Detroit Schools – SOS

During the late Dark Ages and into the Middle Ages, the nobility founded monasteries and built churches to repent for their sins. In the ancient world, the wealthy built public buildings like baths and temples to honor themselves and for the common good.

With the decline of the auto industry, Detroit has been dying for fifty years. In this time of government cut backs because of a reduced tax base, middle class poverty, and wealthy surplus, billionaires should set up to the plate and contribute to the common good.

Instead of looking for a hedge fund to invest in, wealthy Wolverines should unite and seek opportunities to relieve the burdens of daily life and obtain treasure in heaven.

www.michiganpr.net/index.php?xnewsaction=fullnews&newsarch=102009&newsid=1293

Last Updated: January 12. 2011 2:32PM
Without aid, DPS may close half of its schools

Class sizes also would swell under proposal filed with the state
Jennifer Chambers / The Detroit News

Detroit — Detroit Public Schools would close nearly half of its schools in the next two years, and increase high school class sizes to 62 by the following year, under a deficit-reduction plan filed with the state.

The plan, part of a monthly update Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb gives the Department of Education, was filed late Monday to provide insight into Bobb’s progress in his attempt to slash a $327 million deficit in the district to zero over the next several years. Under it, the district would slim down from 142 schools now to 72 during 2012-13.

Bobb has said school closures, bigger classes and other measures would be needed if he cannot get help from lawmakers to restructure finances in the state’s largest school district.

DPS considered but declined to file for bankruptcy in 2009. In the past year, debt in the district has increased by more than $100 million, brought on by a mix of revenue declines in property taxes, reduced state aid, declining enrollment and an unplanned staffing surge this past fall.

Starting this fall, the district plans to boost class sizes in grades 4-12 and at all grade levels by fiscal 2012, which begins July 1, to save $16.8 million. The plan would hike class sizes for: Grades K-3 from 17-25 students to 29 in 2012-13 and 31 in 2013-14.

Grades 4-5 from 30 students to 37 in 2012-13 and 39 in 2013-14.

Grades 6-8 from 35 students to 45 in 2012-13 and 47 in 2013-14.

Grades 9-12 from 35 students to 60 in 2012-13 and 62 in 2013-14.

Because the district’s contract with the Detroit Federation of Teachers requires payments to teachers for class sizes that exceed specified maximums, the district estimates it would spend $10 million in oversize class pay over four years.

Keith Johnson, president of the teachers union, said the proposed class size increases won’t work and will never happen.

“I will never agree to any class-size increases,” Johnson said. “These increases are antithetical to learning. Secondly, our classrooms aren’t even built to accommodate those numbers.

“Johnson said the teachers’ contract does not let the district exceed contracted class sizes through 2012. DFT filed an unfair labor practice charge in July to restore class sizes for the upcoming school year.

Parent Petrina Johnson said swelling high school classrooms to 60 students or more will only leave them uneducated.

“There is one teacher and she can barely get to each of the 36 kids now. That makes no sense,” said Johnson, who has three children at Mumford High School.

School officials said the plan would create a “lecture hall” model similar to a university.

Johnson said teenagers aren’t ready for that.

“This gives more opportunity for them to slip through the cracks,” she said.

The proposal calls for closing 40 schools in fiscal 2012 and 30 schools in fiscal 2013. That would leave DPS with 72 schools for a projected 58,570 students, down from about 74,000 now. The district closed 30 schools this fiscal year, which is expected to save $23 million. The planned closings in fiscal 2012-14 would save more than $33 million.

Bobb said the district could save another $12.4 million from the school closures if it “simply abandons” the closed buildings. Past policy has been to keep the closed schools clean and secure, officials said, but the district could cut costs by eliminating storage, board-up and security.

DPS spokesman Steve Wasko said the district has laid out the path it must take to eliminate the deficit, and Bobb remains focused on working with lawmakers to pass one of three plans to restructure DPS’ finances.

Those plans include splitting the district in two to put its debt obligation with an “old district,” covering about 9,000 students. State revenue would pay off the debt, allowing the “new district” to move forward debt-free with undetermined start-up funds.

Such a plan would need approval by state lawmakers and Gov. Rick Snyder.

District officials said they are pursuing “renaissance” legislation to free up $400 million in future tobacco settlement funds that could help mend DPS’ deficit and those of 40 other districts statewide. In return, the districts would make dramatic reforms based on the federal Race to the Top initiative, such as eliminating teacher seniority.

That proposal died last month in the state Legislature’s lame duck session. A third plan would look at new systems and agencies used in New Orleans, which has converted more than half of its public schools into charter schools in the past several years.

Besides closing schools and increasing class sizes, Bobb’s plan calls for the district to abolish its divisions of finance, legal services, human services and public safety and contract with either Wayne County or the city of Detroit for those services.

“This is the route that we’d need to take if the other larger solutions are not found,” Wasko said. “It is in fact the route that we continue to take until alternatives are approved.”

There was no mention of any of these plans in the documents Bobb filed with the state, Wasko said, because the plans are still being researched and fleshed out in and outside DPS.

“There is a lot of work going on,” he said.

Joseph Johnson, executive director for the National Center for Urban School Transformation, said almost every urban school district in the country is struggling, but perhaps none as severely as Detroit.

“I haven’t heard of an urban district taking such drastic of steps,” Joseph Johnson said. “Certainly every urban district is engaging in some serious belt-tightening as they are dealing with smaller budgets and at the same time often higher expectation from the public in terms of student achievement.”

http://detnews.com/article/20110112/SCHOOLS/101120356/Without-aid–DPS-may-close-half-of-its-schools#ixzz1BOJ1d47u

www.michiganpr.net

Generosity is good for the soul. Donors tend to be unsung and unpublicized but examples of selflessness are important to inspire others.

Jay Bruce generosity knows no bounds
BY PAUL DAUGHERTY • PDAUGHERTY@ENQUIRER.COM • JANUARY 21, 2011

CINCINNATI– Jay Bruce calls himself “a product of generosity,’’ so he’s giving the Reds $400,000. It’s something he has wanted to do since he was a kid selling candy door to door, to pay for his team’s Little League uniforms. It’s been in his head since the scout who signed him in 2005 offered advice Bruce embraced.

“Don’t forget where you came from,’’ Brian Wilson told the 18-year-old the day the Reds drafted him with their first pick in ’05. Actually Wilson, being a Texan like Bruce, said, “Dance with who brung you.’’

In other words, remember. Who you are, where you come from and how you got here. Repay the generosity loan.

It was a good lesson, one that Bruce would love to hear still, only he can’t because a year after Wilson signed him, Wilson had a heart attack and died. He was 33 years old, with a family.

“Simple guy,’’ Bruce recalled this week. “Nice to my family. Wasn’t a BS-er, didn’t sugarcoat anything.’’ Wilson had played a little pro ball, in the Reds system. He got as far as Class A Billings, which isn’t far at all. But if you pay attention, you learn things on those minor-league bus rides. Wilson was a student of the road.

“He told me what I was getting myself into,’’ Bruce said. Bruce was 18 and leaving home and signing a big bonus deal, and he was doing it all overnight. Wilson kept Bruce’s head from blasting off its axis. “For someone to take that time and show that initiative meant a lot. His job was to scout me and sign me and lobby the Reds that I was worthy of a first-round pick,’’ Bruce said. “All the other stuff was just him.’’

Bruce’s job was to make Brian Wilson look like a smart man. And, to remember to dance. Brian Wilson Field will have lights and a scoreboard and the greenest of grass, in a part of town where green grass is a wish and not a metaphor. “In a not-so-affluent part of town,’’ in Bruce’s words.

Bruce won’t stop there. He’s taking over for Aaron Harang in the free-ticket business. He will maintain Aaron’s Aces, Harang’s ticket giveaway to military families. He will add a second ticket program, for families of special needs kids, to honor his 28-year-old sister Kellan. Kellan Bruce was born with her umbilical cord wrapped twice around her neck. The initial loss of oxygen left her mentally disabled.

“I’ve learned through (Kellan) not to take things for granted,’’ Bruce said.

This sort of benevolence happens a lot among pro jocks, more than we ever report. Part of it is we don’t take the time to honor the good, because the good isn’t sexy. Part of it is some athletes don’t want their generosity made public. Who would you guess leads the current Reds in giving locally?

If you said Francisco Cordero, drop a coin into your own cup. Charley Frank, the director of the Reds Community Fund, says Coco donates “well into the six figures’’ to local causes. Several other Reds are five-figure donors to the Community Fund, Frank said.

Bruce and his agent, Matt Sosnick, met with Frank in 2008, shortly after the Reds promoted Bruce from Class AAA Louisville. The three agreed that when Bruce struck it major-league rich, he’d be doing some giving back.

Now, Bruce has. The money is nice. The words are better. Stuff like this makes a player and a team easier to root for. “It’s not a responsibility. It’s a moral obligation,’’ Bruce said. “The community takes you in. They make or break you. These people only want us to be successful.’’

In return, Bruce hopes to offer the community a chance at the same success. “I’m trying to give kids and families what people gave me. When it comes to helping the less fortunate, (pro athletes) have the ability to do some amazing things. When I was in high school and trying to get the money to go to these tournaments out of state, people didn’t have to open their doors when I knocked. But they did.’’

He grew up in Beaumont, Texas, population 250,000, a place of oil refineries and high school sports. Brian Wilson’s kind of place. They remember in Beaumont. They don’t have to be reminded to dance.

“It’s a huge deal to be able to give kids an opportunity to grow in every way they can,’’ Bruce said. “Eyes on the prize, you know?’’

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110121/COL03/301210052/0/NEWS010702/Doc-Bruce-shows-generosity

Detroit Schools – SOS