The Robert Bobb show is about to end.
It pretty much got ended for him this past week when Wayne County Circuit Court judge Wendy Baxter ruled that Bobb never had the authority to make decisions that were not purely financial in nature.
I’ve written a decent amount about Bobb over the last couple of years. I’ve said over and again that you cannot separate finances and academics. The two are so intertwined that it’s real folly to think either can be managed in isolation. Bobb clearly knows this, probably much better than the historically overmatched Detroit School Board. So with this ruling and the generally irrecoverable financial position of DPS, I’m starting the countdown when Bobb just says, “Sorry, Detroit. I tried and it’s over.”
He’ll do it to save face so he can leave DPS in essentially the same impossible financial condition in which he found it, but claim that his hands were tied. Thus, he couldn’t fix it.
Things were much more promising a year and half ago. I even blogged about how Bobb could cite success after success – reaping all the low-hanging fruit he was bound to find. Here’s an excerpt from my August, 2009 article:
There is unanimous agreement that DPS needs dramatic and immediate action to survive – and Bobb is delivering that daily. DPS reached a state of crisis, when dramatic action becomes not only acceptable, but expected. Some of his moves are no-brainers and Bobb should indeed be praised for acting quickly and decisively. The DPS Board of Education left plenty of low hanging fruit. That’ll last a little while, but the harvest gets thinner with time. When that time comes and if Bobb doesn’t deliver on the turnaround, Detroit residents may load up at the produce section of that new Meijer’s!
I hope it doesn’t come to that.
Well, it’s come to that. Bobb’s successes were flashy – and it was a good thing that he found them. But the enormity of the problem is almost incomprehensible. Here are some numbers:
- In 2008, DPS’ deficit (an oxymoronic negative Fund Equity) was $140 million, or negative 12%
- In 2009, that deficit ballooned by another $80 million to a total just under $220 million
- At the end of 2009, DPS was one of thirty districts with a negative fund balance (a group whose population will increase substantially next year).
- DPS’ deficit is seven times greater than all the other 29’s combined and 20 times greater than the second worse off district (Benton Harbor).
The way the state funds public schools – combined with the state’s decade long economic slide – is too much for DPS to withstand. I think Bobb knows this. His last act of desperation was to lobby the state to use the tobacco settlement money to just expunge the $219 million obligation. Well, that went nowhere (for good reason). Bobb has no more tricks up his sleeve, and now this most recent setback.
Some politically motivated people will applaud his departure, but they’d be better off sitting on their hands. DPS is a disaster right now. For the sake of those students, the city, the region and the state it needs to be organizationally razed. Under current conditions it can’t realistically work its way back to financial stability.
Just ask Robert Bobb.