[Tanada]

(CNSNews.com) - In the Detroit public school district, 96 percent of eighth graders are not proficient in mathematics and 93 percent are not proficient in reading.

That is according to the results of the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress tests published by the Department of Education’s National Center for Educational Statistics.

Only 4 percent of Detroit public school eighth graders are proficient or better in math and only 7 percent in reading. This is despite the fact that in the 2011-2012 school year—the latest for which the Department of Education has reported the financial data—the Detroit public schools had “total expenditures” of $18,361 per student and “current expenditures” of $13,330 per student.

According to data published by the Detroit Public Schools, the school district’s operating expenses in the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2014 amounted to approximately $14,743 per student.


Nationwide, only 33 percent of public-school eighth graders scored proficient or better in reading in 2015 and only 32 percent scored proficient or better in mathematics.



http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/ter ... proficient

This would be depressing enough on the face of it, but for America Detroit is not the only city totally failing to educate the next generation.

[Plantagenet]

. Maybe the next President should declare war on America's cities..... And then we spend and rebuild the cities.

Why not fix the education system first?

Most jobs today require basic skills like the ability to read and write and do math. Until the Ds in Detroit get their act together and reform their school system so it actually teaches the students basic skills, virtually the whole population is basically unemployable.

[careinke]

The present education system is an outdated and inefficient system designed in the 19th century to educate an industrial population. The whole system needs to be redesigned for todays population.

My kids went to a private boarding school in Switzerland and it did not cost $18,000 per year. The kids in Detroit are being robbed.

[onlooker]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/goo ... ef52183d4b
Really dramatic watching the decay and deterioration of a city/suburb in the US.

[copious.abundance]

Hockey, housing and more: Ilitches unveil 'bold vision' for Red Wings arena district

Here's a photo of construction progress on the area I posted an article about in July 2014.

[copious.abundance]

Ford unveils 10-year plan to transform Dearborn campus

Ford Motor Co. will drastically redevelop its outdated Dearborn properties into a walkable, aesthetically pleasing work environment reminiscent of a college campus or Silicon Valley startup.

Over the next 10 years, the automaker plans to relocate 30,000 employees currently spread throughout 70 Dearborn buildings into two main campuses — a product campus across the street from Oakwood Boulevard and The Henry Ford Museum, and a World Headquarters campus near the Glass House.

The long-term project will include demolishing certain facilities and updating existing ones. Ford will build a new design center and new zero-waste sustainability showcase building, and completely renovate the interior of the Glass House. Early renderings call for basketball courts, softball fields, walkable paths with lakes, flowers and trees, and the ability for employees to move around the campuses using e-bikes, autonomous cars and shuttles.
[...]

[Lore]

The only problem is nobody in the middle class by that time will be able to afford the price of an average auto.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Ford unveils 10-year plan to transform Dearborn campus

Ford Motor Co. will drastically redevelop its outdated Dearborn properties into a walkable, aesthetically pleasing work environment reminiscent of a college campus or Silicon Valley startup.

Over the next 10 years, the automaker plans to relocate 30,000 employees currently spread throughout 70 Dearborn buildings into two main campuses — a product campus across the street from Oakwood Boulevard and The Henry Ford Museum, and a World Headquarters campus near the Glass House.

The long-term project will include demolishing certain facilities and updating existing ones. Ford will build a new design center and new zero-waste sustainability showcase building, and completely renovate the interior of the Glass House. Early renderings call for basketball courts, softball fields, walkable paths with lakes, flowers and trees, and the ability for employees to move around the campuses using e-bikes, autonomous cars and shuttles.

Well, isn't that special.

Meanwhile, I continue to buy Toyotas over Fords since longevity, durability, reliability, and serviceability are much more important to me than how many fancy walking paths, basketball courts, etc. Ford has on its product campuses.

This reminds me of many U.S. colleges. One of the reasons they're so expensive is the "fabulous" facilities used to attract students. Of course, students at colleges actually interested in seriously getting a good education with an eye toward pursuing a rewarding and competitive career -- should care more about calculus and science than climbing walls, etc.

So many students graduate with some irrelevant degree like in sociology or women's studies, and then wonder why they have trouble getting and keeping a well paying job in a field with a good career path. (But it's so good to know the BERN wants me to pay for the climbing walls for such students ).

...

But if your main point is that Ford has money to spend -- sure. So does GM. Big trucks and massive SUV's are great for these company's profit margins. Not so much the climate, improving critical tech to meet future CAFE standards and remain competitive, but it's so 80's to think beyond the next quarterly profit report, I know.

Toyota plans long term, which is why they end up with the tech. I want. Given what they've done with hybrids and the work they're doing on fuel cell cars, it's kind of pitiful that Ford seems more focused on mollifying the UAW than pleasing the customer longer term.

[Outcast_Searcher]

The only problem is nobody in the middle class by that time will be able to afford the price of an average auto.

Based on what? The constant wrong calls of the short term doomers on this site? The wrong calls of the longer term doomers over the past decade?

The middle class is a big place with a very wide range of incomes. Predicting that NOBODY in the middle class will be able to afford an average car requires some sort of back up to be credible. (Are you predicting the dems will make cars super expensive to save the planet? I don't see that happening as long as there are votes to buy. And for the lower-middle class, used cars are getting better, thanks to the Japanese quality and competition).

[Lore]

The only problem is nobody in the middle class by that time will be able to afford the price of an average auto.

Based on what? The constant wrong calls of the short term doomers on this site? The wrong calls of the longer term doomers over the past decade?

The middle class is a big place with a very wide range of incomes. Predicting that NOBODY in the middle class will be able to afford an average car requires some sort of back up to be credible. (Are you predicting the dems will make cars super expensive to save the planet? I don't see that happening as long as there are votes to buy. And for the lower-middle class, used cars are getting better, thanks to the Japanese quality and competition).

Well first of all the middle class is a shrinking class. The numbers tell us that and I have to agree with Kunstler's most recent post here.

One reason it’s difficult to comprehend discontinuity is because so many operations and institutions of daily life in America have insidiously become rackets, meaning that they are kept going only by dishonest means. If we didn’t lie to ourselves about them, they couldn’t continue.

For instance the automobile racket. Without a solid, solvent middle-class, you can’t sell cars. Americans are used to paying for cars on installment loans. If the middle class is so crippled by prior debt and the disappearance of good-paying jobs that they can’t qualify for car loans, well, the answer is to give them loans anyway, on terms that don’t really pencil out — such as 7-year loans at 0 percent interest for used cars (that will be worth next to nothing long before the loan expires).

This will go on until it can’t, which is what discontinuity is all about. The car companies and the banks (with help from government regulators and political cheerleaders) have created this work-around by treating “sub-prime” car loans the same way they treated sub-prime mortgages: they bundle them into larger packages of bonds called collateralized loan obligations. These, in turn, are sold mainly to big pension fund and insurance companies desperate for “yield” (higher interest) on “safe” investments that ostensibly preserve their principal. The “collateral” amounts to the revenue streams of payments that are sure to stop because the payers are by definition not credit-worthy, meaning it was baked in the cake that they would quit making payments — especially when they go “under water” owing ever more money for junkers that have lost all value.

It’s easy to see how that ends in tears for all concerned parties, but we “buy into it” because there seems to be no other way to a) boost the so-called “consumer” economy and b) keep the matrix of car-dependant suburban sprawl in operation. We took what used to be a fairly sound idea during a now-bygone phase of history, and perverted it to avoid making any difficult but necessary changes in a new phase of history.

[copious.abundance]

The only problem is nobody in the middle class by that time will be able to afford the price of an average auto.

Huh? What kind of nonsense is that? 10 years isn't a long time. Somebody like you would have said the same thing 10 years ago, and yet ... not only are Americans buying "average" cars, they're loading up on expensive SUVs and pickups.

[Lore]

The only problem is nobody in the middle class by that time will be able to afford the price of an average auto.

Huh? What kind of nonsense is that? 10 years isn't a long time. Somebody like you would have said the same thing 10 years ago, and yet ... not only are Americans buying "average" cars, they're loading up on expensive SUVs and pickups.

Yeah, and years ago the best long term loan you could get on autos was three years, then it was five years, now it's seven years not only on new cars, but used ones as well. Sorry, if your head is in the clouds yet and can't smell that there is something rotten in Denmark.

[Tanada]

DETROIT, Mich. - A former City of Detroit employee was sentenced to 18 months in prison, followed by three years supervised release, and ordered to pay $265,573 in restitution to the city of Detroit based on her conviction for embezzlement, United States Attorney Matthew Schneider announced Thursday.

Franklin was employed by the City of Detroit in its audit and payroll department in 2016 and 2017. During that time, Franklin was responsible for overseeing the execution of garnishment orders for the salaries of Detroit city employees.

While employed Franklin concocted a scheme to embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars from the city by causing money to be “garnished” from city funds in the names of Franklin’s relatives. Once the city had issued checks in the names of Franklin’s relatives in the amounts dictated by Franklin, she then deposited the checks into bank accounts held jointly by her and her relatives.

As a result of her embezzlement scheme, Franklin stole approximately $265,573 from the City of Detroit. The FBI has already seized $58,000 in criminal proceeds from Franklin’s bank accounts.

Besides being sentenced to prison, the Court ordered Franklin to pay restitution to the City of Detroit for the additional $207,000 that she has yet to repay.

“Make no mistake, city employees who exploit their positions of trust in order to enrich themselves at the expense of the taxpayers will be held accountable”, said Timothy R. Slater, Special Agent in Charge, Detroit FBI.

LINK