Posted on 01/16/2011 7:29:31 AM PST by Brilliant
Detroit was once America's fourth largest city, though today large sections of its inner core are abandoned to the elements, and monuments like Michigan Central Station are returning to dust. Another emblem of civic decline is a plan to desert nearly half of Detroit's public schools so that it can afford to fulfill its teachers union contract.
The school district is facing a $327 million deficit and has already closed 59 schools over the last two years to avoid paying maintenance, utility and operating costs. Under a worst-case scenario released this week by Robert Bobb, an emergency financial manager appointed by the state to resolve the Detroit education fisc, the district will close another 70 of its remaining 142 schools to save $31.3 million through 2013.
"Additional savings of approximately $12.4 million can be achieved from school closures if the District simply abandons the closed buildings," the proposal explains, purging costs like boarding up buildings, storage and security patrols.
Steven Wasko, a spokesman for Mr. Bobb, said that urban property sales have been difficult, in part because until recently the state board of education banned transactions with "competing educational institutions" like charter schools. Once buildings are deserted, even if the doors and windows are welded shut with protective metal covers, scavengers break in and dismantle them for copper wire, pipes and so on.
Under the emergency plan, consolidated high-school class sizes would increase to 62 by 2014, "consistent with what students would expect in large university settings." Yet under the terms of the Detroit Federation of Teachers contract, the district must pay bonuses for class enrollment over 35, thus imposing some $11.1 million in new costs through 2014...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Pitiful!!
Liberalism is as Liberalism does.
Perhaps the Detroit Lions will move to become the L.A. Lions? Come to think of it, Portland could use a baseball team and Seattle a basketball team.
Just Detroit down.
Thanks, educators! I mean...union thug indoctrinators!
Next we’ll hear China will buy Detroit.
These people are the Non-Productive Wasteful side to our Society,they are completely incapable of governing.
The Chinese are not that stupid. The schools do not teach these children anything except how to fill out welfare forms.
Time for the city to invest in some huge bulldozers.
What Detroit needs is an Army of bulldozers.
I’m not sure the math works out too well for them in this. Saving $31.5 Million to plug a $327 Million hole? From the look of this they could close every school and not have enough money to pay pensions. Perhaps they should look into dumping the pension altogether to the Fed pension security fund and just re-org the whole thing under new contracts. If the teachers strike, fire the lot.
Who in their right mind would buy property in that liberal paradise?
Talked recently with a good friend who lived in Detroit as a kid. She went back recently to show her kids the house she grew up in. The house was gone. So was much of the neighborhood. Not just dilapidated. Gone. Back to prairie grass gone. It was very unsettling for her.
62 inner city kids per class? Why even bother?
IMO, the city has no choice but to declare bankruptcy.
Why is Detroit even bothering to fund education and schools? Three fourths of the students dropout and don’t graduate.
Oh, I see. This is just to keep union teacher’s jobs secure and has nothing to do with educating Detroit’s kids. Even more reason to shutdown the Detroit Public Schools.
The teachers unions and other bureaucrats have become like the corrupt monarchs and clerics of Medieval Europe. They are the Sheriff of Nottingham. We need a Robin Hood.
The entire city of Detroit was just listed on E-Bay with no reserve. Highest bidder so far is about $7.
Half kidding, contract Peter Kiewit Sons Co. the for the job, tell the ambulance chasers to get lost and in 24 months Detroit would be back on track. No, I don't work for them, but I have worked with them...a truly remakable company and employee owned.
Do you really think my comment was serious? Detroit is gone and will continue to decay. Nobody will invest there again. It’s a sewer and the sludge will only increase. They also have an increase in their Muslim population.
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