Robert Bobb Of Detroit Public Schools Discusses Cuts (VIDEO)

The Detroit Public Schools system plans to close half of its schools, leaving classrooms bursting at the seams with 60 students each.

Robert Bobb, emergency financial manager, says he'll shut down 70 schools, leaving 72 open. And in order to help fill the $327 million budget gap, it's going to happen fast, he tells CNN.

"You know, we're going to anger more individuals...because I'm going to close somewhere between 20 -- maybe 40 schools -- within the next few months."

The problems have been a long time coming. Over the past 10 years, Detroit's public school enrollment has fallen by 50 percent as parents continue to pull their kids out and send them to suburban schools, meaning less funding for the city schools.

Bobb says he knows this new plan isn't economically or academically viable, and he's hoping for a complete restructuring of the school system.

WATCH:

Comments

[zSpin2001]

08:56 AM on 03/25/2011

I still find it hard to believe that we still believe this BS, considering we are tearing down the very school system produced plenty of graduates that were creative enough to bring us great companies like Ford, IBM, and GE. Unfortunately, those companies have paid homage to the almighty dollar rather than the employees, but my point is if you speak with teachers from Korea or China, the US system may not score on standardized tests like other countries, but we produce creative minds that are able to think outside the box. If we would like to focus on a school system that is doing wonderful things, then why not focus on Finland. Oh that's right we can't because Finland is a socialist country with one of the highest standards of living and all of their teachers are unionized. Data is a hard thing to swallow, because it is usually printed on paper in front of our noses.

[SwimUpstream]

05:24 PM on 02/25/2011

This is what the parents wanted. Even Obama refuses to send his children to the public school system. So I don't see a problem here.

[Cleo Creech]

04:53 PM on 02/25/2011

I don't see the issue???

If you lose half your students, why not close half your schools?

[Kenne]

02:30 PM on 02/24/2011

This plan is just asking for trouble. Can't they see the ramifications of such an effort?
How short sighted can they be?
Kids will be at each others throats!
Hell, teachers will be at each others throats!

[Yuxuibbs]

12:41 PM on 02/24/2011

they can't close cass tech.... it earns like 3K every year for the school jut by participating in Academic Games.... and losing every single time they go to the competition because my team (ten people) wins against their team every time (about 60 people)
60 students per classroom wouldn't work. if even thirty studets in a classroom can get nothing done, why would they think stuffng more people in the classroom would get anything doneat all? it's too many people to control and teach at once. think of the achievement gap now.... it will be even bigger because the teacher can't help each student as much as usual.

[wdw808]

05:18 PM on 02/24/2011

that's what private schools are for

[JWerner]

02:12 PM on 02/25/2011

That's assuming parents can shell out the money needed for private schools (one that I went to required that a school uniform be bought, and tuition was pricey. . .most of the students were from upper-class families). That, and a private school could just refuse to accept people for a wide variety of reasons (religious beliefs, prior academic achievement of student, etc). Private schools aren't as wonderful of a response as you'd like to think.

[grammasher]

11:40 AM on 02/24/2011

Why bother. If you're plan to have classrooms of sixty students, you might as well close all the schools. One teacher cannot manage that situation.

[Sara Power]

07:56 PM on 02/25/2011

And not just 60 students. 60 Detroit students whose parents are not involved enough to pull them out of the school district and send them to suburb schools (or Cass Tech or one of the few successful charters), they'll be lucky if they can get the kids to calm down enough to take attendance.

The only way to fix the education system for those kids is to dismantle the school system and bus the kids in small groups to the suburban schools so they can be surrounded by peers who will bring them up instead of dragging them down. The one way to guarantee a kid is going to fail is to surround them with an entire classroom full of kids who don't care if they fail.

[Dante Brown]

01:54 PM on 02/26/2011

See I live in the suburbs and I know first hand that that plan isn't going to work, because:
A. The teachers won't know how to handle urban students
B. They'll just introduce a new wave of chaos to suburban schools
C. The kids that do care won't be able to learn
and
D. They already do that in many places across the country because of desegregation (Like in Delaware where I live) and the schools are still a mess.....

[sathosiel]

10:04 AM on 02/24/2011

States should sue the federal government for their state building funds since we spent so much money builing up Iraq and Afhghanastan.

[Kenne]

02:31 PM on 02/24/2011

Touche

[Leege]

06:08 PM on 02/23/2011

Detroit teachers should just go on strike this fall to protest this. It's not like they'll get any work done with 60 to a class anyway.

[Dante Brown]

01:56 PM on 02/26/2011

I accidently hit the flag button on this lol sorry but I did give you a favorite lol

[Leege]

10:44 PM on 02/26/2011

s'cool, bro.

[Leege]

06:00 PM on 02/23/2011

Hopefully the teachers will strike to protest this bullshit. It's not like they'll actually get any work done with 60 kids to a room anyway.

[billhodges]

05:55 PM on 02/23/2011

When the majority of a community are the recipient class taking government money but paying nothing back in income or property taxes this is what you end up with. This is a perfect example on a small scale  of what a social ist government looks like. Cuba is another good example.

We must stop addicting the people to government handouts.

[NebrLib]

06:17 PM on 02/23/2011

Then we need a system that mataches thier needs as human beings (the free kind) and your need for them to "do something" for them to be considered human beings worthy of thier existance in your presence. Might be a littel simplyfied, but this is what all this boils down to and no one can come up with something to say from your side other than, "tax cuts"; "bust unions". Your system has failed, its on its knees, so what you're next move, genocide. Not likely, so you, we, all must come to grips with what the future means. Just carving out a "nitch" for ones self and attempting to wash ones hands of everyone else isn't going to work, it hasn't been working and has only lead to more problems not fewer.

[billhodges]

06:35 PM on 02/23/2011

What has failed is the Progressive welfare programs that addicted people to free money.

They need to work for their living rather than expect the working people to support them for doing little to nothing support themselves.

[reader1]

07:36 AM on 02/24/2011

Very well said!

[Eric Mann]

08:33 PM on 02/23/2011

I don't think you really have any clue as to why this is happening. For the record, the issue is that for YEARS the Detroit school board has systematically run up debt by providing no-bid contracts for their friends and families, spending money like its water at the administration level, and generally mismanaged the school district. This has nothing to do with the people of the city of Detroit except that it is they who chose not to vote these bums out. That, they are 100% guilty for. So is your solution to paternalisticly choose those who would lead a school district because people get welfare in it? Really?

[polcomm]

05:17 PM on 02/23/2011

It takes money to run schools and when you have the demographics that Detroit has with so few paying taxes, schools have been kept open (as they have in our city) because they are neighborhood schools and parents don't want their school to close even though it is only half full. When you cannot pay teachers, you have increased class size. But, a reason why these students do not do well is because of bad parenting in many cases. Education is not important in the home, the enviornment in the home can make completing homework difficult. Older children raise younger children and they are mostly single parent homes. All of these factors make a student unsuccessful irregardless of how many students are in a class. Education is in trouble in America because of parents who have children irresponsibly and raise their children accordingly.

[Phong Le]

05:19 PM on 02/23/2011

"All of these factors make a student unsuccessf­ul *irregardle­ss* of how many students are in a class."

Irregardless is not a word.

[UofOLaw]

06:09 PM on 02/23/2011

Who cares about spelling or common usage of the word "irregardless"? The comment was correct and rather than dealing with substance, instead there is an attack on grammar.

[msfaye]

05:46 PM on 02/23/2011

i totally disagree. education has been in trouble for a long time. not just recently. you put in a lot negatives in your diatribe. whomever does not fit in your perfect world is a problem. no your thinking is the problem not the schools. you take a lemon and make lemonade you don't take a lemon and say it has no value because it's too sour to eat. the words you use in your statement makes me wonder do you have a specific race of people in mind. must feel good being you able to pass judgement so easily and leave a wide path of destruction in your wake.

[jcwtts1]

05:09 PM on 02/23/2011

60 kids in a classroom. Wow. Ok, good luck teaching anything. I had 37 and 38 one year. It was insane. Awful. The least productive time I've had as a teacher in my entire career.

J

[ScarlettMocha]

05:03 PM on 02/23/2011

Money for war, but no money for education and quality schools.

BTW, here's another republican controlled state that would rather see urban cities and schools do without before they lift one finger to legislate for the people. It's all about the republican party and their agenda, not the people.

[Gil1957]

05:22 PM on 02/23/2011

Michigan was run by Democrats until this last election. The money wasn't gone within the last month. It took years to run down Detroit and Michigan and the Dems were very successful in doing that.

[ScarlettMocha]

05:25 PM on 02/23/2011

Big business/corporations run our politicians and our country. They are overwhelmingly republican.

[SeattleSam]

06:40 PM on 02/23/2011

And how exactly do you think the Democrats ran down Detroit and Michigan?

[Phong Le]

05:24 PM on 02/23/2011

There is and has been money for education and quality schools. Look at the school districts in Silicon Valley like Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Menlo Park, Palo Alto. It just that some cities didn't waste all that money throughout the years. Detroit did.

[Ishtar 79]

07:17 PM on 02/23/2011

You just provided some of the most affluent cities in the Bay Area, a largely affluent region, as an example. Doesn't really compare.

[Eric Mann]

08:36 PM on 02/23/2011

Detroit students, like every student here in MI gets the per-pupil funding from the State of MI. The problem is we're pretty broke here...tell me, what brand of car is in your drive way?

[Andie Marshall]

05:02 PM on 02/23/2011

So much for American exceptional-ism. Somehow, public schools through out the west indies turn out competent students with the same genetic code as the now near indigenous Americans of African decent. I feel shame and embarrassment at our failure.

Maybe I have it backwards. Maybe we are exceptional at both the slow decimation of a people while blaming them for failing to overcome our various forms of aggression.

[Phong Le]

05:15 PM on 02/23/2011

Don't be too hasty putting down American education. The internet? Invented in America. Man on the moon? Ditto. Nano Technologies, Genetic Engineering. etc.

I don't see medical or technological breakthroughs coming out of the west indies. But comparing the educational system of a large country like the US and a small country like the west indies is useless anyway.

America as a whole has been exceptionally great at inventing things that moves the human race forward. That doesn't mean every state, city or school district is exceptional.

[JWerner]

02:28 PM on 02/25/2011

Erm, there is no country called 'West Indies' or 'the West Indies'. Andie Marshall was referring to a region. Just thought I should clarify that.

[UofOLaw]

06:12 PM on 02/23/2011

The schools in the west indies do so by forcing children to succeed by eight grade, or sending them on to a vocation at that stage. Parents in this country would be appalled that their children would take a test in six grade that would determine whether they became a manual laborer or could attend high school let alone college.

[johnpet]

05:00 PM on 02/23/2011

Possibly a system where 48% of everyone doesn't owe taxes isn't the smartest system in the world. Just say'n. Of course, the city folks need that tax deduction for their 6 kids.