Board members Paula Johnson, Jonathan Kinloch and Marie Thornton opposed the three-month contracts totaling more than $200,000 for the Long Insurance employees.

"I believe today's action taken by the Detroit Board of Education may prevent the FBI from reducing public corruption within the Detroit Public Schools system and further erodes public confidence within our educational institution," Thornton said in a press release.

Just last week the same board awarded a four month, $314,000 contract to New Bridge Multimedia, another company accused of receiving illegal transfers.  So, yeah, you could say this further erodes public confidence in the institution.

Maybe even more surprising is the reasoning behind the moves.  According to the members who voted YES they really needed these companies because of workers compensation claims.  That's the work they're handling.  Workers comp.  Lets just think about that for a second.  DPS needs to spend half a million dollars over the next four months just to handle support services for new workers compensation claims?  

Were the buildings falling on teachers' heads at the end of the last school year?  If the support services for new claims total over $1.5 million a year what do the total claim figures look like!  Oh, but sure, Newt Gingrich was way off when he criticized DPS.  Doing something radically different in the district would just be silly.

Of course there is a bright side for current DPS administrators.  Specifically, they aren't former administrator Kifah Jayyousi.  Because that cat's going to jail for a little while.  The FREEP reports:

Friends and family members of former Detroit school administrator Kifah Jayyousi reacted with disappointment Thursday after a federal jury in Miami convicted Jayyousi and two other people of operating a North American terror support cell.

"I honestly didn't think they would come back with a guilty verdict," Jayyousi's son, Mohammed Jayyousi, said after the verdicts were announced. "I figured they would find him innocent."

His 45-year-old Jordanian-born Palestinian father oversaw the early stages of Detroit Public Schools' $1.5-billion bond issue in the late 1990s.

...Prosecutors said Jayyousi used his American Worldwide Relief organization and newsletter, the Islam Report, to carry out his activities. They said he corresponded with Al Qaeda operatives and raised almost $50,000 to buy satellite phones for Chechnyan rebels fighting Russian soldiers.

On the sliding scale I guess embezzlement will always rank lower on the list than global terrorism.  But either way, it's no surprise the waiting lists of Detroit moms hoping to get their kids into charter schools are a mile long.

And speaking of bright sides, since Mohammed's dad was convicted on federal charges and down in Miami there's no chance he'll get cut loose early if the governor gets her way on corrections.  State Senator Wayne Kuipers has a great op-ed piece making the rounds today pointing out, again, some of the many reasons the governor's wrong on this particular budget item.

In a supposed effort to cut costs, the governor has proposed the premature release of nearly 3,000 convicted felons, and she has proposed changes to sentencing guidelines that would keep another 3,300 criminals from going to prison over the next three years. Under the Democratic plan, penalties for almost 60 felonies would be lowered, and more than 140 felonies would be reduced to misdemeanors. Fleeing police, negligent homicide and possession of the date-rape drug are included on this list.

...

The problem with our Corrections system is not that Michigan incarcerates too many felons. In 2005, less than 25% of felony sentences resulted in prison time. The problem is that Michigan has one of the country's most expensive prison systems because of inefficient spending. We need to reduce our per-prisoner costs and bring them in line with surrounding states. If other states can operate their prisons for less, so can Michigan.

Obviously Kuipers has lost his marbles.  If we don't stick 6,300 felons on the street who's the Detroit Public Schools Board going to find to give giant contracts?  C'mon, Senator.  Have a heart.