A retraining program that works: Finding jobs in Detroit. In the aftermath of Detroit's historic bankruptcy, attention will turn quickly to a much more troubling problem than the city's balance sheet: the crisis of structurally unemployed residents in Detroit. For a true turnaround, the city must put people back to work — but simply prescribing a quick fix would ignore the deeply rooted problems in the labor force, including a lack of modern job skills, rampant illiteracy, transit problems and a fundamental lack of opportunities.
The resurgence of downtown and Midtown Detroit is creating jobs for high-tech workers with advanced degrees and spurring new real estate developments aimed at young educated professionals. But the city's economy continues to generate little opportunity for unemployed residents in the impoverished neighborhoods. That's where the Michigan Economic Development Corp.'s new Community Ventures program is filling a void. Expanding the program Participants averaged 36 years old. Now, Gov. Practical help Barriers removed. Anatomy of Detroit’s Decline - Interactive Feature. Mayor Coleman A. Young of Detroit at an event in 1980. Richard Sheinwald/Associated Press The financial crisis facing Detroit was decades in the making, caused in part by a trail of missteps, suspected corruption and inaction. Here is a sampling of some city leaders who trimmed too little, too late and, rather than tackling problems head on, hoped that deep-rooted structural problems would turn out to be cyclical downturns.
Charles E. Bowles, backed by the Ku Klux Klan, was in office for seven months in 1930 before people demanded his removal. His ascension to the mayor's office was followed by a spike in crime, and he was suspected to be linked to some of Detroit's underworld figures, according to “Detroit: A Biography" by Scott Martelle. Edward Jeffries, who served as mayor from 1940 to 1948, developed the Detroit Plan, which involved razing 100 blighted acres and preparing the land for redevelopment. Coleman A. Kwame M. Related. 25 Facts About The Fall Of Detroit That Will Leave You Shaking Your Head. By Michael Snyder, on July 20th, 2013 It is so sad to watch one of America’s greatest cities die a horrible death.
Once upon a time, the city of Detroit was a teeming metropolis of 1.8 million people and it had the highest per capita income in the United States. Now it is a rotting, decaying hellhole of about 700,000 people that the rest of the world makes jokes about. On Thursday, we learned that the decision had been made for the city of Detroit to formally file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. It was going to be the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the United States by far, but on Friday it was stopped at least temporarily by an Ingham County judge. 1) At this point, the city of Detroit owes money to more than 100,000 creditors. 2) Detroit is facing $20 billion in debt and unfunded liabilities. 3) Back in 1960, the city of Detroit actually had the highest per-capita income in the entire nation. 4) In 1950, there were about 296,000 manufacturing jobs in Detroit. Detroit Jobs Might Return, But Workers Still Lack Skills. DETROIT, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr has a long list of things to fix in the city and among them is one that may sound surprising: there are not enough skilled workers to fill job openings as they become available.
“Every problem in this city revolves around jobs,” said Lindsay Chalmers, vice president of non-profit Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit. “That’s at the heart of the issue for Detroit.” The decline of manufacturing jobs, above all in the automotive industry, has played a major role in the slide of the Motor City’s population to 700,000 from a peak of 1.8 million in the 1950s. Despite recent gains, Michigan has 350,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than in 2000. Seismic shifts in the local labor market have left many unskilled workers behind. “In the old days you could graduate on Friday, get hired at the Ford plant on Monday and they’d train you,” said Sheldon Danziger, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. Detroit Public Schools Budget: Cuts, Cuts, Cuts. This story has been updated.
Detroit Public Schools officials released the district's proposed 2012 budget Thursday, a plan rife with cuts and changes. All DPS employees will take a 10 percent salary hit in the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2012, and, like public workers throughout Michigan, will be expected to contribute more to their benefits plan. Language about recruiting new teachers stresses hiring from external pools such as Teach for America. Beyond the pay cuts, the district is also eliminating 853 positions, reducing its head count by roughly 8.5 percent. According to the district, the cuts are part of a plan to streamline education and reroute 90 percent of funding to the classroom. Mounting debt has crippled Detroit Public Schools, with the district's current deficit reaching $327 million. “We must create and maintain an organization that totally accepts its responsibility for making this the top rate school district that it can be. 45 Detroit Schools to Close: Where Have All The Students Gone? | Colorlines.
Division of Finance - Detroit Public Schools. DPS is focused on creating a culture of excellence that permeates our system of schools. To do that, we are creating and maintaining an organization that totally accepts its responsibility for making DPS a top-rate school district. That begins with the budget, which is fiscally sound, balanced and focused on driving resources where they are most impactful—to our classrooms and our students. About our finances The FY 2015 Detroit Public Schools Proposed Budget contains Summaries of Expenditures including an overview of uses of monies for personnel, purchased services, supplies and materials, capital equipment, utilities, debt services, and transfers and other expenditures.
It also includes Summaries of Revenues and Fund Appropriations including the General Purpose Fund, Adult Education Fund, State and Federal Grant Funds, Special Education Program Funds, Consolidated Funds, Food Service Fund and Capital Funds. Proposed Budget for the 2014–15 Fiscal Year Resources. Is a solution finally here for education in Detroit? The new group assembled to rethink education in Detroit walks in shallow footsteps trenched by too many before them who have thought small and acted smaller. My hope for the coalition — made up of 31 leaders across business, nonprofit, activist and union sectors across the city — is that it will get it right. My expectations, however, are tempered.
The schools here, all of them, are a product of nearly 40 years of neglect, nearly as deep and profound as the carelessness that led the city to the depths. Education is also tied, almost inextricably, to the racial isolation and partiality that helped sink Detroit. There will be no miracle solutions. Still, this coalition debuts at a time when change seems inevitable for city schools. From a policy standpoint, just about anything would be better than what we have now: three different brands of public education, all doing a mediocre or outright poor job of educating. ■ Governance doesn’t matter. . ■ Choice is good, but only in tandem with quality. Report: 75% Of Detroit Schools Don’t Provide Adequate Education. DETROIT (WWJ) – An annual ranking released Wednesday shows that only one-quarter of the schools in Detroit are providing an adequate education for its students.
Excellent Schools Detroit — a coalition of leaders in many different areas, ranging from education, philanthropic and community groups — releases a yearly scorecard to help parents make sense of the city’s school system and find the best fit for their child. The organization’s scorecard on Detroit schools for 2013 found that — of the 204 schools graded — 51 earned “C+” or higher. Dan Varner, chief executive officer of Excellent Schools Detroit, said the scorecard helps parents draw the line between good schools they would recommend (C+ and higher) and those that are not good enough. “Detroit’s been waiting for this moment to fully understand how our schools rank, not just against each other, but in measuring up to established excellence standards,” Varner said in a statement.
Fixing Detroit’s Broken School System: Improve accountability and oversight for district and charter schools. Detroit is a classic story of a once-thriving city that has lost its employment base, its upper and middle classes, and much of its hope for the future. The city has been on a long, slow decline for decades. It’s difficult to convey the postapocalyptic nature of Detroit. Miles upon miles of abandoned houses are in piles of rot and ashes. Unemployment, violent crime, and decades of underinvestment have led to a near-complete breakdown of civic infrastructure: the roads are terrible, the police are understaffed, and there is a deeply insufficient social safety net.
There are new federal funds and private investment being directed to Detroit’s renewal. In January 2014, as part of a multicity study, researchers from the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) met with a dozen parents in Detroit to learn about their experiences with education in the city. Ms. Today, Detroit is a “high-choice” city. School Choice with Few Options The dearth of high-quality options is evident to parents.