Governor Rick Snyder long ago made it clear that the state of Michigan has no intention of saving public education in Detroit or anywhere else. The city’s emergency manager announced a 10% pay cut for teachers, larger class size, and the closing of 24 schools. The schools have a deficit of $127 million. The wage concessions by teachers will save $13.3 million.
“Parents, educators and community stakeholders met Wednesday morning in front of Ludington Middle School to denounce the cuts, as well as the district’s previously announced plans to increase class sizes.
“Brian Kindle has two children beginning Head Start in the fall, and a 15-year-old at Cody High School. He said he’s worried about how pay cuts will impact his kids.
“I say hands off first responders, kids and teachers,” he said. “I’m here to support parents and their children, and to ask Gov. Snyder not to vote for the proposal.”
“Kindle said he fears additional cuts will result in further neglect of students in the classroom.
“We should have classrooms on every corner, instead of liquor stores,” he said. “That would be great, but we don’t have a society that encourages it. But I will remain on the forefront supporting our children.”
Dr. Thomas Pedroni of the Detroit Data and Democracy Project contends that the cuts to classroom instruction are NOT necessary. He shows in this analysis that the emergency manager has allowed other categories of spending to grow, while cutting the single service that matters most: classroom instruction.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Now, would not the “donations” and “benevolence” of Gates, Koch, Broad, et al, be put to amazingly good purpose in this situation? Instead of donating monies to “non-profits” to lobby for public school closure, union busting, charterization, teacher bashing/firing, eliminating tenure, TFA—all those millions, if not billions, could fund public education, school lunch, extra curricular activities, for years.
Sadly, there is no profit involved in that. It would be nice for said benefactors to want only the positive results and good feelings that come with philanthropy.
LikeLike
“Trust Busting”
The Billyan err:
Without a care
For public trust.
Just boom and bust
LikeLike
Beyond hideous, beyond despicable. The war on teachers and public schools in Detroit, Michigan is a roaring success. A 10% cut in salary is a devastating blow to marginally middle class workers.
LikeLike
Detroit is a wonderful role model for Newark and the rest of the country. A friend just called to tell me of a teacher who was laid off with 24 years and 1 month. She was 9 months short of the 25 years needed for full retirement benefits. If all the education entrepreneurs would pay their taxes, none of these problems would exist.
LikeLike
Paying taxes is old-fashioned and archaic, as are “public employees”. She’s probably a “traditionalist”, with this olde-timey attitude she has.
Has she considered trying to raise money for retirement from wealthy donors?
I’m sure they’ll pony up if she’s worthy. If they don’t, she obviously hasn’t earned it.
LikeLike
Just wondering, how many millions has this country spent since 2003 building schools in Iraq and Afghanistan? And how much do we spend each year, how many billions, for the armies and weapons meant to defend the shell of a nation we have here at home?
LikeLike
GST,
Isn’t the figure in the trillions?
LikeLike
Must be at this point. I need to check with Halliburton’s accountant.
LikeLike
Yes!
LikeLike
$9.4 million for St. Louis county’s war toys deployed in the streets of Ferguson. Not enough for public schools, though.
LikeLike
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/school_files/Grim-picture-from-inside-city-schools.html
Per the above, there is apparently no money to educate the children of Philadelphia either, while the city’s “leaders” offer the DNC millions to hold their convention here and take junkets to the Vatican to urge a Papal visit next year at huge security costs to the city. Meanwhile, Obama’s hope and change has devolved into only war and more war and a seeming willful disregard of the serious problems at home. I actually hope the Pope does come to Philadelphia and takes the opportunity to lecture all of us on the obligation to care for the neediest among us.
LikeLike
They are forcing students into charters.
LikeLike
Detroit, Newark, Chicago, Public Schools, Mental Health, Poverty, 1st in World Crime-prisoners & gun deaths, inequality, billionaires….US unraveling in S.L.O.W. M.O.T.I.O.N, but Congress & Obama are busy not addressing any of it.
What will it take?
LikeLike
Cross posted at Oped with this comment:
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Austerity-in-Detroit-Teac-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Concessions_Democracy_Diane-Ravitch_Education-140821-101.html#comment507786
“My takeaway from the White Paper by Dr Pedroni ” The analysis in this White Paper reveals that cost-savings, to the degree that they are fiscally necessary, could be derived from other areas of the budget, with far less harm to the educational circumstances of the district’s children. In comparing spending allocations between fiscal year 2008 and fiscal year 2015, further cuts in classroom instruction to cover fiscal missteps appears both unnecessary and indefensible from a fiscal standpoint. Instead, we identify other spending areas that have received a higher proportion of general fund expenses under emergency management than they did in 2008.”
Yeah but why not just deprive an educated professional of a salary, and then when enough veteran teachers are gone, and the schools fail, then point to the failure of public education and BRING IN CHARTERS, suing public money!
Can you spell S-C-A-M?
LikeLike
Here’s a question: did the bondholders get 100% of their money?
LikeLike
There are a lot of creditors, unsecured and secured, and I don’t think anyone’s been paid yet. But the short answer to your question would be “no.”
LikeLike
That’s good news… there was some conjecture at the outset of this debacle that bondholders would get 100% of their money and everyone else would get a “haircut”. When the government over promises and under-delivers everyone who participated in the process should suffer equal consequences.
LikeLike
A municipal bankruptcy of this size is enormously complicated. When people talk about “bondholders” generally, they’re usually referring to holders of unsecured debt, like general obligation bonds. If there was ever conjecture that Detroit’s unsecured creditors would be getting 100 cents on the dollar, it wasn’t based on reality. That’s why city retirees have been so concerned from the beginning of this process — they are unsecured creditors, just like holders of unsecured debt. The last thing they want is for “everyone who participated in the process [to] suffer equal consequences.” I believe city retirees would get fairly modest haircuts under the current proposed plan, while other unsecured creditors would get about 10 cents on the dollar. The retirees have supported the plan, and the other unsecured creditors have (mainly) opposed it, and it looks like there could be a trial to determine whether the plan will be “crammed down” (yes, that’s an actual legal term) over the boldholders’ objections.
LikeLike
Thanks for the synopsis… I’m glad the retirees are not getting the short end of the stick on this… I think the relative “free pass” received by the TBTF banisters made some of the progressive bloggers assume the retirees would get 10% and others would be held relatively harmless… It sounds like the settlement is as fair as it can be under the circumstances…
LikeLike
Of course, a modest haircut on pension benefits can be a much bigger hardship on a retiree than a 90% haircut on bondholder returns.
LikeLike
The 10% reduction in wages is in addition to a 10% reduction that was imposed several years ago.
LikeLike
Ajial Bilingual School of Kuwait has openings, as do other schools in Kuwait, including botg teaching and school counselors. Free air fare, free furnished housing, free utilities including phone line, medical insurance, and tax free salary may be what some Detroit teacher needs.
LikeLike
How does the government of Kuwait treats its female citizens? If it’s anything like Saudi Arabia, no thanks.
LikeLike
Gee why don’t the teachers take a 50 % cut and then they will probably qualify for welfare and go on public assistance or if not, they can become homeless and live at shelters and then Duncan, Gates and Co. can have one more thing to “blame them about”… Is this what the “profession” of public education has come to? When Detroit teachers had their pensions cut this already was a pay cut and now more??? Are these kids in Detroit being high stakes tested??? If yes is the answer then we can ask… do they have a school nurse? Proper student to teacher ratios in class? A safe and maintained school building? etc… If the answer is no… TESTING SHOULD GO (it should of course go anyway as it currently stands).
LikeLike
Who’s going to pay for it all? The city is broke. The school system is broke. And a sad truth is that the teachers of Detroit helped to break both.
Should those NOT involved now be forced to rush in and save people from the consquences of their OWN actions? I.e. – should those who have EARNED their way in this world be forced to subsidize those who helped squander away the fruits society entrusted them with?
A lot of people don’t think so.
LikeLike
Really? Teachers broke the system? Let’s scroll back a minute. When I was a child, Detroit was the auto manufacturing capitol. Whatever happened with that?
LikeLike
NJ Teacher;
In reference to your question….
“Whatever happened to that?”
….the unions – including that of the teachers – “happened to that”. They priced themselves out of the market via both monetary and operational demands, and other manufacturers and other locations took advantage of the opportunity presented to them.
In short, the “gimme, gimme” crowd got caught in their own web
LikeLike
Someone who is as clueless to the truth, as you are, should sell you brand of analysis somewhere else, in a place where the audience is as ignorant as you are.
LikeLike
Susan;
Gosh, is such a “logical” and “fact-filled” rebuttal typical of what teachers have to offer today? If so, it’s a real wonder that our education system is failing as dramatically as is, isn’t it? [smile].
That said, I did so appreciate *YOUR* “analysis”! Goodness knows YOU don’t present any aspect of one who is “ignorant”, do ya’?!
Have a good one!
(signed) “clueless” [grin!]
LikeLike
And what are you going to call the city spending billions of dollars building a new Ice Hockey Arena and sports centers by slashing public workers pensions and giving tax cuts to private corporations, who are also unsympathetic to their workers regarding pension!? That’s far more than the sum of teachers salary and unions dues.
But people blame teachers because they are NOT good money makers???
That’s pretty much wired-up logic.
LikeLike
Good ken, response to Ken troll, and what about the billionsm spent on military equipment for police forces/ Why does a town of 8000 need the tank -like vehicles and military gear?
Cut pensions for educators and all service workers, and enrich the death merchants.
LikeLike
Ken;
While I don’t condone the hockey arena and such, I very much see the reasoning behind offering tax cuts to private employers; at least it was a positive at bringing in some economic activity. There’s one thing you need to face, however; a “tax cut” off of future INCREASED tax revenue is quite different than an actual current payouts of cash for teachers wages, etc.
That said, where did teacher “union dues” come to be part of the city’s expenses? That’s something I wasn’t aware of; are you telling me that the teachers were so damn pandered to that they had the city paying their UNION DUES for them as well? [smile…surely you misspoke when you made that comment. If you didn’t,…..well, what can I say?!]
Either way, I suggest you take a look at your math if you actually believe that ephemeral tax concessions to private corporations designed to increase employment even came close to rivaling the amounts spent on teachers wages and benefits. Turning your words back on you, it’s not “far more”, but just the opposite….which, I think, speaks much more about the “wired logic” of the “gimme, gimme” “teacher” crowd today that it does of anything else. I suspect some teachers actually believe that little snippet of B.S. And, if like you, they’re trying to sell that tripe to the general public, it says a lot about the “integrity” of today’s “teachers” as well.
The proof is in the pudding. Look at Detroit. Then look at all the teachers who were involved in its destruction, many of whom seem to be pointing fingers at everyone but themselves, while figuratively crying “I’m not to blame! It wasn’t me!”. Well guys, it *WAS* you…and the fact that you’re not willing to accept your share of the responsibility doesn’t make that any less a reality.
LikeLike
Ken Meyer
Point well proven. Naming and blaming “the ordinary” is exactly what those gullibles, apologists, deformers and billionaire sympathziers are doing. Teachers have responsibility for city’s economic mess??? Are they being overpaid? Or are they being blamed for not making enough money like billionaires and hedge-fund managers who will never have any suffering of paycuts or layoffs whatsoever??? Sounds like you are tempted for accusing anyone who doesn’t agree with your opinion not just teachers but virtually all including me. You’re pretty much in the zone of cynicism and paranoid.
LikeLike
I forgot to tell you. This blog just hit 15 million this past week. It means a lot of people around the nation read the blog posts every single day. And the vast majority of those are teachers. You’d better bring your ice bucket with you because I’m pretty sure you’re gonna get flamed so bad for your incendiary comment taking swipe at teachers on this blog–a.k.a. trolling.
LikeLike
Ken;
A reply to a couple of your posts.
First, are the teachers being overpaid? Given that the city/school system is broke, it appears they are…at least to the extent that they can’t be afforded anymore. Bear in mind, this thread (on my part) started out with the question of “who’s going to pay for it all”. I still haven’t heard a responsible answer to that question. Nor does it seem you’re willing to provide one.
As for my being “flamed”; well, people can flame me all they want…but that STILL won’t resolve the “who’s going to pay” issue. Unfortunately, the teachers have been as much to blame as any party in expecting OTHERS to cover the consequences of THEIR financial decisions. Under the circumstances, the expectation of entitlements just aren’t going to cut it anymore. So…are the teachers going to face reality? Or continue demanding that OTHERS – who otherwise have no obligation toward them at all – cover their expenses/losses?
Call it “trolling” if you like. I’d like to think, however, it’s just a case of an individual bringing a touch of reality into a discussion that is otherwise mired in illusion.
BTW, in answer to “Susan’s” question of….
“Why does a town of 8000 need the tank -like vehicles and military gear?”
… I can only assume that she’s talking of the current situation in Ferguson, MO (which is a town of 21,000, not “8000”…yet another example of teacher “competence”?…smile!). And my answer would be that it needs them to deal with the exactly situation that confronted it. Or did she not see the Molotov cocktails being thrown? Or the urine-filled glass bottles? Or the more than a score of businesses that were looted and/or burned by “peaceful” demonstrators”?
With that in mind, it seems to me that the term “death merchants” would be much more fitting if applied to those who actually threw such incendiary devices and such, instead of those that exist in her “gimme, gimme” fantasies. And I have to think that perhaps she’d feel the same if one of those weapons of destruction happened to catch HER on HER noggin.
It seems that far too many “teachers” have this attitude that they, rather than their students, are the children, and that “en loco parentis” someone how applies to them, with society in general being the caretaker party.
LikeLike
What nonsense and assumption. Go to my author’s page and see what I have done. I began to teach in 1963, and with my2 degrees I was able to earn 5,800. I did not expect to make as much as the other professionals who studied medicine or law, not did I expect anyone to pay for me, but I provided a service and I had a CONTRACT. that allowed me to have a future. In my last year, when I was the top NY StAte teacher and awarded the Educator of Excellence award in Albany, I was earning 58,000, when anyone with 4 degrees who were doctors or attorneys would be earning… well not such a pittance…and it was I who bought all the books, and supplies for my classroom, sometimes amounting to over $5000 a year.
When austerity, that false solution to ‘big’ government came in, the first thing to go was money for teachers… so easy to demonize teachers… and cut the school budgets.
The false narrative of ‘austerity’ has doomed our nation and the European economy, too.
Once the schools were failing the top veterans — who knew what learning required–, were sent out the door. Imagine what would happen if the top doctors were cut so budgets could be managed….but the ulterior motive was to bring in yet-prep and no teacher who had successful taught for years would use such anti-learning materials.
I had expectations. Yes, and a contract…Ihave it on my desk. It also contains all the processes for preventing slander by principals, so that no businessman or arrogant failed human being could slander a wonderful teacher…but the unions (who are no friend of teachers any longer, because the leadership is corrupt) allowed top-down administrators to decimate the professional staff.
Education needs funding. Period. That is the contract for the ‘common good’ that the preamble to the constitution describes int he preamble.
Roads, infrastructure, military and other things need funding, but military entitlement are a scandal, and all the real facts area valuable, I just do not need to feed it to people who are of the same opinion yet, even when reality stares them in the face. The military-industrial complex gets the entitlements, not the people who provide the services upon which our future depends.
So smile away, and read what the figures that the nY Times showed were being spent on militarizing our police forces with weapons and ‘stuff’ meant for war. It is insane. As for the “death Merchants” in the twenties, Tayler Caldwell predicted in her novels, how the military industrial complex would take over our government, and Eisenhower issued the same warning.
They are the ‘gimme, gimme’ folks along with big pharma and the agro industry.
We teachers do not step out of a closet each day, to enable our future citizens how to thing and to learn. We deserve to have some security, and we have some reasonable expectations as to our future if she dedicate our lives to CHILDREN.
“caretaker’ party? Gimme-gimme? You use the terminology of the national narrative shaped by media owned by 6 corporate entities who are singing the song of those who have set America’s middle class back and ended the road to opportunity that education provides… and, BTW the democracy goes down with an ignorant public because democracy depends on shared knowledge. http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/winter2009/hirsch.pdf
and if you want to see how education works when the professional in the practice (i.e classroom) guides the educational choices …take a look at this
http://blip.tv/hdnet-news-and-documentaries/dan-rather-reports-finnish-first-6518828
and if you have time, do take a look at how THEY (the ones who want to end public education) did it in the biggest school system in America… take a look at this
https://vimeo.com/4199476
The final blow comes by replacing professionals with ‘trained’ TFA novices and other newbies who follow orders and ‘teach’ to the test.
Well, the actual final blow comes from folks who spout the rhetoric of that other party, while giving our taxes to the billionaires and to the corporate entities who cannot wait to avoid paying for our great nation, and are running to incorporate in other countries.
Geeze…
LikeLike
Ken Meyer(or whatever it is)
First of all, it is a mayor who controls the fate of city’s economy–not teachers and any other public workers.
Second, you seem to be missing the most important point on the issue Detroit teachers have in austerity measure. It is not their own pay-cut they are opposing to. Many of those well understand the situation that will force them to make some sacrifice on personal income. It is cut on essential part of education they see the problem most—cut on essential teaching in classroom, school closings, and low-quality alternative private program directed by dictatorial emergency manager and governor.
Third, and finally, no matter how you put it differently, your painting of teachers as “so damn pandered to that they had the city paying their UNION DUES” brush in your previous post, and your attempt to hold teachers accountable for city’s bad business decisions/policy that renders education system so financially “broke, and that it appears to the extent that they can’t be afforded anymore” is a clear indication of mocking or demonizing teachers in the kind. Calling those who fight against city’s social injustice affecting their professional dignity part of problem is nothing more than disingenuous.
Again, I suggest you bring your ice water bucket before it’s too late since you are being seen walking on the landmine at your own risk of getting “inflamed.”
LikeLike
Ken;
I’m sorry! You see, I thought that “mayor who controls the fate of city’s economy” – say Kwame Kilpatrick, for example – was an ELECTED official, subject to the whims of the voters, and influenced by the organized labor organizations who supported him. I wasn’t aware that, instead, he was an omnipotent entity that somehow alighted on the city and took “control” all by his lonesome!.
S.h.e.e.e.z, “Ken”…how could I have been so nieve? [smile]
Look, I’m well aware by now that you’re highly resistant to accepting responsibility for your own actions. People like you will ALWAYS finds”someone else” to blame your problems on…and come up with excuses and misdirections as to what exactly those problems are.
So be it. Unfortunately, I think you’ll find that your denial of reality won’t be very effective in terms of changing it. Nor will alienating those who you’re making “gimme, gimme” demands on.
IN any case, have fun!
LikeLike
Susan;
Look at your posts; how DARE you call yourself a “professional”?! You’re no professional; rather you’re simply some incompetent blue-collar hack (“8000”? “Clueless”?) who’s made a career of making “gimme, gimme” demands.
With that in mind, I suggest you get off your high horse, sister, and make way for those who actually CAN teach and actually ARE willing to act professionally as educators. And if you dislike “austerity” measures, then might I suggest that you get off your dead-beat ass and actually make a contribution YOURSELF that relieves the neccessity of austerity, in the process passing over wealth that YOU generated, instead of constantly demanding that others cough-up THEIR hard-earned wealth in your stead.
Frankly, after seeing what our educational system has degenerated to, many of us have had more than enough of your kind. If you don’t like what we have to offer anymore, then don’t let the door knob spank your behind on the way out.
Sound like a plan?
LikeLike
If someone is trying to shift the blame on the issue, it’s YOU. You are the one who points the finger at those you don’t like. You’re barking up the wrong trees by blaming those who have nothing to do with horrible consequence of bad city policy. You did it by daring to put me in your hit list assuming I am of those ‘greedy’ and ‘selfish’ teachers. (WRONG. I am not a public school teacher.). Keep spinning your delusional non-sense and deformer absurdity elsewhere to your mortal coil. Bye, Ken troll.
LikeLike
Ken;
I’m sorry…I must have missed it. Just where, exactly did I….
“dar[e] to put [you] in [my] hit list assuming [you are] one of those ‘greedy’ and ‘selfish’ teachers. ”
?????
Be specific, please. I ask that because I don’t recall adding your name – either directly or indirectly to any such list of “greedy” and “selfish” teachers. But of course I must have…because an “upstanding” individual like YOU wouldn’t simply LIE about such a thing now, would he? [smile]
I’m awaiting your response. You see, I may not “dare” to put you on such a “list”…but I *AM* quite willing to “dare” you to back up your loud mouth.
Have at it, Clown!
LikeLike
Place a moratorium on all school testing until Michigan’s budget balances.
“U.S. schools spend about $10,500 per student annually,”
States Reconsider Common Core Tests
http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2014/01/24/states-reconsider-common-core-tests
“Once the state can give the Smarter Balanced exam entirely online, the cost is estimated at $27 million, Ellis said.”
Smarter Balanced field test has Michigan schools preparing for future exams
http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2014/05/smarter_balanced_field_test.html
LikeLike
Just out of curiosity, what is the pay range for a Detroit teacher? How many are properly credentialed?
LikeLike