Go Brotha! Former Car Exec Revving Up Education In Detroit

[Priest]

Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Willing To Stay Longer, If Asked

Every family has one.

The go-to person who brings stability when something serious happens -- a funeral, an accident, an emergency.

One of 10 children, Roy Roberts is that person in his family. And for years he was that kind of guy as a pioneering African-American executive for General Motors.

In playing that "go-to-guy" role as emergency manager for the Detroit Public Schools since last May, Roberts' major goal has been to establish stability.

So by his own metric, how has he fared?

So far, he has replaced legions of temporary consultants left over from the prior emergency manager with permanent employees. He increased long-term debt as a way to lower the annual deficit. And, he says, he won't use his sweeping authority to dismiss the controversial school board or cancel teachers' contracts.

This year, DPS plans to close some schools and open others and also share some administrative services with the new state-run Education Achievement Authority. And Roberts may sign on to lead for another year, he says.

"These kids deserve a degree of stability," he said. "We've got to make sure the school system is something that people will want to aspire to."

Detroit Public Schools emergency manager aims to stabilize district by shrinking it

At this time of year, when Detroit is typically slushy and gray, Roy Roberts and his wife usually would be enjoying their winter home in Arizona.

Instead, this year the retired GM executive shovels through 300 e-mails and 150 or so telephone messages a day. Roberts, the governor-appointed emergency manager for the Detroit Public Schools, also holds weekly meetings with the top eight department heads, having cut the ranks from 30 or so.

He's trying to figure out how to stabilize DPS by shrinking it and merging some operations with the Education Achievement Authority, the new statewide school district for underperforming schools.

More than halfway through his first one-year appointment, Roberts told the Free Press that to succeed he may have to stay in the job past May.

"In all fairness, if (the governor) asked me to stay, I'd be hard-pressed to leave because you can't do this to the kids. You can't jerk it around," he said. "Clearly, you can't get it done in a year, and if I stay two years, you won't get it all done."

In an emergency situation in which DPS is being reshaped into a smaller "system of schools," everyone is starved for signs of progress under the state takeover that Roberts leads.

Though he will judge himself by whether he brings stability and improves the district, the law will measure Roberts' success by whether he balances the budget. But parents want to see a visible difference in instruction and safety.

"If I do this right -- and I'm determined I'm going to do this right -- I'm going to impact generations. Nothing is more important than that," he said.

Observers say Roberts must concentrate more on running the state's new district for failing schools, and predict that DPS will lose more students unless Roberts holds public meetings to interact with parents and build support.

Cutting the deficit

A ballooning deficit brought the first emergency manager to DPS, Robert Bobb, in 2009. The deficit grew from 2009 to 2011, but it's now down to $83 million.

The October 2011 DPS deficit-elimination plan showed Roberts' administration was overspending for the current school year. However, DPS contends that the report included miscalculations that will be revised to show the district within its budget for the year.

Roberts -- along with the governor -- now faces multiple lawsuits from contractors and employees upset that he has wielded his new and far-reaching authority to amend leases and pay.

W. Howard Morris, the first person in Michigan to be appointed an emergency financial manager for a school system, said an emergency manager for schools would have more nuanced tasks and metrics.

"The business of a school district is teaching and learning," said Morris, who turned a deficit into a surplus while running Inkster Public Schools in 2002-2005. "Nobody's going to come back to DPS until they see progress in teaching and learning. (Roberts) is going to be judged by the question, 'Is (teaching and learning) better now than it was when you took over?' "

DPS parent Chris White, a political activist, said Roberts' dual role over DPS and EAA will cause confusion as the EAA takes over a yet-to-be-announced number of DPS schools in the fall.

"The EAA is a takeover for the takeover. DPS is the only district in the country with two takeovers," White said.

During the remainder of his appointment, Roberts needs to meet publicly with parents on a regular basis to inform them and build support for his plan to bring stability, White said. "He needs parent support, but he's not acting like he cares what parents think. There's no transparency."

Political analyst Eric Foster agreed that Roberts is "quiet" for a leader whose job is to try to change public opinion of DPS.

However, "Quiet is actually a good thing," said Foster, president of Foster McCollum White & Associates consulting firm. "That gives you an opportunity to say, 'We're quiet because we're trying to address some of the things that are going on.' "

Sharing the load

On the financial side, this year DPS likely will collaborate with the EAA system to share some administrative functions, Roberts said. The EAA was created last summer to take over the lowest-performing schools in the state. Roberts also is the board chairman for the EAA.

The DPS human resources, payroll and purchasing systems are broken, Roberts said. Sharing administrative functions will reduce costs for all systems, he said.

The EAA also could help ease some of the district's debt problems. DPS has $500 million in debt, mostly due to be repaid within 10 years. As some schools go from DPS to EAA control, the EAA will have to pay a share of the district's debt service for each student at those schools, Roberts said.

The Roberts administration has swiftly moved to use the new emergency manager law to cancel contracts to try to save money. Two months into the job, Roberts presented a budget that cut employee pay by 10%. The unions sued.

On Wednesday, another lawsuit was filed against Roberts -- and Gov. Rick Snyder and state Treasurer Andy Dillon -- because Roberts canceled the district's leases for office space in Midtown.

He also got rid of dozens of highly paid consultants Bobb had hired in top jobs. Roberts said permanent employees were needed to bring stability.

The most important contract he signed was when he hired 30-year DPS veteran Karen Ridgeway. He gave her a three-year contract -- longer than any other administrator -- to be superintendent after a national search turned up no takers, he said.

State Rep. Lisa Howze, D-Detroit, a member of the House education committee, said she wants to see Roberts dump old wasteful DPS habits -- like being chauffeured in a 2011 district-owned Tahoe SUV -- and come up with creative fiscal solutions.

Howze, a financial adviser before being elected, said Roberts' decision to sell $237 million in 10-year bonds to pay off $200 million of the DPS deficit was a traditional DPS tactic.

"He just refinanced old debt and said he reduced the deficit. I thought that was disingenuous," Howze said.

Steve Perry, author of "Push Has Come to Shove: Getting Our Kids the Education They Deserve--Even If It Means Picking a Fight," said DPS is on the right track. Plans announced last year to hire successful charter school operators to run some schools, raise money so that every DPS student gets two years of college for free and downsize the central office so the district is a system of autonomous schools should yield progress, Perry said.

"When your school system is so ineffective you drive out two-thirds of your potential students ... there's no reason why there should be a Detroit Public Schools," said Perry, who is principal of Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, Conn., ranked as among the top schools in the nation by US News & World Report.

"It should be a system of schools."

If DPS is stabilized within a few years, there's the question of the next go-to guy, said state Rep. Al Pscholka, R-Stevensville, who sponsored the controversial emergency manager law.

"The question is, how do you transition out of it without creating a huge vacuum of leadership?" Pscholka said.

 

http://www.freep.com/article/20120118/NEWS01/201180424/Detroit-Publ...