Detroit's School Failure By Design! Why Urban Schools Are Failing And How To Fix Them!

By Roosevelt Williams

This book explains how Detroit earned its reputation as the worst public school system in the country. It is the story of one man’s attempt to teach his students traditional history in a Detroit classroom, and the District’s determination to stop him. Along the way, he was selected by the principal for “special assistance” because of the number of failing grades in his classes. Detroit officials disapproved of his students reading the textbook, preparing outlines as a study tool, his lecturing to students, and his insistence that his students work to pass his classes. That teacher, Roosevelt Williams, the author wrote the book so that the public can understand that urban schools are failing because of the decisions and policies of the school’s administrators.

Using the administrative hearing transcripts, the teacher/author exposes the official’s thinking and the tragic consequences on the Detroit students. The Michigan Teacher Tenure Commission, charged with protecting tenured teachers, endorsed the dismissal decision, stating the Detroit Board: “sought to advance the learning process beyond the level of memorization and rote learning prevalent in appellant’s classroom to capture the attention of the students, to engage them in the learning process and to develop higher level thinking skills by the students.”

Finally, the author points out a number of shortcomings to help the schools live up to their public responsibilities to the students and community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roosevelt Williams
• Release date: Feb 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9780985016906

Roosevelt Williams

Roosevelt Williams was born in Harlem Florida, an African American enclave outside of Clewiston, in 1944. He is one of ten children born to Harlie and Ruth Williams.. He graduated from Florida A & M University with honors in 1966 and obtained an MBA from Michigan State University in 1986. Beginning in 1967 he was a manager and executive with New York Telephone, Michigan Bell and AT&T for 21 years, with most success coming in the area of managerial supervision, and organizational planning and effectiveness. He founded his own company in 1989 that provided information system applications development, installation and support; computer skills classroom training; and offered management skills training and consulting for educators. He began working as a substitute teacher in Detroit Public Schools in 1995, and as a certificated teacher in 1996. After being rated as a satisfactory teacher for five years, Mr. Williams was notified that his performance was deficient in October 2001 and notified that he was still deficient in April 2002 and subsequently fired. He appealed his dismissal to the Michigan Teacher Tenure Commission. He represented himself during the hearings because the union failed to offer support. His dismissal was sustained by the commission. He subsequently appealed to the Michigan Court of Appeals, who ruled that his appeal was without merit, and would not be heard. This book is Mr. Williams appeal to the public, an attempt to expose how the system is failing Detroit students by design, and proposes how the situation may be remedied. Mr. Williams is a lifelong Christian who was ordained as a minister of the Gospel in 1996, and served as pastor of Christian Fellowship Non-Denominational Church from 1996 through 2004. He served as pastor of Greater Olivet Baptist Church from 2005 until he retired at the end of 2010. Reverend Williams viewed his battles with the Detroit Schools as a matter of righteousness, and says he felt compelled by his faith to fight the good fight. Bringing his case before the public is the latest step in that fight.

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Section I. Introduction

1. Dedication

This book is dedicated to all my fellow sojourners who came of age in the 1950s and 1960s expecting great things for our people once the shackles of segregation and discrimination were shucked. It is dedicated to those who still believe, or still want to believe, that once our talents and resources are set free, and the best minds and wisest policies are adopted, our people will experience a genuine renaissance, and we will build for ourselves a society which makes us proud of each other and hopeful for our collective future.

I am forever indebted to all the wonderful people and especially the educators of Harlem, Florida. My childhood was a blast, and my adulthood ain’t been too bad, either. Like my mother said of hers, mine has been a good life. Teachers like Mr. Howard McKire, Mrs. Ruby Joyner, Miss Carline L. Lacy, Mrs. Mabel I. Black, and Miss A.E.G. Thomas opened vistas in my mind that are still unfolding and expanding all these years later.

I thank God for them, and for the treat of life!

I also apologize to all the committed and dedicated teachers and administrators whose work bear no resemblance to that pictured herein. Our people and our country owe you a debt of gratitude that can never be adequately expressed.

2. It’s About Us

By Roosevelt Williams, May 23, 2002

Unbeknown to most, the African American people of Detroit are engaged in a momentous civil struggle. At risk is our place in the future of this city, this state, and this country, the world. At stake is whether we occupy places of honor and achievement, or scorn and debasement, amongst an increasingly diverse population. Will we, as a people, draw from and contribute to the best the future offers? Or will we be consigned to its nether regions in status and stake, not unlike our people in the not too distant past?

One side in this struggle is an Elitist Minority. They anticipate a future where scholarship, knowledge and enterprise are prized above all else. Yet they are content to deliver most of our people into this future ignorant and poverty stricken, with a reputation for mental dullness and slovenly work habits. These are the people who have been carrying the argument for too long.

Their weapon of choice is a well rehearsed set of half baked ideas and opinions based upon idiotic scholarship, distortions of facts and outright fraud, all designed to keep them in power and the rest of us in the dark. They are so skilled at their deceptions they can insult us to our face, and we react as if they are making sense. Every time they disparage all of us in general, they disparage each of us in particular. When they talk about drugs in the community, they are talking about drugs in my house and your house and all of our children, they are not talking about the drugs they and their children use. When they talk about uncaring parents, they see us all that way, themselves excluded, of course.

When did the word poor stop meaning being short on money or resources, and start to mean being short on love, caring, concern, nurturing? After all we overcame as a people, they blithely decided that we are incapable of rising higher, and use their positions to block our progress while decrying our lack thereof.

Their most powerful allies in the struggle against us are us. We buy in on their foolishness, and accept their insults as gospel, their stupidity as wisdom, their bestowed degrees as innate ability, and their failures as service. Other groups watch and wonder at their duplicity and selfishness, and our complacency and complicity.

On our side are ordinary folks who hoped to position our children more advantageously than we were. We are the ones who looked forward to the day when African Americans would control our cities and our destinies within them. We are the ones who hoped that when we had more blacks running the schools the schools would better serve the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of our people. We are the ones who expected more justice with more black justices on the bench. We are the ones who thought we would get better jobs with more blacks in the corporate employment offices and boardrooms.

Too many African Americans consider it disloyal or even shameful to criticize black leadership. Consequently, black leaders know it is not necessary for them to solve problems, even the most vexing ones. They need only explain the problem, or declare that they are working on it. What we need are more bright and bold black folks willing to speak out in defense of our rights and our future. We need more blacks in authority insisting that each of us and all of us work for our individual and collective benefit. As for me, I refuse to be silent any longer; I will speak out and will keep speaking out. Let those who betray us defend themselves and justify their actions.

Question to ponder: What is the most destructive force in our community? No, its not drug abuse, its not crime, its not indifference! It’s not the young thugs walking the streets, or even the elected thieves and pimps posing as public servants. It is not even organized or disorganized crime. It’s the educational and civic leaders who are refusing to educate our young, and preventing others from doing so. This book is the story of one man who tried and the forces brought to bear to stop him.

In case anyone thinks I am too harsh, let him name an institution where African Americans got better service when the personnel charged with serving us became majority black. Not the schools; the influx of black administrators has been accompanied by a reduction in the quality of education the students receive and the percent of students graduating. Not the city services, the decay that became obvious in Detroit under Coleman Young continued under Dennis Archer. We will have to wait and see what happens under Kwame Kilpatrick. (Now we know).

Surely not the banks; I have seen senior citizens give up and leave a branch bank in Detroit because the service was so slow. My wife and I have learned that deposits not accepted by branches in Detroit serving a predominantly black clientele are routinely accepted by branches of the same bank in the suburbs with a majority white clientele. Not fast food, I have stood in a restaurant and counted up to a dozen employees who did not deliver a single customer order for over 15 minutes. Even most churches emphasize personal salvation, and personal blessings, personal enrichment, and personal relationships with God, largely ignoring our responsibility to our people and each other.

What we need is more commitment and more righteousness in our private and public conduct. Too few are fighting the critical battles and too many are aligned against the fighters in blissful ignorance.

3. Suppositions for Inferior Black Schools

Suppose it was possible for black folks to be as competitive in academics and other intellectual pursuits as we are in basketball, football, etc? Suppose our lack of competitiveness in intellectual pursuits is not rooted in any innate intellectual deficiencies nor diminished by any socio-societal ailments or malignancies? Suppose we are being victimized because of the entrenched assumptions and established practices of the educators themselves? Further, suppose the very folks charged with improving our schools are in reality leading and facilitating the charge towards increased mediocrity and guaranteeing no measurable progress is achieved?

What can the average person do to improve the situation, to help move our people forward academically, when those who consider themselves the experts stand arm in arm blocking the road to progress and taking pride in their accomplishments? This book heralds the efforts and fortunes of an average guy who tried for better.

Black society can remove the debilitating infirmities imposed on our people by the lack of academic achievement and failing schools. We must first take a critical look at the theorems advanced by the educational establishment and test whether they have any substance or merit. The proposition is widely advanced that a lower average household income has social and motivational consequences that impede the performance of black students. Yet, there is abundant research showing that black students from wealthier families do not perform much better than black students from poorer families. The same is true for the performance of black students of well-educated parents; they don’t do significantly better than the children of their less learned counterparts.

Nor can the case be made that black students attending better public high schools are receiving superior educations. According to Danielle Lavin-Loucks, PhD, Senior Fellow at The J. McDonald Williams Institute in her article The Academic Achievement Gap, published July 2006, the minority achievement gap is not present only in under-funded urban schools. Rather, minorities in suburban schools, which are presumably well funded, perform at lower levels than non-minorities in reading proficiency exams taken by 13-year-olds (Levine & The Academic Achievement Gap 4 Eubanks, 1990). The gap was even present when parents’ college attendance was held constant, which suggests a more multifaceted relationship."

In Detroit there are parents who are justifiably proud that their children attend one of the two premier public high schools, Renaissance or Cass. Yet, all we know for certain is that better achieving students, as judged by test scores, are selected to attend those schools. That these students do well in being accepted to colleges and universities may attest equally to the high school selection criteria or to the education provided by the schools themselves. It would be an interesting comparison to look at what happened to those students whose eight grade test scores were high enough to attend one of the premier high schools, but who chose instead to attend a neighborhood high school.

Attempts to improve urban schools with newer buildings, renovated facilities, computers, internet access, updated curriculums, innovative techniques, new superintendents, new kinds of superintendents, charter schools, university support and/or highly ranked consultants are all proving ineffective. I’m not saying these things are not good in and of themselves, I’m saying, once implemented, we will have the same achievement gap problems. The currently popular emphasis on raising standards for students misses the mark and is doomed to failure. Stated simply, if a student is drowning in an academic pool that is 10 feet deep (metaphorically speaking), raising the water level to 15 feet and making the temperature more stimulating will not improve the survival rate, all things being equal. Only teaching the students to swim and insisting that they practice swimming regularly, will do that.

The problem is that the leading educators; the principals, department heads, specialists, curriculum coordinators, and superintendents are all deeply steeped and well trained in educational orthodoxy. They know all the reasons why black students are not succeeding, and in consequence adopt and enforce policies that insure that this stays true. To a very great degree they are not our defense against the problems of creeping academic mediocrity. They are in fact the authors, sponsors and chief perpetrators of this academic decline. Further, as a group they are consistent, persistent, and single-minded in their defense of the status quo. I am not suggesting that they don’t want to help, but they are too wedded to what they are thinking and doing to consider changing. Whether they are stupid or ignorant is immaterial. They are not only not helping; they are the ones foisting the hurt on our people and country.

Something must be said about the mental prowess of the administrators and officials in charge of urban public education. I think it is fair to ask whether the school systems are deliberately hiring stupid people or developing them on the job. If the latter is the case, then the country owes a debt of criticism to the various universities whose departments of education have helped foist such widespread befuddlement of thinking. If the latter is the case, it is more understandable, but no less condemnable. People in superior positions want to feel superior, and are more likely to appreciate the contributions of and enjoy the company of subordinates who appreciate their talents. Since, in the case of stupid people this is more likely to be other more or equally stupid people, the stupidity is perpetuated. Unfortunately, stupid people never recognize their own stupidity, and intelligence in other people is perceived as stupidity by them. In the interest of fairness, I should point out that it is entirely possible that a person who perceives himself as genuinely intelligent (in this case me), may, in fact, be the stupid one.

This book will portray my experience as a teacher in Detroit Public Schools, and the events leading up to and following my dismissal. In Michigan a tenured teacher is permitted to protest a dismissal to the Teacher Tenure Commission. Once receiving a complaint, the commission must conduct a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge and decided for themselves whether the teacher should have been fired for just cause. The Administrative Law Judge and the Michigan Teacher Tenure Commission decided that Detroit Public Schools was justified in my dismissal. The intent of this book is to let each reader decide for himself or herself whether their conclusions were supported by the facts.

I have used the actual testimony from the administrative hearing on my dismissal as much as possible. If I only allege that these things were said by the administrators, nobody would believe me. By using the transcript, the reader can read for themselves what the officials had to say, and reach their own conclusions about the actions and intent of the school officials.

I am asking each reader to take the testimony of the officials at face value. You will hear an official testify that we’re trying to teach higher order thinking skills, and reading does not support that. I ask you to believe that she said it, and accept that because she said it she meant it. This district used the fact that the reading occurred in my classroom as a major aspect of the justification for my dismissal. The Michigan Teacher Tenure Commission endorsed this decision and wrote in its decision that Detroit Public Schools; sought to advance the learning process beyond the level of memorization and rote learning prevalent in appellant’s classroom to capture the attention of the students, to engage them in the learning process and to develop higher level thinking skills by the students. The readers can decide for themselves what they would like to see in the classroom and the likely effect on academic achievement of Detroit students. Would the students be better prepared if they actually learned history as contained in the history books as I asked, or would they be better off foregoing history in pursuit of more gossamer goals like being engaged in the learning process and seeking higher level thinking skills, for which the district did not provide a textbook?

4. People I Have In Mind

I have nine individuals or groups in mind in writing this document, and an objective for each.

First, I have in mind select school administrators who I found so destructive in their management of everyday events as to border on criminal mischief. In all my years of working, I had never been outraged and reduced to tears as I was upon seeing the effects these folks had on the behavior of the students. While they saw themselves as administering the schools in an enlightened manner, they can best be compared to Typhoid Mary: while intending to be of service, they inflict grievous harm by remaining oblivious to the consequences of their actions. One administrator adopted a rule forbidding teachers from sending any child out of class for misbehaving. If a teacher in desperation broke this rule, she would return the child to class, admonish the teacher, and ask the other students if they would help the child behave. These administrators took pride in the job they were doing and believed they were making positive contributions. None noticed the harm or devastation they left in their wake, in the schools, in the community, and amongst our people. My objective is for people like this to realize the deleterious effects of their actions on the people they think they are serving, and change their ways.

Second, I have in mind a boy whose mother thought he was in my class. She came to me to find out how he was doing. I had to tell her her son was not in my class, even though she had been given a printout showing that he was. The two of us went to find her son in the school and after some tracking, found him. He said when he answered the roll, my class was full, and I sent him to his counselor. He said he had been in my class prior to the day I sent him to his counselor, but that he had not answered the roll call before. After leaving my class, he was not assigned another by his counselor. He found a place to hang out in the school, and spent his time there.

The reader should know that there are many students in the school building, but who skip some or all of their classes daily. They can do this with impunity despite the staff and other resources committed to solving this problem. My objective is for school administrators to understand the need to use the resources at their disposal to insure that students are in the right place doing the right things all day every day.

Third, I have in mind another mother who came to see me, escorted by another teacher. Her son came to school and attended my class every day. He was always well groomed, well dressed, and generally well mannered. Clearly, he had been taught to respect authority and carry himself well. He was well regarded by his peers, both boys and girls. Yet, he never brought a book to class, never studied, and never made any attempt to do the work necessary to learn or to pass. He was not alone. His attitude was the rule, rather than the exception. The percentage of students doing the assigned homework is probably in the ten percent range. An assistant principal addressed a student assembly and related that he had taken over the duties of a math teacher who was on leave. He pointed out to the assembled students that in three classes (about a hundred students) he only had five students turn in homework assignments. When he attempted to reprimand the students, they drowned him out with a chant until he abandoned his efforts and sat down. This refusal to work starts out at a very small percentage in elementary school, increases dramatically to become the norm in middle school, and results in drop out rates approaching 70% in high school. My objective is for the parents and public to understand that the students are not achieving because they are not working to achieve.

Fourth, I have in mind a ninth grader who, when told he was getting a failing grade in my class, announced vehemently to me; If you think you are giving me an F you must be crazy. NO! I’m telling you right now, this sh*t will not stand! What is the name of your boss? I told him my department head’s name. The student and a similarly upset peer walked out of my class to find my boss. During the next class period my department head entered my classroom to do an evaluation. I told him this might not be a good day to evaluate me, as I was going over grades. In his review, he deemed going over the grades with students an unacceptable activity and he noted numerous problems and failures with my teaching strategy.

Later, I was visited by the dissatisfied student’s father. The student was only attending five classes rather than the six he should have, and he had an F in every class. But most importantly, the student had the full support of the administration in his belief that work, study, and academic discipline are not necessary to achieve a good grade. My objective is for parents to understand that the only way to insure that their children are working is to look at the work they are doing. Students should be able to show some work from some of their classes everyday.

Fifth, I have in mind a company that earned thousands of dollars as school improvement consultants at Southeastern High School. For three years they collected this booty. Yet for all practical purposes their program was empty, there was nothing of substance there. Nothing. After the first year, the faculty voted to discontinue the program. Because the program was important to the administration, another vote, a second vote was called by the principal, and all office, support and maintenance staffs were ordered to attend the faculty meeting, and with these additional votes included the school voted to continue the program. To my knowledge this is the only time that staff from these groups attended a faculty meeting.

The program did have one very important attribute; it permitted the school and the district to say to the community they were working to improve the academic performance of the students. I believe the school boards should demand that consultants state their promised improvements in discrete measurable terms before any contract is entered into, and that results be tracked for satisfactory performance before any contract extensions are signed.

Sixth, I have in mind a substitute teacher who told me he sent four boys out of a class because their behavior had become too disruptive, too vulgar, and too disrespectful. The boys, upon leaving, met the principal, who brought them back to class, and insisted that they had to stay in the room. While the miscreants sat quietly, the principal rendered an oration to the students on the imperatives of proper decorum and the need to meet high expectations. The principal left with a self-satisfied mien, oblivious to the havoc and despair the substitute was left to deal with. The returned students immediately resumed their previous shenanigans, but worse. The substitute related that after the principal left, it was ridiculous, they acted like pure fools. Students treat substitutes with less respect than they afford a regular teacher, so administrative support is critical if order is to be maintained. Administrators’ actions and attitudes must change to improve conditions in the schools. If the people want real change, this is the place to start.

Seventh, I have in mind teachers who, whenever faculty members attempt to get administrative support to address the problems they face in the building and in the classrooms, always brings up how well his/her students are doing. The principal, in turn, expresses a wish for all teachers to be as dedicated as these, and thus ends the search for improvement. Likewise, one or two students are mentioned who are attending a university and getting good grades as proof of a successful program. Such rivulets of success amidst a swelling tsunami of failures are no cause for satisfaction or celebration. Suppose we sent our child to the store for a dozen eggs. We gave him the money for a dozen eggs. Now suppose he dropped eight before he reached home. And of the four he delivered two were cracked and two were without blemish. Would we congratulate him, or let him take pride in the two delivered? Assuredly not. Do we not have much more invested in the education of our children? My objective is to have the public understand that the education administrators are failing us, and that we ought to set rational parameters for their success, and dismiss or return to the classroom those administrators who are unable to get the results we require.

Eighth, I have in mind a whole multitude of educational experts and leading thinkers, who don’t have the slightest clue as to how to address the problems faced by the students or the schools. Through their degrees and presumed learnedness and pedagogical enlightenment, they have asserted the right to exclude real analysis and problem solving from being applied to the problems of educating the youth of our nation in general, and African Americans youth in particular. They have been deluding us much too long.

Graduate schools of education and education administration all over the country are betraying the dreams and ambitions of minority students, all based upon conclusions they reached without expertise or justification in drawing. My objective is to convince the public to discontinue the practice of accepting advanced degrees as evidence of expertise and competence. An inept administrator with a doctorate in education philosophy is still inept.

Finally, I have me and people like me in mind, and my own interests and prospects. I hated being fired, as I had spent a lifetime looking forward to teaching at the end of my working career. I deeply resented the lies, distortions and misrepresentations of my abilities and performance. I still believe it was all about the grades. I was told personally by an administrator that I would not be able to keep my job unless more of my students passed. He suggested to me that as a teacher, if his failure rate was above 30%, he would consider himself a failure. Every teacher is given a report showing grade distribution for his or her classes. These same administrators, faced with a seventy percent dropout rate, see no problem in their own performance. The threat to teachers and implications for student achievement are clear. Principals in urban schools have found that it is far easier to intimidate teachers into giving passing grades than it is to help the teachers require the students do the work necessary to earn passing grades.

How can so many students in the district arrive at high school not being able to read well? The teachers had to give out passing grades! How can so many students arrive at high school and be enrolled in an algebra class without knowing arithmetic basics? The teachers had to give out passing grades! Teachers must do their work in the environment created by those in charge. Most teachers do not choose between income and honor. Instead they develop a body of work that their students can pass given the level of effort the students are willing to exert, with grades the administrators are willing to accept.

The route to excellence in urban schools is not elusive, it is ignored.

5. Solutions for the Urban Schools

A Businessman’s View from the Inside

This businessman turned educator holds that there are no problems in the urban schools that cannot be solved quickly and effectively using established operational, managerial and quality control techniques. He offers the unique perspective that the public school scan not only produce African American students who are competitive with their suburban counterparts, but also can lead the way in reestablishing educational preeminence for the nation.

By Roosevelt Williams, MBA

There is no substitute for a proper education. Aproper education prepares students to succeed as adults, both in their personal lives and public duties. A good education system produces students whose achievements are a source of pride to their parents and to their community. Apoor education system produces too many students performing below their potential and too many alumni who prey on society rather than contribute to it. Historically, public schools in America have been the great engines of social progress, preparing each new generation to build upon the successes of the previous ones, and offering each new wave of immigrants a surefire route to a fair share of the nation’s prosperity.

Today however, public schools are faltering in this duty. The Detroit School system, like other urban schools across the country, is failing to provide a proper education for its overwhelmingly African-American student body. While it is true that the effectiveness of public education as a whole has declined, its failures are especially harsh in the African American communities. The harshest critics and most ardent supporters agree that something must be done. Fortunately, the problems are not as daunting, nor the solutions as elusive, and we have been led to believe.

The problems are indeed severe. A conservative estimate is that Detroit is failing to provide a good education to over 95% of its students. Consider the case of a hypothetical high school with an average incoming class of 500 freshmen. This school typically graduates about 125 students, or about 25% of the high school students initially entrusted to it. The other 375 students dropped out before graduation, for an initial failure rate of 75%. Of the graduating students, only between 5 and 15% will be able to pass tests of basic competency in reading and math skills. If 15% passed, then 85% failed. This number, when combined with the 75% who dropped out, yields a total effective failure rate between 96 and 98 percent.

This situation continues unabated. Neither the education industry in general, nor the African American educational leadership in particular, has taken effective steps to correct this deplorable situation, or seems willing or competent to do so.

We, African Americans, are still pictured as inferior. As a people, African Americans are no longer accused of being mentally inferior, but we are being labeled socially inferior. We are viewed, by our own people and others, as lacking the capacity to overcome the debilitating effects of our past conditions in order to benefit fully from education. The insistence on additional funding and special programs serve more to feed the maw of the education industry than serve the interests of the African American students.

The educational bureaucracy has been advancing the theory of social pathology among the African American population. No matter how sympathetically rendered, this is still an insult to our progenitors and posterity. Further, it diverts attention away from demanding exemplary academic performance from our youth and accountability from those employed to educate them.

The situation is bleak, but not hopeless. For there are no insurmountable problems in the school system, its personnel, staff or students that cannot be rectified in short order if, and only if, the educational leadership can be convinced to change its mode of operating. Before improvements can be made, the school system must be willing to adopt simple, effective solutions to performance problems encountered in the schools and classrooms. More particularly, it will be necessary to introduce a system of personal responsibility and accountability on the part of students, staff and administrators.

Real improvements will deal with the real problems. Previous efforts at improvement have failed precisely because they have sought higher level, strategic solutions to what are essentially classroom and building level, tactical problems. The empowered school movement failed because it assumed, falsely, that the local school leadership had a better idea of how to address the problems than the central staff. Empowerment advocates failed to realize that the school building level personnel had exactly the same approach to problem analysis and solving as the central staff personnel.

Both the current reliance on computers and technology, and future hope for competition and privatization, will also prove futile and ineffective. These initiatives fail to focus on the source of the problems.

The problems can be quickly remedied. Based upon my observations, first as a substitute and then a classroom teacher, and drawing upon my years of experience solving human performance problems in industry, I can make the following predictions with complete confidence. I have seen a number of seemingly implacable problem situations turned around to produce outstanding results, far exceeding expectations. Perhaps most heartening, the improved results were accompanied by increased job satisfaction for all concerned, and generally at a lower cost to the organization. Equally important, the improvements are always achieved without changes in existing personnel, only changes in the way the personnel operate. Admittedly, a reduced number of support personnel accounts for much of the organizational savings.

First, the most egregious student behavioral problems, including abuse of teachers, class disruptions, abusive behavior towards other students, loitering, skipping classes, and refusing to do the assigned work, can be eliminated within a month of instituting revised procedures. The solutions need not involve wholesale suspensions or expulsions. And the problems can be solved using methods and procedures acceptable to the parents, community, school board members, staff and students.

Second: Any urban school, including Detroit, can produce African American students whose academic achievements and test scores are competitive with their suburban counterparts within one year of instituting an education effectiveness improvement plan. Further, after two years, employing proper management and quality improvement techniques, the urban schools can pull so far ahead that schools relying on traditional techniques, including those in upper income enclaves, will find themselves struggling to bring their students up to speed.

Third: Rather than continue to struggle unsuccessfully with the overflow of the problems of society, schools can be transformed into positive forces of good. The schools are in a unique position to mount effective countermeasures to the societal problems beleaguering our youth. To the extent that schools keep our youth consistently and constructively engaged in rewarding and interesting activities, they will be much less likely to engage in destructive undertakings.

Fourth, currently the schools, rather than encouraging group cohesiveness and pride among African Americans, are fostering alienation and animosity. Materials designed for consumption by white students, naturally present a pro-white, pro-European stance. This material, not unexpectedly, fosters appreciation by white students for their people and culture. The same material, when used by African American as the major vehicles of their information, fosters in African Americans a similar appreciation for whites, while remaining largely silent or indifferent on attitudinal messages about African Americans. We must address the question of what we should teach our children about themselves and their people. Otherwise, we will continue in the present vein where the best and brightest of our youth dream of the day they can win acceptance in white America and move away from their own people. Far too many of our young see returning to the African American community to show how well they have been accepted by corporate America as the epitome of giving back to the community.

The schools can solve their problems and become a catalyzing force of progress and pride in the African American community, even with the existing resources! Unfortunately, too many decision makers inside the schools cannot abandon their current operating assumptions and methods. They genuinely believe that the solutions to the problems lie elsewhere, principally with the parents and the African American community. This, combined with the practice of selecting for leadership roles only individuals with academic backgrounds, means that the chances for betterment are greatly reduced. Although avowedly fighting to solve problems, many are working in a manner that insures that the problems are never solved. Any school system or individual school can begin the transformation to competitiveness immediately. It only requires a degree of public determination, managerial decision-making, and student and faculty accountability, and a few months lead-time for training, planning, and preparation. The problems will not be solved by outside forces taking over and breaking up urban school districts. Yet, these things will happen unless the problems are solved immediately.

Copyrighted 1998

6. Why Urban Schools are Failing

This book is written for all the readers who wonder why the urban public schools are failing so miserably in their mission of educating African American youth. The same causative issues may be adversely affecting other minority urban populations, but I cannot be sure. The majority and other minorities may be subjected to their own unique set of debilitating factors. This much is certain, human potential, the ability of the young mind to expand and grow, has not diminished over the last forty years. Nor is it more prevalent in number or degree in one school setting or population as opposed to another.

In 1998, I wrote an article based upon my observations in Detroit Public Schools entitled, Solutions for the Urban Schools, A Businessman’s View From the Inside." I worked in the Detroit public School system for three years before I wrote the article, and another four years before I was dismissed for incompetence.

As a tenured teacher in the State of Michigan, I was entitled to have my dismissal reviewed by the Teacher Tenure Commission. I appealed to that body, and an administrative hearing was held. By law, the Tenure Commission was bound to look at my dismissal de novo. De Novo means the commission’s obligation was to take a fresh look, or new look, at my dismissal, and see if, upon looking at the same set of facts, they would come to the same conclusion about my fitness as a teacher as Detroit Public Schools did. My understanding was that the commission was not to look at the conclusions reached by DPS, but to look at the same evidence that the district looked at, and see if they would reach the same conclusion. If they reached the same conclusion, my dismissal would be sustained. If they did not agree, I would be ordered reinstated to my position.

The Tenure Commission, first in the person of the Administrative Law Judge James R. Ward, and subsequently the full commission, agreed with Detroit Public Schools that I was fired for just cause. My dismissal was confirmed by the Commission in 2003. I appealed to the Michigan Court of Appeals, who concluded that there was no merit to my appeal, thereby sustaining my dismissal. With this book, I hereby submit my case to the court of public opinion.

Although it has been twelve years since I copyrighted the article mentioned above, nothing has changed for the better in the ensuing years for most African American schools. If anything, the schools have gotten worse. Detroit has lost over half of its students to charter schools or other school districts. The charter schools, while saving the State of Michigan approximately $2,200.00 per student per year, is not doing any better than the Public Schools. With the lowered level of funding provided by the state to charter schools, the disparity between state funds expended for the suburban student and the urban student become even more pronounced. The following article was published by the Machinac Center for Public Policy, 12/7/2009 ((Editor’s note: This was originally posted by Andrew Coulson, a Mackinac Center adjunct scholar, on The Cato Institute Web site.)

Michigan is facing a projected $2.8 billion state budget shortfall. As a result, Gov. Jennifer Granholm has cut $212 million from public school spending — rousing the ire of parents and education officials around the state. But if Michigan merely converted all its conventional public schools to charter public schools, without altering current funding formulas, it would save $3.5 billion.

Here’s how: the average Michigan charter school spends $2,200 less per pupil than the average district school — counting only the state and local dollars. Put another way, Michigan school districts spend 25 percent more state and local dollars per pupil, on average, than charter schools. Sum up the savings to Michigan taxpayers from a mass district-to-charter exodus and it comes to $3.5 billion.

What is explicitly clear from the article is that Michigan allocates a couple of thousand dollars less per pupil to its charter schools than to its public schools. The urban dwellers that already suffer from a funding disadvantage for their public schools suffer an even greater funding disadvantage for their charter schools. If only the urban public schools are replaced by charters and the other school districts refuse to follow suit, the funding disparity will be much greater. The severity of the problem of academic failures in the urban schools and the bleakness of the prospects for improved results have been brought into sharp focus by the record keeping and statistical requirements of the No Child Left Behind program of the Bush years. Nothing has happened that would lead me to change anything I wrote in that article back in 1998. I do feel that I should have been more succinct in stating that the failures in the urban schools are failures of management and supervision inside the schools, and not familial, societal, or social failures that are manifested in the public schools.

The various remedies proposed by academic, political and community leaders, upon close inspection, have one thing in common. They all assume that the failures in the classrooms are intractable and insurmountable, and therefore they all propose ways of compensating for this failure. A January 23, 2010 article in the Detroit Free Press contains a public call to arms on behalf of Detroit students:

"Today the Free Press, in concert with the Detroit Public Schools, sounds an extraordinary call to this region: Build a Reading Corps of trained tutors to deploy in city schools. Give 100,000 hours over the next year to ensure that city children read on grade-level by the third grade.

The school district will coordinate the effort. The Free Press, the Detroit Media Partnership, the Detroit News, Ilitch Holdings, M Canfield and ABC Warehouse have signed on as charter members who’ll donate time and other resources to meet the goal."

This entire endeavor is only necessary once one establishes that the schools cannot do any better. If the school cannot teach the youngsters to read in six or seven hours a day, how much can tutors reasonably be expected to accomplish in several hours a week after school. This level of volunteer effort, seemingly large, spread over the kindergarten through third grade Detroit students, would mean that each would get about four hours of tutoring a year.

Within these pages the reader will get an inside look at how Detroit Public schools are approaching academic issues, and hopefully glean an understanding of the causes and effects of the administrators pursuing what they believe to be enlightened pedagogical policies. In short, I hope the reader will see that the administrators are causing the failures as opposed to fighting against them.

39 Years ago (1971), I was standing and talking with the principal of a high school in Detroit. He lamented the sorry state of preparation of the students that the parents were sending to him. He wished the parents sent to him better prepared students. I pointed out to him then, and to the reader now, that he was not just looking at the product of what the parents sent to the schools. The parents sent to the schools little innocent kindergarteners and first graders. The students he was looking at were those little innocents after eight or nine years of handiwork by the Detroit Public Schools. Surely, if he was disappointed in what he was getting from the parents, he should reserve a portion of his consternation for the schools that worked on the students before they got to him.

7. Meet Roosevelt Williams

Let me start this book by telling you something about myself. By birth and upbringing, I am a southerner, a black southerner. I was born and raised in Harlem, a small African American enclave outside of Clewiston, Florida. Clewiston itself, other than as a place to shop, had no perceivable nor memorable impact on my life, except for the black section known to us as Townsite, which was eventually torn down. Clewiston at that time was almost all white, and growing up I had almost no social intercourse with whites in Clewiston. Other than Mr. Homer G. Bible, the school superintendent, I did not know a single white person, not a boy, nor girl, nor merchant, by name. My parents knew whites of course, but as nearly as I can remember, they never mentioned them at home, other than in some type of employment or business context,

My schooling was under the supervision of Mr. Amos Alvoid Thomas, who everybody called simply Pro or Professor Thomas. Pro was a disciple of the Tuskegee School of thinking. He said that when he was brought to Clewiston to start a school in the late thirties, they told him to go out there and teach them niggers how to sign their names. He said he took the job, and decided that since he was there, he might as well educate us also.

Pro’s statement on his mission as an educator to the parents was simple and straightforward. Whatever you send me, I’m going to educate and send you back. If you send me a fool, I’m going to send you back an educated fool. If you send me a thief, I’m going to send you back an educated thief. If you send me a liar, I’m going to send you back an educated liar.

I believe this philosophy is more valid than the current one which professes to encompass the notion of educating the whole child but leaves many aspects of a proper education untended. While lessons on character should be incorporated into the school regimen, the primary focus must be on an academic or career education.

What was valuable about our experiences in Harlem was that the teachers were able to speak to us as the children of a people. Because of the segregation, they were able to impart lessons that would be inappropriate in an integrated setting. So they could say things like, learn, because once you know a thing, nobody can take it away from you. This statement clearly applies to everybody regardless of race, but in a segregated setting, the nobody in nobody can take it away, was understood to be whites. Now, this warning may not seem like much now, but at the time they knew that blacks were likely to be treated as if they were ignorant of a thing, even by persons that they had had to teach the very thing a few days earlier.

For purposes of this book, this background becomes important for two reasons. The first is that during my formative years, I never had to factor what white folks thought, felt, or wanted, into my thought processes. I did not consider this state unique until I left the bounds of Harlem and ventured out into the larger world. There I found that to a very large extent, many blacks put what they thought white folks would think as a filter through which all their thoughts must pass, even where their own selfish interest was involved.

I would hope that this attitude is not taken as a form of animosity on my part. I have nothing against whites, and in many ways feel they are overburdened with generalized racial reconciliation responsibilities that they did not seek, do not need, and cannot accomplish.

The second reason this is important is that that notion of individual responsibility for the welfare of the group, a central component of what Pro called the Tuskegee experience, never left me. This included a determination to do what is right by those around me in whatever setting I found myself. Rugged individualism, the idea that every man stands alone, is in sharp contrast to the idea of group progress. Yet any society advances or falls based upon how well its members look after himself and each other. The truth is, I believe, that many, far too many, African Americans fail in our responsibility to each other and to the