A Strike in Detroit?

How can the Detroit Federation of Teachers prove to the citizens of Detroit and the taxpayers of Michigan that they are determined to help the Detroit Public Schools recover from a backbreaking budget deficit, one so extreme that the state of Michigan itself had to assume control over its finances?

Yep, threaten a strike over the layoffs.

I am not so callous as to celebrate the loss of jobs that were once productive and necessary. But sad reality has to set in sooner or later and that looming $259 million dollar deficit for the upcoming school year is not a good omen. The city of Detroit itself is crumbling, is bleeding citizens, and many of those parents that do remain are doing everything that they can to keep their kids from attending a school system where recent graduation rates have been as low as 25%. Throw in a few insecure environments and what other choice does a caring parent have? Are all of these things the fault of teachers? Of course not, no more than it is the fault of a laid off custodian at the GM plant after some brainiac upstairs decided to produce the HHR.

DPS may have at one time been the perfect size for a city the size that Detroit once was. But times have changed. All businesses must adapt and public schools, as much as anyone wants to argue otherwise, are businesses with a product to supply to customers who are willing to consume the product. When the customers dry up, so do the coffers. This is where Detroit is at these days, and I have not even mentioned the massive amount of fraud and simple waste that have taken place inside those hallowed, paint-peeling, halls that helped to suck the bank accounts dry.

I do feel for the individual teachers of Detroit who have been laid off. In my opinion, however, it is time for them to take their degrees and move south to where the rest of us northerners will have to flock to soon enough, all of us with one of those "I voted for Jennifer Granholm and all I got was this lousy relocation pamphlet to Dallas" stickers on the bumper.

Threatening a strike against DPS under these conditions is not doing you any public relations' favors with the taxpayers that will have to foot the bill. Well, at least those taxpayers that haven't gotten out yet.