"Bottom of the barrel"

Michigan officials announced a plan Monday to overhaul Detroit’s struggling schools by moving the worst ones into a new system in the fall of 2012. The system will not have a school board or a central administration. Principals will be in charge of hiring teachers, and they and their staffs will handle day to day operations.

Oversight will come from a public-private authority with an executive committee led by the Detroit district’s state-appointed financial manager. With less management, Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, says he expects more money to flow directly into the schools.

The changes are meant to address problems in a debt-plagued district where nearly one in five students drops out.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said that Detroit’s schools are “the bottom of the barrel” and that something must be done to save its children.

Big Changes?

A teaser from Mayor Bing today on some big announcement from the White House regarding help to Detroit. Stay tuned.

http://detnews.com/article/20110621/METRO01/106210397/1408/local/Bing--‘Huge’-help-for-Detroit-on-way-from-White-House

Neighbourhood selling point

Detroit is a tough city be any means and the eerie sense of lawlessness is something visitors and many residents alike feel uneasy about. The more abandoned parts of the city often feel like being in a Wes Craven movie. This article in the Free Press HERE offers a possible glimpse into the future of neighbourhood security and self government. Will Detroit become a series of patrolled enclaves gated off from the remains of the city? Will the expanding urban prairie create "neighbourhood Pods" that break the flow of critical flow and renewal? Is the idea of protecting the neighbourhood "pride coming back to the city" or merely an acknowledgement of how difficult the city outside of the neighbourhood has become?

Brian Johnson, the association's security director, learned about the firm from a neighbor who saw it featured on a news report. He touted Palmer Woods' relationship with Robinson and the 12th Precinct, but said Recon was an affordable boost to the neighborhood's security.
Robinson was quick to credit Palmer Woods residents for activism in protecting their neighborhood, adding that he sees a movement in protecting neighborhoods and "pride coming back to the city."In the city's Boston-Edison and University District neighborhoods, by comparison, security efforts range from traditional Neighborhood Watch patrols to citizen radio patrols and subscriber security firm patrols.
"It has worked for us," said Pamela Miller-Malone, president of the Historic Boston-Edison Association, about its community and subscriber patrol. The association also has e-mail alerts and a phone tree for older residents.