It’s one of the poorest and worst-performing school districts in the country — and today it was shut down by its own teachers.
Nearly all of Detroit’s public schools were closed today after the teachers union urged members to call out sick following a weekend announcement that the district is nearly bankrupt, and wouldn’t be able to pay its teachers for their summer break.
Instead of trying to resolve the issue, the teachers simply walked off the job and left thousands of students and parents holding the bag.
District spokeswoman Michelle Zdrodowski said in an email Monday morning that 94 of the district’s 97 schools would be closed for the day. About 46,000 students are enrolled in the district’s schools.
According to the results of the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress tests published by the Department of Education’s National Center for Educational Statistics, only 4 percent of eighth graders are proficient in mathematics and 7 percent are proficient in reading in Detroit’s public schools.
“This is despite the fact that in the 2011-2012 school year—the latest for which the Department of Education has reported the financial data—the Detroit public schools had ‘total expenditures’ of $18,361 per student and ‘current expenditures’ of $13,330 per student,” according to CNS News.
Meanwhile, Detroit teachers can make up to $78,000 a year. Now, facing cutbacks on pay during summer vacation, they’ve shut down just about all the schools in response — effectively holding these students hostage.
The move by the Detroit Federation of Teachers was announced Sunday, a day after Detroit Public Schools’ transition manager said the district would have no money to continue paying teachers this summer without further funding from the state.
In March, Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law emergency funding that is keeping the district operating through the end of the school year as the state Legislature considers a $720 million restructuring plan that would pay off the district’s enormous debt.
Former bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes, who was appointed this year to oversee the district, also said Saturday that DPS would be unable to fund summer school or special education programs after June 30.
On Sunday night, he said in a statement that the union’s “choice for a drastic call to action was not necessary” and said that a sickout is “counterproductive and detrimental” to the efforts of those trying to help the school district.
“I understand the frustration and anger that our teachers feel,” Rhodes said. “I am, however, confident that the Legislature will support the request that will guarantee that teachers will receive the pay that is owed to them.”
Teacher strikes are illegal under Michigan law. Sick-outs earlier this year caused tens of thousands of students to miss class.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Too many teachers don’t care. I remember in my first year of public high school that I missed a good chunk of the school year because I had 2 major operations. A principal actually told me that I should quit school. Of course I didn’t and went on to do well in life. That was over 40 years ago. As fate would have it, the principal’s son went on to be a swindler who the state police arrested. I’m sure most teachers care, but hard to forget the bad ones.
Our POTUS is from Chicago and look at what we have. Unions should be dissolved and wages, benefits, etc should be brought down to reality. A lot of men became teachers back in the 60’s to avoid the draft. Then the unions got stronger and wages etc came going up and up. They only work a half a year which is probably less than a 1000 hours a year. This makes them part timers. Get rid of the teachers and let them strike without pay and benefits anymore and see how fast they walk back into the class room. Then tell them that the wages are cut and it they don’t like it the kids will be home schooled.
CA has big problem in schools. My daughter is teacher. Called her class, a class from hell. Mixed races, low income. The called her names, spit on her, threatens to kill her, threw things at her, sexual advances, She is a NO nonsense teacher. She took class in December. She went to principle with issue. Said he couldn’t do anything. VP couldn’t do anything. She called me! Told her, TELL PRINCIPLE AND VP IF THEY DON’T DO SOMETHING YOU WILL GO TO SCHOOL BOARD, THEN AN ATTORNEY. VP was moved, new VP. He worked with her! First day, 17 kids were sent home, 3 days. off for each kid. Took her and VP 2 weeks to get class shaped up. She is for kids a good education. She has 4 masters. Speaks Spanish and learning Japanese. Only 2 students got expelled. Average IQ of students, 70 to 80. CA schools should have only 12 students with low IQ in class of 45. Middle school. She was able to find out she was the 7th teacher for that class from when school started in September. End of school kids crying because they wouldn’t have her next year. Parent worse than kids. Told her, you have no idea of what’s going on in these kids homes. We are over run with illegal, gangs, refugees don’t help economy and bad for schools. In CA you can’t ask student if they are illegal. Teachers don’t have equipment to teach. They spent money for microscope but no slides. Teachers had to buy her own. Trump for president. Hilery for prison.
Oooooooo, say that again…Hillary for prison; I like the sound of that, where she so richly deserves to be. Am I the only one, or can anybody else hear angels singing? Hillary for Prison.
And, also, Trump for President.
Public sector employees historically were never permitted to unionize, but they slipped it through, somehow, and have been greedily cheating the taxpayers, ever since. The law allowing Public sector unions should be repealed; they should be obliged to bargain within the financial limits of their employers, just as private sector employees, anybody with an ounce of financial acumen realizes they must do. A business that allows payrolls to get out of hand, simply goes out of business.
With public sector employers, they simply go to the taxpayers, and keep doing it, until people are just taxed right out of their homes, I suppose. It’s a system that’s completely out of control.
CA has big problem in schools. My daughter is teacher. Called her class, a class from hell. Mixed races, low income. The called her names, spit on her, threatens to kill her, threw things at her, sexual advances, She is a NO nonsense teacher. She took class in December. She went to principle with issue. Said he couldn’t do anything. VP couldn’t do anything. She called me! Told her, TELL PRINCIPLE AND VP IF THEY DON’T DO SOMETHING YOU WILL GO TO SCHOOL BOARD, THEN AN ATTORNEY. VP was moved, new VP. He worked with her! First day, 17 kids were sent home, 3 days. off for each kid. Took her and VP 2 weeks to get class shaped up. She is for kids a good education. She has 4 masters. Speaks Spanish and learning Japanese. Only 2 students got expelled. Average IQ of students, 70 to 80. CA schools should have only 12 students with low IQ in class of 45. Middle school. She was able to find out she was the 7th teacher for that class from when school started in September. End of school kids crying because they wouldn’t have her next year. Parent worse than kids. Told her, you have no idea of what’s going on in these kids homes. We are over run with illegal, gangs, refugees don’t help economy and bad for schools. In CA you can’t ask student if they are illegal. Teachers don’t have equipment to teach. They spent money for microscope but no slides. Teachers had to buy her own. Trump for president. Hilery for prison.
She has masters in English, math, science, history. She don’t Chang grades because student needs higher grade for sports. Parents not happy. Only English in her class. She communicate with parents in Spanish.
Everytime we have a wage hike to part time employees, everything goes up. This puts businesses out of business and people on fixed incomes don’t get a raise to compensate for loss. This hurts the economy. Obama’s. Healthcare is a scam. They took money from SS to support this mess. The providers have gone bankruptcies. CA in 1969 there was gangs and lots of crime in Pomona area. Teachers had to be escorted by police to their cars. Teachers had lots of damage to cars. With Obama, 100% worse. Releasing 68,000 illegal prisoners back into our neighborhoods is not acceptably. Deport them! With open borders, they are back. BP backing Trump. BP tired of using rubber bullets. Terrors in CA San Bernardino shooting, taken off watch list 2 months before shooting. The man was inspector in schools, hospitals, restaurants. or nursing homes. WOW! Media not telling truth about borders.
better yet sent to privet schools.
That teacher left a word off her sign. Hope she doesn’t teach English. Detroit has become disgusting.
I caught that, too! Was laughing like a hyena at it as I am a retired reading teacher!!!
CA has big problem in schools. My daughter is teacher. Called her class, a class from hell. Mixed races, low income. The called her names, spit on her, threatens to kill her, threw things at her, sexual advances, She is a NO nonsense teacher. She took class in December. She went to principle with issue. Said he couldn’t do anything. VP couldn’t do anything. She called me! Told her, TELL PRINCIPLE AND VP IF THEY DON’T DO SOMETHING YOU WILL GO TO SCHOOL BOARD, THEN AN ATTORNEY. VP was moved, new VP. He worked with her! First day, 17 kids were sent home, 3 days. off for each kid. Took her and VP 2 weeks to get class shaped up. She is for kids a good education. She has 4 masters. Speaks Spanish and learning Japanese. Only 2 students got expelled. Average IQ of students, 70 to 80. CA schools should have only 12 students with low IQ in class of 45. Middle school. She was able to find out she was the 7th teacher for that class from when school started in September. End of school kids crying because they wouldn’t have her next year. Parent worse than kids. Told her, you have no idea of what’s going on in these kids homes. We are over run with illegal, gangs, refugees don’t help economy and bad for schools. In CA you can’t ask student if they are illegal. Teachers don’t have equipment to teach. They spent money for microscope but no slides. Teachers had to buy her own. Trump for president. Hilery for prison.
She has masters in English, math, science, history. She don’t Chang grades because student needs higher grade for sports. Parents not happy. Only English in her class. She communicate with parents in Spanish.
As a bankruptcy judge, Steve Rhodes cut the pensions of Detroit firefighters, cops and other workers to levels far below poverty. Detroit is a difficult place to work. Not fair to put the folks who did the dangerous jobs in poverty at retirement. Rhodes collects a large pension from the federal government.
Do you not understand the word bankruptcy? Those teachers don’t want to have to pay a cent for healthcare or for their retirement. These people are unwilling to give any concessions to have a job. If the Democrat controlled government has been spending money like water for so many years, there is a time in which they have run out of everybody’s money. The city has lost their economic base and has no money for everyone. Unions have priced themselves out of a job. The people up there have to realize someone is going to have to give something up. The city can’t afford them and there are no more bailouts. They need a budget and will have to stick to it. Detroit is faced with either cutting teachers or other staff or reducing pay. This is like the $15/hr burger flippers. They are now being replaced across the country by automated McDonald’s, to make up for the increased price in labor. They need fewer workers and don’t have to worry about people not showing up to work every day. No high priced Obamacare to pay for. The owners get off cheaper by replacing humans.
@RP: Rhodes takes home 95% of his bankruptcy judge salary in his early retirement from the feds. Detroit cops and firefighters who PAID into their pensions had them cut to just 20% of their salary by Rhodes. Madoff would be jealous.
are you crazy or just flat STUPID teachers have had their pay and benefits cut starting with the first e.m you want teachers to teach but you don’t want to pay them they didn’t spend 4 yrs plus in college to work for welfare pay.
These teachers aren’t even guarenteed pay for the days they’ve worked. This is just a bad article.
CA you have to have medical insurance for employees. Depends on how many employees. Obama sent GM jobs to China. How many people lost jobs here!! Cut our farmers water, and now transferred over 100,000ac or more to San Diego. With new apartments for refugees, close to borders. Illegal getting Welfare. That’s a lot of water. Foreign companies will own our food supply. China big in Mexico in farming. The kids, citizens, can own property in Mexico. They get water , free, from All American Canals. It’s putting our farmers out if business with wage increase. Farm workers make about 20.00 hr Wages and. Piece work. Fraud! Family on Welfare and. husband works for cash.
CA has gone after Law enforcement, fire men, 33% tax on their retirement. Seniors, Retire and have worked union, state tax is 33% average. Lots of people here establish residence in another state. Property tax up. We had to put tax on property to support our fire dep. Obama’s open borders and illegal, catch and release, refugees has cost CA lots of money. CA didn’t consider how much water this would take to support, 65,000 refugees in one housing development. On water and electric. The cost of refugees and illegal in school is awful. These kids have to go to school or state cuts Welfare. I live close to borders and situation 10 times worse than news. BP backing Trump. Lives in danger from gangs, terrors, drug lords and BP can only use rubber bullets. TRUMP AND WALL GET OUR COUNTRY BACK. NO MORE REFUGEES
Municipal employees have pension plans that private sector workers can only dream of — Detroit’s bankruptcy is a direct result of those pensions and other costs factors forced upon municipalities by powerful unions
You can’t strangle the goose and expect it to keep laying golden eggs – when will the selectmen who run Detroit take responsibility for their own incompetency instead of always looking to the State and the rest of the taxpayers to bail them out !!
Rhodes should cut his federal pension by 70% like he did to cops and firefighters in the Motor City. Rhodes fits a profile. A baby boomer who ducked the military draft but got a big government job.
Mainstreet, you make a point, I won’t discount the justification for, and symbolic nature, of a reduction in Rhodes pension.
Any comments on Frank’s following and very salient point? “Municipal employees have pension plans that private sector workers can only dream of — Detroit’s bankruptcy is a direct result of those pensions and other costs factors forced upon municipalities by powerful unions” s
Mainstreet, or, his other point: “You can’t strangle the goose and expect it to keep laying golden eggs – when will the selectmen who run Detroit take responsibility for their own incompetency instead of always looking to the State and the rest of the taxpayers to bail them out !! “
Seriously, if the U.S. can give billions in foreign aid to hater nations like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan then why can’t the pension of a Detroit city worker be honored? These cops and firefighter PAID into their pensions. A scam to have them cut to poverty levels.
No reason to pick on Rhodes. He is just trying to solve a huge problem he did not create.
The answer to your question is….as long as the courts and politicians continue to cave to their demands, they won’t ever think twice. The saddest thing about this is that, based on the results (or really the lack of good results) these teachers are getting, they might as well blow the whole thing up, fire them & start from scratch. I’d give both the politicians running Detroit & the teachers union a big fat F. Coincidentally, it’s no better in Chicago. Those teachers are holding the students hostage as well.
My daughter and husband have crane business. The Union wanted him to go Union but they have to many clients. Opened another office, Union. First job, Union is telling him how to run his business. He closed office, told Union to go to H—. They are made change thing to help ozone. 37,000 dollars or more for each crane every year if they use or not. CA business either bankrupted or move to another state.
UNIONIZED TEACHERS” AKA the Reason so many American kids cannot Read.. add.. subtract.. nor multiply…Never Mind be able to form an Intelligent Sentence nor to write Intelligent Phrases…….any wonder why we have such “ISSUES” in BIG CITIES????
I mostly agree with you, Redhawk. Except the “multiply”. There are too many unwed teenage mothers that proves that American kids do know how to multiply.
And get Welfare, housing, foodstamps, free lunches for kids in school even in summer. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner most goes in garbage. Typical gov waste. Fraud in every aspect of Welfare. Lots of money made from MDs who foreign women pay. They come here to have baby. Over stay visa, hiding in homes set up for their careAmerican citizen becomes a cost to tax payers. Child comes back to USA age 5. Goes to school lives in foster care run by the Churches. Korean, Chinese? ? Nice set up for their care. Chino Hills, CA. Chinese women.
THUGS =The Helpful Union Guys
Decertify all public sector unions, they are sucking our governments dry. End tenure as it allows poor performance to continue adnauseum.
I’m for that 100% and make them accountable to the parents (they would need to establish a committee since the Parent / Teacher groups suck at the best.
Public service unions are a curse on society. They should disappear!
The NAEP test the level “proficient” is like a Grade of B. Most kids will not be proficient. They will read and handle mathematics at the “Basic” or Grade of C level. I wish that people would stop using “proficient”. It makes people think that these kids can’t read or handle mathematics. They can. The NAEP also has “Expert” level or a letter grade of an A. I think that the other is ‘”Below Basic” for a grade of F. These are the kids in trouble. Maybe more than 10% should be proficient but I guess that most can read and handle mathematics at the Basic level or they would cite the Basic level numbers.
They are not educators — they are greedy, libtard leftist scum who like every demoRAT and rino only think of themselves. I have been on both sides of the fence with union and management and this could have been resolved without walking out. I learned a long time ago, walking off the jobs does no good at all. Too bad Detroit couldn’t fire all those who walked out and hire some teachers who want to teach, I’m sure they are out there.
Even FDR said that public servants should not be allowed to unionize.
You will never get on in life if you are uneducated which breeds ignorance. The students and teachers don’t care and most importantly the Mayor of Detroit along with others don’ give a damn. It’s time to seriously consider changing your form of government, i.e. Vote the Bums Out. Renew your government with true and honest leadership and then perhaps you can make a difference.
CA is most Democratic. Boxer and ??. On immigration D-. They don’t care if over 50% of people are on state aid. Feel sorry for refugees, average family has 6 kids. Now the Muslims want prayer time and Muslim religions taught in our public schools. We need TRUMP.
And now it is going to get worse because the unions are siding with the muslims and the schools will become the base for brainwashing against this Republic and the US Constitution and the breeding grounds for more forms of subterfuge and future terrorist acts….there will be little or no oversight because the muslims are buying politicians up as fast as they can…………….this area unless sun lighted will be the model for over throwing this democracy…..
Already in CA schools. Boycotting won’t help because people on Welfare, if their kids don’t go to school, the welfare check is cut.
The real losers are the students. This is yet another reason for charter schools and home schooling, both are so much better than the Detroit public schools. Every teacher that called in sick should be fired. It is proof that these teachers and the union do not care about the students.
What is iot no one understands? And they call themselves teachers and don’t understand math……..the city can NOT afford ytou. The teachers should be cut loose and hire all new ones…a start over…..the city officials caused this but no one is held accountable and educators are to stupid to get it. Get rid of ALL the teachers and school boards members and start fresh…..lesson learned!
If the city is broke why are people still working for it? I would drop the job like a hot potato. I could care less about the children I want my pay check. If the managers of the city got it this way then they should get it out of trouble or go to jail and forfeit all their pay.
These Detroit teachers have done the students a big favor. These teachers can’t be very good, or the schools wouldn’t be so bad. Stay out on strike for the rest of the school year, teachers!!! You probably won’t be missed. And all of the school administrators, too.
They will hire foreign workers, pay for their education, to learn English. BUT THEY CAN TEACH AND GET JOBS OVER TEACHERS WITH MORE SENIORITY. UNIONS!!!
The children learned more when these scum bag union crap, sorry excuse for teachers did not go to “work”
Hopefully, the union will drink some water from Flint
Pinocchiobama’s idea, creating many demo voters.
Home schooling, private schools?
Leave MI then for other states??
Your call for your Kids future, MI.
Sue the Unions, blame them , go Class action
With such a low student success rate maybe it’s time to fire the teachers. If a coach had teams with that sort of success record they would have been gone a long time ago.
Maybe a better headline would have been Greedy teachers close school, no change detected in student education.
TEACHERS:
Detroit Teachers are ‘ungrateful’
I love teachers.
My sister taught for 35 years.
I have dear friends who are school teachers.
I, myself, sub-taught for 9 years.
But, it is disgraceful to walk out and not teach – no matter how rough you think it is and “what you think you are entitled to.”
If Detroit teacher salaries can rise to $78,000 a year for a 9 month’s school year and if: only 4% of 8th graders are proficient in math and 7% proficient in reading – THEN; you have no merit to bargain for higher teacher salaries/wages.
“According to the results of the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress tests published by the Department of Education’s National Center for Educational Statistics, only 4 percent of eighth graders are proficient in mathematics and 7 percent are proficient in reading in Detroit’s public schools.”
NOW: do not come back to me about RACISM.
This IS a matter of race – black verses white, etc.
Who are the children who can not read and calculate well enough?
The demographics of Detroit Public School systems tells it all:
A. There are 3,084 school teachers in Detroit Public Schools.
B. There are 49,043 enrolled students.
C. Ratio – about 15:1
D. 83.91% of the students are black. (40,955 students)
E. 12.06% of the students are Hispanic. (5,914 students)
F. 02.36% of the students are white. (1,157 students)
G. 01.30% of the students are Asian-Pacific Islanders (637 students)
H. 00.24% of the students are Native Americans (117 students)
I. 00.14% of the students are Other (68 students)
The numbers speak for themselves.
No matter how much more money teachers are paid the answer is:
A. Students do NOT want to learn and are not INTERESTED in school.
B. Students are not mentally capable of learning more than they are already learning.
C. Even if paying all teachers $100,000 a year it will not improve the learning accomplishments that these children that they should aspire to.
TEACHER BOUGHT SCHOOL SUPPLIES:
Solution #1.
I do not give credence to teachers lamenting about how much of their own money is spend buying school supplies!
STOP THIS PRACTICE of buying school supplies, for starters, and you, the teacher will have MORE of your salary to spend on yourselves.
There is no clause in your teacher’s contract to make YOU purchase school supplies.
School supplies are the responsibility of the parents.
NOT THE SCHOOL or the TEACHERS.
Yes, I know you care.
BUT – if parents won’t save their money to buy and CONTROL their kid’s school supplies during the school year when places like Walmart puts them on sale for practically no profit – then; the parents are at fault.
Children are responsible to bring paper and pencils to school and take notes.
You can buy a bunch of paper, pencils, pens, crayons, etc., for the price of a carton of cigarettes (about $65.00) and a case or two of beer (about $13.00 – $30.00).
And, if you don’t smoke or drink alcoholic beverages then you can give up buying $10.00+ a pound for BBQ steaks instead of buying hamburger and making hamburger steaks.
You get the picture!
Why give up “my” luxuries when the “teacher” is going to give my kid the supplies for free?
What a scam by parents!
That’s ALL I had to bring back in the 1950s when I went to school.
And, if you don’t have anything – well, I hope you PAY ATTENTION AND HAVE A GOOD MEMORY.
PARENT’S are on to this “sacrifice” that school teachers are lamenting about all the time.
If parents understand that their child can ‘ask’ for things that the teacher brings in; well, the parents are not stupid.
Instead of buying their kids paper and pencils, etc. they just tell their kids to “get it from the teacher” who is so ‘dedicated’ without extra pay to buy these things out of his/her pay to pass out in class.
I’ve personally have seen how this scam works.
FOR THE CITY OF DETROIT:
Here is MY solution for your problems.
1. Cancel school for the rest of the current school year.
2. Freeze all grades as is.
3. Pass all kids to the next higher grade for the next school year 2016 – 2017.
4. Given the poor grades there is little chance that students will learn any more than they already have learned so far.
5. Any student who has an “F” grade currently will be given “added” points to make their grades a “D” or just give a “Pass” score for this current school year.
6. Terminate all current teacher contracts and dissolve the association with the union.
7. Put out a nationwide call for retired military personnel to come to Detroit to hire on for starting salary.
Their retired military pay + starting teacher’s salary will DOUBLE their earnings.
And, you won’t hear complaining.
Military personnel work well without a ‘union.’
Many, many enlisted and officer military retirees have a college degree. [Personally, I have 3 degrees during my 27 years in the military; and there are many, many just like me.]
For those who do not have a college degree grand a five-year waiver due to ‘critical emergency.’
For 16 out of 20+ years veterans have been leaders and trainers of youngsters to teach them how to learn and perform their tasks and safeguard our nation.
There are military personnel retiring every month from all branches of the US Armed Forces.
[Remember: every single lesson plan has already been made up and duplicated and triplicated year after year. Collect all these lesson plans; make them school property; and let’s everyone stop duplicating make work.]
NEWS REPORT:
“It’s one of the poorest and worst-performing school districts in the country — and today it was shut down by its own teachers.
Nearly all of Detroit’s public schools were closed today after the teachers union urged members to call out sick following a weekend announcement that the district is nearly bankrupt, and wouldn’t be able to pay its teachers for their summer break.
Instead of trying to resolve the issue, the teachers simply walked off the job and left thousands of students and parents holding the bag.
District spokeswoman Michelle Zdrodowski said in an email Monday morning that 94 of the district’s 97 schools would be closed for the day. About 46,000 students are enrolled in the district’s schools.
According to the results of the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress tests published by the Department of Education’s National Center for Educational Statistics, only 4 percent of eighth graders are proficient in mathematics and 7 percent are proficient in reading in Detroit’s public schools.
“This is despite the fact that in the 2011-2012 school year—the latest for which the Department of Education has reported the financial data—the Detroit public schools had ‘total expenditures’ of $18,361 per student and ‘current expenditures’ of $13,330 per student,” according to CNS News.
Meanwhile, Detroit teachers can make up to $78,000 a year. Now, facing cutbacks on pay during summer vacation, they’ve shut down just about all the schools in response — effectively holding these students hostage.
The move by the Detroit Federation of Teachers was announced Sunday, a day after Detroit Public Schools’ transition manager said the district would have no money to continue paying teachers this summer without further funding from the state.
In March, Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law emergency funding that is keeping the district operating through the end of the school year as the state Legislature considers a $720 million restructuring plan that would pay off the district’s enormous debt.
Former bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes, who was appointed this year to oversee the district, also said Saturday that DPS would be unable to fund summer school or special education programs after June 30.
On Sunday night, he said in a statement that the union’s “choice for a drastic call to action was not necessary” and said that a sickout is “counterproductive and detrimental” to the efforts of those trying to help the school district.
“I understand the frustration and anger that our teachers feel,” Rhodes said. “I am, however, confident that the Legislature will support the request that will guarantee that teachers will receive the pay that is owed to them.”
Teacher strikes are illegal under Michigan law. Sick-outs earlier this year caused tens of thousands of students to miss class.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.”