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February 27, 2007
Detroit Public Schools as Enron (or: fiddling while Rome burns)
Peter Elkind, who co-wrote a book on the rise and fall of Enron, shared this vignette about the infamous company's final days:
The broadband business was in complete meltdown. And there were all sorts of other problems that Jeff Skilling as the company's Chief Operating Officer was wrestling with. And in the middle of all this, Ken Lay walks in Jeff Skilling's office holding up fabric swatches for the new G5 45 million dollar corporate jet he wanted to buy. And he said to Jeff, asked him a very important question, 'which of these cabin configurations do you like best, Jeff?'
With that in mind, consider Detroit Public Schools. The district has lost tens of thousands of students (and, of course, the per-pupil funding that accompanied them). It's faced with closing dozens of schools. So what is the district to do?
Detroit Public Schools spent at least $1.6 million in bond money -- funds taxpayers approved for building or repairing decaying city schools -- on professional artwork for the district.
While spending bond money on art is not illegal, it is highly unusual. School officials in Chicago, Philadelphia and other large cities -- as well as in some wealthy Detroit suburbs -- say they don't spend large sums on art for their schools.
The purchases identified by the Free Press -- made through the same Detroit gallery since 2002 -- raise questions again about the cash-strapped district's spending decisions. Earlier this month, the Free Press reported that the district spent more than $1.3 million in the past year on travel, meeting and catering expenses even as it closed schools to cut costs.
The paper goes on to report that many of the purchases began under the prior supe in 2002, but have continued. In spite of repeated requests, the district has refused to release an inventory of the artwork to the paper, which today reports that the school board president is also requesting such an inventory.
Of course, plenty of folks are incensed (check the comment thread at this Joanne Jacobs post for an example). But when it comes to accountability, the Enron analogy breaks down. In the case of the disgraced corporation, the biggest players in the debacle have done prison time; the biggest fish of all, Ken Lay, would have gone behind bars if he hadn't passed away before sentencing. But I'm not holding out hope that anybody in Detroit will get so much as a slap on the wrist. After getting away with this for five straight years, why should we expect somebody to face the music now?
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