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Thursday, July 5, 2012

The Teacher War of 2012 - Politics - The Detroit News

The Teacher War of 2012 - Politics - The Detroit News:


The Teacher War of 2012



 On July 1, the Detroit Public Schools contract with their teachers expired.  Detroit Public Schools (DPS) Emergency Manager Roy Roberts imposed a new agreement with the remnants of the school district on Sunday, literally a day after the previous contract expired.  Since the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) had already abandoned any idea of working with DPS long ago, this may be the first signal of the fight for the district, already left for scavengers to re-box and re-sell to others.
Days before the entire district contract expired, no action or activity was planned or implemented by the DFT.  As the contract wound down, it was clear that there was no renegotiation on either side, nor any indication that any discussions were planned in actual belief that an agreement would be made.
I warned about this last September.  The scope of transforming Detroit Public Schools into the Detroit Charter School System stretched past the