DPS, MBA, disaster: Sickouts came from somewhere

I attended GMAT training this weekend and last weekend. My employer was looking for a few more instructors, and I had put in interest, since it's similar to one or two other tests that I teach and would allow me more flexibility.

 But the other reason that I am attending GMAT training is that I am trying to figure out next steps. I am planning to go back to school eventually, probably when Rebecca finishes her residency, and I am considering what degrees I could best to leverage to improve Detroit.

There are many options, given that Detroit has many problems. For a while I considered a Masters of Public Health, so that I could address the environmental issues facing the children of the city. For a while I considered a law degree so that I could make sure that students with special needs were receiving the services that the law guaranteed that. There was a time when I thought that an Ed.D. in something related to education was the best choice, or perhaps a PhD in second language acquisition.

I haven't completely ruled out any of those choices. All of them sound interesting, and do much to research and apply new concepts of problem-solving. I know people with each of these degrees, and I deeply admire the work that they are doing.

However, there is a new field of study that I am considering after pondering what degrees I've been seeing used in decision-making lately.

Robert Bobb? MS in Business Studies.  Roy Roberts? Bachelor's in Business Administration. Darnell Earley? Master's in Public Administration (and Ph.D. in poisoning entire cities). None of the emergency financial managers had a background in education (although Robert Bobb did attend a school superintendent training program created by business mogul Eli Broad).

Governor Snyder has a JD and MBA. 

What degree do many of those controlling the vast majority of the wealth in Detroit have? Business degrees. Administration degrees.

My wife pointed out, at one point, that even in Flint, people with PhDs, DOs, and MDs were ignored for months when they insisted that Flint children were being poisoned by the water. They've also been ignored when they've insisted that the children in Wayne County are being poisoned and shortchanged. Given how long med school is, add some residency, add a high level of difficulty for those doing residencies particularly at urban hospitals, and it is very puzzling that the state has ignored those with that kind of degree, but they did.

And so I believe that I may need to get an MBA to get people to listen to me. Given my nontraditional background for business school, I feel that it would be important to my application to have a very, very high GMAT score. So I went to training to learn more about the test, because I doubt my background in education will count in my favor if the state is unwilling to listen to educators about things like school conditions and curriculum.

After all, what could a teacher know about the business of schooling?