On the first day of school, the secret to success is in the planning, not the pedagogy. How's your back-to-school planning going? Have you forgotten anything? Our checklist can help! Included: Online resources for a variety of back-to-school planning needs, including welcome letters, bulletin board ideas, and back-to-school activities.
It's official. You're a teacher! You aced all your education courses, know the subject matter backward and forward, can rattle off the names and philosophies of dozens of educational theorists, and achieved a pretty respectable score on the state certification exam. You finally have an actual job and an official class list. There's only one problem. The first day of school is drawing near and you have no idea what to do. Are you really ready to face that first terrifying day?
The secret to success in any new endeavor is planning. But for this particular endeavor, don't just plan, over plan. Don't just prepare, over prepare. Don't just write enough lessons plans to fill one class or a single day. (They never do!) Write more than enough!
When it comes to planning ahead, of course, the secret to success is in the details. Use the checklist below to help you with any details you might have overlooked in planning for your first day at school as the teacher.
PREPARE YOURSELF
Although it's not generally a good idea to clutter your classroom with framed family pictures or your collection of ceramic apples, there are a few personal items that can help you make it through the year. They include:
A diary. Take a few minutes at the end of each day to jot down your thoughts and impressions about the day's events. Was there a lesson that went particularly well, or particularly badly? Why? Did a difficult discipline problem arise? How did you handle it? What was the result? What successes did you experience? What compliments did you receive? As the year progresses, the diary will help you identify what works and what doesn't word, and it will help you find alternate strategies. It will also document your growth as a teacher, something you may not recognize otherwise. Who knows? There might even be a book in it!
A personal appointment calendar. Yes, a date book will come in handy for reminding yourself of faculty meetings, PPTs, and scheduled observations. More importantly, it can be used to document the unscheduled events that crop up during the day, and often come back to haunt you weeks later. You might think you'll never forget the day Darrell's father called to complain about your discipline policies (the first time!), or that Tamika's mother stopped in to request a speech evaluation, or what you did when Patrick bloodied Jose's nose on the playground. But you will! Jot it down immediately in your date book. And keep the date bookin, not on, your desk!
A personal survival kit. Store (out of reach of students!) a personal teacher survival kit. Include such items as a small sewing kit, safety pins, bandages, suntan lotion, change, snacks, tea bags or coffee singles, bottled water, breath mints, tissues, hand sanitizer, a spare pair of pantyhose (if appropriate!), sneakers and socks, a scarf and gloves, and any other items that will make bad days and minor catastrophes a little easier to deal with. None of those things are absolutely necessary to your success as a teacher, of course, but having them handy will make your life a lot less stressful.
A sturdy canvas bag to keep it all in.
PREPARE THE WAY
Confidence breeds competence. You'll feel a lot better about facing that first day of school if you take the time to become familiar with the school and with the people you'll be working with. Before school starts:
Familiarize yourself with the school building and grounds. Sure the principal took you on a quick tour, but how much did you absorb, or remember? Take the time before school starts to retrace your steps. Locate the bathrooms (not just the one closest to your classroom!), the gym, the cafeteria, the media center, and the nurse's office. Note where they are in relation to your classroom. Ask where resource classes are held. Find the audio-visual equipment and supply closet and ask about checkout procedures. Take notes or draw yourself a map.
Visit the school Web site. A school Web site can provide valuable information about the school and community, as well as insight into what's expected of students and teachers.
Review school policies and procedures. Ask about any procedures that are unclear. Learn the reasons for any policies that don't seem to make sense. Every school has its own history and problems. You'll be better equipped to follow policies and procedures correctly if you understand the reasoning behind them.
Make friends with the school support staff. They're the best friends a new teacher can have. Introduce, or re-introduce, yourself. Remember names. Ask about attendance and lunch count procedures, if you're not sure about them. Find out how to get an e-mail address. Make it clear you expect to make mistakes at first and that you know they might be inconvenienced. Ask how you can make their lives easier. Bring doughnuts!
Make a friend. Choose a teacher at your grade level or in a nearby classroom and ask if he or she would be available to answer questions or give friendly advice during the first few weeks of school. Let that teacher know that you're open to suggestions and eager to learn.
PREPARE YOUR CLASSROOM
Your classroom will be your home-away-from-home for the next nine months. You'll want it to reflect your personality, your educational philosophy, and your goals for your students. How do you do that? Consider some of these suggestions from veteran teachers.
Prepare bulletin boards. Most of your bulletin boards should be reserved for displaying student work. Simply cover the surfaces with butcher paper or a sturdy fabric and add a title and appropriate graphic. Depending on the grade level of your students, you might want to designate one bulletin board as a calendar board, which will remain constant throughout the year. Elementary and many middle school students also enjoy a student-of-the-week bulletin board. (To get the ball rolling, start with an autobiographical bulletin board of yourself!) For older students, consider setting aside a section of a bulletin board for posting the day's schedule, objectives, class assignments, homework, and upcoming events. Another section of the same board could hold a running assignment log and a handout folder (for students who are absent). For additional bulletin board ideas, check out the Education World articleYour Search for Bulletin Board Ideas Is Over!
Set up the room. Desks and activity centers can be arranged in a number of ways, depending on your individual teaching style. You'll find some of the most common room arrangements, along with a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of each, atCreating an Effective Physical Classroom Environment, Teachers Helping Teachers: Classroom Management, and the Education World article Do Seating Arrangements and Assignments = Classroom Management? Assign seats, at least initially. It will help you learn students' names, establish mutual respect, and maintain classroom control.
Obtain student supplies. Depending on the grade level of your students, you may need paper, pencils, crayons, scissors, glue, construction paper, rulers, or calculators. You'll also need textbooks and possibly workbooks. Be sure to count them!
Obtain teacher supplies. You'll probably need (among other things!) pens and markers, a stapler and staples, paper clips, tape, rubber bands, a plan book, a seating chart, hall passes, and attendance and lunch forms.
Post classroom information. Post your name, room number, and the grade or class you teach, both inside the classroom and outside the classroom door. If you have a telephone in your classroom, post important school numbers next to the phone. Include the main office, the nurse's office, and the phone numbers of nearby classrooms.
Although not, strictly speaking, part of preparing your classroom, this is also a good time to:
Review lesson plans. Look over your first day's lesson plans and obtain all necessary materials.
Prepare materials for students to take home the first day. These might include emergency data cards, a school welcome letter, a calendar showing the class specials schedule and upcoming events, a syllabus, and a homework assignment.
Check books out of the school or public library. Start a habit of reading aloud to your students for a few minutes each day, whatever their grade level!
PREPARE YOUR STUDENTS' PARENTS
Establishing rapport and a cooperative working relationship with parents is essential to any teacher, but it's especially important to the first-year teacher, whose inexperience may be an issue for some parents. You can get off on the right foot with a welcome letter, sent to the parents of each student on your class list. Mail the letters a week or two before school starts. If that's not possible, send it home with students on the first day of school. You might include information about yourself, a list of supplies students will need to bring from home, a schedule of opening day activities, policies for parents' visits, phone calls, and volunteer opportunities (include a volunteer sign-up sheet!), a discussion of classroom rules and consequences, a curriculum overview or syllabus, and your school phone number and school e-mail address.
You can find a teacher welcome letter template among Education World's Back-to-School Templates, and in the Education World article Back-to-School Letters and Survival Kits Build Communication. You might want to send an introductory letter to your students too!
Be sure to have your principal, mentor teacher, or another veteran teacher check out parent or student welcome letters before you mail them. They know the community and school policies better than you do and are in a better position to evaluate whether your letter is effective and appropriate.
THE BIG DAY ARRIVES
You're as ready as you'll ever be! Now what?
- Arrive early! Give the classroom one last check. Turn on the lights and open the blinds.
- Greet students at the door. Introduce yourself and welcome them. Smile!
- As students arrive, hand them an assignment and ask them to get started immediately.
- Help students prepare their own nametags. You'll find name tag templates among Education World's Back-to-School Templates.
- Review, explain, and discuss school rules and procedures.
- Work together to develop a list of classroom rules and consequences, or provide students with a copy of your class rules.
- As you move through the day, explain and practice class routines.
- Take pictures of students at work and play. Save some for Parents' Night and for student-of-the-week bulletin boards. Use others to start a class scrapbook.
- Discuss class or individual goals and expectations. Younger students may enjoy hearing and discussing Judith Viorst's "The First Day" poem.
- Try to include an activity that provides opportunities for students to interact or problem-solve. Check out the Education World article Icebreakers: Sixteen Getting to Know You Activities.
- Congratulate yourself on a job well done!
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOR NEW TEACHERS
Survival Guide for New Teachers This guide from the U.S. Department of Education offers lots of stories and advice from teachers who have been there.
Works4Me Tips Library The NEA offers tips for teachers on such topics as content, teaching techniques, classroom management, technology, organization, and relationships.
The First Days of Middle School MiddleWeb provides an extensive list of links to resources for all middle school teachers.
Ideas for New Teachers and Education Students This site contains many links to valuable teaching resources, on such topics as how to write behavioral objectives, lesson planning, teaching methods, and much more!
New Teacher's Home Page About.com provides lots of resources, including articles, tools, suggested student reading lists, and more.
Educator Kathleen Modenbach reflects on the enormous influence teachers have on the kids they teach. A recent student/counselor survey suggests that using that influence can save vulnerable kids from violence. Modenbach believes that providing opportunities for student expression -- with no strings (no grades!) attached -- is the key. Included: Simple ways to encourage student expression and increase communication.
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A teacher friend of mine recently got a late-night phone call. A former student had committed suicide. It had been just a year since her own son's death, so she could relate to the grief. But she struggled to remember the student whom she had taught four years before. He was so quiet, and she remembered no special connection with him; yet, he had left instructions for authorities to call his parents and her.
Had she been that important to him?
As my friend told me the story, we both reflected on the tremendous influence teachers can have on the kids they teach. Often, we don't realize how important our presence is in their lives. We give of ourselves without thinking about it. Still, we often get too busy to consider the effect we have on kids -- especially the quiet ones, the struggling ones.
I remember a similar experience.
Years ago, I taught a learning disabled class. Steven (not his real name) worked hard to graduate with his class; then he joined the military. A year or so later, his mom told me Steven had killed himself while stationed in Germany. She said he would want me to know.
Thinking back on that conversation, I have to wonder: How many do we save? Can we save more? I usually hear about the success stories or the tragedies, but what about those quiet or struggling or "average" students?
A SURVEY OF KIDS, TEACHERS
After Columbine, educators brainstormed ways to reduce school violence through smaller classes and more personal contact between teachers and students. Whether students kill themselves and others in a school setting or commit suicide privately, the result is the same. The crucial question remains: How can our influence be channeled to save more kids?
On Law Day in 2001, a survey of 300 junior and senior high school students from public, charter, and private schools in New Jersey delved into the causes of student violence. Among the reasons at the top of students' lists were the lack of personal involvement and interaction with teachers and other students and the need for a release for pent-up emotions. Whether those problems came from school or home, they were trapped, waiting to explode. Other causes included low self-esteem; not knowing where to go to talk about problems in their lives; problems away from school that end up in school; and bottled-up anger, frustration, and other bad feelings.
In that same study, teachers and counselors were asked what they could do to prevent violence. Among the ideas educators expressed were encouraging students to speak their minds; giving awards to increase recognition of students' special talents and kindnesses; assigning faculty mentors; and holding self-esteem and communication classes.
ENCOURAGE EXPRESSION BY REMOVING GRADES
In addition, the survey revealed that students wanted more classes where they could express themselves in small groups. They were particularly excited about letting their feelings out by writing poetry with no strings attached -- that is, no grades!
I, for one, was not at all surprised by their "no grades" comments. My high school students love to share their original poems and take part in small-group presentations. But teachers have to loosen up on grading those activities. Make them count, but base the grades on completion of the tasks assigned; and give extra points for those who go above and beyond the average effort.
Most of my students get A's or B's on those assignments. No one gets below a C unless the assignment is not completed. I never grade poetry for grammar -- expression is the key!
The Huckleberry Finn Shadow Box assignment is another un-graded assignment I gave recently. After reading the novel, students worked in small groups to decorate a medium-size box to represent things, character elements, and themes of significance in the novel. As the students worked on the project, I dropped in on groups to talk with students about what they were doing and thinking, and what they learned. I made a special effort to draw out comments from students who were usually the quiet ones.
In those projects, and other similar ones, grading is the least important thing. Grades are high for everybody who participates. With the shadow box activity, credit was given to the student who constructed a small fishing pole or drew a picture of a significant event or wrote a poem about a character. The benefits and rewards of such projects are less on the finished product and more on the pride of participating, being included, and being heard.
In another project, my senior students dressed up like pilgrims from Chaucer'sCanterburyTales and performed skits in small groups. Those who costumed according to Chaucer's descriptions and revealed the pilgrims' lifestyle in their skits got high grades. After a class vote, I awarded extra points for the best costume and best skit.
"I WANT TO BE A TEACHER..."
Recently, I ran into a former student who told me she'd changed her college major. "I want to be a teacher just like you," she told me. Now, that's the ultimate in influence! But it doesn't stop me from thinking about those who might fall through the cracks and what I might do to help them.
Kathleen Modenbach is an English teacher in Louisiana's St. Tammany Parish Schools. She teaches at Northshore High School and writes for The Times Picayune in New Orleans.
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| Archive: BBC programme Requiem for Detroit, made by Julien Temple, followed people living amongst the city's ruins in 2010 |
A judge in the US state of Michigan has ordered the city of Detroit to withdraw its application for bankruptcy over its debts of $18bn (£12bn).
Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said the petition, filed on Thursday, violated the state's laws and constitution because it threatened pension benefits.
But the state's attorney general immediately appealed against the order.
Earlier, Governor Rick Snyder said the move towards bankruptcy would reverse decades of decay.
Bankruptcy would allow Detroit's state-appointed emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, to liquidate the city's assets to try to meet the demands of creditors and pensioners.
Mr Orr proposed a deal in June in which creditors would accept 10 cents for every dollar they were owed.
But two pension funds representing retired city workers have resisted the bankruptcy plan, and - with tens of thousands of creditors - the city is already facing a number of lawsuits.
In her ruling on Friday, Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina sided with the pension plaintiffs.
She ruled that the 2012 law which allowed for bankruptcy to be filed was unconstitutional, as it enabled the state governor to jeopardise the pension benefits of public employees.
But it remained unclear what impact the ruling would have on the proceedings.
The BBC's Jonny Dymond, in Detroit, says it is just the first stage in a multi-layer legal system, but that it throws into question the stunningly complex rescue plan for the troubled city.
Shortly after, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said he had appealed against Judge Aquilina's rulings on behalf of Governor Snyder.
'Basically broke'
Detroit is the largest US city ever to file for bankruptcy. In 2012, three smaller California cities - Stockton, Mammoth Lakes and San Bernardino - took the step.
It has been struggling for decades with spiralling debts - public services are nearing collapse and about 70,000 properties lie abandoned.
Known as Motor City for its once-thriving automobile industry, Detroit stopped debt repayments to unsecured creditors last month to keep the city running.
Governor Snyder: "This has been a long period of decline. It's time to do something about it."
About $9bn of Detroit's debt is owed to the pension funds and retiree healthcare benefits of the city's 10,000 workers and 20,000 retirees.
Earlier on Friday, Gov Snyder said the city had filed for bankruptcy because it was "basically broke".
"We're the comeback state in Michigan, but to be a great state, we need Detroit on the path to being a great city again," he told Friday's news conference.
"Now is the opportunity to stop 60 years of decline," he added.
"We will come out with a stronger, better Detroit and a format to grow this city. The citizens of not just this city but the state deserve it."
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| Chinese authorities have been trying to control a property boom |
Chinese authorities have given the banking industry greater freedom by allowing banks to set their own lending rates.
Previously they were not allowed to lend at rates below a certain level set by the People's Bank of China (PBOC).
The People's Bank said it hoped the move would lead to lower costs for companies.
It is being seen as a significant part of the government's plan to make the economy more market-orientated.
"When Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power in March, he promised to reform the country's economy to encourage more balanced growth," said BBC Beijing Correspondent Celia Hatton.
"The announcement on bank interest rates is the first major change since that time," she added.
Analysts agree that it marks an important development in policy.
"It's a very big deal, probably more in terms of what it symbolises than the effect on the economy," said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics.
"China has been talking about interest rate liberalisation for a long time, this is one of the biggest steps they could have taken," he said.
Even before this move, Chinese banks had some freedom to lend at rates below the official level, but very few chose to do so.
Convertible currency
While it might not have a huge impact on the economy, analysts think the move is an important step towards allowing China's currency to float freely on the currency markets.
The United States has long been calling for that to happen, arguing that China's currency has been kept artificially low, which gives companies producing there an unfair advantage.
"This underlines that China is moving to a fully convertible currency and floating exchange rates " said Flemming Nielsen, senior analyst at Danske Bank in Copenhagen.
"Liberalisation of interest rates is a necessary condition for convertible currency and floating rates and their next step will be to widen the daily trading band for renminbi. They should do that within the next three months," he said.
Mortgage controls
China hopes banks will offer lower interest rates to business
There remains an upper limit on how much interest banks are allowed to offer depositors. That currently stands at 3% with a small amount of leeway to go higher.
That relatively poor rate of return has encouraged Chinese savers to invest in unregulated investment products in the so called shadow banking system.
Controls on mortgage lending will also remain in place, to maintain the "healthy development of the housing market", the PBOC said.
"One of the dilemmas they have is that house prices continue to rise quite fast so they probably don't want across-the-board lower interest rates," said Mr Nielsen.
"We will probably have some downpayment requirements and they will maintain guidance on bank lending rates for first time home buyers while keeping tight credit conditions for second-time buyers," he added.
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| The government says the illegal information helped the company make $275m |
A billionaire hedge fund manager has been charged with failing to stop insider trading, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) says.
SAC Capital Advisors founder Steven Cohen, 57, faces civil charges over what the US government has called one of the biggest such fraud cases ever.
Mr Cohen did not properly supervise two traders who engaged in illegal insider trading, the SEC alleges.
But the fund said the charges had "no merit" and pledged to fight the case.
As a result of the illegal information, the traders made about $275m (£180m) for the fund, the government has alleged.
It added that Mr Cohen was aware of the information but rewarded one of his employees with a $9m bonus, instead of cracking down.
The SEC said: "Cohen received highly suspicious information that should have caused any reasonable hedge fund manager in Cohen's position to take prompt action to determine whether employees under his supervision were engaged in unlawful conduct and to prevent violations of the federal securities laws."
The government agency is seeking to have Mr Cohen banned from managing funds in future, and seeks an unspecified amount of money.
The charges will not proceed to trial, but were filed as an administrative proceeding.
A spokesman for the defendant said: "Steve Cohen acted appropriately at all times."
Traders Mathew Martoma and Michael Steinberg have denied criminal insider trading charges and face trial in November.
Friday's charges are part of a long-running probe of SAC Capital Advisors, a fund worth about $15bn, which has seen nine current or former employees charged or implicated.
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| Venezuela's foreign ministry said Samantha Power's opinions were 'disrespectful' |
Venezuela says it has "ended" steps towards restoring diplomatic ties with the US, after comments by the woman nominated as the next envoy to the UN.
Samantha Power said this week she would seek to combat what she called the "crackdown on civil society" in countries including Venezuela.
She was speaking at a US Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
The remarks prompted an angry response from Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro.
"The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela hereby ends the process... of finally normalising our diplomatic relations," said Venezuela's foreign ministry in a statement.
It objected to Ms Power's "interventionist agenda", noting that her "disrespectful opinions" were later endorsed by the state department, "contradicting in tone and in content" earlier statements by Secretary of State John Kerry.
Poor relations
Relations between the US and Venezuela have been strained in recent years. They last had ambassadors in each other's capitals in 2010.
Washington angered Caracas by backing the Venezuelan opposition's demand for a full recount of the presidential election in April to replace Hugo Chavez, who died in March.
Mr Chavez's anointed successor, Nicolas Maduro, won the vote by less than two percentage points.
In June, the two countries had tentatively agreed to work towards improving their strained relations, after Venezuela freed and deported a US filmmaker who had been held on conspiracy charges.
During a regional summit in Guatemala, Mr Kerry said he had agreed with Foreign Minister Elias Jaua on an "ongoing, continuing dialogue" in order to "establish a more constructive and positive relationship".
He said the US wanted to "begin to change the dialogue between our countries and hopefully quickly move the appointments of ambassadors between our nations".
Mr Jaua said at the time that for Venezuela it was important to build a relationship based on the principles of mutual respect and no interference in internal affairs.
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| More than 4,000 Palestinians are thought to be held in Israeli jails |
Israel says it will release a number of Palestinian prisoners as part of an agreement made with US Secretary of State John Kerry to resume peace talks.
Yuval Steinitz, minister responsible for international relations, said it would involve "heavyweight prisoners in jail for decades".
Mr Kerry announced on Friday that initial talks would be held in Washington "in the next week or so".
The Israeli minister's remarks are the first details of the deal.
Mr Kerry had declined to tell reporters in Amman what the two sides had agreed to, saying that the "best way to give these negotiations a chance is to keep them private".
The agreement came at the end of four days of frenetic shuttle diplomacy, on Mr Kerry's sixth visit to the region in the past few months.
Mr Steinitz told Israeli public radio that the agreement adhered to the principles set out by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for kick-starting the talks.
The release of prisoners would take place in stages, he said.
According to Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, 4,817 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails. The release of prisoners held before the 1993 Oslo peace accords has been a long-held Palestinian demand.
For their part, the Palestinians had committed themselves to "serious negotiations" for a minimum of nine months, said Mr Steinitz, who is a member of the prime minister's Likud Beiteinu party.
But he made clear that Israel had not accepted Palestinian pre-conditions, including a halt to settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
"There is no chance that we will agree to enter any negotiations that begin with defining territorial borders or concessions by Israel, nor a construction freeze."
Israel and the Palestinians last held direct talks in 2010, which were halted over the issue of settlement-building.
Settlements are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
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| A large crowd applauded Alexei Navalny as he arrived in Moscow, as Alice Baxter reports |
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has told supporters he will fight and win the Moscow mayoral vote, after he was freed from jail pending an appeal against a five-year jail term.
He has returned to Moscow from Kirov, where a judge convicted him of embezzlement, in a case widely condemned as political.
The court ruled on Friday he could go back to Moscow until the appeal.
The jail term has been criticised by the US, EU and human rights groups.
Standing beside his wife Yulia, Navalny told a crowd of supporters at Yaroslavsky station on Saturday that "we are going to stand in the elections and we will win".
"We are a huge powerful force. We have taken away the Kremlin's privilege to put people in prison never to be seen again."
He was accepted as a candidate in the 8 September mayoral poll shortly before he was found guilty of embezzlement and there had been some doubt over whether he would run.
The anti-corruption activist said he would take part in campaigning for the election as long as it was possible.
'Boycott'
A number of riot police were at the station and security forces were deployed in the surrounding area, Interfax news agency reports.
The BBC's Oleg Boldyrev who was there said it was a very upbeat start to an election campaign.
Hours after his conviction was announced in Kirov on Thursday, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Moscow in an unsanctioned demonstration, with reports of scuffles and dozens of people being detained.
President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov has since warned activists not to hold any more protests without official approval.,
Asked late on Friday whether there was any chance of Navalny being pardoned, Mr Peskov told reporters: "A convict first has to admit his guilt."
Navalny's release from custody in Kirov, 560 miles (900km) north-east of Moscow, had been sought by the prosecution as well as his defence.
The unexpected step was seen by some as an attempt to soothe public anger over a case that prompted Germany to question whether criminal justice was the main motive behind the trial. The US said it was "deeply disappointed and concerned" by the outcome.
Alexei Navalny, 37, rose to prominence before parliamentary elections in 2011, writing a blog in which he condemned the ruling United Russia party as "crooks and thieves".
The case brought against him in Kirov was that he led a group that embezzled timber worth 16m roubles ($500,000; £330,000) from the Kirovles state timber company while working as an adviser to governor Nikita Belykh.
Navalny will have to return to Kirov in a few weeks' time to appeal against the verdict.
With the conviction and appeal hanging over him, no-one can predict whether he will see the result of the elections as a free man, our correspondent says.
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has said Detroit may have hit rock bottom with its bankruptcy filing, but the move will reverse decades of decay.
The Republican said the city - once the birthplace of the US car industry, now groaning under $18bn (£12bn) of debt - deserves a fresh start.
Detroit has faced decades of problems linked to industrial decline.
Public services are nearing collapse and about 70,000 properties lie abandoned.
Gov Snyder said the city had filed for bankruptcy on Thursday because it was "basically broke".
"We're the comeback state in Michigan, but to be a great state we need Detroit on the path to being a great city again," he told Friday's news conference.
"Now is the opportunity to stop 60 years of decline," he added.
"We will come out with a stronger, better Detroit and a format to grow this city. The citizens of not just this city but the state deserve it."
Gov Snyder was flanked by state-appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr, who suggested last month that the city's long-term debt could be as high as $20bn.
Mr Orr addressed concerns that art works at the Detroit Art Institute or other assets would be auctioned to pay creditors.
"Right now there's nothing for sale," he said.
Mr Orr will be allowed to liquidate city assets to satisfy creditors and pensions, if the federal court bankruptcy filing is approved.
Detroit - known as Motor City for its once-thriving automobile industry - stopped unsecured-debt payments last month to keep the city running.
Mr Orr proposed a deal in June in which creditors would accept 10 cents for every dollar they were owed. The city is currently paying 38 cents on the dollar.
But two pension funds representing retired city workers resisted the plan.
About $9bn of Detroit's debt is owed to the pension funds and retiree healthcare benefits of the city's 10,000 workers and 20,000 retirees.
Ed McNeil, the lead negotiator for a coalition of 33 unions, told Reuters news agency the move was about "busting the unions".
With tens of thousands of creditors, Detroit already faced a number of lawsuits even before it filed for bankruptcy.
