Detroit privatizing 17 high schools

[Dr Mordrid]

With the Detroit Public Schools being put under a special master by the State because of its huge deficit and failing grades it looks like some changes are in the offing....

Free Press link....

Companies expected to turn around 17 Detroit high schools

Seventeen Detroit Public Schools high schools are being turned over to professional educational management companies as part of what DPS officials are calling the most dramatic restructuring of the troubled district’s history.

Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb said each of the companies will be given a performance-based contract with very specific benchmarks for student achievement. If they don’t perform, the company won’t be paid, Bobb said.

“We are no longer going to permit high schools to perform at the low levels they are,” Bobb said.

In addition, the school district’s organization is being consolidated from seven area assistant superintendents to three regional superintendents. The district has shed 75% of its central office staff over the past year, Bobb said.

One of the keys to success for the new school managers will be staffing, Bobb said. DPS is in contract negotiations with the Detroit Federation of Teachers and among the issues to be discussed is the ability to weed out any underperforming teachers and to give the management companies the ability to choose their own staff, Bobb said.

District officials are still considering management companies for six alternative schools and 10 elementary schools. One of the options that Bobb hopes to negotiate with the union is a school run by DPS’s national board certified teachers.

The management companies and restructuring are being paid with $20 million of federal economic stimulus funds, Bobb said.

[paulw]

You guys get free public education is the US?? If so this is the beginning of the end of it.

[Dr Mordrid]

The beginning of the end of it was when teachers unionized a few decades ago. It's been down hill ever since for the public education system.

[Fluff]

Meeting metrics does not necessarily equal a good education. With public private partnerships you have to be very careful. Else it could just make finger pointing blame shifting easier for the state.

[Dr Mordrid]

IMO the best public schools are those who go "out of formula", meaning they decline state funding. This allows them to enter partnerships with businesses and to set up their own curricula, bypassing the strings attached to that money PC fluff in "formula" school curricula.

One of our neighboring districts went out of formula almost 10+ years ago and it's worked out great for them. The citizens passed rebuilding and technology bonds which allowed all the schools to be updated to 21st century standards, and they update regularly.

Each elementary has 3 CAIC's - computer assisted instructional classrooms - where the teacher can direct individualized drills, tests and instruction from her console. These are shared among 3 "regular" classrooms, each of which has a battery of computers for uses like word processing, spreadsheets, graphics etc. In addition there is a media lab and the ability for students to do in-school programming for the morning announcements etc.

They start them on these programs right out of the chute.

Middle schools have dedicated math, business, robotics and science computer labs where the kids get a heavy technology base along with lots of literature, band, orchestra, stagecraft and athletics.

The high school has more of the same including a culinary program with a student-run restaurant (no, not fast food), a high tech auto lab, machine shop with computerized machining, business outreach programs (the kids go outside the classroom to work with business managers etc.) etc. etc. etc. TV production studio (they have local cable programs such as plays etc.) with 3 workstations, blue-greenscreen capability etc. etc. Photography program too.

All schools media centers are fiber connected and each classroom, even those in the elementary buildings, have large monitors to which the teacher can send content in any other schools center. Cool system.

Athletics: Olympic size swimming/diving pool, indoor track, state of the art training facility, tennis, baseball, football, basketball, track & field, lacrosse, soccer, golf etc. etc.

They've had visitors from around the world trying to discover "the secret" of their success.

Big, rich district with a huge tax base?

Nope: 35,000+ people with a median income of $45,000 and a lot of involved small and medium businesses, many at the airport, that participate bigtime. Execs lecture the kids on management and business law, union and city leaders do likewise and even local cops, judges and attorneys take their turns.

It took not huge sums of money but people in the district who cared enough to take matters into their hands and out of the hands of scum-sucking politicians at both the local and state levels.

One reason they could afford this: the citizens on the school board forged a big office building with tons of "executive assistants" and perks - they hold their meetings and run things from a block walled addition off the bus garage. No district provided cars for board members - they have their own - and no "curriculum de jour" where new curricula are purchased every couple years at enormous cost (a big problem in other districts)....they write their own.

The tables are folding ones, as are the chairs, and the meetings are televised on local cable - they even take phone calls.