DPS:
A Warning of Things to Come

Aug 17, 2009

The Detroit Public Schools are at the spear-point of the horrors caused by “No Child Left Behind.”

Following the demands of “No Child Left Behind,” Robert Bobb, the DPS’s “financial czar,” has “reconstituted” one quarter of all the schools in the Detroit district. The teachers in those schools were forced to reapply for their jobs. Some will stay in the same school; others will be moved to different schools; others will lose their jobs.

Less than a month before the school year starts, thousands of teachers don’t even know where they are teaching or even what classes to prepare for. Schools where teachers had managed to provide some stability for the students have been ripped to shreds. And–worst of all–class sizes will be larger, putting real education still further out of reach.

If students get anything at all out of these substandard schools, it’s because of the efforts made by most teachers in the face of a system that regularly tosses young people aside. But now, with this so-called “reconstitution,” Robert Bobb has undercut even these efforts, throwing the schools into chaos.

“No Child Left Behind” and bureaucrats like Bobb blame the teachers for the poor performance of the students, when the biggest factor is the lack of money and resources given to big city schools.

Students in Detroit and other poor school districts receive on average HALF the funds per student that the wealthy school districts provide. They need the same money and resources devoted to them that the rich school districts provide.

Bobb and the governor who appointed him serve the interests of a capitalist system–a system that has never spent the money needed on the education of working class children.

“Reconstitution” is nothing but a way to cover up this terrible inequity.