Kind of feel sorry for this guy, who seems nice and energetic and whatever, and is good at math, but still: the president of the Detroit school board may be functionally illiterate. No, really: it took him 10+ years to get his college degree because he kept failing an English proficiency exam, the requirement for which he eventually got dropped, like last year. He had a .98 GPA in high school. He loves typing e-mails, though! Mass e-mails, to colleagues: “If you saw Sunday’s Free Press that shown Robert Bobb the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools, move Mark Twain to Boynton which have three times the number seats then students and was one of the reason’s he gave for closing school to many empty seats.” Eh, still better than the average Politico commenter. [Detroit News via Byron Crawford]
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{ 72 comments }
If he moved to Alaska, he could run for governor.
I was OK with everything until he used “then” for “than” – I FUCKING HATE THAT!!
What with all the trouble the mayor got into with texting and such, it’s probably less trouble this way.
Oh man they hired Rob Bobb who came from the world class DCPS system. They have so much talent up there, it’s only a matter of time before they bounce back.
Translation: “I’ll have the fish.”
At least he doesn’t type in LOLcats (glares around).
Love this line, “I’m capable of reading a lot of information and regurgitation.”
Um — the real failure here is that nobody in academia ever told this guy he ought to get tested for dyslexia.
Security companies hire thieves as subject matter experts. Why wouldn’t a school board have a functional illiterate as the chairman?
Sorry, no snark here. This just pisses me off. I have no fucking idea what the average public high school is doing these days (I’m one of the childless gays), but I happen to know for a FACT that the typical first year community college student (HS graduate) can’t spell his or her way out of a paper bag. Writing and critical thinking must have all but vanished in the USA’s classrooms. I also suspect that good grades no longer indicate a child has intellect and solid reasoning skills.
Without the few elites out there we’d be a nation full of dumb fucks. Who is to blame?
Why people no like what Mathis rite? It like when they make fun of Hulk. Hulk angry now. Hulk Smash puny Detroit!
[re=529679]norbizness[/re]: LOLcats iz easier 2understan then him, srsly.
In Detroit, a .98 GPA is more than 12 times the legal limit.
Why isn’t this man in jail?! Or better yet, in the mayor’s office?! (Same thing?)
[re=529677]Capitol Hillbilly[/re]: The other question this raises is what king of parents would give their kids a name shortened to Bob Bobb; that sounds like something a six year old would come up with. And we thought Eric Erickson was bad.
[re=529690]RoscoePColtraine[/re]:
Stupidity is in these days – ignorance is strength. Don’t you know that all of the world’s problems are caused by academics in their ivory towers?
Besides, if ain’t in the bible, it can’t be true. And you don’t need to learn it.
[re=529690]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: US schools do the job they were designed to do 150 years ago; educate about 10-15% of the population to serve as supervisors for the rest. “The rest” were to sew shirts, make axe handles, deliver milk, and pick corn. Not the school’s fault, they’re doing exactly what the public demands.
[re=529691]JMP[/re]: My actual cats are easier to understand than that. If it were all caps I could at least extract the message on race and socialisms.
[re=529687]Troubledog[/re]: Thanks, I really needed that.
[re=529680]DickTaterPeeNoShay[/re]: Pretty much describes my college experience.
[re=529692]Extemporanus[/re]: Well shit, whaddya know!
Video of Kilpatrick and Mathis [re=529680]reading and regurgitating[/re] in jail does exist!
[re=529690]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: Apparently, it’s more important to recite certain meaningless pledges every morning than to learn how to actually think. No school wants to put up with parents, so they pass them along. What gripes my ass is the complete lack of vocational training for kids that are going to need it. The school district where my kids went were so hot to get at least one kid into Harvard that they pushed what they thought Harvard wanted on everybody. So, guess what? Nobody got any life skills, but we got a kid into Harvard! Whooptie-fucking-do.
[re=529695]JMP[/re]: I think I speak for many contributors here when I say he should have been named “Knob Bobb”. It would be much more appropriate for Snorkeling.
[re=529695]JMP[/re]: The fourth “b” is silent.
[re=529690]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: I think what struck me about the article was when Mathis admitted that he couldn’t pass Wayne State’s language proficiency exam so he, like all good, Bible-spouting, gun-toting Americans do, sued them because the test “made him feel stupid.” AND NOW HE RUNS AN ENTIRE SCHOOL DISTRICT.
[re=529705]steverino247[/re]: Well of course; the last thing we need is for public school kids to learn to think for themselves, then they won’t behave properly as low-level corporate drones, or do as they’re told as consumers. The whole thinking thing should be reserved for the elite private school students, who are to become the overlords in the next generation.
I think he needs to take more English as a first language courses.
[re=529703]Formerly Preferred[/re]: [re=529680]DickTaterPeeNoShay[/re]: I used to get a few of those exams when I graded for Bio 101. Instead of a four word answer, there would be a stream-of-consciousness turd smear that would have nothing to do with the question that was asked, hoping for “partial credit” because they accidentally mentioned a relevant word.
WTF happened to Detroit??? Are they like Haiti? Or NOLA? Where is Pat Robertson accusing Berry Gordy of making a pact with Satan for Diana Ross’s panties?
Seriously though, I don’t know which is more disturbing- the sad fact of this man’s problem or THAT FUCKING MONSTROSITY THE DETROIT NEWS PUT RIGHT BELOW THIS POST!!11!! WHYYYYYYY?!!!
“In another city, these revelations might be grounds for disqualification. But Mathis is liked and defended by many of his peers, who cite his collegiality, lack of defensiveness and leadership as more important than his writing skills.”
OMFG. It’s completely, utterly hopeless.
Maths: F
Spellin: F
Soshul Studees: F
CONDUCT: A++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[re=529705]steverino247[/re]: Vocational training for what? Opening the drive up window? Enunciating clearly when you say “Do you want fries with that?”
The School Board response: “But he’s such a nice guy.”
We all get exactly what we deserve.
[re=529712]Sparky McGruff[/re]: Exams? No, I was talking about literal regurgitation. Sometimes I went to class, also.
Average salary for pro basketball player (NBA)
$5.3 million
Average salary for public school teacher
$51,000
(source: wiki)
Maybe? Maybe?????
[re=529713]nappyduggs[/re]: Well, what do you expect from a city that would contract out its law enforcement to a company like OCP?
This just gets me pissed at public school teachers, who in the northeast at least, all believe they deserve the salary of a neurosurgeon or corporate attorney. And yet still, even here, year after year, they manage to graduate kids who can’t read or write.
[re=529674]GoinGreen[/re]: How about using “row” for “role”? You cool with that?
Reading his email is just like every boss email I’ve ever gotten in twenty years of getting emails from bosses — he is fully qualified to be a boss.
Oh, bless his heart.
[re=529690]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: ‘Tis better to be pissed off than pissed on. That said (and I learned it in high school, though not from a teacher), your off-pissing is catching, or splattering, for some of it is now on me.
Lucky you are to have no spawn in school. Our public schools have for decades now been crippled by conflicting political and ideological disputes. Students cannot think well and write well if they have not been taught to read well. The matter of what to read — that is, what to assign for reading — so that they may learn to read, write, and think well is so politically charged, it is a third rail no one dares any longer touch. Instead, what has been ascendant is the misguided notion that it is sufficient to teach children how to read without guiding them to the best of what there is to read. To say that one thing is better than another is viewed by many an axe-grinding educational apparatchik or small-town politico as being elitist, repressive, exclusionary, or worst of all, an expression of the loathed and dreaded patriarchy. Better it is, the apparatchiks and politicos maintain, simply to teach the kiddies their a-b-c’s and leave them to find their own way with a minimum of guidance from anyone who might pass as an adult. It is the great leveling of democracy at its most decadent, the ideological wasteland left by the fallout of the late 1960s, a flattened desert in which nothing greater than fear and resentment finds nurture.
[re=529730]JMP[/re]:
So what you’re telling me is that “RoboCop” is the Detroit’s only hope???
They are in better hands than we….
[re=529736]slappypaddy[/re]: Yes, I agree with all of that, and would add that learning for it’s own sake, minus any “real world practicality” has been ditched. The emphasis has shifted, it seems to me. Curiosity and wondering about why things are the way they are have no place in education anymore. Public schools are diploma mills because, what are you going to do, keep Timmy around until he’s 25? Memorize a few facts, turn your paper in on time and we’ll give you a diploma. And if you can’t even speak English, how in the fucking hell are we to expect you to write it?
[re=529691]JMP[/re]: We make holes in teeth! We make holes in teeth!
Come on, it’s Detroit. As long as he hasn’t killed a stripper he’ll keep his job.
So much pooping on Detroit, it’s running down Toledo’s socks.
go Red Wings.
[re=529736]slappypaddy[/re]: Pretty erudite for a cat in a cardboard box. Would you like to run a school district?
[re=529744]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: And, as you pointed out in an earlier post, they get to college (be it community or 4-year) not learning how to structure a sentence, carry on a reasoned argument, or even spell (if they get to college at all). Then it’s up to professors or, more likely, overworked and underpaid TAs to teach them these rudimentary skills that they should have learned in the previous 12 pre-college years.
Also, your point about salary discrepancies between NBA stars and school teachers is SPOT ON. But of course, in our benighted country, sports (and entertainment figures generally) deserve the endorsements, accolades, and multi-million dollar contracts because they deserve it. Teachers, otoh, just teach — so of what value are they?
LOLcats!
In the North, school board presidents are functionally illiterate. In the South they’re scientifically illiterate. Here’s an idea: let’s stop letting any dildo who can afford a campaign sign run our public schools.
I’ll say this for Otis, he isn’t a convicted child abuser like fellow school board member Reverend David Murray. And yes, this guy legally changed his first name to Reverend. Murray is retarded also, whereas.
Reverend David Murray in a radio interview last fall about losing custody of his children:
“The whole situation with regard to that matter [losing custody of his children] was all a farce. It was something that was ugh it was something that was politically driven. And ugh my children, though I let my children go where they wanted to go but I we still have a loving relationship. But the situation had to do with those who created the I guess the complaint, the false complaint, and then in conjunction with those who try to besmirch my name politically. But it didn’t do any good because everybody in Detroit know that I am an advocate for children.”
“If ahh children, particularly children you did not birth, if they become inadequate in terms of their own behavior and ability to have structure or accept structure then the best thing to do is to let them go.”
“If it was my birth children I may have put up a bigger fight.”
People who don’t live in Detroit don’t realize that not only is this normal, it’s actual cool. I live in downtown Detroit and have endured idiots like this my entire life. Try riding a city bus here and then you’ll really here some shitty English.
In all seriousness, this is not the first functionally illiterate person to achieve a position beyond what many would consider his competence level. Literacy is not going to come easily to everyone, and really, it is hardly the sort of skill that even would have been useful (in the sense of keeping you alive, fed, and sexed) until the last couple of centuries. It’s only in the modern world that people have come to expect it as a basic skill, and only because somewhere along the line, someone decided that if kids couldn’t work all day in the fields or factories, we should come up with something else for the little shits to do. And thus was born universal primary education.
[re=529719]GOPCrusher[/re]: How about auto shop for those kids interested in becoming mechanics, wood shop for future carpenters, etc. We can’t all be corporate overlords.
[re=529736]slappypaddy[/re]: This is exactly the problem. If you put forward something great, some dickhead wants to recall the school board. We had to have a special election here 20 years ago where reading “Death of a Salesman” was actually a campaign issue. I didn’t win, but I took that crazy bastard down with me. Candidate forums were just a blast. He would rail against blasphemers like me and I’d just point out that it was a victimless crime, then go on to recite some of the great lines of American Lit. His head exploded and grew back more times than Tony Shaloob’s did in Men In Black.
[re=529744]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: [re=529770]queeraselvis v 2.0[/re]:
Sorry, this is a pet peeve of mine.
Roscoe, you used “it’s” incorrectly. “Its” properly shows possession. Elvis uses “it’s” correctly as a contraction for “it is.”
Now, what were we talking about? Oh,yeah. Education.
*like how I spelled it “here” instead of “hear”.
But every generation whines that the next generation are idiots and morons who can’t think for themselves and don’t behave like rational human beings. The Roman poet Horace pointed this out 2,000 years ago. Now, unless you’re arguing that the Romans of Augustus Caesar’s day were godlike geniuses, then it’s just not credible that EVERY generation is correct that The Kids These Days Are Morons Who Will Destroy The World. Perhaps you’re just old.
[re=529796]proudgrampa[/re]: [re=529798]KevinKemp[/re]: No know; that was awl on porpoise, as its ironical to use pour grammar in a thred about bad righting.
[re=529709]queeraselvis v 2.0[/re]: Wayne State prof who told him “There is a disconnect in yo brain” summed it up pretty well.
[re=529811]doloras[/re]: Eh, I think this is more about a kid who obviously couldn’t read or write, but just kept getting passed along in school. Obviously at least one of his teachers had to pick this up; they just decided not to do anything about it. In the meantime, schools keep insisting that every kid, starting in kindergarten, get a brand-new laptop every year. Why? So they can look at stuff they can’t read?
[re=529767]the problem child[/re]: when i take off the gloves i am a many-fingered thing, but i would never have dexterity sufficient for the running of a school district. i would probably actually have to be nice to people. i am not now, nor have i ever been, nice. i simply believe in high standards and a constant striving for excellence, which beliefs clearly render me unqualified for educational administration.
[re=529819]BlueStateLiberal[/re]: They give out laptops that they can spy on the kids while they’re at home.
No, this is not a joke: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/84715297.html?cmpid=15585797
[re=529811]doloras[/re]: While it is true that every generation thinks the next generation will mean the end of civilization public education in Detroit (and not Detroit alone) is scandalous.
Community college teachers [re=529690]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: for example, wind up trying to teach 19 year olds to read and write. And these are some of the most motivated kids, those who think that another two years of education will do them some good.
[re=529811]doloras[/re]: you have hit upon the truth so few want to know or admit. at the risk of undermining part of my previous argument (i’m such a wishy-washy libtard, cross-eyed from seeing things from all sides), this scrawling cat will quote a talking head:
same as it ever was,
same as it ever was.
Wait, how can Chuck Grassley be both Senator AND president of the Detroit School Board? … He what?…Oh. Never mind.
[re=529718]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: All that service and collegiality is nice and all, but it shouldn’t get you tenure.
[re=529736]slappypaddy[/re]: Bravo. You’re not *actually* Jonathan Kozol, are you?
[re=529842]One Yield Regular[/re]: no. i’m not “actually” a cat in a cardboard box, either, but, ’twill serve, ’twill serve.
Being a dumbass is not a disability. Well, it is, I guess. I mean, it’s not like he can say he overcame his disability if he’s still a dumbass. He’s just a high functioning dumbass. And that is a dangerous thing indeed.
My soul weeps for Detroit on a daily basis. My mother, bless her soul, teaches community ed there helping adults get GEDs and, well… It’s exactly like you imagine.
Once you factor in undiagnosed dyslexia, brain damage from lifelong community violence, poor nutrition in formative years (Detroit currently has ONE major grocery store), and then the fact that “Ebnonix” is its own separate creole language– it’s a miracle ANYONE makes it as far as our esteemed Dr.Bobb! It’s a miracle I’m sitting here typing this message to you all with not a drug conviction nor unwanted pregnancy to my name! Huzzah for sheer dumb luck!
[re=529732]BlueStateLiberal[/re]: Of course it is the teachers fault! It couldn’t possibly be parents who are unable (due to working 3 part time jobs, without partners to help, without insurance etc. ad infinitum) to motivate and encourage their kids to learn. Parental involvement in the process is critical to a child succeeding. Unfortunately the time and energy to involve themselves in educating their own children just isn’t there when people are in survival mode A good education is still available, but a good learning environment inside and outside schools is as rare as a 4 year scholarship. Simply reducing this to “It’s the durn teachers!” being the root of the problem may feel good but it isn’t correct.
[re=529796]proudgrampa[/re]: I feel like I’ve been laughing all night at a party with spinach in my teeth. You’re the only one that really cares about me, grampa.
[re=529897]SayWhatNow[/re]: “Ebnonix?!” Millions of native Ebonic speakers look down at you with disdain.
[re=529950]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: I love you, man!
JMP: Kiss my skinny misspelling Black ass! The issue is about Detroit and corruption, not how great you and your mac can spell.
Ladies and Gentleman, DPS President Pootie Tang!
“Sa da tay! Sunday’s Free Press that shown Robert Bobb the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools move Mark Twain to Boynton which have three times the number seats ’cause thats a cama cama leepa-chaiii, dig?”
[re=529761]bitchincamaro[/re]: It truly is so cold in The D. & her treatment by outsiders? Even colder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKjAYxTr3tA
So wicked, these Wonketteers, in the stuff.
Here in New York, we have devised a most elegant solution to the vexing problem of students failing standardized exams, namely we lowered the passing score required.
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