn't go up as the plan calls for a 15% cut to University finding as well. I don't need to be in more debt! sorry for misspellings I'm on my iPod touch.

[D.J.]

They already have the Lions, haven't they suffered enough?

[ColonelKlink]

Cutting teacher pay = cutting quality teachers.

If teacher quality was of paramount importance then teachers wouldn't flock to join unions just like they were factory workers. The news is filled with stories about how impossible it is to fire incompetent teachers.

Secondly, the data I posted earlier shows quite clearly that most teachers are pretty dim bulbs so the aspect of poor quality that arises from low intelligence is already baked into the cake when considering most teachers.

Thirdly, there is a significant body of research which shows that teacher effectiveness isn't strongly correlated with what they learn from 4 years of learning how to teach yet State Teacher Certifying Boards, which have been captured by teachers, strongly favor Education degrees as part of the teacher certification process. The upshot here is that credentialism, not competence, is acting as a gatekeeper to the profession and thus keeping out a lot of competent people who are interested in teaching but don't want to subject themselves to the 4 years of idiocy that Schools of Education are notorious for inflicting on students.

Teachers who deserve to be paid what they are earning will leave the city/state and move elsewhere...

Where do you keep coming up with these economic notions, like "deserve to be paid" and similar notions? You know what? I deserve to be paid $10,000,000 per year but it's unlikely that an employer is going to pay that to me, so should I have a tantrum about it? People are paid what someone thinks they are worth and if people don't like the pay that they get from their employer because they believe that they deserve more pay then they are free to find another employer who thinks that they are worth what the person believes that they are worth. Unions interfere quite significantly with this process by depressing the ability of the truly competent to capitalize on their competence and by protecting the incompetent from actually being paid what they are worth.

[ColonelKlink]

Kids are going to fall through the cracks like crazy? Kids already are falling through the cracks like crazy. Detroit has one of, if not the, worst public school systems in the nation. The system is broken beyond belief. Well, I mean, the city as a whole is pretty broken, but the public schools in the area are not helping.

You're right. What we're seeing are the effects of a positive feedback loop. When the process started the people who found it easiest to leave, left. Their absence made the situation of those who remained that much more difficult thus increasing the incentives to leave for those who did remain. As the best of the remaining population left, they decreased the human capital stock of the existing population thus making the situation even worse, again setting up a new cycle in the positive feedback loop.

This is not just a Detroit issue, however. It's an issue for the entire state of Michigan. Gov. Snyder released his budget proposal just this week, and it includes an unbelievable amount of budget cuts in education. The whole thought process is completely foolish.

Money doesn't grow on trees so a thought process which ignores fiscal reality is a process built on foolishness, not one which tries to deal with fiscal reality. Going back to the positive feedback loop concept, if taxes are raised through the roof in order to try to raise money then those taxes are going to fall on the productive people remaining in Michigan. As we see elsewhere in the country people who have options for better outcomes tend to exercise those options and move from one locale to another. The very last thing that Michigan needs to do is create a new incentive to drive away the productive people still in the state.

The city needs new industry, but the only way that will ever happen is to bring in educated people

You've diagnosed the problem accurately, the city does need to expand its industrial and commercial base but your solution is wrong. Education is not the ONLY way forward here. What needs to happen is for the Detroit area to become attractive for new business ventures. The path that leads to growth is quite clearly laid out and we have ample evidence of its effectiveness all around the world. Countries start with industry which is labor intensive but adds little value thus the wage rates are low. As they master this economic sector they climb higher on the economic ladder and continue to exploit every new step. We saw it happen with Japan, with Taiwan, with Hong Kong, and now with China. The problem is that Detroit is anchored well within the United States and there are all sorts of laws and social programs which interfere with economic reality and prevent a sweatshop industry from establishing in Detroit. This leaves the people of Detroit aspiring for unrealistic goals - they aspire to be a high functioning city in the US but they lack the human capital and the tax base to achieve that goal. Businesses won't relocate or establish in Detroit because they fear that they're going to be taxed out of business in order to provide for the poor in the city. To cut to the chase, the only way to insure that a new economic base develops in Detroit is to make it profitable for new businesses to be created. Promising to tax wealth creators in order to fund social dysfunction is not an attractive calling card.

Right now there are few opportunities for educated people in Detroit, so they leave. That is never going to change if education doesn't become more of a priority. Higher education is necessary for new, viable industries, but the only way to get to higher education is to complete elementary and secondary education. You can't complete those educations in a school system that has no money.

There is some truth to what you say but you seem to take for granted that the money to pay for the school system is easily available. Where do you imagine it comes from?

Also, can we please recognize that placing all the blame on teachers for a failed school system is simply ignorant? Teachers are evaluated based on student performance. When the students, who come from a host of horrible economic and social backgrounds, fail to put any sort of effort into their performance, it reflects poorly on the teacher. Yes, there are some crappy teachers in our schools. Yes, teachers do have a responsibility to effectively educate their students. But to assume that all the problems found in public (or private) schools rests entirely on the teachers is just foolish.

This is true. The student, not the teacher, is the principal factor most responsible for student achievement. Going back to the positive feedback loop I noted earlier, as people with higher levels of human capital leave the city, the levels of human capital in those who remain must fall. There's little that a teacher is going to be able to do to correct for the human capital flight no matter how much they are being paid for they're dealing with a consistently declining caliber of students.

[bumnummies]

I'm from Michigan and I'm guessing that this is reaction to Synder's budget proposal which is cutting well everything. However, having sixty students in a classroom in Detroit is going to be a disaster. Detroit has some of the worse scores in the entire country and this is just going to make things worse.

Pretty much. But hey, I mean... who cares... they're just poor inner city kids who have no chance anyways, right?

[ColonelKlink]

Pretty much. But hey, I mean... who cares... they're just poor inner city kids who have no chance anyways, right?

Liberals certainly don't care because they seem intent on keeping in country and importing even more poorly educated immigrants in order to compete with these kids, thus making their plight even worse.

[TotalTayFan]

^ Synder didn't promised 3000 in college money. That was Mike Cox who was defeated in the primary last year. Even Granholm cut education in her years (there were protests in my home town over teachers contributing more to their retirement plans last year). So its unfair to blame this just on republicans. Still I hope my tuition doesn't go up as the plan calls for a 15% cut to University finding as well. I don't need to be in more debt! sorry for misspellings I'm on my iPod touch.

I know Snyder didn't do that, and I don't blame him for it at all. I do, however, blame the Republicans that were in the House and Senate at the time, as that vote was completely down party lines. The Democrats wanted us to keep our money. Heck, Granholm sent out a letter to every single Promise student (maybe even all the college students for all I know) telling us to fight to keep it. The Republicans, who had control of the legislature, voted against it.

[ColonelKlink]

I know Snyder didn't do that, and I don't blame him for it at all. I do, however, blame the Republicans that were in the House and Senate at the time, as that vote was completely down party lines. The Democrats wanted us to keep our money. Heck, Granholm sent out a letter to every single Promise student (maybe even all the college students for all I know) telling us to fight to keep it. The Republicans, who had control of the legislature, voted against it.

Where was the money supposed to come from? Should prenatal care be defunded? Should snow removal and street clearing services be stopped? Should prisons be defunded? Should emergency rooms be closed?

You really shouldn't blame Republicans for being the responsible adult party while praising the Democrats for being the reckless spendaholics who try to bribe people in order to win their support.

[misspenguin]

I know Snyder didn't do that, and I don't blame him for it at all. I do, however, blame the Republicans that were in the House and Senate at the time, as that vote was completely down party lines. The Democrats wanted us to keep our money. Heck, Granholm sent out a letter to every single Promise student (maybe even all the college students for all I know) telling us to fight to keep it. The Republicans, who had control of the legislature, voted against it.

Sorry I got confused. I didn't realize you were talking about the promise (I only lost 2000). And yes I did get that letter but decided not to protest.My bad. Cox was going to give college kids more breaks so I thought you were confusing that with synders plan. And @ CK Michigan Promise was a scholarship given to students with high scores on the MME which includes the ACT. It was discontinued last year without even awarding the full Amt to students. Obviously it didn't go well with student who lost money that they were awarded.

This post has been edited by misspenguin: Feb 23rd 2011, 10:11 PM

[ColonelKlink]

Sorry I got confused. I didn't realize you were talking about the promise (I only lost 2000). And yes I did get that letter but decided not to protest.My bad. Cox was going to give college kids more breaks so I thought you were confusing that with synders plan. And @ CK Michigan Promise was a scholarship given to students with high scores on the MME which includes the ACT. It was discontinued last year without even awarding the full Amt to students. Obviously it didn't go well with student who lost money that they were awarded.

I understand that no one who gets "free money" is happy when the gift is taken away. The same aim though, that of lowering the financial burden on students, can be achieved in one of two ways - give them free money so that they can pay the high tuition bill or lower the cost of tuition. Universities have little incentive to control costs because governments are always filling up the pot of money that they draw their revenues from, hence the consistent, year after year, higher than inflation rise in tuition costs. Your Governor should take a meat axe to the dead wood, hangers on, and the people filling make-work jobs in the universities in order to lower the cost structure and then pass the savings onto students.

[kamil24]

Wow, 60 people in 1 class? And here we complained about 25 being too much.

[ColonelKlink]

Wow, 60 people in 1 class? And here we complained about 25 being too much.

How much do you think you can charge in property tax for a house that sells for $100? Detroit has a minuscule tax base:

Some might say Jon Brumit overpaid when he stumped up $100 (£65) for a whole house. Drive through Detroit neighbourhoods once clogged with the cars that made the city the envy of America and there are homes to be had for a single dollar.

You find these houses among boarded-up, burnt-out and rotting buildings lining deserted streets, places where the population is shrinking so fast entire blocks are being demolished to make way for urban farms.

"I was living in Chicago and a friend told me that houses in Detroit could be had for $500," said Brumit, a financially strapped artist who thought he had little prospect of owning his own property. "I said if you hear of anything just a little cheaper let me know. Within a week he emails me a photo of a house for $100. I thought that's just crazy. Why not? It's a way to cut our expenses way down and kind of open up a lot of time for creative projects because we're not working to pay the rent."

Houses on sale for a few dollars are something of an urban legend in the US on the back of the mortgage crisis that drove millions of people from their homes. But in Detroit it is no myth.

One in five houses now stand empty in the city that launched the automobile age, forged America's middle-class and blessed the world with Motown.

Detroit has been in decline for decades; its falling population is now well below a million – half of its 1950 peak. But the recent mortgage crisis and the fall of the big car makers into bankruptcy has pushed the town into a realm unique among big cities in America.

A third of the population are unemployed. Property prices have fallen 80% or more in large parts of Detroit over the last three years. The average price of a home sold in the city last year has been put at $7,500 (£4,900). . . .

[Famousgrl]

Nice:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/21/c...u_n_906129.html

[*Christy*]

That's pretty outrageous.

Why do politicians always seem to cut education before anything else? Don't they care about the future?

[*Christy*]

Nice:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/21/c...u_n_906129.html

Yeah, my first high school was air conditioned in the administration office only. The rest of the building, in September and in May & June was unbearable. (And during the cold months the heating didn't work properly, except in the office) I don't understand why students and teachers should have to put up with it.

[ionlywantu2stay]

This is really sad. It seems like nobody seems to value education anymore, even when these kids are our FUTURE.

[bumnummies]

Pfft, nevermind just the students, if I were a teacher I'd refuse to teach under those conditions.

[Famousgrl]

That's pretty outrageous.

Why do politicians always seem to cut education before anything else? Don't they care about the future?

Sadly, most politicians have their kids either in private school, or in great public schools (because they live in great neighborhoods). They have no real concept, and also, they don't really care. Which is sad because the cycle of poverty directly relates to education.

[*Christy*]

Sadly, most politicians have their kids either in private school, or in great public schools (because they live in great neighborhoods). They have no real concept, and also, they don't really care. Which is sad because the cycle of poverty directly relates to education.

Another reason why I'll be homeschooling when I have kids.

[bumnummies]

Another reason why I'll be homeschooling when I have kids.

Canadian public schools are significantly different than those in the US I found my public elementary school to pretty good. I went to a Catholic high school though, which was excellent. There ARE public schools that do suffer, but you can always choose your neighbourhood based on what schools you like too.

I just think going to school - whether it's private, public or Catholic - is so valuable. I've seen what homeschooling has done to my cousins kids.... they're immature for their age. And not in the sense that they shouldn't still be children at age 10 (and under), but her son is a clingy whiner who follows her around going "mommy" all the time... they've never been well socialized with other kids. And her and her husband are highly religious also, for the record.

Plus I don't think it prepares kids for college if you home school them through high school, and even if you put them into a public high school then they're still not typically well socialized for even that experience.