From the Associated Press:

President Barack Obama is previewing his ideas for job creation and economic growth at a Labor Day rally with union members in Detroit.

Obama’s speech at the annual event sponsored by the Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO was serving as a dress rehearsal for the jobs address he’s delivering to a joint session of Congress on Thursday night.

The president’s appearance follows last Friday’s dismal jobs report, which showed that employers added no jobs in August. It was the first time since 1945 that the government reported a net job change of zero. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, held steady at 9.1 percent.

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In a perverse way, I’m glad that there are places such as Greece and Illinois. These profligate jurisdictions are useful examples of the dangers of bloated government and reckless statism.

There also are some cities that serve as reverse role models. Detroit is a miserable case study of big government run amok, so I enjoyed a moment or two of guilty pleasure as I read this CNBC story about the ongoing decay of the Motor City. Here are some excerpts.

Detroit neighborhoods with more people and a better chance of survival will receive different levels of city services than more blighted areas under a plan unveiled Wednesday that some residents fear may pit them against each other for scarce resources. …the boundaries of the 139-square-mile city aren’t receding. The plan also backs away from forcing the redistribution of what’s left of the population into areas where people still live and where the houses aren’t on the verge of caving in. …Detroit’s population of about 713,000 is down about 200,000 from 10 years ago, according to U.S. Census figures, and has fallen more than 1 million since 1950. Some areas have fewer occupied homes than vacant ones. …A 2010 survey found Detroit had 33,000 vacant houses and scores of empty, weed-filled and trash-cluttered lots.

How predictable, I thought. This is what happens when vote-hungry politicians adopt policies that reward people for riding in the wagon and punish the folks who are pulling the wagon.

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So, with Mitch Daniels out of the Presidential race, what do we make of the GOP field? Daniels, despite some possible quibbles, had a very compelling argument for his candidacy. First and foremost was his solid record as Governor. He cut government, curtailed the power of public sector unions and, just in the last few weeks, won groundbreaking education reform. Sure, he was a bit boring and something of a technocrat, but after 3+ years of flim-flammy flash and dash, a little adult supervision seemed in order.

A more compelling case, I believed, was where Daniels was from. Indiana sits in that great swath of the industrial heartland of America. Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, among many other cities and towns are the bed-rock of America’s industrial might. The West Coast may have the glitz and the East Coast may have the financial power, but neither is possible without the hard toil of the lunchbox crowd in the Midwest. It is the “America that works.” Unfortunately, the Midwest is also the region that has been most battered by the failed policies of the last few decades. Look no further than Detroit to see what happens when progressivism’s “best intentions” crash upon the rocks of economic reality.

It has been a long time since America had a President who knew and understand our industrial heartland. (Yes, I realize Barack Obama is from Illinois, but c’mon…is there any evidence his presidency-as-academic-symposium understands the first thing about how the private sector works?) A candidate from this region would not only have an innate understanding of the proverbial “Joe Six Pack”, he or she would also appreciate how over-taxation and over-regulation can stifle an economic engine. A candidate who has lived among abandoned factories and shuttered steel mills would understand that the policy whims of the mandarins in DC have real-world consequences.

Daniels understood this world. But, he’s out. However, based on growing on-line chatter, someone else from America’s shop-floor may be about to enter the race: Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, from Michigan.

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Detroit used to be a city that conjured up visions of American greatness, of American ingenuity. Automakers like Chrysler, Chevrolet, and Ford placed their stamp upon that city and Americans were proud to buy (and drive) the cars built there because the power of an American V-8 was legendary or the ride of a Cadillac was dreamy or the perceived sophistication of a Chrysler was unequaled.

But those days have long since passed. Now we realize that behind the wonderful cars once built in Detroit there lurked a sinister Democrat/Socialist/Union machine that portended that city’s destruction even as its renown was burgeoning.

And sadly, this Democrat/Socialist/Union machine is no respecter of persons. So after sucking the life out of Detroit’s automakers it appears to have also sucked the last throes of life out of Detroit Public Schools (DPS).

Therefore, whereas two of the biggest automakers – Chrysler and Chevrolet (GM) – couldn’t make enough profit to keep their heads above water by 2008, so too in 2011 the DPS system struggles to hang on. Keep in mind that by the fall of 2009 DPS was already running a $259 million deficit for that fiscal year and could only afford to hold classes in 172 of its 272 school buildings. (That’s right: 100 schools were closed.)

Moreover, just as the auto-unions were willing to drive Chrysler and Chevrolet (GM) into the ground unless the government stepped in and guaranteed all their fringe benefits, so too the teachers unions have taken the position of students be damned. They don’t care if DPS has enough money to hold courses in all its schools so long as it has enough money to pay their health care, their retirement, and all the other perks they’ve managed to swindle from the 3 or 400 remaining Detroit taxpayers.

Need proof?

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Since 2009, the day-to-day management of Detroit Public Schools has been under the auspices of Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb. He was appointed by former Gov. Jennifer Granholm to right the ship that is DPS.  It had already struck the iceberg, and Bobb was tasked with not only ensuring it didn’t sink, but that it wouldn’t drag the whole state down with it.

During Bobb’s brief tenure, DPS is already showing signs of improvement. He has slashed the budget, gotten rid of some of the worst teachers and increased the graduation rate by nearly three percent. DPS has a very long way to go, but there’s finally a sense that things are improving.

A lot of that has to do with Bobb’s approach to his job.  He is a straight-forward man who has little patience for waste, fraud, abuse or putting adult interests ahead of student needs.  He should be an inspiration for every taxpayer watchdog group in America.

Last year, when it was rumored that a group of radical, renegade Detroit teachers was threatening a walk out on students because their “rights” were in jeopardy, Bobb had little use for that, too.

We asked Bobb about the walk-out threat when we interviewed him for our documentary “Kids Aren’t Cars.” In typical fashion, the plainspoken Bobb cut through the B.S. and called out the renegade teacher group.

Whenever we hold public screenings of “Kids Aren’t Cars,” this scene causes the audience to burst out in applause. They find Bobb’s candor to be refreshing and inspiring.

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Few school districts in America rival the dire condition of Detroit Public Schools: staggering dropout rates, functionally-illiterate high school graduates, a dysfunctional school board and a sea of red ink.

Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb has been trying to fix the city’s public schools which are historically awful. At times, it seems that he is the only one trying to fix a school system that is failing its students.

The Detroit Federation of Teachers has consistently called for Bobb’s removal. The radical socialist group, By Any Means Necessary, makes every effort to stir up racial division and strife. One of BAMN’s leaders was nearly elected president of the teachers union, which shows how radical the union has become.

Watch ‘An Epic Failure: Detroit Part 1’ and ‘Part 2’ – Episodes 4 and 5 – “Kids Aren’t Cars”

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The high school graduate who cannot read his diploma is a favorite cliché among education reformers.

But like all clichés, it holds a lot of truth.  Difficult as it may be to believe, there high school graduates who are barely able to read and write and do basic math.  Their schools hand them a worthless piece of paper and send them out into the world.  These kids are totally unprepared to handle life and the workaday world.

How is this possible? How can a child spend 13 years inside a classroom and have so few skills?

A big part of the reason is the automobile assembly line mentality that infiltrated of schools decades ago.

Watch ‘Assembly Line Education’ – Episode 1 – “Kids Aren’t Cars”

Consider a typical day in our public schools:  a bell rings (bringing the learning process to a screeching halt), kids get out of their seat and shuffle off to their next class to do it all over again — like an assembly line.

And like many factories, the teachers are part of a union in which work responsibilities are narrowly-defined, innovation and initiative are stymied and penalized, and excellence is treated no differently than mediocrity.

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“Kids Aren’t Cars” is a new short film series set for release February 1st.  Using examples from the Midwest, it documents the impact organized labor has had on the American education system, creating a one-size-fits-all assembly line model that leaves students behind and treats teachers equally, stifling innovation and improvement.

Our government education system has been spending more and more each year, yet the results have been the same.  While unions demand higher spending – which of course ends up in the pockets of their members – money is not fixing the problem.

Those that have been in the trenches gave shocking interviews – stories of money grabs by adults while children are left behind.

An executive director of a literacy clinic in Detroit – where high school graduates go to learn how to read – compared the actions of the school board to the Ku Klux Klan.  “If they were sitting up there in Klan robes,” she said, no one would be tolerating what is going on, but the effect is the same. [Eight of the 9 school board members are black.]

We tell the story of two Indiana teachers recognized state-wide for their impact on students, only to be fired literally the next day because they lacked seniority of their co-workers.

Numerous leaders sound the alarm, but do elected leaders have the courage to stand up to the all-powerful teachers’ unions?  The tide seems to be turning, but the need is dire.  The United States continues to slip globally, with student achievement lagging behind Iceland and Hungary.

In short, it’s because our public school system is designed to benefits adults, at the expense of children.  The focus has been on spending – which invariably ends up in pay, health benefits and retirement for the employees.

“Kids Aren’t Cars” is an unflinching look at the state of public education in America and what can be done about it.

The film’s Facebook page is here.

Detroit has become a place Hollywood directors come for great wreckage shots. One quarter of the city’s 140 square miles are deserted. Detroit public school students boast the nation’s worst reading scores, the products of a corruption-ridden school system that recently flirted with bankruptcy. Detroit bested Baltimore in 2009 to take the dreaded “murder capital” title. It may also be the worst place in the country to have a heart attack: prepare to wait half an hour for an ambulance.

In a town lacking essential services, what do local leaders and federal politicians have in mind for helping the city? What’s needed to hoist Detroit back to its 1950 heyday, when it was America’s fourth largest city, with more than double its current population?

Why, light rail, of course!

The Motor City is moving ahead with a plan to build a 9.3-mile light rail line that will run from downtown Detroit to the edge of the suburbs. It’ll cost an estimated $500 million. Three-quarters of the bill will be paid by federal taxpayers, with the rest picked up by a consortium of foundations and businesses.

If built, the project will end up on the Mackinac Center’s list of government-subsidized white elephants touted as “crucial to Detroit’s comeback,” its “rebirth,” and pivotal to “turning things around.” In reality, it’ll just be another train to nowhere, much like Detroit’s existing light rail line, the unfortunately named “People Mover,” which operates at 2.5% of capacity.

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As 2010 Census operations wind down, the Census Bureau has been forced to get rid of many of its temporary employees. However, the few employees who are still employed at the Detroit Regional Census Center’s “partnership” office have one thing in common: They are closely connected to the Detroit political machine and/or the Democratic Party. And the one current employee who doesn’t fit the above description is Twoine Murphy, who was indicted by the State of Michigan for his involvement in a Ponzi scheme.

To give you some background on the word “Partnership” in 2010 Census terms, the Census Bureau created an outreach program for the 2010 Census intended to boost involvement by linguistic, racial, and sexual minorities. The stimulus package gave this program a mega boost when it awarded upwards of $500 million in additional cash to the Census Bureau for outreach efforts, many of which are coordinated by “Partnership Specialists” and “Partnership Coordinators.”

(Some of these partnership employees have been paid upwards of $85,000 per year at the GS-14 and GS-15 levels of pay for federal employees.)

Let’s look at the cast of characters in the Detroit Regional Census Center who were NOT let go from the Census Bureau — even though “partnership” activities are long finished and the vast majority of employees in this office were let go in early June. The survivors are as follows:

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How bad are things in Detroit?  Not a single person stepped forward to run for the Detroit school board.  Facing extinction, citizens thought better than jumping aboard a sinking ship.

And it’s with good reason.  A story just released by EAGtv shows that parents have lost confidence in the adult-focused system and its elected leaders.

Detroit Public Schools are among the worst in the country.  Dismal student performance, unions run amok and radical activists, like By Any Means Necessary, using the public schools as a platform for their socialist agenda.  Glenn Beck featured this socialist on his Fox News show, when the moron pontificated about the virtues of the Soviet Union during the “National Day of Action to Defend Public Education” March 4th.

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Militant socialists were out in full force Thursday, March 4th, for a “Day of Action to Defend Public Education.”  The nationwide event was organized by fringe, left-wing groups like Michigan’s “By Any Means Necessary,” Ohio-organized “Community Organizing Center for Mother Earth,” Los Angeles-based “County Peace and Freedom Party,” the “League for the Revolutionary Party” of New York, and North Carolina’s “Destroy Industry.”

In Detroit, a chap representing the Che Guevara-loving, Mumia Abu-Jamal-supporting “FIST Youth” educated a crowd of about two dozen about the virtues of socialism.  He also lectured on the Soviet Union, its roots and the glory days when the “people’s council” made all of the important decisions.

Strangely, that’s not the Soviet Union I learned about in public school.  I was taught about a ruthless nation that annihilated the United States.  I learned about a Soviet Union that starved its people and constructed drab buildings while its leaders lived the high life. (Well, that last part I had to find out on my own.)

But that’s enough of my take on the socialist rally in Detroit.  You can enjoy the history lesson for yourself.

I respect this guy - he represents the strain of socialism that lays it all out for America to ponder.  That’s more than I can say for our current leaders, who couch their true beliefss in poll-tested phrases and flowery language.

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