Detroit’s Emergency Manager Roy Roberts announced he was stepping down. But then he said something utterly astonishing. He said that when he took the job, his instructions were to “blow up” the district.
He didn’t say who told him to destroy the district.
Interesting that all of the districts in Michigan that have emergency managers are predominantly African American: Detroit. Muskegon Heights. Highland Park. And the district that went broke this week: Buena Vista.
The state feels no responsibility for supporting and maintaining these districts. Is it because they are powerless in a state run by the far-right? The governor would never dare to play these tricks on a majority white district.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Blowing up and destroying are what the DEFORMERS know best! I think they are evil and mean.
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“The governor would never dare to play these tricks on a majority white district.”
That’s a given, Diane. Black and Latino communities have borne the brunt of this horrific “Ed Reform” fraud since it first started.
But remember, the capture and occupation of these low-income communities by the forces of Privatization is only their “Beachhead”.
Once they’ve firmly planted their flag in the ground, as they’ve done in almost every poor inner city school district, they’ll be coming next for the higher income suburban districts.
THIS will be the next battlefield in this struggle between parents, teachers and students on one side and the Privatizers and their combined Wall Street, “Foundation” and right-wing funding with its very deep pockets.
They also have almost all significant elected officials, celebrities and the mainstream media on their side. But that is slowly changing…
In the battle to retain local control of our schools and of public education itself, we only have The Truth.
But that’s not a bad place from which to begin.
Keep the faith. We’re going to win this thing!
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what about higher income urban districts? they are already here! the privatizers are trying every day and in every way to dig their claws into westside (LA) schools, where middle and upper income parents are coming very close to choking on the koolaide! Where are the wealthy and influential democrats and celebrities and why aren’t they screaming against this? oh wait, they send their kids to private schools and don’t give a shit.
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Jon Aubrey showed me how to archive the links for an article so even when the source site is edited, the story links to the original version.
That strategy appears to be needed here. The quotes have been changing all day, due to the community’s horrified backlash, and now have evaporated. Too late. Too many people were there to make this question disappear.
The series of updates is fascinating: it looks like the plain everyday truth is another thing “they” want to blow up. Thanks to Chris at Electablog for his alert and timely work, to catch this important story, then to catch them in the act of running away from themselves.
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I am a retired high school English teacher in Michigan. After I retired I served 8 years on our board of education. I retired in 2000 and have a son, daughter and daughter-in-law in the teaching profession. What has happened in Michigan since I retired is appalling. Our teachers are being demoralized, our school aid fund has been raided to give tax breaks to big business, tenure is gone, and evaluations are being based on test scores. Benefits have been reduced for teachers and right to work is in play. Our legislators believe the EAA which has taken over some schools in Detroit should be expanded when it hasn’t even been in effect for year and so far doesn’t have a good track record. The latest I have read is that there in now contemplation to raid the school aid fund again to pay for roads. There is also word that teacher pay will be tied to student performance. Governor Snyder sends his child to a private school where small class sizes exist, many types of classes are offered and standardized testing is not an issue. Dick DeVos and the Mackinac Center along with Michelle Rhee seem to have a big influence on our governor and right wing legislators. We need a great deal of help in our state to restore public education to what it once was. Cyber schools, charter schools and private takeover will destroy our state if we don’t start electing people who can turn it around. I told my son that “this too shall pass,”, but I worry daily.
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My hip boots always go on when I hear arguements that seem to pit “the way it was in the good old days” against the current measures. Every generation decries changes and progress (sometimes progress, anyway) that changes how things were done from what it remembers as the best way to do things. Just remember that part of the reason that the education system of yesteryear has been partially dismantled is because, in many venues, there was failure to reach subgroups effectively.
True, there are concerns and question marks regarding many modern approaches to education. Some approaches will fail; however, some will undergo surgeries and tweaks and will ultimately be successful to some degree. Our children and grandchildren will someday look back on the “good old days” when there were still flesh-and-blood teachers to work alongside computers and iPads instead of a direct chip-imbedded flash delivery of content. Our job now is not to return to the good old days – it won’t happen, and few of today’s parents would put their children in such a school – but to ensure that the technological and financial changes that have come about in the country can be utilized in the best way possible to benefit students.
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Roy Roberts appears to have asserted on at least one prior occasion that “people” say that DPS should be “blown up.” Below is from an interview in November 2011, where Roberts characterizes a Free Press editorial as a call to “blow up” the district.
http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2011/06/efm_roy_roberts_on_saving_detr.html
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All children have a right to an equal opportunity education (California Serrano v. Priest). This is the opposite and the societal and financial costs are insane as are the planners of this type of genocide. Let us do that to their rich children and see what they do then.
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Read about Eastside High School in Austin. Things are looking up.
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Actually, Diane- Governor Snyder could make the Brighton Schools the first predominantly solid middle to upper middle class district a takeover by an emergency manager. While it appears that only the districts predominantly African-American are at greatest risk for emergency managers, it is only a matter of time for this Governor who has Yertle the Turtle syndrome to send EM’s everywhere.
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Can anyone find out if it was Barbara Byrd Bennett who told Roy Roberts to blow up the public schools?
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