{"id":3689,"date":"2016-01-20T22:37:27","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T04:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=3689"},"modified":"2016-03-26T16:16:30","modified_gmt":"2016-03-26T22:16:30","slug":"the-dps-sickout-teachers-digging-their-own-grave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-dps-sickout-teachers-digging-their-own-grave.html","title":{"rendered":"The DPS sickout: teachers digging their own grave?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The teachers of the Detroit Public Schools staged a \u201csickout\u201d today. \u00a0You know, the sort of protest where they all called in sick, even though they weren\u2019t, and used the day to protest against the DPS administration. \u00a0According to the Detroit News<\/a>,<\/p>\n

In a statement Wednesday afternoon, a DPS spokeswoman said 88 of the district\u2019s 97 schools were closed due to the high volume of teacher absences, the latest in a series of sickouts in the state\u2019s largest district.<\/p>\n

Wednesday afternoon, the district filed a complaint in the Michigan Court of Claims seeking a restraining order and a preliminary injunction forcing teachers to end the sickouts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I could be cynical and say that the usual hardships that such de facto strikes impose on parents left with no one to watch their kids, aren\u2019t an issue in Detroit where no one\u2019s employed anyway, but I won\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I will say that the situation in Detroit is complicated.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, these teachers are digging their own grave. \u00a0Detroit \u2014 indeed all of Michigan \u2014 has a system of Schools of Choice and charter schools<\/a>. \u00a0Charter schools everyone\u2019s familiar with, but Schools of Choice means that kids can apply to attend public schools in neighboring towns, and take their share of the state funding with them. \u00a0Now,you wouldn\u2019t think any of the neighboring school districts would take Detroit kids, but since school funding comes largely from the state, and since Detroit kids help fill what would otherwise be empty classrooms, they do. \u00a0With respect to charter schools, unlike some states where approval is difficult, in Michigan, there is no issue around setting up a charter school. \u00a0Surprisingly, for as much as conservatives like to talk about school choice, no one seems to know about, or talk about, at least, the Michigan experience \u2014 and this has been around for over 20 years.<\/p>\n

And parents in Detroit have been taking full advantage \u2014 the clear majority of schoolchildren<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 about 60% \u2014 living in Detroit attend charter schools, Schools of Choice, or parochial schools. \u00a0Are those that remain in the DPS simply dedicated to their local public school? \u00a0I would guess, though when I was reading about this back last spring I couldn\u2019t find out much, that there are a number of factors, but that the DPS kids are more likely to have parents who can\u2019t arrange for transportation, or who are just indifferent to their kids\u2019 education in general.<\/p>\n

And every such sickout, every such instance when teachers leave the classroom, is going to send all the more parents looking at their charter and other options, and, by the loss of per-student money, make the financial situation all the worse.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But at the same time, when teachers complain about building upkeep and other problems in the schools, they\u2019re not being whiners, either. \u00a0The DPS has serious financial problems \u2014 as does any organization saddled with huge legacy costs like pensions, debt, building maintenance, etc. \u00a0After all, their student body population went from 150,000 to 50,000 in only ten years. \u00a0<\/strong>This is not an easy change to cope with, and is not something that is easily mock-able as just another \u201cblue state failure,\u201d because the teacher complaints<\/a> \u2014 of\u00a0dead rats found at public schools, mildew taking over ceilings and walls and damage to school buildings \u2014 are real, and there\u2019s just not an easy solution.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The teachers of the Detroit Public Schools staged a \u201csickout\u201d today. \u00a0You know, the sort of protest where they all called in sick, even though they weren\u2019t, and used the day to protest against the DPS administration. \u00a0According to the Detroit News, In a statement Wednesday afternoon, a DPS spokeswoman said 88 of the district\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":3691,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe DPS sickout: teachers digging their own grave?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The teachers of the Detroit Public Schools staged a "sickout" today. \u00a0You know, the sort of protest where they all called in sick, even though they\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-dps-sickout-teachers-digging-their-own-grave.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The DPS sickout: teachers digging their own grave?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The teachers of the Detroit Public Schools staged a "sickout" today. \u00a0You know, the sort of protest where they all called in sick, even though they\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-dps-sickout-teachers-digging-their-own-grave.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-01-21T04:37:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-03-26T22:16:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2016\/01\/800px-Maybury_Elementary_School_Detroit_2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-dps-sickout-teachers-digging-their-own-grave.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-dps-sickout-teachers-digging-their-own-grave.html\",\"name\":\"The DPS sickout: teachers digging their own grave?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-01-21T04:37:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-03-26T22:16:30+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\"},\"description\":\"The teachers of the Detroit Public Schools staged a \\\"sickout\\\" today. \u00a0You know, the sort of protest where they all called in sick, even though they\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-dps-sickout-teachers-digging-their-own-grave.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-dps-sickout-teachers-digging-their-own-grave.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-dps-sickout-teachers-digging-their-own-grave.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The DPS sickout: teachers digging their own grave?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jane the Actuary\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The DPS sickout: teachers digging their own grave?","description":"The teachers of the Detroit Public Schools staged a \"sickout\" today. \u00a0You know, the sort of protest where they all called in sick, even though they","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-dps-sickout-teachers-digging-their-own-grave.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The DPS sickout: teachers digging their own grave?","og_description":"The teachers of the Detroit Public Schools staged a \"sickout\" today. \u00a0You know, the sort of protest where they all called in sick, even though they","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-dps-sickout-teachers-digging-their-own-grave.html","og_site_name":"Jane the Actuary","article_published_time":"2016-01-21T04:37:27+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-03-26T22:16:30+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":576,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2016\/01\/800px-Maybury_Elementary_School_Detroit_2.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Jane the Actuary","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jane the Actuary","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-dps-sickout-teachers-digging-their-own-grave.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-dps-sickout-teachers-digging-their-own-grave.html","name":"The DPS sickout: teachers digging their own grave?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-01-21T04:37:27+00:00","dateModified":"2016-03-26T22:16:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a"},"description":"The teachers of the Detroit Public Schools staged a \"sickout\" today. \u00a0You know, the sort of protest where they all called in sick, even though they","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-dps-sickout-teachers-digging-their-own-grave.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-dps-sickout-teachers-digging-their-own-grave.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/the-dps-sickout-teachers-digging-their-own-grave.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The DPS sickout: teachers digging their own grave?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/","name":"Jane the Actuary","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a","name":"Jane the Actuary","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jane the Actuary"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}