Detroit Wild Cat Strike Shuts Down 2 School Districts

They say Michigan’s new Right to Work (RTW) law is now a done deal. That didn’t stop thousands of teachers and other union members from taking the day off to protest at the state capital this week. In Detroit, so many teachers called in sick that two school districts, (Taylor Public Schools and Warren Consolidated Schools), were closed for the day, according to Detroit News. Detroit Public Schools (DPS) remained open, though Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) President Keith Johnson did urge members to go to Lansing.

The state’s new RTW bills would make it illegal to require employees to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment. This would significantly reduce unions’ ability to raise funds to support their members, while allowing freeloaders to reap the benefits of union-negotiated contracts without providing any material support for this service. RTW states have lower wages and lower union membership than other states.

Pundits and many union activists are accepting the new RTW laws as a fait accompli. However, the fact that two unions were able to easily shut down their districts with wild cat sick outs demonstrates the power teachers and other workers actually have to force a reversal of the laws. While it may be illegal for teachers to strike in this situation, the law cannot stop teachers from exercising their rights to take days off for medical or personal necessities. Such actions can be organized informally and done on a rotating basis (i.e., rolling sick outs) to minimize the loss of individual sick days, while maximizing the impact.

On the other hand, workers need to get over their fear of breaking the law. Civil disobedience has a long and important history in this country, especially in the labor movement. Strikes and unions have both been illegal in the past, but workers still formed unions and continued to engage in job actions, often getting arrested and beaten in the process, and occasionally getting killed or deported. Breaking unjust laws (e.g., any restriction on the right to strike) in the name of improving personal and collective liberties, as well as working and living conditions, is both necessary and just.

Michigan's Education Coup Attempt

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

On November 6, Michigan voters repealed Public Act 4, allowing Detroit school board to reclaim control over 15 “failing” local schools from the short-lived Education Achievement Authority. Within days of the election, GOP lawmakers introduced a bill into the Michigan House to codify the EAA into state law, in an attempt to nullify the November election results.

Advocates for the EAA argue that “real” education reform takes five to seven years to show success, according to the Detroit News, and thus the EAA should be allowed to continue, despite voters’ wishes. In reality, there is no consensus about what “real” reform even means, let alone any evidence that reforms share a five to seven year timeframe. Nevertheless, if the EAA were allowed to continue its control over these schools, we would likely never know if they “improved,” since the new legislation would exempt EAA students from the state exams that are used to compare schools and judge their success.

The EAA was a corporate coup that usurped local control of 15 Detroit schools from parents and the community and handed it over to an unaccountable cabal of business leaders. The new legislation not only keeps the schools out of the jurisdiction of Detroit Public Schools, it also allows the EAA to work outside the authority of the state superintendent and elected state school board. It would also be permitted to take over hundreds of other low performing schools throughout the state, as well as many that are not low performing, potentially making the EAA the largest school district in the state.

The EAA was never really about improving educational outcomes for low income students, as proponents have argued. Rather, it is about transferring tax dollars into the hands of private education profiteers. The agency was described by its chancellor, John Covington, as a “public body corporate,” according to an article in Counter Punch, which describes the EAA as a “for-profit” vulture seeking to take over financial control of the 50,000-student, predominantly poor and black school district. The EAA was created in 2011 as a joint venture between Eastern Michigan University’s board of regents and DPS, with the support of Gov. Rick Snyder, who hired a former GM executive to manage it. (It should be pointed out that soon after Covington left his former district, Kansas City, the district lost its accreditation). 

The EAA funnels public funds into the hands of private corporations by outsourcing many of its education services, including food concessions and maintenance. It can also profit by leasing or selling unused school buildings to private charter schools. The curriculum is heavily based on canned computer lessons purchased from Agilix and School Improvement Network, the Huffington Post reports. Each child gets an individualized learning plan ostensibly tailored to his or her needs. However, these plans are tied to the computer lessons, which students must master before advancing to the next level. Thus students are tied to their computers and the digital curriculum, while the companies that produce the curriculum are guaranteed long-term customers.

Supporters argue that the curriculum and pedagogy are “student-centered,” which is a catchy edu-babble way of saying it is superior to other pedagogies. One EAA teacher even invoked Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, suggesting that the EAA digital curriculum was a positive move away from the didactic, “banking” model of traditional public schools, according to the Counter Punch piece.

Of course this is completely absurd. While the curriculum may in fact be adaptable to the needs of each individual student, it also isolates students from their peers and denies them the social aspects of learning. Placing children in front of computers for hours at a time is not only unhealthy physically; it also undermines their development of communication and collaborative skills. But it may help them adapt more easily to a future career in an office cubicle.

The EAA’s digital pedagogy is just another form of “blended learning,” one of the many trendy national “reforms” that undermine the quality of education and the integrity of the teaching profession in order to transfer public education revenues to the private sector while weakening the public sector unions. With a uniform curriculum created by outsiders and imposed on all students, there is no longer a need for skilled, credentialed teachers. A warm body will suffice—somebody who can take attendance, make sure kids stay on task, and send them to the office when they misbehave.

The EAA’s assault on teachers goes well beyond the deskilling of the teaching profession. EAA teachers have been stripped of their collective bargaining rights and they are paid less than their peers in DPS. The EAA is also forcing them to pay for 40% of their own medical benefits, while depriving them of pensions, according to the Detroit Free Press. They are also required to work 40 more days than their colleagues in DPS.

Union-Busting Corporate Giveaways in Michigan

Image from Flickr by Christopher Dombres

Michigan’s infamous Financial Martial Law is now well known to those paying attention to this sort of thing. Numerous towns, cities and jurisdictions—including Detroit Public Schools (DPS)—have already been declared financial catastrophes and had “emergency financial managers” (generally business executives) imposed on them. These managers have the authority to override or fire elected officials, lay off unionized workers, cut services, and give away public institutions (like public schools) to private, for-profit operators.

According to Detroit News.com, 800 DPS teachers will not be hired back next year, while their counterparts in the suburbs of Muskegon Heights and Highland Park will not know if they have jobs until their financial managers can find private charter companies to run them. Once these public institutions have been given away to private corporations, it will be up to the charter operators to determine which teachers get rehired, with few (if any) being allowed to retain union representation.

Muskegon Heights recently signed a contract with Mosaica, a private, for-profit charter chain, giving them control over every school in the district. The details of the deal have not been disclosed, including the amount of taxpayer dollars the district will be handing over to the company.

These corporate giveaways are intended to save the districts from financial calamity.  (Muskegon Heights has a roughly $12 million deficit, while Highland Park Schools' deficit soared is over $11 million). However, the only way this is possible (and the only way their private operators can turn a profit) is by lowering labor costs by shredding union contracts, increasing class sizes, decreasing services, and gutting pay and benefits.

Privatization of public schools in Detroit has been an ongoing problem under former financial manager Robert Bobb (see here and here). Current manager Roy Roberts has slashed teachers’ wages by 10% (in violation of their contract, but apparently perfectly legal under Michigan’s Financial Martial Law), reduced maternity leave to only 12 weeks.

Like much of the Ed Deform movement, Michigan’s unique approach depends on the fabrication of a crisis through years of tax breaks for the wealthy supported through the slashing of education and other social services. The school districts themselves are then blamed for their fiscal woes and businessmen are called in to clean up the mess, as if the public should believe that only businessmen are capable (and trustworthy) enough to solve the schools’ problems. And like the rest of the business world, these businessmen are indeed in it only to make a profit, at whatever cost to the public good. Sadly, despite the nearly daily examples of corporate greed and criminality (and the dearth of evidence that districts run by businessmen perform any better than those run by educators), the public continues to accept the notion that business leaders make good school administrators.

Detroit: Fire ‘Em All & Let God Sort It Out Later

Over 4,100 Detroit Public Schools teachers received layoff notices this month, according to the Detroit affiliate of NPR. They will each have to reapply next month in order to have a chance at a job in the district next year. Furthermore, new state law now prohibits Michigan school districts from rehiring or laying off teachers based solely on seniority. In Detroit, the decision will be based on evaluations.

Such mass firings are not uncommon in school districts and have become even more prevalent with the budget crises of the past few years. Ed Codes generally require districts to send out pink slips toward the end of spring semester, even though revenues are uncertain until the following fall. Thus, school districts typically send out far more layoff notices than necessary and have to scramble to rehire some of the laid off teachers in the fall.

Detroit Public Schools (DPS) has the added problem of declining enrollment due to a shrinking city population and growing number of charter schools. Despite these factors, DPS still saw an enrollment spike last September, forcing the district to hire back all but 400 teachers and will likely face a similar scenario this coming fall.

Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) President Keith Johnson said "they are doing this again like they did last year and it's going to be chaos again in September... I'm preparing for battle." Of course, coming from Johnson, who has repeatedly maintained a collaborationist relationship with DPS (see here, here and here), Detroit teachers should be very nervous. Johnson’s approach to battle will likely involve some gentle pleading and followed by concessions that will trade pink slips for increased class sizes, longer working hours, and wage and benefits cuts.

Illiterate Braggart to Take Over 15 Detroit Public Schools

Yes, I realize this is a rather bombastic headline, but it was hard to resist. Consider the following public statement by John Covington, Chancellor of the Education Achievement Authority, the agency that will be taking over 15 low performing Detroit Public Schools. In response to the agency’s plan to lengthen the school year he was quoted in the Detroit News saying:

"I don't know if people understand the magnitude of what just happened. . . This 210 days for students, it puts us at the highest in the nation, only second to Massachusetts."

Disregarding his inarticulate sentence structure and poor math skills, the fact remains that six DPS high schools and nine elementary-middle schools will be taken over by the Education Achievement Authority (EAA), created by Gov. Rick Snyder improve the state's failing schools.

The EAA was given the authority to lengthen the school year for students at its schools, from the current 170 days to 210 starting next fall. Students will have 52- to 54-day quarters and shorter breaks for the holidays.

The new rules will affect approximately 12,000 students at schools chosen because of their high percentages of at-risk children.

Covington reassured angry parents that they will be allowed to keep their kids at the affected schools or transfer to another DPS school, while students from other district schools will be permitted to enroll in the EAA schools. However, parents are unlikely to transfer their kids to a school branded as low performing unless they are already at a low performing school and want the extra days of taxpayer subsidized babysitting.

On the other hand, parents of children at the affected schools might have the right to transfer their children, but lack the means. For one, they will be expected to fill out additional paper work and jump through extra hoops, something that lower income parents are often unable to do because of their busy work schedules, difficulties communicating in English or because they lack the experience to navigate the bureaucracy confidently and effectively. Furthermore, their children could get placed at a school that is inconveniently located, preventing them from getting their children to and from school.

The Beatings Will Continue Until You Master the Content

In addition to taking away much of their vacation time and increasing the number of hours they are in the classroom, the EAA will no longer place students in classrooms with their peers. Instead, students will be placed in classrooms based on their instructional level. Thus, a child who is reading at the second grade level would be in a classroom with other students at this reading level, regardless of their age. 

The Teacher Beatings Will Continue, Too

It seems like the entire staffs at the affected schools will be fired, as Covington plans to hire roughly 600 new teachers, including 200 from Teach for America (TFA), a move that ought to make everyone suspicious of the true motives of this “reform.” If the goal is to help struggling students, then the solutions should be to hire experienced teachers with demonstrated skill and staying power. TFA teachers have virtually no training, poorer outcomes with their students, and a notoriously high attrition rates.

The plan to take over these schools and hire new teachers seems to actually be about union busting. TFA teachers, being young and inexperienced, tend to be more malleable and compliant than experienced unionized teachers, making them very appealing to administrators who want to push through unpopular reforms and squeeze more work from their employees. However, the new plan does not guarantee that EAA teachers will be covered by the collective bargaining agreement between DPS and the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT), even though the schools were covered by the contract prior to the takeover.

Detroit Slashes Teachers’ Wages 10%

Detroit’s new emergency financial manager, Roy Roberts, is imposing a 10% wage cut on all 10,000 employees of Detroit Public Schools (DPS), according to Labor Notes. On top of this, he is making them pay 20% of their own health care (up from 10% last year). All of this is possible thanks to Michigan’s Financial Martial Law bill, passed in March.

The law gives appointed financial managers the authority to impose budget cuts in cities, towns, and school districts, cancel union contracts and remove any elected local officials.

The wage cuts come on top of an already devastating 2011-2012 budget that shut down or privatized 14 schools and fired 800 employees. Furthermore, most of the district’s unions had already made concessions such as accepting furloughs.

The district has lost nearly half its schools over the last three years. Nearly half of all Detroit children will be attending charter schools this year.

What’s Good for GM Is Good for American Kids, Not

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, like an increasing number of politicians across the country, has placed a business executive with no experience running a public school district in charge of Detroit Public Schools (DPS). The incompetent and corrupt Bob Bobb will be replaced by a former General Motors executive Roy S. Roberts as the new Emergency Manager of DPS, with the power to nullify teacher contracts, fire all teachers and privatize DPS schools to his heart’s content under Michigan’s financial martial law.

Roberts, like Bobb, has a similar sounding name and a history of serving the interests of capital. Unlike Bobb, Roberts has no direct connection with Eli Broad, which means his $250,000 salary won’t be further bloated with donations from the Broad Foundation (Bobb’s salary, including foundation support, was $425,000). It should be pointed out, though, that after his stint at GM, Roberts worked for Reliant Equity Investors, alongside Thomas Darden, who did attend the Broad Superintendent’s Academy before being hired as an administrator in Philadelphia (See Broad Academy website). Presumably they shared notes from time to time?

However, the lack of official Broad support will probably mean very little when it comes time to close the DPS budget gap. Roberts will be under the same pressure as Bobb to get results in a district that has a rapidly shrinking student population and funding stream and shares Bobb’s cockiness. The Wall Street Journal quoted him saying, "I'm not going to let anybody in this state deter me." Roberts, like Bobb, is fully invested in the reform mania plaguing the nation.

The WSJ said that Bobb’s agenda of closing and privatizing schools was being called into question, especially by the governor, implying this was the reason for the change of guard. However, considering the governor’s love for big business, a more likely explanation for Snyder’s displeasure with Bobb was his failure to close the district’s budget gap, stabilize enrollment or win the support of parents. Perhaps Bobb was not ruthless enough in his attacks on teachers, and Snyder wants someone with more business experience to be his axe man in Detroit. Roberts would certainly be the man for the job, having served as Vice President in charge of personnel at GM in 1987.

Roberts himself lends credibility to this hypothesis, saying he intends to continue with Bobb’s plan to close 14 schools and convert up to 45 others to charter schools by next year, according to the Detroit Free Press, a move that demonstrates his allegiance to private business and his disdain for teachers.

Detroit Mayor Asks God to Close Budget Gap

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Detroit’s mayor Dave Bing was quoted in the Wall Street Journal saying "I'm not afraid of an emergency financial manager being named . . . he or she almost becomes god and can do whatever is necessary to bring financial stability back." Bing could be anointed god of Detroit under Michigan’s Financial Martial Law legislation, which allows the Governor to declare any city or school district a failed state and impose a financial manager who has the authority to shred union contracts, fire everyone (and let some other god sort it out later.) Bing, a Democrat, has already slashed city workers' health care and pensions to close a $200 million city budget gap. However, he said that if city unions refuse to agree to rollbacks, the budget gap could reach $1.2 billion by 2015, setting up the unions as straw men to justify declaring financial martial law in Detroit.

Detroit Public Schools (DPS) has already been declared a failed state and has had its own financial manager, Robert Bobb, for several years now. Bobb has taken advantage of his god complex by sending out pink slips to every one of DPS’ 5,466 employees, according to the WSJ, including all of its teachers and 250 administrators. Reuters reports that Bobb has pledged to use his powers as financial manager to address the school districts $327 million budget hole, threatening to make unilateral changes to teacher contracts and abolish seniority rules. Bobb has already shut down dozens of Detroit schools and plans on closing dozens more or converting them to private charter schools.

Meanwhile, opposition has already begun, with at least twelve students and teachers occupying the Catherine Ferguson Academy for pregnant, parenting teens, to prevent it from being shut down, according to the Daily Censored. The protest was organized by the group By Any Means Necessary, which fears that the school will be converted to a charter school and cease to provide services for pregnant and parenting youth. Hundreds of others joined the protest outside, providing logistical support for those inside the school and attempting to block the police from entering. Eventually, though, the protesters were arrested for trespassing and taken to jail, including young mothers and their children. Police threatened to turn their children over to Child Protective Services. However, the children were eventually released back to the parents, all of whom were cited and released.

Detroit’s Continuing School Problems

Robert Bobb, now in the final months of his contract as state-appointed emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools (DPS), has failed to close the district’s budget deficit, which currently stands at $327 million. He has shuttered dozens of schools and privatized many others. He has also proposed closing half of DPS’ remaining schools (which would raise class sizes to 62) or privatizing 41 within the next six months. The Detroit Free Press says that this would make DPS the 2^nd largest chartering district in the nation. However, many charter operators believe it is impossible to achieve Bobb’s ambitious goal within his 6 month timeframe.

DPS plans to release the list of schools slated for privatization within the next week and will choose charter operators within a month. The Detroit Free Press says that KIPP, Edison and Green Dot are not interested in DPS, but White Hat and Leona (both for-profit) are interested. It is indeed unlikely that White Hat and Leona, alone, could take over 41 schools and have them all up and running by fall. Furthermore, the charter plan is opposed by teachers who would lose their contracts and union protections, and possibly even their jobs in the conversions. DFT President Keith Johnson says the conversions won’t happen under his watch, but there have already been dozens of charter conversions under his watch, as well as numerous cuts to teachers’ pay, benefits and working conditions. Detroit teachers should not count on Johnson to look after their interests.

If the charter plan does not fly, Governor Rick Snyder could simply shut down DPS entirely under Michigan’s new financial martial law legislation, thus nullifying all existing contracts with teachers and support staff, and place the district in the hands of a new financial manager. This would allow Detroit to create a new district from the ground up with all new contracts offering much lower wages and benefits. While this would not instantaneously achieve the Bobb/Duncan/Broad goal of privatizing all the schools, it would certainly weaken the union and bring them a step closer.