Schooling in the Ownership Society: 'Blowing up the system' -- Roberts confesses

Schooling in the Ownership Society: 'Blowing up the system' -- Roberts confesses:

'Blowing up the system' -- Roberts confesses

by Mike Klonsky

Roy Roberts was told to "blow up and dismantle" Detroit's school system

When Michigan'sTea Party Gov. Rick Snyder brought in Roy Roberts in May, 2011, to replace the Robert Bobb/ Barbara Byrd-Bennett school management team in Detroit, he was told to, “blow up the district and dismantle it.” At least that's what the Detroit Free Press reported in an article that has since been revised and no longer includes such comments.

Roberts, a former GM exec, who was managing director of the Chicago-based private equity investment firm Reliant Equity Investors,.began his smash-and-grab assault on the schools by throwing out the collective-bargaining agreement and imposing top-down authority, using the power given him by SB4. He announced this week, that he is leaving the district.

Roberts' statement brings to mind the opening line in A Nation at Risk, written 30 years ago as the seminal