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Eric
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Username: Eric

Post Number: 1046
Registered: 11-2004
Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - 1:11 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It looks like she's off to a good start. Hope she has a ton of persistence, because reform and accountability don't sit well with some in the city.

Calloway: Schools' accounting is a crime
She wants prosecutor to see insurance, other areas
December 18, 2007

BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY

FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER

Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Connie Calloway said Monday she has recommended that the district's lawyer and school board seek criminal charges in connection with its risk management office and perhaps two other areas she would not identify.

In an interview with the Free Press, Calloway said that she and her chief financial officer continue to be astounded daily by the level of what she considers fraudulent and messy accounting in the $1-billion budget.

Problems include contracts smeared with correction fluid, checks sent out without approval, and the lack of a system for evaluating the performance of the district's hundreds of contractors and vendors.
"Every day is a day of financial discovery," Calloway said.

The district already has asked the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office to review problems in its risk management office, which oversees issues such as insurance and workers compensation. Calloway said Monday that one or two other issues should be referred to the prosecutor, but she provided no other details.

Calloway said that when she arrived in Detroit last summer, she was aghast at the dysfunction within the school system and immediately decided that she would put some basic processes in place.

In a little more than five months on the job, she has hired new top-level executives, sought a new system for textbook orders and introduced a computer-based program for addressing student weaknesses on MEAP questions.

Calloway said she plans to be with the district five years at the most. In that time, she said, she aims to "change the climate, culture, condition and expectations" in an effort to improve the academic results.

But parents like Chris White want measurable results soon.

"Time out for the rhetoric. We need the basics, like safe schools and delivery of textbooks," said White, a coordinator for the Coalition to Restore Hope to DPS, which complained in October to the state about a lack of textbooks at some schools.

Calloway confirmed during Monday's interview that textbooks did not arrive at some schools in time for this school year. In fact, those books still have not arrived, she said.

Before Calloway began work, the district decided to close 33 school buildings last summer because of declining enrollment. Textbooks from those schools were supposed to be distributed to other schools where those students were assigned, but they are still sitting in a warehouse, Calloway said.

The vendor responsible for moving the books was let go, Calloway said. By the start of next school year, she said a new system would be in place and books delivered on time.

Calloway described how she held a meeting with top executives and went around the room, asking who was in charge of making sure books arrive in classrooms.

"They literally tell me, 'No one,' " she said. "It's incredulous to me."

Between financial crises and the 17 to 19 school board and board committee meetings she must attend each month, Calloway said she has had too little time to concentrate on academic improvements.

However, Calloway said, she has introduced an online program that she used in her former job in Normandy, Mo., that will allow teachers to look at each problem that their students answered on a standardized test. It is intended to help teachers pinpoint specific difficulties.

Other districts in metro Detroit are spending millions on such software with help from intermediate school districts. In Oakland County, at least 26 districts use programs that allow educators to compare multiple tests with the state standards, and 18 have programs that allow teachers to analyze their own classroom tests.

By the end of this school year, nearly all districts in Wayne County will be able to analyze performance data with a new real-time program purchased with help from the Wayne County Regional Educational Service Agency, said Judy Bonne, the agency's executive director for instruction.

The agency is spending $1.2 million on the program; districts eventually will pay a per-student user fee for its maintenance.

DPS has employed several performance analyzers in the past, teachers and officials said. The challenge is getting teachers to use them.

"I can't compel anyone" to use the data, Calloway said, adding that she can only "offer it and make it available."

Doug Carey, a math teacher at McMichael Technological Academy who has worked 11 years in the district, said what Calloway proposes "would be minimally useful."

Carey said he's no fan of standardized tests, but he found that this year's MEAP test had more questions germane to what students need to know to be prepared for high school.

"There are so many kids, their responses are so different on the tests and basic skills are lacking," he said.

Calloway said the district's biggest day-to-day challenge continues to be a basic one: making payroll. This year's budget includes at least $20 million in spending that was not accounted for during the budgeting process, she said.

The district has about 105,000 students and could face financial disaster if enrollment slips below 100,000. By law that would mean more charter schools could open, likely draining away more students and funding.

"This is such a critical time for Detroit," Calloway said. "Process determines product."

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll /article?AID=/20071218/NEWS01/ 712180313
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Smitch
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Username: Smitch

Post Number: 44
Registered: 04-2007
Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - 1:33 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

Calloway said she plans to be with the district five years at the most. In that time, she said, she aims to "change the climate, culture, condition and expectations" in an effort to improve the academic results



Wow. Shes only been in the position five months and shes already planning her exit.

It's gonna be extremely difficult task for her to put an end to the corruption that has plagued the district for decades in just 5 years. Hope shes up to the task.
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Jt1
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Username: Jt1

Post Number: 11060
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - 1:35 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I think setting a timeline is good. I also think that having an attitude of a shortened stay will allow her to make choices that someone looking for employment for life would not make.

She sounds good to me. I do question though if the book issue is identified why not identify an interim solution to get the books to the kids ASAP. Moving books is not brain surgery. I am sure they have an asset management system that they can use to track the books disposition. Every second that those books stay in the warehouse is a second that a kid is getting less opportunity.
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Paulmcall
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Username: Paulmcall

Post Number: 514
Registered: 05-2004
Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - 1:43 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Sounds like they needed a janitor to clean up the mess. I doubt she'll be able to handle five years of cleaning up this mess. Bet she's gone in three.
I do applaud her for trying. This is a monumental task.
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Jt1
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Username: Jt1

Post Number: 11062
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - 1:46 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It is a mess but someone has to start the cleaning and she seems willing to do it.

The options are to clean up the mess or throw your hands up and give up. I would prefer the first option everytime.
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Dougw
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Username: Dougw

Post Number: 2016
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - 2:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

She sounds great to me. I like her quote from the related Q&A article:

"I prefer to say that I've been forced to make a choice: I'm either loyal to people or to accountability. And I'm going to be loyal to accountability."

Detroit needs about 1000 more people in city government with this attitude.
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1953
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Username: 1953

Post Number: 1503
Registered: 12-2004
Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - 3:12 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Its hard to get a good read on her, I think.
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Firstandten
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Username: Firstandten

Post Number: 137
Registered: 05-2006
Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - 5:32 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I think Calloway is honest(morally and fiscally) and that goes a long way in my opinion. We can work with whatever other shortcomings she may have.
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Firstandten
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Username: Firstandten

Post Number: 138
Registered: 05-2006
Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - 6:09 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I think Calloway is honest(morally and fiscally) and that goes a long way in my opinion. We can work with whatever other shortcomings she may have.
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Ravine
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Username: Ravine

Post Number: 1733
Registered: 01-2006
Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - 10:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I don't think she is "planning her exit" so much as she has a five-year plan for what she would like to accomplish. That state of mind beats the hell out of what we have seen in so many other instances, where the only plan being percolated is the one in which the person holding the office is trying to figure out how he, or she, can continue holding it forever while screwing around, flying to conventions in attractive locales, driving a city (or state) owned vehicle, and attending countless meetings with other overpaid, underqualified, self-serving ne'er-do-wells whose "plans" are about the same.
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Detroitplanner
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Username: Detroitplanner

Post Number: 1484
Registered: 04-2006
Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - 11:58 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I'm sure she has spent much of the last several months strategizing how to handle this. Waste and lack of accountability are the primary problems the school district has.

Once those get fixed parents won't be so leery. They want books and toilet paper, maybe a school within walking distance.
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Mrsjdaniels
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Username: Mrsjdaniels

Post Number: 313
Registered: 08-2005
Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 1:16 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

finally, some one with some sense...the reason ppl fought her coming was because she is an outsider and they wanted their cronnies in

I really hope she can start the way to help cleanup the system
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Detroitteacher
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Username: Detroitteacher

Post Number: 1199
Registered: 06-2006
Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 10:35 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I'm all for pressing charges against folks who steal from kids. I would love to get books for my kids...they seemed to disappear from the closed schools (although we've been told they are "on the truck" but no one knows where said truck might be hiding).
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Ray
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Username: Ray

Post Number: 1066
Registered: 06-2004
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 12:38 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Why don't they just liquidate the district and rebuild from a blank sheet of paper.

This has been going on for 40 years.
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Rob_in_warren
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Username: Rob_in_warren

Post Number: 49
Registered: 11-2007
Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 11:28 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

They need to hire "the Bobs" from Office Space. Everyone needs to explain what it is they actually do for the district.

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