This One Was Not For the Children

There are many winners in the plea deal that resulted from the dismissal of Teresa Gueyser from her Superintendant's post at the Detroit Public Schools--this shortly after she was exposed to Detroit's School Board President fondling himself while he sat across from her at a meeting.

As sympathetic as the lawyer turned adminstrator might seem, she gets to walk away with a cool $650,000 that could otherwise have been used to, well, educate children. Of course, Otis Mathis, the self-pleasuring public servant in trust of the education of his city's children, gets off (I'll bet you didn't see that one coming (or that one)) with a couple years probation for his admitted behaviors while simultaneously avoiding the embarrassment of other disclosures.

The DPS itself, perhaps the most incompetently run government entity this side of Mogadishu, gets to avoid what could have easily amounted to even larger legal fees while not having its already besmirched reputation dragged farther into the gutter in full view of the district's parents.

There are words that aptly describe Otis Mathis though I will leave them untyped should Mom stumble onto this rant while looking for important cake recipes in Mennonite history. There are other words and terms every bit as fitting (and more palatable to your typicaly anabaptist) to describe Gueyser; opportunist, sufferer of Münchausen, selfish git, typical bureaucrat. I find one simple word appropriate to describe the DPS; failure.

The driving force behind the education of children has become money. Not necessarily the money actually needed to educate the little rugrats, but the chambers full of treasure to be divided among the educrats so that little Johnny and Little Sally can drop out after completing the 11th grade while their older siblings, Billy and Susan, having received their own diplomas can scantly read the word Diploma stamped on its face.

$650K is peanuts to a school district so awash in red ink that the new punishment will scarsely register a blip, and $650,00 is less than peanuts to a city with problems so numerous that a public snake charming hedonist can seamlessly rise to the level of School Board President after he had already climbed to the board room of Wayne County.

The scoreboard looks like this. Gueyser gets her some cash, Mathis can entertain some other unsuspecting victim (that is, should the miracles of modern medicine fail him in his never ending quest to stop yanking himself in public) and the DPS can avoid having its name in the papers throughout a very embarrassing and protracted court litigation. The kids? Who cares, the education establishment has bigger fish to fry.