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Michigan Chronicle
Vol. 82 – No. 39 | June 5-11, 2019
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It’s time to show Detroit teachers the respect they deserve Nikolai Vitti, Ed.D. Superintendent, Detroit Public Schools Community District
I am often asked what is the most important strategy that can be leveraged to improve Detroit Public Schools Community District, or public education in general. My response is: make teaching and teachers the most important priority in educational reform. By doing so, you immediately improve the outcomes and experiences of all children, because teachers have the most consistent interaction with children outside of families. As we know, for some children, this consistency is vital due to home life challenges. Despite this reality, we often hear leaders and elected officials honor the hard Nikolai Vitti work and sacrifice of teachers without emphasizing and prioritizing budgets and policy to enhance teacher status as one of the most important professions in our society. This is why we are seeing fewer undergraduates enter the teaching profession and others leaving it. This country, despite its rhetoric for honoring teachers, does not respect traditional public education — including teachers and their students — enough to put their money where their mouths are. It’s empty talk. As a result, our children, community, and the future of this country continue to suffer. We allow the ideology of choice, lower taxes and weak government to dictate elections and education policy. We ignore what works — best practice and research — for silver bullets and quick fixes. There are few examples that better reflect the disrespect toward traditional public education — and toward teachers and their students — than what occurred in Michigan, and namely in Detroit, through emergency management. One example is the current state of our facilities. We have buildings that are in dire need of repair due to years of neglect. This would have never been tolerated in any of the surrounding suburbs but yet it became the status quo in Detroit under emergency management. Another is the lack of systems and processes that “normal” organizations have in place. Something as simple as a customer service response process was missing. Basic payroll systems, accountability metrics and inferior curriculum are just some of the basics that created the corrosion I witnessed when I
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WHAT’S INSIDE
PHOTO: Andre Smith
PART II
Detroit Divided: Don’t Call It a Comeback
By Trevor W. Coleman I asked longtime Detroit activist and radio host Sam Riddle if Detroit is divided and he laughed at the absurdity of the question. “Of course, it is!” he says almost shouting. “You’ve got almost 40 percent of the population living in poverty, nearly 60 percent of the babies born into poverty, one of the highest infant mortality rates in the nation, neighborhoods that have been abandoned, schools struggling and one of the highest homicide rates in the country.” Riddle is the host of popular afternoon radio show Riddle at Random on 910 am Superstation. He is also a senior fellow of the Pulse Institute, which is a Detroit think tank that focuses on anti-poverty initiatives. “Of course, there are two Detroits,” he said. “The have and the have nots!” Like many long-time Detroiters, Riddle, who also serves as political director for the Michigan chapter of the National Action Network, agrees there has been a significant improvement in Detroit’s overall economy and development in downtown and midtown. However, he objects to what he believes has been a public relations campaign that promotes successful downtown development projects by big corporations, wealthy developers and new affluent residents. He believes there are poverty issues and other social ills and challenges faced by long-time residents of the city that remain hidden in plain sight.
“The Detroit mayor and his buddies say, ‘This is the Detroit comeback story,’ but it’s not a comeback for the long-time residents who stayed here when everybody else left and now must live in ignored and abandoned neighborhoods,” he said. The question of whether there is “two Detroits” — one that is prospering with a vibrant downtown and newly minted developments spread along the Woodward corridor and midtown, and another that is under siege by high poverty rates hovering near 40 percent, struggling schools and floundering neighborhoods — has been driving much of the debate over the nature of progress in the region for the past ten years. While it is almost universally accepted that the city is much better off than it was during the depths of the recession from 2007-2009, it is the
contours of the recovery that remain in question. Mayor Mike Duggan conceded as much during his State of the City presentation in March, when he noted unemployment is down 50 percent, but that Detroit still has the highest unemployment rate in the United States. He noted that 35,000 Detroiters have been lifted out of poverty, but the city still has the highest poverty rate in the country. It was also explained that crime is down, but the Motor City is still the third most violent city in the country. Edward Lynch, a planner with Detroit Future City, a Detroit think tank, agreed and said the painful dichotomy confronting Detroit is a common phenomenon among most major urban areas these days.
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DIVIDED page A4
$3 Billion to “Fix the Damn Roads” and Bridges: 10-year Plan would bring 90% into good or fair condition
By Patreice A. Massey MANAGING EDITOR
Teach For America Detroit’s 2019 “Detroit Writes Detroit” showcases writings and voices of outstanding students across the city
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Wayne County has released a baseline report that will be used to develop and implement its first-ever 10-year asset management plan (AMP) for roads and bridges. According to the report, Wayne County would need to invest more than $3 billion over the next decade to execute goals. The objective is to have 90 percent of its roads and bridges in good or fair condition by 2029 as well as all bridges in critical condition. “An increasing number of our roads and bridges are in poor to critical condition and they are going to deteriorate faster without significant investment,” said Wayne County executive Warren C. Evans. “Developing an asset management plan will help us get more out of our money through preventative maintenance, but there’s no way we can address our infrastructure crisis without a massive infusion of cash.” The next steps include developing appropriate solutions, analyzing the impacts of different funding options and preservation strategies, and developing a rolling 10-year asset management plan to guide investments
in the system moving forward. This puts an emphasis on preventative maintenance, which keeps good roads in good condition longer and is less expensive than rehabilitation or reconstruction. According to the baseline report, approximately 58 percent of the roads in Wayne County are in poor condition, 34 percent are fair and only 8 percent are in good condition. The road inventory covered a total of 897 miles of federal aid roads and non-federal aid non-subdivision roads. It did not include the 773 miles of local subdivision roads. In regard to bridges, the county has 310 structures, of which 231 are inspected and maintained according to the National Bridge Inventory (NBI) federal guidelines. Of these NBI bridges, 69 percent are in good or fair condition, 20 percent in poor condition and 11 percent are in serious or critical condition. Of those 231, 35 of them are open but have reduced weight loads and ten are closed. Three additional non-NBI bridges are closed
as well, and the county has 11 “big” bridges with replacement values exceeding $10 million. “The average age of bridges in Wayne County is nearly 70 years old, but we count on them daily to get to work or the doctor or sports events for our kids,” said Beverly Watts, director of the Wayne County Department of Public Services. “It’s the oldest, largest and most unique set of local bridges in the state. There are 18 different types of bridge substructures, three movable bridges and 12 bridges that are on the National Register of Historic Places. Fixing and maintaining them is costly.” The county expects to have the 10-year AMP ready in November. It will be updated and revised routinely as new information becomes available. The plan is committed to a data-driven approach to infrastructure based on regular system assessments. “We can’t just wait for things to shake
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AND BRIDGES page A2