Dan Rather Reports - A National Disgrace

[Music] the following is an HD net original presentation first thing that strikes you when you drive around Detroit is the number of abandoned buildings the ghosts of a city that was early in 2009 I came here to investigate at the city's failing public schools for my weekly television news program but when my team and I started digging we found a story that was much more complex than we had imagined so we decided to spend a year documenting a school district in crisis and the students who are trapped in the system with nowhere else to go back in school everybody back off can't go what we do because you should be in school or G home that's what man we was going back to the school I usually see how they treat me back to the at Osborne school8 or 900 students students come in as ninth graders by the time they're 10th graders it's down to 545 students by the time they reach 11th grade it's down to 345 students when this same cohort reached 12th grade is 245 students to graduate and by then they've had to take the high stakes test the Meep test in the four main and remember it's minimum competencies 11 students 11 passed the Meep [Music] test what are the other 780 students going to do for employment the economics of poverty have devastated Detroit and without a successful public education system like most of the urban centers they're not going to make [Music] it the children is not first when it comes to Detroit Public School some of them when they graduate from high school they can't they still can't read they still can't add subtract they don't care if you going to learn they would not show you how to do it or nothing one of my teachers told me if I come to his class he said he would just pass me if I just show up and shut up they say they make their money whether we learn or not and if the teachers don't care because they feel like you don't care you know you feel like what's the point you know why should I come here every single day and waste my time and waste your time our country's educ educational system is broken that's probably not nears to you scan the headlines in the paper magazine covers television news reports the failure in American education and if there's a story about American public education you're likely to hear the word crisis these test scores seem to be going down every year test scores are low students returning to class this week are less likely to finish High School than their parents Dropout rates are high we can't teach with 50 students in a class classrooms are overcrowded there's a major difference between the graduation rates of white students and black students the gap between the educational Hales and the Have Nots is growing we feel this huge sense of urgency in this country we have a 25% dropout rate those who urge reform see the status quo and say it's the product of Decades of neglect and that we as Americans can no longer afford to look the other way that we must do a far better job of educating our youth if we want to be competitive in the world economy if we want to make sure our children and our children's children continue to enjoy a standard of living we have come to take for granted and so I'd like to just open up and have a bit of a conversation in May 2009 President Obama's newly appointed Secretary of Education Arie Duncan took this message to Detroit to direct national attention to a city whose very name has become synonymous with economic blight Urban Decay failed school God I am tired of that argument I don't have to go to Detroit to know that it smells the city's become a punchline in the popular culture for jokes about the worst of the worst take him to Detroit no no not Detroit no no please many journalists have come to Detroit to take pictures of abandoned buildings and to write Earnest essays about what's wrong here they often call the city a ghost town detroiters are understandably defensive over Outsiders coming here and criticizing their City you could make a pretty good case unfortunately that Detroit is Ground Zero education in this country Arie Duncan had a lot to say about Detroit's failing schools but one phrase he used drowned out all the others what is going on in Detroit is an educational disgrace he called The Detroit Public Schools a National Disgrace many people here were offended that that their city was singled out but perhaps Secretary Duncan wasn't so much pointing the finger at them maybe he was pointing at all of us for allowing something like this to happen I mean if we' have been wiped out by a hurricane here everybody wouldd be flocking here tell the story of Detroit and how bad things are and how children are being cheated because this has been sort of a self-inflicted rolling disaster over the last 20 years and nobody nobody really seems to care about us here anymore Nolan Finley writes a bi-weekly column and runs the editorial page at the Detroit news for years he has been a sharp critic of Detroit's Public Schools known locally as DPS Dropout rates have gone up student achievement rates have gone down Detroit schools in a nutshell are not doing the job they're assigned to do which is educating the children of this city in 2009 Detroit Public School students scored the worst results ever recorded on the nape test the national assessment of educational progress serves as the nation's report card for student achievement Detroit was at the bottom of the list of big city schools with 73% of fourth graders below basic skill level no students had Advanced scores and the same year education Week Magazine created a stir when it said Detroit's High School graduation rate was only 26% the district challenged that finding saying the true rate was much higher but no matter how you parse the data the legacy of failure is clear nearly half of the adults in Detroit are functionally illiterate with that high a dropout rate and that high a failure rate I don't understand why the Civil up rights lawyers aren't lined up over here on the steps of the federal courthouse demanding these kids get their right to Quality education any system that's only graduating 25% of its students and half of those cannot read is a failed system we often heard local advocates for Education refer to the plight of their schools as an unfinished civil rights [Music] struggle but where the Civil Rights struggles of decades past galvanized entire cities community events like this one at the new bethl Baptist Church on Detroit's West Side were sparsely attended but those who did show up were passionate we don't have to fill this church in order to make changes in the lives of our children so it's okay we're Freedom Writers that's what we are tonight so join with me as we start talking about Solutions and resolutions to some of the issues that are impacting our children and impacting our Community this is our community these are our children and as they say it does take a village but we also know we need to watch who's in the village as well I feel that I have a right to go to that school and complain about the way my kids are being educated they're missing critical thinking skills they're missing communication skills my my objective is to blow up the system and start over cuz the system in place does not work and and and and I live in this community and and and as I looked around as a father I was very dissatisfied because I thought Detroit would be a different Community than what it is now and it's not for me as a child it was a Beacon of Hope for African-Americans to demonstrate to the world that we could raise out of slavery and run something for ourselves in our own way and and and it's not happening bank today Detroit is one of of the poorest cities in the country jobs here are scarce and the real unemployment rate may be as high as 50% more than 3/4 of Detroit public school children are so poor they qualify for free or reduced price lunches neighborhoods are empty and most businesses have long since folded or moved to the suburbs know you guys are shooting the area we got one of our Coast Schools right here that's really T up the back open okay thanks thanks a lot more than half the city's schools have been closed abandoned and forgotten many are beautiful hearty brick structures often still bursting with textbooks and supplies the files and records of students long gone still intact in vandalized classrooms Detroit is unsurpassed for opportunity and growth there is a Renaissance a rebirth in the city there's a newness in Detroit there was a time not so long ago that Detroit shook with optimism Detroit an exciting place to be to live to grow to work shoulder toh shoulder regardless of national origin color creed the Motor City was once the fourth largest in the United States it boast HED vibrant department stores and worldclass art museums the inner city is becoming an exciting place to live a bustling prosperous Metropolis convenient to shops offices and the most modern of schools with a population of 2 million and nearly 400,000 students in its schools the city was multi-racial and middle class but by the time this promotional film was made in 1965 the seeds for Detroit's decline had already been planted part of the lure of the suburb is in the greater Elbow Room it offers white flight with its movement of jobs and wealth to the suburbs was well underway 4 days of rioting looting and arson rocked the city of Detroit in the worst outbreak of urban racial violence this year July 1967 race riots engulf the city 43 people dead and over a, injur entire blocks of homes become infernos and damage top the half billion Mark Governor Romney declares a state of emergency the city's industry and business are severely affected sniper groups use day and night hit and run tactics before tanks move in to curb their window and rooftop barrage but racial mistrust had always been strong in Detroit we built the curreny up and we'll burn it down honkies and all Mr Brown did you tell him to burn down that school be serious I ain't got to tell black folks what to burn for decades blacks and whites had lived in different segregated neighborhoods and gone to their own schools it was an unspoken segregation but in 1970 the school board passed a busing plan to desegregate the high schools Detroit's remaining white population fought the measure hard and they weren't alone the anti-busing fervor rocked the country in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac Michigan 10 school buses were torched and anger Spilled Out into the streets Detroit's busing plan was shelved and the NAACP went to court then came a decision that rattled the city a federal judge ruled that the only way to break down the barriers of race in Detroit's increasingly African American schools was to use busing to integrate them with dozens of white suburban school districts the white suburbs revolted passing resolutions to try to Stave off the court order and the issue became National arguments next in number 73434 Milan against Bradley The Landmark case known as Milan versus Bradley reached the Supreme Court in 1974 and in a contentious 54 decision the justices overturned the Lower Court ruling there would be no busing between Detroit and her subbs the City Line became a line of racial divide separating Detroit's public schools from the mostly white Suburban schools the court today takes a giant step backwards in a stinging descent Justice thurg Good Marshall railed against what he saw as systematic Injustice the Detroit school board consciously Drew School attendance zones along lines which maximized the segregation of races in their schools he felt the ruling was a perversion of brown versus Board of Education in which the US Supreme Court ruled that school segregation on the basis of race was unconstitutional the very evil that brown was aimed at will not be cured but will be perpetuated and today more than 50 years after Brown Detroit's public schools are 88% African-American and only 2% white but race is only part of the story as Detroit has become poorer and IT schools worse many African-Americans who have the means to move elsewhere or send their children to private school have done exactly that and that line around Detroit that used to separate blacks and whites Now segregates by economic class as well so it's not just white flight blacks have left black professionals that fear for their children's safety that want police to come more timely that want to to just walk and and enjoy their neighborhood and want to have a good school and want to have a good school they've live and that has meant that teachers like Shere gay dagnogo see mostly students from poor homes whose parents themselves have a limited education it's disheartening because we know that everybody doesn't come from a perfect setting everybody doesn't have a support system in place that ensures this success well did you have parent teacher conferences oh yes were they well attended absolutely not absolutely not I don't know I just wish that parents could consider good in the impact that they have on their children when they're not there and not supporting them did your students by and large did they read at grade level or near grade level I would venture to say the majority of the class could not read thank God we we do have audio CDs um to let the students listen because they couldn't read the book could not read it's all part of a vicious cycle children who come from homes where they aren't prepared for Education who then fail in school and then have children of their own doomed to repeat the process that's how you get a city where roughly half of the the adult population is functionally illiterate in our city in our community I don't know where people get this they want to mask the truth it's often stated don't err our dirty laundry and a PO it's swinging swinging real high so dirty laundry is already out there we have to change the conversation in such a way that it impacts change in our culture well let's try starting what you would consider to be the ne necessary new conversation how does it start being honest about our dropout rate being honest about our illiteracy rate being honest about the support that needs to be in place What mechanisms have to be put in place to make sure we bring a child that's at a third grade reading level to their proper eighth grade seventh grade reading level oh that's irritating I know it is but it works I don't like screaming that's my Chim we've been working being on some vocabulary and nobody's here so what am I supposed to do you got caught in the Catch 22 because you didn't have a what and you have to have a what to be way there's nothing wrong with the children the children are okay the children can learn we just haven't put them in the right environment here even though we know the models that work even though we have models that work we can look around us and see schools that are doing better Finley points to schools like University Prep in downtown Detroit run by people like Doug Ross good luck Ross is a former politician who decided he wanted to try his hand at improving public education in Detroit everyone putting act time in the official name of University Prep is University Preparatory Academy and that's how it sees its Mission preparing its students for higher education no one knew who would be chosen to be the with an early foundation in Reading founded a decade ago it now has students from kindergarten through 12th grade because you're old doesn't mean you're a man their test scores are many points higher than their peers in other Detroit schools and much closer to the Michigan State average 11 6128 University Prep graduates almost all of its students each year 95% in 2010 and even more impressive nearly all of them go on to college but University Prep isn't a traditional public school it's a charter school which places it at the center of an educational debate that stretches across the United States what's the difference between a charter school and a public school it's really just how they're governed it's like saying what's better a publicly held Corporation or a privately held you'd say well I don't know show me the company I'll tell you if it's any good it's not a education philosophy it just means you are independently governed public school which gives you the chance to innovate and some chartered schools take advantage of it a charter is just a contract to run a public school many charter school proponents would have you believe that these schools are the ultimate solution to our National Education crisis but the data doesn't really support that not all Charter Schools perform as well as University Prep a recent Stanford University study found that only 177% of charter schools Nationwide provide Superior education opportunities for their students 37% deliver results that are significantly worse than the traditional Public Schools what about the argument and I've heard this the charter schools talk the good talk but they don't actually walk the walk that Charter Schools don't do a better job if you do the same thing that the failing public school down the street does in your chartered school you get exactly the same results a chartered school is an opportunity to innovate it's a lot better because the child is just student versus Detroit public schools you can pass with all D we don't have a lot of security guards we don't have to go through metal detectors we just come in and then we just know what we supposed to do if I was in like a Detroit Public School like I wouldn't have no Focus like our teachers like they stay on us make sure we going on the right track in life and stuff like that in 2003 a local philanthropist Bob Thompson offered 200 million to create 15 more charter schools in Detroit like University Prep supporters of the plan saw it as an opportunity to give some 6,000 additional Detroit students a chance for a better education the school district firmly said no thank you critics like Nolan Finley blasted the decision why would a district with such problems turn down an offer to build more schools based on a Model that seemed to be working granted the national picture for charter school performance maybe murky but University Prep has posted much better educational results than the majority of Detroit's Public Schools we can look to other cities where things are being done to address this crisis and then you come to Detroit and we're so interested in protecting this the status quo so interested in protecting the parasites who feed off of these schools that we won't change a thing here who are those parasites well you can start with the teachers unions you can start with the contractors you can start with the school board the education performance of these children that's at the bottom of the priority list for these for the school board and for this for this city uh the political structure of the city is all wrapped up in the school board you know their friends have jobs their spouses have jobs no one has an incentive to change coming in I was not given a single document by the school board uh not policy Not A Five-Year Plan not academic goals uh not a budget I wasn't given any information so it meant I was starting at Ground Zero we first met Dr Connie Callaway when she was nearing the end of a tumultuous 18 months as superintendent of the Detroit public schools a tenure marked by Fierce fights with Detroit's elected School Board I heard the superintendent say that she said something back I did not hear her say I called the question today I don't know which side she's working for I raised the same question that is what I said in the back room I didn't hear that from the beginning Dr Callaway says she found a district operating dishonestly and without accountability when you got there what shocked you most about the Detroit schools the complete absence of any process or organization uh for example when I got there the district was overinflating its enrollment by between 5 and 10,000 students and over the past years Detroit has gone from 300,000 students to its current enrollment of 95,000 they lose between 5 and 10,000 students per year public schools are funded by your tax dollars if a district lies about its numbers they get more money so inflating enrollment is a form of Fraud and an honest accounting mint Callaway would have to make cuts and for at least 2 years Detroit had not maintained a staff seniority list so how does one know who should be the first to be laid off and that complete absence of fundamental systems and organization was a shock to me Callaway told us she was determined to channel that shock into action but first she needed a detailed picture of the school district one based on hard facts and the picture she got back was ugly she found the district was still paying expensive utility bills on shuttered schools years after they'd been closed she discovered test scores in writing had declined by an alarming 23% over a 3-year period and she was shocked to find that there had been no evaluations of District employees for more than a decade Callaway's findings totaled almost 1,400 Pages she felt she now had what she needed to begin to make a change in DPS this notebook provides the Baseline data that I never received it is a building profile of every single School in the district with the number of students with the attendance it is an evaluation form all of the employees in the district were evaluated but when she handed out copies to members of the school board she says most of them didn't seem to care about what she'd found and looking in hindsight at the barriers at the obstacles that were thrown in my path I believe it was chaos by Design chaos is one thing chaos by Design is another thing yes indeed who designed this chaos and why uh it's been years in The Making Mr rather I don't think that it happened just with this board I think that this board carried on business the way that it had been done this meeting is call to order this meeting is being held pursuant to section 5.2 of the employment contract between the board and Dr Callaway Callaway and the school board clashed from the start and in December 2008 the board voted to terminate her contract this public hearing was held two months later let's put this as directly as possible in your judgment and based on your experience why were you fired after only 18 months on the job in Detroit they bottom line said she's changing too much she's is interfering with our money and they said to me you interfere with our money we'll interfere with yours her termination hearing was a formality but in front of a packed room of supporters and activists Dr Callaway was determined to throw all of her frustrations back at the school board I fought desperately for this District 70% of my time was spent jumping through hoops with the Board of Education the board approved this program when we are in deficit and we don't have have funds and don't have textbooks to this day I have no idea what the board's budget is and they shut me down I was not allowed to speak at board meetings they put their hands in my face they gabbled me they they called me out of my name it's thank you thank you when she came in I thought she was awesome I thought she was the best thing that happened to this District since my children have started going to school and you know um when they got rid of her I just lost I I I lost all hope after that now that the testimony has been concluded that concludes this hearing thank you I feel like they didn't want her here because she had exposed some of the things that were going on and especially when it came to that money it was you all it was this District that robed these kids of their education the the payroll person need to be locked up need to be locked up you can't tell me whoever it was there know 500 people was not budgeted that's ridiculous by the time Dr Callaway arrived in the summer of 2007 the press and the public were becoming acutely aware of some serious Financial malfeasant plaguing The District in particular the FBI was investigating a contract Kickback scheme run out of the district's Central offices at least $46 million appear appears to have vanished in a series of mysterious wire transfers but that was only what the public read in the papers District insiders experienced fraud and mismanagement on a scale that defied belief I worked at DPS for 4 and a half years the kids were never a top priority the kids were never a top priority because if they were then you wouldn't spend $40 million moving into a facility that you can't justify and then pay rents on top of that separate and apart from the FBI's investigation Leon Ogen tobo is talking about yet another multi-million dollar Scandal the details of which have only recently come to light it all centers around the 30-story Fisher Building one of Detroit's most luxurious in 2002 the district decided its existing headquarters were inadequate but rather than stay in a building they already owned they bought five floors here and gave a no bid contract for ROV you're spending $40 million to move into the new Swank facilities when you could have stayed at the older facility which you owned and spent maybe 5 10 or $15 million to fix it up the price tag is all the more shocking when you realize that the entire Fisher Building had sold the previous year for $3 million less than DPS paid for just five floors of it but it doesn't end there there was spending money as a friend of mine used to put it like drunken Sailors much of the space DPS bought was still occupied by other tenants and would be for years to come so the school district agreed to spend $2 million per year to rent space in the building next door it's not a good thing when you walk out a place that you're ashamed of there's some things I could have done differently one thing I could have done differently is I could have said well um I see a lot of things that are not right maybe I should make an appointment and talk to the feds and blow the whistle a little bit I didn't do that and I regret that in June 2009 Ogen tobo wrote a fiery whistleblowing editorial for the Detroit news in it he listed scam after scam he said he'd witnessed firsthand such as a prominent local critic of Detroit's Public Schools who was put on the district payroll at $25,000 per month vociferous critic of the district and the only thing I could conclude from that was this was a payoff to keep him quiet because during that time he did not criticize the school district with allegations of Fraud and mismanagement swirling about the district was earning a reputation as an ungovernable mess and it was having a hard time keeping superintendent I was the seventh superintendent to be hired in nine years and even more uh critical there had been four Chief Financial officers prior to the one that I brought in when Connie Callaway was hired in 2007 they practically had to beg someone to take the superintendent's job even though it paid a quarter of a million dollars a year a nationwide search had netted fewer than 20 applicants did you know when you took the job what you were getting into I read the news I was aware that there was a federal investigation into the federal funds in the district $47 million that was electronically wired out of the district over 3-month period I was aware that they had gone from a uh State takeover to an elected board yes I was aware of those problems that were common knowledge to the public at the time that I took over there were other more Insidious issues in terms of the politics that I wasn't fully aware of good evening everyone any discussion of politics and the Detroit schools has to start with the elected School Board I'm not I'm not even going to greet this Bo they have completely and utterly failed us cuz I came here to R hell do you hear me in meeting after meeting the resentment and dissatisfaction from parents and activists surges to the surface why don't you all get up move out of that office downtown and move into one of these buildings that y'all got just inting there I don't know how you sleep at night Kimberly Bishop has put five children through DPS she says she finds herself appalled that the board's dysfunction typical school board meeting usually last around maybe 5 to 6 hours sometimes a little longer you know what SEC cure this the last time I'm asking you please to assist me Elder needs to leave we do not attack other members of the audience it's rude and unnecessary um I have seen some go to 2: in the morning but Grand Home your time is up Elder but Grand Home Elder your time is up I heard you the first time public comments are limited to 2 minutes so people try to make the most of it Brown versus Board of Education said that separate can never ever be equal yet our schools are just as segregated as they were 100 years ago compl your time change thank you we can Miss Smith thank you let use a lot of arguing bickering amongst the school board members a copy of code to each assistant how you going do that if how are you that this is a way of trying to control what I print and what I copy a lot of what is discussed has little to do with what's happening in the classroom we have rings and rs and reams of paper that has disappeared from the board office without any idea of where it's going majority of the board do not use The copier in the bo office all of it while the public Waits and we can't hear you anyway I what I and you never come out of there with any solutions to any other the problems that Detroit Public School faes how going to cop when are we going to stop and think about our children and stop thinking about our damn selves got your own agendas you don't care about the kids and you still haven't answer my question why typically one thinks of a board as meeting once a month when I was hired the Detroit Board of Education was meeting 22 times a month wait a minute wait a minute 20 two times a month the school board met they have committees 11 committees and these committees have closed sessions where they meet and discuss items for the agenda then each committee has an open session with the public I showed up there was no action who asked mad presid working behind Clos I think Madam president I think if you cut the deal behind closed doors and the rest of the board don't know about it this what Thor I gave you the chance to give your opinion I'm giving mine this is but this I have a right to my opinion M Thor you spoke what you want to say now it's my turn and so I think that describe for me a typical board meeting lawlessness the they are not governed by anyone we come in and board members go in a back room where they have ordered meals for themselves and they're back there while I'm sitting at the table with the public waiting I don't know what you're doing in that back room and with lawyers and whatever but the public is not very happy with what we see at one time the president of the board challenged someone in the audience to a fight uh there's one member who turns to the public and said did you hear what Mrs Butterworth said that's the name they called me but uh these members said whatever they wanted and there is no one to govern them I don't know what you're doing you're selling our schools to who knows who people are coming up here making deals right in front of us Mr no I'm not done you're not reading any, going to get SCH you're going to get your time is up no you stepped in on my time time is up you can do stup and what you going oh yes ma'am I've been put out the she pulling keeping her sister with a damn it was the most demeaning unprofessional experience Mr rather but I look at it and I say if this is how the adults are treated it is a social justice issue in that you very seldom heard board members mention children or anything for children you know for so long things have been covered up in this district and they wanted her out they don't have the children's interest at heart we we know this because if they did our children would be learning something in school today the educational experience is not that great I mean the kids don't come to class on time and like we use like 25 minutes out of the class to get the classes shut up anyway we first met Dianna Williams in the winter of her junior year outside Henry Ford high school sadly in many ways it's a typical School in Detroit attendance is spotty the graduation rate is low and test scorers suggest almost no students are performing anywhere near GR level so I don't really see the point of being here but I'm here because I want to go to college and I don't see how this is going to prepare me for college what is your dream what do you want to do with your professional life I want to be a librarian and a writer that is all I have ever wanted to do since I was little something to do with books well that's not so wild a dream to some it might not be but it's my dream Dream well what are you doing to prepare yourself for that you said you read a lot I certainly do um last year I helped out in the library on my free periods I used to code and shell books check out books and like search for Lost Books it was like the most fun I ever had in my life and you like to write yes I write all the time it's like getting my thoughts down on paper so I don't have to think about them anymore it's like dredging up old memories is really tiring like I just wrote it down do I really have to tell you again Dianna's life hasn't been easy like many in Detroit she has grown up on the brink of poverty no put some um vegetables on Broccoli brussels sprouts brussels sprouts yeah you want veget I want I want some y'all don't have to eat it but I want some you're weird lady that is not an American meal they're a family of three Dianna her younger sister sister Isis and their mother CA wait a minute you have to be at school at 7:30 they've moved from rented house to rented house in rough dangerous neighborhoods you're have burgers tonight tomorrow we have a on liver onions but home the girls told us has mostly been a happy place and as we got to know them we found a tight-knit family bond if you spent any time with both of them you would just laugh even Di has a dry sense of humor Isis was just crack you up it just I mean and then you put us in the room together and it's like where in the world did that come from right basically Paul McCartney and Ringo Star do you know what they did for the world play music Isis is the funny one I'm the one that at least tries to keep up with with what's going on in the world my mom is the one who brings in the culture in the house bruss Sprouts that's go yeah keep you on track s she took us to plays and stuff and we used to go downtown and all this and we never really had the money to do a lot of stuff I don't know what that is but we have enough and we take care of each other why you buring over probably that's the Brussels sprouts I took them off the heat the smell should be coming in now ice nana nana up up up up up up up any comprehensive discussion of our Public Schools would be incomplete if it only examined what happens in the classroom or the district office come on we are after all talking about children and the child's education begins at home okay tell me how your day goes take me from the very beginning what time do you get up what do you do okay I'll wake up 4:45 a.m. every morning Nana are you up soon as I get done with her hair put our shoes on we going to leave it's 5:30 I'm walking out the door two blocks to the bus stop and to work I get to work by 6:30 you don't have a car no have you ever had a car no no how do they get to school bus they're going to catch the same bus I catch the work that's a city bus yes a city bus there's no school bus no we are too far from Henry Ford now before the school bus to come and get them as the number of students has dropped in Detroit the district has closed over a 100 schools in the last decade this means many students are forced to attend schools that are far from their homes taking multiple buses to get there Deanna and her family used to live closer to school but that house was so small CA slept in the basement so her daughters could have their own rooms this house is is bigger but there's always a tradeoff is it a better neighborhood every neighbor has some issues within this past week there was a shooting at the end of the block that's an issue yeah and this was pretty close oh right at the corner down the street from me pennies singles and tens yeah and you're good right scan your thing again what do you do at Target I am the cash office specialist which count money I count money I draw a deep breath and I hesitate to answer this question but give me me a range of your total income a year only a good two weeks is maybe $400 or $500 every two weeks that's take home yes after taxes after tax what bus is that Dex to downtown that's what I need apparently they're saying that these are the um bus routs want to Clos no buses on Saturday after 6 and no buses at all on Sunday that's part of the city's effort to reduce their cost right and the cab is like almost $30 you can't afford that 10 no absolutely not are you aware of how much your mother has dreamed for you yes I'm also aware of how much she gave up for me she wanted to join the military and she wanted to go to college and do all that stuff and before it was time for her to graduate she found out she was pregnant and I saw the graduation picture and under the red robe you can see her belly and it's like why in the world would you give that up for me I have done some junk and I asked her recently like what makes a parent love their child so for the tester I have to have had a 2.0 and read the rest of it it says you will be expected to provide 20 hours ofice my dream changed my time is to make sure their dreams come to fulfillment um that they they become more that no matter what happens that they know I'm there to help push them along but for all of her pushing and prodding CA told us she knows there's only so much she can do alone to keep her daughters on the path to success what would you say to a school board member if he or she were standing here in my place as much as you care what are you doing to make a change in a DPS system what are you doing and what are you trying trying to get your the rest of the board members to do to help the DPS kids because right now as much as you care is not working when they were in elementary school they had projects from science they we did Mount vuia and everything when they were in elementary school they had all these projects was like get them they were so excited to do these projects she get to Middle School there's no projects there's no science fair there's no none of that and I asked the science teacher why haven't there doing been any projects He says that he can't get the kids to mine so he canel them she stay that that one year and I took her out of that school cuz her grades went from straight A when she was in elementary school to D's and Ales Emerson had the worst reputation of a middle school ever anywhere there were fights in the hallway sex in theall always in middle school with middle school children um for the better half of a year I did not have a social studies teacher we would go into the classroom and the lights would be off and nobody was in there for the better half of the Year seems almost unbelievable it might seem that way but it's the truth Deanna continued to struggle academically at Emerson Middle School but even though she was getting D's and Fs in her classes she tested n to one of Detroit's three high schools for honor students unfortunately she says Martin Luther King High School was too far from her home it would be another setback Deana says she thinks a lot about how the schools have failed her and says she's still angry about her time back in middle school when everything started to go wrong my teacher would drink in the classroom drink smear off he smelled like liquor and Black and Mild which is a cigar my mom came up to the school for parent teacher conference and she thought he was a janitor or something because he was wearing a dirty t-shirt and dirty jeans trying to talk to her about what I was doing in class but he was drinking vodka in class yes you say yes but you you're old enough to know that's not normal not anywhere near normal no it's not and it's sad because he didn't really care he was just knocking him back in the classroom security guards would walk past the kids on the stairs having sex I would walk past kids on the stairs having sex there would be oral sex in the back of the classroom teacher didn't really care what was going on she was just you know trying to get the class to shut up long enough for her to get two words out you know there going to be people who watching and listening to this and saying well this young woman must she must have made this up it didn't really happen I don't have to make it up it happened it happened it was real yes we had a self-inflicted gun wound to a student we had numerous Locker fires bomb threats a gun went off in the classroom I obtained a fra jaw being hit with brass knuckles this is the principal of fenny high school addressing the graduating class of 2009 there was an in school beeting of a person that resulted in a death if we ever doubted the truthfulness of student reports about what happens inside Detroit public schools his matter of fact list of what these graduates had endured during their four years at finey certainly made us pay attention students have died tragically but we all stayed together and we all made it through I congratulate this senior class in an effort to keep students in and violence out finny High School had taken the DraStic step of building a chain link fence around the entire School building the symbolism was not lost on the students it's pointless cuz I look at it like they locking Us in like we have no type of Freedom it's like we're animals you you C in like animals they going act like animals that's how they act but by putting a cage around FY is making them think like well that's a representation of how they feel about us we met Brothers Darius and DeMarco craft when they were students at Penny they were both star football players and they told us it was their Devotion to the team that kept them coming to school every day DeMarco W DeMarco was one of the graduates of this class he went on to Alabama State University but he told us he wasn't sure his high school diploma truly signified academic accomplishment I don't feel that we're being prepared for colleges to the best of our abilities I think it could be a lot more done we can succeed higher if we we were to get better in education but but it's mediocre it'll get you by you know the boys told us that many of their teachers just recited lessons from worksheets and textbooks and that the students had few chances for any Hands-On learning you might get that one teacher English class she may give you one essay but like a lot of schools you have essays for every class like biology might have a science project or something no science I never done a science project since I've been in there certain stuff in the classroom we can't even tell and it's supposed to be for the class but people steal like scissors or tweezers and we don't I I done one experiment in chemistry and we didn't even finish a chemistry class without a single lab that wouldn't be allowed in most high schools but in Detroit the students we talk to seem resigned to the reality of the way their schools are run they don't have to travel a great distance just over the Detroit city lines to see Suburban schools that are far different from theirs it's a legacy that stretches back the decades to white flight to the milikan Supreme Court case the students in Detroit may not know all of the history but they have a keen sense of the [Music] Injustice it's not fair that you see kids in South field and Waterford and all this and they have computers in their classrooms and they have new textbooks textbooks I've never even seen before and I go to the biggest district and they can't even afford to give us a quality education or the kind of education that other kids are getting and it's frustrating to know that I can be learning all of these things and I can be doing all of these things and I can't and people think that people from that the children in Detroit public schools are stupid and brutish because of what they see on television and it's not true we want to learn we want to be able to do what the other children are doing we want to have the same opportunities but they keep taking them away from us they keep it's like they're keeping us down and then you find out that the people who are supposed to be looking after after us after our well-being they're stealing from us and every day I want to know why why is this happening to even begin to develop an answer to deana's question you have to step back and look at the economic realities of Detroit the decline of the Auto industry has forever altered the city's landscape factories that now sit empty once beckoned with thousands of good paying union jobs for much of the 20th century you didn't need a high school diploma to live the American dream you could drop out hit the factory floor and earn enough money to support your family well that era has passed and there aren't very many new jobs to fill the void but despite the decline of the city the public schools themselves aren't exactly poor with a budget of over a billion dollars a year DPS is the largest single employer in the city we're talking about teachers janitors secretaries in the central office not to mention all the millions of dollars in contracts the district dos out to vendors who provide services to the schools former superintendent Connie Callaway says has been a lucrative system for those who are connected you don't have to be competent they call it the friends and family plan is that a well-known phrase in the school district that's yes it is they joke that's what they said to me one of the board members said to me Welcome to Hell Callaway believes that her attempts to gain control over District personnel and vendor contracts were at the center of her classes with the Board of Education it was a raw and Savage power struggle contract steering has been a problem they totally bypass the administration and come straight to their committee meeting or the board meeting and introduce vendors for hundreds of doll thousands of dollars of contracts when we had no money by the time Callaway was fired the DPS deficit was nearing $300 million just 7 years earlier the district had a 100 million surplus something was clearly wrong with the district's finances and delaway wasn't the only one asking questions Mr rather how can you explain $47 million being electronically wired out of the district in a very short period of time and no board member have knowledge of that well how can that be how can that be I believe that uh with a budget of $1.2 billion do a year people simply can't resist looting if you will the school systems budget for the sake of employment or for the sake of contracts or it is seen as Deep Pockets and therefore children are pushed to the background and the economic needs of adults become a [Music] [Music] priority my feets are hot she wor flipflop all that money how many books that could have bought I was buying tissue for the school they would send home list of what the kids need for school you me like toilet tissue tissue we brought tissue for the um school we bought Kleenex fors so the running nose or whatever you know crayons paper and all that we did that and I had no problem doing that I sent extra but why did I have to buy tissue for school they get this money what are they doing with the money I never understood where's this money going to I used to say the very same thing when my children was in the school system and and I would come to every board meeting and I would stand up at that microphone and I would say the board did it the board did it and I would challenge them just like these particular parents challenge this particular board we're playing games okay and stop playing games with the children oh yeah I'm veny sure is veny yes I am veny yes I am mad but we don't teach in the classrooms we're not in school buildings on a day-to-day basis we are actually policymaking body we don't do the implementation we set policies but a lot of people believe when anything go wrong it's that board that did it those are the law if you want No Child Left Behind if you want that money for this and the money for that you got to follow those things to the left it's clear that the school board takes a lot of heat but members say it's not fair to put all the blame on them after all they say the state of Michigan took over the schools in 1999 and ran up high budget deficits with no improvement in academic achievement so when the elected School Board returned to power in 2006 public expectations were especially high and so the fundamental question that most people raise here is whether or not we can govern ourselves that really is the underlying question nothing was passed I don't think that your board members understand that okay I want to make sure that the board there seems to be some there's a question of clarity only 10% of that deficit occurred during the reign of this current board and now everyone's trying to wash their hands and put the blame on this board and that was when the state Governor grandholm controlled the district and the mayor so when they put us at high risk it wasn't the elected School Board I want everyone to be clear about what they're voting for we're going to redo the vote I I thought we were voting on number one no can we govern ourselves so do we need to have a different system of urban education from a governor standpoint that allows either a mayor or a strong CEO to to carry forth academic reforms but didn't it didn't it pass it did not pass what which way okay I think it there un this school system doesn't have time to Tinker around the edges it doesn't have time to [Music] plot in March 2009 a new player arrived on the scene you know when I came in I looked at everything the state of Michigan had stepped in once again and they called in this man Robert Bob to clean up the mess I mean we in a crisis not only are we in a financial crisis we're also in an academic crisis as well Bob was given the title emergency Financial Manager I have no tolerance for it I have no tolerance for anyone who takes one red Penny of public money none zero zil over the course of 30 years Robert Bob has specialized in turning around the finances of depressed urban areas across the country from Oakland California to Washington DC now the world that I live in you don't issue bonds to cover ongoing operating expenses he had a non-nonsense reputation he wasn't afraid to make enemies and critics of the school board were starting to take notice we told you emergency manager was coming when you kept us five and six hours and didn't take care of business now he's here and you know what I'm going to tell you something thank God the board of of Education now had a direct threat to its power and many detroiters Saw Bob as the last best hope for bringing long overdue accountability to the district so whoever was lying in their pockets I hope Mr Bob surely finds them because I want to stand in that courtroom to say Hey you took our children's future away from them so yours should be taken away too thank Mr Bob do you have any idea how bad the situation is before you took this yeah no uh when you heard rumors you must have heard rumors you read reports you know when I reviewed the financials for prior years I saw $ 139.7 million budget deficit the world that I come out of piece of cake would come in we can take care of that what I didn't realize is that I would inherit almost another 7080 million in budget deficit on a budget that really was a budget that was built on a house of cards okay because it's a revenue producer that we're looking at Bob told us that in all his years of experience he had never seen bookkeeping in such shambles as he so in Detroit when I came here we had over $80 million in late payments they didn't have the cash to pay many of these vendors our book companies for example had us on credit watch uh when I arrived we had to go to the state to get an advance to make payroll in April we took another advance to make payroll in may we actually had over 500 employes employes on the payroll without a budget we had vendor invoices stuck in desk drawers we have employees with ineligible dependents receiving healthc care benefits some individuals were actually deceased and we're still paying their Healthcare benefit I sent out almost 40 Auditors to audit every school it's an army of Auditors correct across the entire School District to audit all of our bank we consolations all of the cash that comes into these schools from athletic funds from music funds from you know bake sales and what we found is that we found individuals who are writing checks for themselves using the school system as their own personal banker let me just go to the results of these audits because they are disturbing in many many ways only five of the 194 schools had in entirely proper bookkeeping uh five of 194 schools with the help of his auditing team Bob bored down into the books of all of Detroit's public schools and surfaced with an embarrassing laundry list of financial missteps lack of documentation missing cash receipts improper and unauthorized dispersements missing series of checks untimely deposit Financial records removed from from the school school funds that were diverted to individuals personal accounts where did those records go incredible this is case number 0962 475 but Bob wasn't content with just documenting fraud and mismanagement count one emment public official over $50 he vowed to bring people to Justice to date he has launched about 300 criminal investigations many have been referred ref to the local prosecutor and a handful to the US attorney and these are individuals who were allowed to steal from the school system but in one instance remained employed after 3 years of being videotaped removing computers from a city warehouse and when you say from the school district it's really from the kids oh it's totally from the kids absolutely and so we you know we're recovering everything that we can stolen computers hundreds of blackberries a warehouse of motorcycles Bob told us they could have a swap meet with all of the questionable materials that have been mysteriously purchased on the school systems dime in the end somebody is responsible somebody was supposed to catch this stuff long ago long before you came in I laid the responsibilities clearly on the shoulders of the school board I was president of a school board I understand what the do what your fiducia responsibilities are you know they're a corporate Board of a$ 1.2 billion Corporation they cannot sit idly by and somewhat dismiss the fact that we've had seven years of overspending we've had waste Fraud and Abuse they are the ones who have to hold themselves accountable stand all those in favor stand a journ hi well is it or is it not the board of education's job to be responsible for keeping the financial house in order is that that is correct but what we do is as policy makers we hire individuals to perform those duties for us and keep in mind the uh superintendent is the one that recommends who she would like to work with well here's where this is going should or should not have the Board of Education done more to save the money for the children could you have done more so you sound like them could we have did more to save money for the children if we do not handle the day-to-day operation and we hire a superintendent that we pay quite well over $20 something thousand and they come to us we expect them to give us the correct information and if you have a Chief Financial Officer that comes before you every day and they say the books are balanced then at some point you have to believe and trust your superintendent trust your Chief Financial Officer trust your treasure that the information they're providing to the board is correct well at least one member of the school board and I think it's shared by others takes The View when ask where were you in fact said you have to understand Mr rather that it's the superintendent's job catch these things and bring them to us you buy then well being from Louisiana I was said as alligator D this is not the case at all you hire CEO you're over that CEO you give him or her a contract right and you hold them accountable you don't just hire a CEO and say just go out and do you know whatever and then there's evidence where these superintendents actually brought uh strong recommendations to the board where in the board have said you know no do those recommendations as well I begged for a forensic audit because their annual audit was not complete when I arrived I begged the state I begged the school board I begged the foundation everyone and I was told it was too expensive in lie of that I work with Dr Mike castley from the council great City schools and he came in and audited the curriculum Department the finance department the facilities and maintenance department the IT department and procurement the audit says and again I quote there is no indication that the budget is aligned with the district's goals priorities or actual practices tell me about those findings well those are huge problems the school district doesn't have priorities and instructional goals so there's nothing that the finance uh system can actually align to on top of that uh there is no mechanism in the school district that actually lays out a long-term plan there is no forecasting uh there's no projections about what the school system is likely to face in the coming years and the school system was just not managing the taxpayer resources in a competent fashion cashy and his team spent 6 months looking at the district and compiled their findings in a detailed report they listed many examples of wasted money such as a bloated central office with twice as many employees per student as the average Urban District he discovered some departments had nearly one supervisor for every worker it would be one thing maybe you could excuse it if all of these people were producing a great product uh and the overall attainment of the kids was getting higher and accelerating but that's not the case here and the board was horrible to them at the meeting they talked over Dr Casserly he shortened his time board members jumped up and slammed doors and all this they did all of that uh when Dr castley tried to give that presentation Council of great City Schools issued a great report fantastic road map blueprint they didn't follow that one prior audits I identify all of the financial weaknesses in the system they didn't follow any of those reports had they followed three major reports that were delivered to them there would be no need for an emergency Financial Manager we got a [Music] rem because put off bu being at it it had to have someone with the autonomy and the authority to report beyond the school board to move things in Detroit please remember that every decision that I made from anyone who was hired fired any building that's closed had to have their approval I did not have authority to do any of that we're going to build a new mford High School Mr Bob has that Authority but just how far Bob's Authority would reach became an extremely contentious issue school board members insisted they were still in control of academic decisions I would say that the academics in this District are second to nine I mean out of all the schools in the state of Michigan you know you want your child to go to Detroit public school and one of the best high schools in the country we have developed our own um academic plan that Mr Bob is rejecting at this point at least publicly he rejects it behind the scenes though they take parts of the plan and Implement them in terms of their plan that's what's really going on here here and the fact is he has no experience or knowledge of Academia so he's he's taken over the superintendent's role and not only that he has fired most of our academic experts we're not going to be intimidated from our position which is we believe we should be consulted on academic policy uh you need to consult with us prior to taking action you tell us you don't have time we had all our lives we've been here all our lives we got as much time as it takes to get it done right it's what we want Mr Bob to understand we want to do it the right way not the fast way cuz often times being fast is not good his contract fully says You must consult with the Board of Education and he felt that he shouldn't have to in August 2009 the Detroit school board sued Robert Bob for overstepping his authority according to member Marie Thornton Bob Bob wasn't staying in his own lane on a local radio show Bob had already made his feelings about Thornton and the rest of the school board very clear if they had done their job well then I would still be in my office at 601 Pennsylvania Avenue in Northwest I would not have had the phone call from the state of Michigan we're here because they're the ones who received a triple f for not doing what was right for the students of the Detroit Public School System system and this school system this school board Miss Thon is part of the failure as to why I'm here Bob countersued the school board for spending money without his approval the board had taken the provocative step of hiring a new superintendent without consulting him they had promoted one of their own their former general counsel Bob said he wouldn't fund the position and questioned the wisdom of hiring a new superintendent without a nationwide search he shouldn't be spending a dime in counters on this board what he needs to do is sit down with this board and figure out the best mechanism for us to work together we are not the enemy the problem with the Detroit public schools and its leadership particular at the board level is that we will we just there's a there's this nonrecognition of reality the reality is that we know John is not reading but we're going to pretend that Johnny is in fact some people would call that denial it's total denial I mean we can't deny the fact that we have kids coming into the ninth grade reading at the fifth and sixth grade levels we can't deny the fact that we have kids in the ninth grade that we expect to take pre-algebra but they cannot read and yet we want them to perform at these high [Music] levels Bob of course course wasn't the first to make these observations it's what former superintendent Connie Callaway put in her notebook it's what Michael cly put in the report of his audit change is hard especially when there are no easy decisions but Bob said many in the district didn't want to face the tough realities because what has happened in the past is they've seen where they've had a declining enrollment they knew how many employees should be laid off but they didn't pull the trigger I've not been afraid to Pro the trigger we can't teach with 50 students in a class we can't teach with our books and supplies we have a th teachers laid off and every single one is going to come back what do we want what do we want it as the 200920 school year approached Bob blid off over a th teachers he said the district couldn't afford their salaries the teachers union rallied in protest you can't balance a 400 million dollar deficit on the backs of teachers it's not going to happen what other cuts are you willing to make the union argued that their members were being unfairly targeted but Bob was making drastic cuts across the board he fired scores of principles he gave pink slips to nearly 3/4 of the district's central office and he announced that the pace of school closings in Detroit would increase dozens more over the next few years all of this in an effort to turn the schools around we only have one objective one goal One mission and that is to do everything that's in our power to make sure that you get the very best education you deserve and never let anyone tell you that you don't deserve the best education so are you in are you in are you in in DPS DPS we're all in [Music] Bob launched a giant public relations campaign called I'm in which culminated in a huge pep rally for parents teachers and students a week before the start of the school year okay um hi this is Emanuel a reporting live downtown at the DPS Back to School parade what is the importance of today what is it symbolic of well it's symbolic of the fact that we have to keep our kids kids enrolled in the Detroit public schools everyone who's currently in school we want all of the children who are currently enrolled to return back to the Detroit public schools and we want new kids to reenroll uh in Detroit public schools if they left the school system last year okay thank you so much Mr Bob it might seem odd that a district with such financial problems would spend half a million dollars on a PR campaign but it highlighted a predicament that Bob had to confront you doing a d good job put all in jail had spent months talking about how bad the Detroit public schools were how academic achievement was low and how the system had failed now he had to sell those same schools to skeptical parents who were looking at Alternatives charter schools for example or moving to another District why should I have to pay as a single parent $94 for registration to P them out of DPS to put them in a Academy or a charter you shouldn't have to pay one ni didn't but give me your name let me have your name Bob approached the task like a politician campaigning door Todo media in tow is this Miss Riley yes I am how are you doing I'm Robert Bob and like many politicians he had gotten a key celebrity endorsement this man means business Entertainer and education Advocate Bill Cosby who'd seen a news story about Robert Bob and volunteered to come to Detroit to help him out and we're going to talk to people and try and get them to understand the seriousness of a child left without a reason to understand math the Press took notice but they had many hard questions about what Bob and Cosby were actually selling our station spoke with a woman yesterday who lives right near Henry Fort high school and her child does attend a charter school she said it would take more than Bill Cosby it would take Jesus himself she is so afraid afraid to send her child to the public schools so Jesus came what are you looking at me for now my having said that here's the point I don't think I've signed on to yank people out of Charter School I've seen Charter Schools they're magnificent some of them huh some some but I tell you what we're not there to yank people away who don't believe we're trying to get people whose children have to come to public school to begin to behave in a manner that they're bringing their children to the school that the truancy rate begins to fall we want to build a relationship that's why he's here but now we need to enroll your daughter in the Detroit Public School yeah well if I'm a parent why would I put my child into that school system or back into that school system why wouldn't I say you know God bless Mr Robert Bob and his efforts but these are my kids only get one shot I'm going to take them to a private school charter school or take them to the suburbs that's a very excellent question I mean I hear it all the time and I don't blame them I say to parents you do what's right for your kid what we're going to do is we're going to have a plan that gets move this Legacy deficit out of your way we're going to make sure that the funds that needs to get to the classroom for your kids will get to the classroom we're going to make sure that you have great leaders in these school buildings and there enough riger in those classrooms for your kids and we're going to make sure that our school campuses are safe I say give us a chance with your child things [Music] are let's go let's go everybody put their hands in the [Music] go go go [Applause] everybody well do you know this gentleman Mr Robert Bob has come in to help the school system have you heard about him yes well what do you think can he do it I think he's it is admirable that he is putting up the effort very good job for getting out to the media but no nobody is going to come back to DPS because nobody wants to send their child to a school where they're not learning anything nobody wants to send would you send your child to a school where there are children in the hallway because they would rather not go to class where there are fights where the texbooks are tattered and torn nobody wants to send their children to something like that they want their children to have the best come on people you say come back to DPS make DPS better but thousands of Detroit parents feel they have little choice but to send their children to their local public school even though they know it may be failing they don't have the means to move to the suburbs or pay for a private school and Charter Schools all question of their Merit set a as side have a limited number of spots often relegated to heartbreaking lotteries one of the Grim realities of our national crisis and education is that in places like Detroit school often takes a backseat to the hardships of [Music] life this the first day in school which sucks although Diana is passionate about learning her past three years at Henry Ford have been Rocky as she entered her senior year her grade point average was low and she told us she had to fight the feeling that coming to school was mostly a waste of time Robert Bob had promised there would be big changes inside these buildings starting with what he called the school's CEO the principal when there's a problem in the building I'm not going to search don't don't tell me about the teacher down the hall I want to know what the hell you've done about it Bob personally interviewed every principal in every school across the district and they were only rehired if Bob felt like they were capable of maintaining a standard of Excellence Dr Lane hunt was about to start his day as the new principal of Henry Ford Mr D did you get those computers put in the office you know he's the individual when we're going to look for to determine whether or not there's discipline in the build the school climate is correct but more importantly are is real teaching and learning taking place in the school building it was the first day of the school year Bob had been in Detroit only 7 months he'd angered the school board by getting involved in academic decisions as much as Financial ones and now it was time to see whether Robert Bob would be the Agent of Change these schools so desperately needed [Music] that's what they teach if the first week at Henry Ford High School was any indication it was not going to be smooth saving students who have V you will report to the cafeteria deana's sister Isis spent the first 3 hours of school waiting in the cafeteria along with hundreds of other students they all had an off-campus vocational training class on their schedules but it was cancelled because the bus driver never showed up those other kids shouldn't be out of the cafeteria this is the beginning of the year so it's real common for us to just sit around and not do nothing a lot votex stud you need to be here at 700 p.m. 7: a.m. in the morning you need to be here at 7 a.m. Diana may not have been excited about the new school year but she told us she was looking forward to her first class honors English we going to get started right away okay you as a matter of fact you will probably get your books tomorrow so we're going to be em getting our books yes in past years Dianna's mother had had to call the school to ask why her daughter hadn't received any textbooks so the prospect of getting them on the second day of school was big news we don't have time to issue you your books today but tomorrow tomorrow she said we're going to start getting our books and stuff and I guess some other things are going to happen tomorrow but I know we're getting our books tomorrow but on the second day of class when do you get your books um I have them I did put them in the room and you're going to look at them today but um I'm not going to issue issue it to you today a month in into the school year Diana said the textbooks still hadn't been issued are you supposed to sit down or just wait for somebody to come I don't know I want no teacher showed up to isis's algebra class remember Isis has spent the first 3 hours of her day sitting in the cafeteria oh this is algebra what algebra 3 okay if somebody doesn't come in here although I'm sure will make sure they all sign your schedule and if not I'll come back I was on my way but 3 weeks into the school year there still was no teacher and eventually the class was combined with another bringing the class count to over 50 students I don't have a teacher for Spanish it was closed and the lights were off and then I asked the teacher next door is that still the Spanish room she told me to go downstairs to the office and and a lady at the office told me to come down here Deana was sent to the cafeteria to wait because no one showed up to teach her third hour Spanish class on the second day of school Deanna found a substitute teacher had been assigned to the Spanish class you know what Deana told us she'd been in this situation before where do I go to change my classes and that she didn't want to waste time in a class without a permanent teacher thank you she was sent to the office to try to change her schedule Spanish teacher who's your Spanish but at the office Deanna couldn't get anyone to understand the difference between having a teacher to teach her Spanish and a substitute teacher babysitting the class there I just left I just left from 2 minutes ago all right you just said that he wasn't there that's what you just said you said there no teacher there that's what you and they told us in the office to just go to class and keep going to class until the counselors can switch our classes around and there are only two counselors so who knows when that might happen on the fourth day of class there was neither a teacher nor a substitute what classes spish where's your teacher y a got no teachers y'all supposed to be in French y'all in the wrong classroom yall teacher the teacher covering in classroom is missani French y got to go over there to her classroom eventually a music teacher was assigned to the class Deana shot this video with a camera we provided her this is my last year school and this is why I'm so upset about it get your credits yes I think it's wrong that it's been two weeks and we don't have a Spanish teacher and then they send a music teacher in because have don't have anybody else right now I may not may not know the details or the the the the more intricate Parts but you got to trust me that I know the beginning got it it took the nearly a month to successfully transfer out of this class they're your employ all I do is pay the bill all right how many hours 3 hours a day new principal Lane hunt was also having a rough few days this is one of those classes where the teachers didn't show up we were supposed to get S teachers actually two showed up I'm getting ready to call and see where Rand off schedule is I don't know where the bus driver is okay cuz I'm one of those parents that is took my child out of the charter school in the suburbs and I'm giving it a try but I want to know that say first hour was small eight people second hour was 14 third hour was like 22 Dr Hunt was worried about how few students were showing up for school fourth hour was usually the busiest at the end of the first week there were just over 800 have 8226 how many did we have last year total about 1,300 okay so we got a little ways to go got a little ways to go it seemed that Bob was running into a cultural headwind that was beyond his control he was learning that in Detroit it's not a given that students will show up on the first day of school or even in the first two weeks his I'm in campaign hadn't changed that and this man comes to Detroit like a hired gunfighter so we got a lot of problems around here said people riding through town stealing drinking picking on this doing that and not caring about the children but Bill Cosby's message was much bigger than Robert Bob or even Detroit it was a cultural criticism about the state of education in poor urban areas if you let your child wander around the street and and say that he admires the drug dealer you might as well turn him loose to the clan too protect your children education education is important as Cosby says it's the way we protect our children ladies and gentlemen really quick but as Dianna went through her senior year her frustrations with her school continued to mount sometimes it's really boring at times it's like what in the world am I doing here and sometimes it's just like I'm not at school at all I'm just somewhere waiting to go home so Deanna stopped showing up and began counting the days to when she could hopefully leave the Detroit schools behind for the promise of college if you love yourself and you value your mind and you don't want it to turn to applesauce do not come to Ford save yourself the trouble and The Agony and the tutorin when you get to college whose fault is that is it the teacher's fault is it it's everybody's fault it's the kids for not taking care of the building for not taking responsibility for what they need to do for doing the things that they do to give the school a bad name it's the administration and the teacher fault for not having a good Reign on the kids they say that the clothing is a problem and they give us uniforms the clothing is not the problem is that you're not getting through to the children that's the problem it's the parents fault because the parents won't work with the teachers and the counselors and the administration to make sure that their kids are doing what they need to do it is the board's fault for stealing from the children and not giving us what we need and not telling their Administration what they need to do it is the mayor's fault and the governor's fault for not paying attention to what is happening in the city of Detroit it is everybody's fault everybody has had a hand in this and it is time for everybody to take responsibility for what has [Music] happened Deanna Williams stop stop stop got to keep [Applause] [Music] [Applause] going I'm going to school at Eastern Michigan [Music] University if there's a happy ending to this story it's that Deana made it out she graduated from Henry Ford and was the first in her family to be accepted to a 4-year college but this day almost didn't happen I know we almost didn't make it and now even if she goes to college she doesn't it just helps her there's no choice but for me to succeed in college we hear a lot about inspiring children from communities like this to have the drive to succeed Dianna had the drive but there was a shocking disconnect her grades and test scores were low and it seemed the school didn't care that she was falling through the cracks our production team found it nearly impossible to watch this happening to her so we decided to step in and help we found Dean and her sister Isis a volunteer tutor and after only a few sessions their practice test scores jumped tremendously we also helped Diana navigate the tricky College admissions process and made sure she understood the financial options available to her in the end we didn't do much more than an average high school counselor but Diana wasn't getting this information at school I thank you thank you so much you guys are priorities also and that should be in there that without your influence I don't know but I appreciate it I really really do a few months before graduation a family crisis threw another wrench into the works Deanna's sister Isis left school and ran away from home the family didn't want to go into too many details but ultimately CA lost her job at Target because she missed so many days of work trying to deal with a troubling situation good evening my name is Robert Bob I serve as the emergency Financial Manager for the Detroit public schools EXT excuse me excuse me by the time the school year was drawing to a close communication between Bob and the school board had broken down completely we have no information regarding the finances of the district a district court had to order them to meet to discuss the budget on April 19th we provided you with both the detailed facili plan and the academic plan quite frankly we never got it we never got it well it's not my fault that you haven't received this excuse me you this was the last public meeting we attended where once the anger had been directed at the board now Robert Bob was in the crosshairs I want to commend the board for standing with the people the students the teachers the parents get this against this heinous effort by Bob to destroy public education in our city we will win he had upset the teachers union you now your son said when school started we are DPS we are in you kicking us out amen he had closed a lot of schools you came in as a Financial Manager now you want to go into academics that's not your place you have lined your pocket with the money that belongs to our children you need to check yourself and the district's deficit had only increased under his watch Robert Bob is a criminal and we are going to expose him Bob said this was the price of being honest with the numbers and of laying a foundation for the future but Detroit's patience with his policies had come to an end and while you're there in uh DC you need to stay there and don't go around the country terrorizing black cities I'm going to excuse me Mr Bob uh excuse me my miss my name is Miss wills and I'm going to talk to you about Student Records that are still being missed mom left the meeting in disgust while the community continued to Bent their anger the strategy should be if you really want to get at Robert Bob is to attack his credibility one good way to do that is look at what he's doing for too long our country has dealt with systemic failures like the schools in Detroit by looking the other way we say we want change but we're not patient enough to realize that digging ourselves out of Decades of neglect will take more than a few months or even years when Robert Bob announced he would leave Detroit when his term ended in the spring of 2011 many in the community and the local press treated his tenure as a failure the deficit after all had gone up where his student test scores had not and whether Bob's policies were misguided or whether they would have paid off in the future is a place for honest debate but as we struggle with our nation's most difficult problems we must start with an honest accounting and Bob's efforts to do that like similar efforts by former superintendent Connie Callaway before him were met with denial contempt and political posturing by those invested in the status quo sadly this is a phenomenon not limited to Detroit or even to our national crisis in education on tough issue after tough issue we have allowed ourselves to confuse finger pointing with problem solving and self-serving distortions with a Fidelity to the truth we need to demand more from our leaders and [Music] ourselves [Music] [Music] if you would like to add your name to an email list for information on upcoming programs or if you would just like to send a question or comment please email us at viewer hd.net [Music]

Channel: theratherreports

Views: 1,827,762

Keywords: dan, rather, reports, report, reporter, national, disgrace, news, media, public, education, school, cbs, bbc, abc, fox, nbc, fox news, Educational, Commentary, Analysis, Talk, Interview, Television, Fox News, Bbc News, Msnbc

Id: 4xypiZ-hqdY

Length: 105min 8sec (6308 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 14 2012