Education + reform + new union mindset = less poverty, more $
In a town desperate for good news, word that Robert Bobb is negotiating to extend his stay as emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools is about as good it gets. They need him. The city of Detroit needs him. DPS kids and their parents need him. The social-services budgets of the city, the state and the feds need him because, as Nick Kristof points out in today's New York Times:
"Good schools constitute a far more potent weapon against poverty than welfare, food stamps or housing subsidies. Yet, cowed by teachers' unions, Democrats have too often resisted reform and stood by as generations of disadvantaged children have been cemented into an underclass by third-rate schools."
There's no Detroit dateline on the piece, but there might as well be. He continues: "It's difficult to improve failing schools when you can't create alternatives such as charter schools and can't remove inept or abusive teachers."
Which gets me back to Bobb. For the first time since I arrived in Detroit more than 15 years ago, there's a modicum of hope issuing from DPS. Not because the problems are fixed, because they aren't. But because Bobb and his crew -- with the support, it should be stated, of a Democratic governor -- are attacking the culture of corruption that puts adults ahead of kids, graft ahead of education, the political needs of union teachers ahead of the economic limits of Detroit taxpayers.
At some point, the political protectors of public corruption will be forced to realize their parasitic ways are killing the host that has long sustained them. And that realization can come in one of two ways -- either in the persons of Bobb, auditors and criminal investigators or in the inexorable forces of exodus and financial collapse. For DPS, it's some of both, and it needs to continue.
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Toyota hand: Don't believe GM about the viability of the Chevy Volt
DCH: Love your stuff, but come on. If Toyota doesn't do [it], GM shouldn't do it. The Steelers and Patriots don't model themselves after the Lions, and Jessica Alba doesn't follow Rosanne Barr's fitness routine. At that price point, GM is continuing to "whistle by the graveyard," as they have done for decades. Do you have any doubt a Volt would need $2,000 worth of repairs annually to keep it on the road as soon as it's out of warranty?
S:
And you based your prediction on the warranty repair record of a Volt on what -- the numerous models just like it that GM has fielded in the past? Remember: Global automakers push technologies that are right for, in part, their home market. The Germans love diesels because their governments and tax regimes do, the same reasons the Americans hate diesels. The Japanese, mainly Toyota, prefer gas-electric hybrids cuz they've been successful with them and they're acceptable in their home market, which does't like diesels, either. You get the picture.
What I know if that GM needs to push the envelop with the Volt, especially now. If you're right and GM falls flat with the Volt, you'll have the satisfaction of being right -- not that it would help things 'round here much.
-- DCH
Toyota hand: Don't believe GM about the viability of the Chevy Volt
The Chevy Volt project is commercially unviable and technically unviable. The U.S. should take [the] approach that bring[s] maximum fuel savings while still viable, and unfortunately it is the approach pioneered by Toyota (fortunately adopted by Ford) few people can and will buy the expensive Volt, and never mention that internally there is little confidence in the project, it is pet project from management.
Please ask Fritz why their top scientist do not believe the battery can last 10 years? The crooked management should be liable for their doomed future as the bad PR (basically Volt is fraud project) will ruin them.
GT:
Just asking, but is the credibility of your analysis betrayed by the name on your post -- "Great Toyota?"
-- DCH
Hopes for Detroit Public Schools pinned to Bobb, et al.
I think that Mr. Bobb is the ONLY ray of reasonable, competent sunshine I have seen associated with Detroit (Including the auto companies, the City [No offense, Mr. Bing], schools and the state) in a long time. A no-nonsense man with his heart in the right place and the gloves off. I wish him well. If he wants to continue the difficult task he undertook for a limited term, hire him.
Schools reflect the community, not the other way around. If the DPS, under Bobb or anyone else, turns the corner on apathy and corruption, it will be an indication that the city has also. It is way too soon to think that turn has happened. Mr. Bobb has slowed the descent. If he can stop or reverse it, that will be a sure sign that things are getting better in Detroit, and not before.
BR:
Well put. Big job, massive challenges. And you're right: schools do reflect a community and its values -- or the lack thereof. Bobb, the people jumping in to help him and the parents responding to their accomplishments so far speak to the discovery of standards buried under a mountain of corruption, incompetence and self-dealing. The response is almost as encouraging as the actions itself.
-- DCH
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