The main event takes place in the City of Detroit, where we have in one corner, the reigning champion of privatization, the one and only, the former Governor of Michigan, the man who launched the first national model of child welfare privatization which stripped billions of dollars from the welfare of children to generate child poverty and infant mortality levels in Detroit to international heights, allow me the pleasure of introducing John Engler.
In the other corner, we have a new comer, an up and rising star in the political circles of the privatization game, the man who is known for his Hail May saves of major organizations, by any means necessary, of course, the legendary Mike Duggan!
John Engler has come out of hibernation, well, he was just watching, consulting Snyder, to fight for his money-grubbin'-religious-freedom-from-taxes-and-oversight-fraudulently-billing-to-promote-corporate-America's-future-cheap-and-government-subsidized-workforce model, which just so happens to be children in poverty!
Praise God, for thou shall not audit God nor privately contracted child welfare programs.
Duggan has partnered with Jamie Dimon, the king of banking, JPMorgan Chase.
Banks have oversight through the Federal Reserve and must execute its secondary directive of creating jobs.
"The Elected Ones" will, once again, stand up and attempt to be contenders in the fight against child poverty by giving more theatrically, religiously laced, fire and brimstone, ad hominem monologues, purposefully demonstrating their lack of sophistication on the issues of social finance while swearing allegiance to the status quo of Detroit governance, which is exactly how Detroit got into this mess in the first place.
What is the status quo of Detroit governance?
Greed. Pure, unadulterated greed while purporting all the wonderful things they do for kids and families.
The worst part is that "The Elected Ones" do greed by conspicuous consumption and do not even have the wherewithal to cover up the money streams going into their re-election campaigns.
I got my money on Duggan and Dimon because I know this is going to be juicy and this is Detroit.
Remember, "Children are our most precious treasures" and everyone wants to get their hands on that Social Security Trust Fund.
Let the battle commence!
JPMorgan Chase Awards $4 Million for Detroit Youth Jobs Initiative
JPMorgan Chase & Co. has announced a three-year, $4 million grant to the United Way for Southeastern Michigan to expand young people's access to economic opportunity in Detroit.
Building on the firm's $100 million commitment to Detroit's economic recovery, the grant is designed to boost the number of young people graduating from the city's high schools with opportunities to secure well-paying, high-demand jobs. Chase joins the Skillman and Ford foundations and the Ford Motor Company Fund in the effort to connect ten thousand Detroit high school students to career education and work experiences, enabling them to earn credentials, qualifying them for college and career pathways in several important and growing regional industries, including advanced manufacturing, health care, information technology, digital communications, engineering, and public service.
"We are excited about expanding career-focused educational programs that give Detroit's young people opportunities to access career pathways in the city's expanding sectors," said Chauncy Lennon, head of workforce initiatives at JPMorgan Chase. "Building off a model proven in other communities, the collaborative approach being taken by the city to solve tough issues is reflected in their commitment to work with civic, business, and education leaders to better align education with the skills that growing business sectors need."
Engler: ‘Morally wrong’ to create Detroit school group
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| Former Michigan Governor John Engler Founding Emperor of Privatization |
In an exclusive Thursday interview with The Detroit News, Engler opposed a plan championed by Gov. Rick Snyder, Senate Republicans and Mayor Mike Duggan to create a commission with the power to block some charter school operators from opening additional schools in Detroit.
The state House late Thursday approved a six-bill, $617 million rescue of Detroit Public Schools without the commission, an omission that doesn’t appear to be hurting its chances of Michigan Senate approval as early as this week. Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive, views it as “a realistic compromise” between prior Senate and House plans, spokeswoman Amber McCann said.
Engler, who marshaled through the mid-1990s laws that created charter schools and a state-centered financing of public schools, said the rapid decline of the Detroit school system since he left office in 2003 is evidence that the city’s parents are seeking schools with better educational achievement than DPS.
“People have chosen to leave, they weren’t forced to leave. So it’s to the great credit of the House of Representatives that they politely turned down the idea of some commission,” said Engler, who is now president of the Business Roundtable, a national advocacy group representating corporate chief executives.
Engler endorsed the House’s plan that would not constrain charter school growth as the lower chamber was preparing for the late Thursday night vote.
The former three-term Republican governor called any constraints on charter schools “morally wrong.”
“This is a school system where the principals see nothing wrong with stealing from the district, and leadership wants to eliminate the competition in order to force children into schools where they won’t be educated,” said Engler, referring to 13 current and former DPS administrators who are facing jail time for their role in a $2.7 million bribery and kickback scheme.
The 46,000-student school district has lost more than 100,000 students during the past 10 years.
“In my mind, it’s inevitable the rest of them will also leave,” Engler said. “Because you cannot morally justify putting your child in a school where 19 of 20 will not be able to read proficiently.”
Engler said if he were still in office, he would move to eliminate the school district’s administration and convert the district into a network of independently operated neighborhood schools.
“The central office of Detroit Public Schools should be closed,” Engler said. “It’s too expensive, too ineffective and too corrupt.”
Engler, who now lives in Virginia, said he has been following the months-long Detroit school district debate for months.
In 1999, then-Gov. Engler said he worried about cronyism and the deterioration of education in Detroit and engineered legislation that grabbed power from the district’s elected school board. The state created a seven-member school reform board with six members appointed by then-Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer who would pick and monitor a powerful chief executive to run the district.
The seventh reform board member represented the state and could veto the board’s CEO choice. The governor’s Detroit board member vetoed the first CEO choice, a Pittsburgh superintendent. The reform board settled on its second choice, Colorado Springs, Colo. Superintendent Kenneth Burnley, who ran the Detroit Public Schools through the end of 2005.
Detroiters voted in November 2005 to dissolve the reform board at the end of 2005, as the state law allowed. The elected school board resumed power in 2006 and oversaw the Detroit district until 2009, when declining finances and mounting debt prompted Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm to send in the first of several emergency financial managers.
Engler argues there still hasn’t been enough focus on improving educational achievement in one of the nation’s worst-performing school systems.
“The crisis in education in Detroit demands everyone’s attention,” he told The Detroit News. “And most of the conversation has been about solutions about what might be good for adults who might be employed by the system. Much too little about what would be good for the kids who need the education if they’re going to compete for jobs in this century.”
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