Nancy Flanagan is a veteran NBCT teacher in Michigan, now retired an blogging. She shared the following posts about what is happening in Detroit. Let me add that in my view the public school teachers of Detroit are heroes. Despite the vilification heaped on them by politicians and the media, despite being blamed for the poverty of the children and the state’s persistent neglect, they serve. They are first responders. I name them heroes of American education and add them to the blog’s honor roll.
Flanagan writes:
“Here’s some commentary directly from Detroit PS teachers–the situation is much more complex than crumbling buildings and overstuffed classrooms. The entire system has been taken over by an Emergency Manager:
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<br />http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_in_a_strange_land/2016/01/teacher_protests_unethical_and_union-led–or_evidence_of_professional_courage.html
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<br />ANd here are more teacher voices–both from those who were protesting via sickout and those who went in to work:
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<br />http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_in_a_strange_land/2016/01/whats_going_down_in_detroit_today.html
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<br />What has happened in Detroit is now a template for the rest of the nation–witness the IL governor’s call for an Emergency Manager system there.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here’s an honest headline:
“DPS sickouts put spotlight on a district in free fall”
One caused the other.
http://michiganradio.org/post/dps-sickouts-put-spotlight-district-free-fall#stream/0
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I have not seen TV anchor Rachael Maddow or others give much needed visibility to the emergency management process that is taking root in other large metro areas, and the rotation of these appointed managers into jobs they are unqualified to take on, including decisions about the Flint water supply. I think someone on this blog said that the person in charge of Flint water poisoning was now in charge of managing Detroit schools. In any case there are appalling photos of the classrooms in Detroit that provide ample evidence of longstanding neglect, including black mold, water soaked and bucking floors, toilets leaking.
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Good question.
Google “Darnell Earley” and a few key words and you get a lot of hits. Just one brief example given below.
From an online piece dated 1-20-2016 by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez entitled: “Emergency for Democracy: Unelected Manager Who Caused Flint Water Crisis Now Runs Detroit Schools” with the subtitle “Emergency Manager Darnell Earley, who presided over the Flint water switch, is now the emergency manager of the Detroit public school system.”
[start]
Flint’s water contamination crisis began in April 2014 after Darnell Earley, an unelected emergency manager appointed by Snyder, switched Flint’s water source to the long-polluted and corrosive Flint River in a bid to save money. Earley is now the emergency manager of Detroit Public Schools. This week, Detroit’s teachers have staged a series of “sickouts” to protest the vast underfunding of the public schools, which have black mold, rat infestations, crumbling buildings and inadequate staffing. We are joined by Curt Guyette, an investigative reporter for the ACLU of Michigan whose work focuses on emergency management and open government. Michigan has the most sweeping emergency management laws in the country, which allow the governor to appoint a single person to run financially troubled cities.
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Link: http://www.alternet.org/education/emergency-democracy-unelected-manager-who-caused-flint-water-crisis-now-runs-detroit
And like rheephormsters everywhere, he blames the teachers for not doing their job of serving children—which in plain English means subjecting themselves and their students to abuse without complaint. Just one example: on the national news, an elementary school student described how her teacher told her class they could put on their heavy overcoats in their frigid classroom, and the teacher did likewise, the student adding that the teacher reminded them that she was not supposed to do either one by school admins!
😎
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I will soon post Mercedes’ post with the horrifying conditions in Detroit, under state control. Yes, the EM in Flint responsible for poisoning the water was Darnell Earley. Gov Snyder promoted him to run the Detroit public schools with a bonus of $20,000 for the money saved in Flint.
None of the TV anchors explain about the EM or who appointed him.
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We need to voice our displeasure at the politicians about they’re trying to make us the scapegoat for everything. We need to stop taking the abuse. There are a lot of teachers, relatives of teachers, and friends of teachers that we should encourage to speak up about the abuse of being told that “teachers” are “harming” children by pointing out the abuse of the state. STOP TAKING the abuse!
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We need torches and pitchforks. And by “we” I mean everyone, not just teachers.
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Thank you, Diane, for describing these teachers as first responders and for adding them to the blog’s honor roll. So many teachers across the nation in communities neglected by the body politic are indeed the first, sometimes the only responders, in children’s lives.
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Let’s not all forget about the other things the teachers are fighting for. It’s more than the physical working conditions. Most of the DPS schools have a serious lack of resources: from no counselors (or too few), extremely limited paper copying without any textbooks, teaching classes of 45-50+ students, etc. A lack of funding causes teachers to lose preps to fill in “where necessary”, teach an extra course (of 45+ students) with no extra pay, and much more! Students are being disserviced and it is completely unacceptable.
I taught in DPS and quit due to reasons above and because I couldn’t survive on my 36k annual salary, which was both my starting and ending salary (my net pay decreased because of the increasing costs of benefits even though the benefits’ coverages were much less, etc.). More importantly, I couldn’t take another second of the corruption and things I had to deal with that were affecting my students. Oh man, there’s so much more that I want to say but I’ll stop here.
These teachers are heroes!
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These teachers should get “combat pay” as they are on the front line fighting for democratic public education. Why is it that the policymakers that deliberately starve and destroy public education in an urban area are never held accountable? I think it is time for black communities to file a civil rights lawsuit.
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Great to see Donald Trump has adopted the ed reform line on public schools:
“As part of his pledge to “make America great again,” Donald Trump wants to spend less on schools and get better test scores.
Speaking at a rally in Tulsa, Okla., on Wednesday, Trump, a business executive and a frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, lambasted the performance of American public schools students compared to their peers around the world. He said he was especially appalled because of all the money that goes to education in the U.S.”
Has he ever actually entered a public school, or is he just parroting the entire ed reform “movement”?
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It is obvious that the Emergency Management take over ploy is just another legally fraudulent scheme to subvert democracy in the name of profit and power.
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Breaking News: Darnell Earley asked the courts to impose an injunction on tDetroit teachers’ sickout! Courts late this afternoon denied the injunction!
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Nancy – what about the union within a union group? Is that a bogus group to siphon Conn supporters? Teachers organizing themselves to do a sickout without some organizing organization is unusual. There must be some leadership. Are they keeping themselves under cover to avoid becoming targets?
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