Two Victims of Detroit Public Schools Identified (the rest remain unnoticed)

I suppose that after a school district is already well into the hundreds of millions of dollars in debt that a paltry $300,000 lawsuit settlement to a couple of aggrieved teachers isn't going to break the camel's back. Seriously, from the looks of things the camel is already sedated and in a full body cast. No, this $300 large is one of those insults to injury things--a crudely scrawled profanity in the middle of the camel's plastered hump.

It is not hard to discover why the Detroit Public Schools is broke. It is too large. Its enrollment has plummeted due to a number of different developments so its revenue stream has fallen significantly. But, while the student enrollment was dropping, the school district failed to make the appropriate adjustments to its staffing and buildings. It did make some cuts, but the cuts that it made were too few and shallow. It simply operated like a school that still had more students in its classrooms than it had. Corruption has not helped one bit either.

Schools have to operate like businesses and there really is no other answer for school districts that are going broke, at least under our current financing system, other than to cut costs. To stay afloat one must stay light.

During the attempts by the DPS to align its buildings and staffing properly, it ran afoul of parents and students that did not want to see particularly schools shuttered in favor of schools farther away from home. In addition to parents and students being upset, teachers also became upset because any closure of classrooms would result in fewer teachers.

Enter Steve Conn and Heather Miller, two teachers from the DPS.

The controversy began in May 2007 when Conn and Miller, who are husband and wife and math teachers, were at Northern High School during a protest against the closing of 33 schools. District officials said the students were banging on windows and were pepper-sprayed by security and detained.

The couple were placed on leave June 2007 and barred from returning to work even after an administrative law judge with the Michigan Employment Relations Commission recommended reinstatement in June 2008.

In November, Murphy ordered the school district to return Conn and Miller to their jobs immediately at Cass Tech High and Marquette Elementary, respectively.

Murphy's order Wednesday stated that the cash-strapped school board has the right to issue bonds to pay the judgment.

"We are determined to continue to fight against the dismantling of our school district, and for real reform and equality for the young people of Detroit," Miller said.

It should be noted that the DPS suspended the two teachers because they believed the two were leading the student protests.

Clearly the monetary award indicates that the victims in this case are the two teachers intent upon making it as difficult as possible for the school district to tighten its purse strings. There was no money in there for students who are forced to attend this three ring circus in an attempt to be one of the 30 per cent that might ultimately graduate. No money for the parents who are helplessly forced to send their children into the hallowed halls and classrooms of chaos. And certainly no relief for the taxpayers who will be forced to pay this tab, not only for the settlement, but also to replace the pepper spray that was spent in getting control of the situation to begin with.

One thing is for sure, if judges ever get around to awarding money to every single victim of the DPS administration and many of its ideologue teachers, the district will go broke.

Oh, never mind.