By Ed White
Associated Press
DETROIT (AP) -- The emergency financial manager running Detroit's troubled schools exceeded his authority by not consulting with elected board members in areas that go beyond money, a judge said Monday.
The decision was a rare rebuke of Robert Bobb, who has received mostly positive reviews for nearly two years of trying to dam red ink, corruption and other problems in one of the country's worst urban districts.
Elected members of the Detroit school board sued Bobb, claiming they have been illegally shut out of any policy-making role, especially in academics. Wayne County Circuit Judge Wendy Baxter agreed with many arguments.
Bobb "may be a czar with a great amount of authority but the position is not totally autocratic with unlimited authority," the judge said.
"The system of education is not relegated to sound accounting practices. . He was empowered to figure out how to pay for education fashioned by the board. Instead he created education products he proposed to implement," Baxter said.
Nonetheless, the judge ruled against the board's challenge to Bobb's school closing plan, noting there was no evidence it would "impair education." He closed 30 schools at the end of the last academic year, changed the curriculum and raised teaching standards.
The head of Detroit school board, Anthony Adams, said he was "ecstatic" about the court ruling.
Bobb, a former city manager in Oakland, Calif., was hired by Gov. Jennifer Granholm in March 2009 after a financial emergency was declared in Detroit schools, where enrollment has dropped to less than 100,000 students from 180,000 in 1999. His contract expires in 2011.
In a statement, Bobb said Baxter's 36-page order doesn't seem to settle things.
"The ruling fails to address the basic question of how to separate the academics from the financials. Clearly there are significant legal and legislative issues to be resolved," he said.
Bobb said the judge was endorsing "past academic policies which, along with the financial practices and the overall direction of the school district, were a total failure."
Bobb earlier this year asked state lawmakers to give him control in academic areas but no bill emerged from the Legislature.
Published: Wed, Dec 8, 2010
