ACLU sues State of Michigan over quality of Highland Park schools

[belleislerunner]

Hopefully in two years, Ms. Johnson will be able to sue McDonald's for making her children obese.

Her story doesn't even add up - she attends "all the school board meetings" yet has an 11th grade student who reads on a third grade level. Newsflash - skip a meeting and take your children to DPL to read. Clearly a scapegoat plucked by the ACLU and handed talking points to rehearse.

[Detroitnerd]

The parents do shoulder some blame here. My family didn't have much money when I was growing up so my mom made a point to read to me at a very young age. We would go to the Detroit Public Library and pick out a couple books.

No, man, I totally agree. The parents are totally to blame. I mean, they can't read, they're poor, they're the permanent underclass, and they still get to have kids? We should be sterilizing these people as soon as they're born. They'll never amount to anything, so why should they have the right to have kids?

As far as the folks here not wanting to help the kids, what is your solution, keep passing them until they graduate? Then when they have no skills to hold down a job, what do we do? Toss them in prison?

No, man, you don't get it. We can't do anything to change the situation, because then who would we blame for the problem? Don't shift the blame onto me! I want to keep blaming those parents until the end of time! Why fuck with something when it works?

[mwilbert]

Hopefully in two years, Ms. Johnson will be able to sue McDonald's for making her children obese.

Her story doesn't even add up - she attends"all the school board meetings" yet has an 11th grade student who reads on a third grade level. Newsflash - skip a meeting and take your children to DPL to read.

I disagree. If her child couldn't read at all, she would have to be pretty oblivious not to notice it. But if you can read at a third-grade level, you can read well enough to handle the usual tasks a child needs to do outside of school. If the child wasn't inclined to do outside reading, how would you know that they were bad at it except via school reports? So if the school passes them along grade by grade, how do you know they haven't learned anything, particularly if you don't know anything either.

[Detroitej72]

No, man, I totally agree. The parents are totally to blame.

I said the parents shoulder some of the blame, not all, for the reasons you stated.

We, as a civilized society need to step up and take care of the children whose parents fail them. Otherwise the cycle will never end.

[Detroitnerd]

I said the parents shoulder some of the blame, not all, for the reasons you stated.

We, as a civilized society need to step up and take care of the children whose parents fail them. Otherwise the cycle will never end.

You don't recognize satire, do you?

This whole "parents fail" thing is used as a sop to deflect from a failing system. The fact is, we simply don't put a priority on educating inner city children. There is no successful model for educating inner city children. So, instead of recognizing that, it's much easier to say: "I blame their parents."

You know: Sometimes, the same parents who were graduated from the same failed school system just 15 years ago...

But, yeah, just keep blaming the parents. Good way to avoid any anxiety-causing analysis of why we routinely fuck over a good percentage of our young people. Why, oh, why can't the most completely fucked-up poor people raise their children as if they were tutors hired to prepare the children of Bloomfield Hills for the Roeper School?

[belleislerunner]

Well seeing as that's the case, they should have added you to the lawsuit. Clearly you failed them =)

[Scottathew]

This whole "parents fail" thing is used as a sop to deflect from a failing system.

The system, in part, is failing because of the parents.

The system needs to be fixed. However, parents need to step up as well. If you don't have the time or resources to raise a child, then wait until you do.

While a public school system is there to educate, it does so in partnership with parents, not in absence of.

[Bham1982]

Social scientists agree that the majority of childhood learning takes place outside the classroom, and is weighted heavily towards pre-k age development.

So, yes, parents share a big chunk of blame. Not 100% of blame, but a big, fat chunk. There are plenty of schools with similar levels of poverty in very close proximity to Highland Park that don't have this problem.

The Bangledeshis, living maybe 10 blocks east, and just as poor [[and often with parents who can't read or write English) somehow don't have this problem, and go to the same quality schools.

[Lowell]

In all due respect to those who have posted on this thread about the responsibility of parents, the term parents being tossed around makes little sense in this situation. Maybe you are thinking of your parents or yourselves as parents of a two parent family. Lucky you and lucky me. In that context the sanctimoniousness and moral outrage expressed about parental blame makes some sense.

But it ain't that way in HP. For a vast majority of the students left in the HP schools parent is a singular not a plural word, if a word at all. So please don't blame the parents, blame the parent, if there is one. Many children, through no fault of their own, are born to a teenaged parent, sometimes crack-addicted, maybe mentally handicapped and often illiterate. For many others the parent is a grannie, auntie or foster home parent because their real parent is in prison, disabled or dead.

Such a parent can't be responsible because they are also children who need parenting. They can't buy books and teach the kids to read because they can't read.

Look into the eyes the eight year old, with his five year old sister in hand, sobbing on your porch at 10 o'clock at night because the parent has disappeared for hours leaving them and a 1 year old sibling with soiled diapers home alone. Yes that happened to me.

Forget the parent and focus on the children. It's not their fault. They need help. Provide the intensive Head Start setting and teacher to student ratio that is required to give them the chance they need. Save them.

And don't overlook that many of these single parents are trying very hard, juggling child-raising with minimum wage jobs, alone, without cars and living in high stress dangerous neighborhood circumstances. Give them a chance by providing their children the top quality and secure education that can uplift them and break the cycle. Pay a little more now or a lot more later.

[Bham1982]

Why, oh, why can't the most completely fucked-up poor people raise their children as if they were tutors hired to prepare the children of Bloomfield Hills for the Roeper School?

Are you aware that federal No Child Left Behind legislation includes free year-round tutoring on demand for children in high-poverty schools? And that the free tutoring is woefully underenrolled? Schools have to beg parents to use the tutoring, with pizza parties, raffle giveaways and the like.

Obviously most parents give a damn, regardless of income, but there is a signficant cohort of parents who don't. There is nothing the schools can do about this. If you switched Highland Park and Bloomfield Hills kids [[switched the teachers, facilities, and programs) I bet you would have the same outcomes for both cohorts.

[Shollin]

In all due respect to those who have posted on this thread about the responsibility of parents, the term parents being tossed around makes little sense in this situation. Maybe you are thinking of your parents or yourselves as parents of a two parent family. Lucky you and lucky me. In that context the sanctimoniousness and moral outrage expressed about parental blame makes some sense.

But it ain't that way in HP. For a vast majority of the students left in the HP schools parent is a singular not a plural word, if a word at all. So please don't blame the parents, blame the parent, if there is one. Many children, through no fault of their own, are born to a teenaged parent, sometimes crack-addicted, maybe mentally handicapped and often illiterate. For many others the parent is a grannie, auntie or foster home parent because their real parent is in prison, disabled or dead.

Such a parent can't be responsible because they are also children who need parenting. They can't buy books and teach the kids to read because they can't read.

Look into the eyes the eight year old, with his five year old sister in hand, sobbing on your porch at 10 o'clock at night because the parent has disappeared for hours leaving them and a 1 year old sibling with soiled diapers home alone. Yes that happened to me.

Forget the parent and focus on the children. It's not their fault. They need help. Provide the intensive Head Start setting and teacher to student ratio that is required to give them the chance they need. Save them.

And don't overlook many of these single parents are trying very hard, juggling child-raising with minimum wage jobs, alone, without cars and living in high stress dangerous neighborhood circumstances. At least have a heart enough to support those by giving their children a top quality and secure education.

None of what you said is a school's fault. According to Greatschools.org, Highland Park has a lower student to teacher ratio than the state average and more spending per pupil than the state average. Schools can't do everything. Grosse Pointe North is a perfect example. It was considered one of the top schools in the state. Then some families from Detroit started moving into Harper Woods and sending their kids to Grosse Pointe North. Test scores go down and the school suddenly isn't as good anymore. This same district also has Grosse Pointe South which is still considered among the best in the state. These disadvantaged kids are going to one of the wealthiest school districts in the state and yet still aren't succeeding. I guess that's the school's fault as well?

[Lowell]

One more thing, ACLU lawyers do not make tons of money. This isn't call Sam or Joumona money. True enough it will cost public money to defend this suit, but if it brings justice for the children of Highland Park it will be money well invested. No one will be hitting the jackpot and pocketing millions.

Every child that becomes an educated tax-paying functioning member of society and not a prisoner housed at $35K a year offers a huge return on investment.

[Bham1982]

We have the research that indicates that schools aren't nearly as important as the home life. So, if we say that parents aren't at fault, what is the solution?

Again, we know that schools cannot, by themselves, come close to making a dent in the problem. So what do we do when family situations prevent normal childhood cognitive development? Remove the guardians, and make the children wards of the state? I have no idea how to solve this.

[Lowell]

None of what you said is a school's fault. According to Greatschools.org, Highland Park has a lower student to teacher ratio than the state average and more spending per pupil than the state average. Schools can't do everything. Grosse Pointe North is a perfect example. It was considered one of the top schools in the state. Then some families from Detroit started moving into Harper Woods and sending their kids to Grosse Pointe North. Test scores go down and the school suddenly isn't as good anymore. This same district also has Grosse Pointe South which is still considered among the best in the state. These disadvantaged kids are going to one of the wealthiest school districts in the state and yet still aren't succeeding. I guess that's the school's fault as well?

Again the focus moves away from the children. As to those who move their children into other school systems, those are the parents who have it together enough to figure that out. They are the involved parents I spoke about a the start of this thread, the one's that are trying. The children left behind are the issue. They don't have that kind of parent. They are stuck.

If children who move to better districts are truly the reason for scores being depressed, that argues for ACLU suit. The schools they left were not providing the proper education. The State of Michigan which is ultimately responsible [they set the standards, tests and scores] has likewise failed its children.

[Shollin]

Again the focus moves away from the children. But as to those who move their children into other school systems, those are the parents who have it together enough to figure that out. They are they involved parents I spoke about a the start of this thread, the one's that are trying. The children left behind are the issue. They don't have that kind of parent. They are stuck.

If children who move better districts are truly the reason for scores being depressed, that argues for ACLU suit. The schools they left were not providing the proper education.

The children being moved into the better districts are still failing. The parents are moving into Harper Woods because there's a lot of section 8 housing and cheap rent. How can you blame the other schools when they never went to them? Harper Woods elementary and the elementary schools feeding Grosse Pointe North have tanked.

[Scottathew]

I understand we need to focus on children. Part of the solution is parenting. Teachers only have these kids from 8am to 3pm 180 days a year.

In Detroit where we have more dropouts than graduates, how the hell can the school system fix that? Most of the kids aren't even in the classroom, they're gone. Not even within the grasp of teachers. Those kids are out making babies and trouble, and their parents don't give a shit that their kid isn't going to graduate from high school.

We must focus on birth control, condoms, and judgement. We have to stop babies having babies, and children being raised by grandparents.

Yes, I had two parents. Yes, I'm very lucky. Yes, I'm very fortunate to get through school with good grades, go to college, and get a job.

I'm successful because of the schools I went to AND my parents. My mother made it clear to me it was not a matter of going to college, but WHAT college. We couldn't afford much, so it was community college while I worked full time, and then onto Walsh to finish up.

I had parents. They forced me to do things I didn't want to do. They had expectations of me. They had consequences.

My sister became pregnant at the age of 16. The father was gone right away. My mother forced my sister to finish up high school on-time. My sister had to live at home while she went to community college and then Oakland U. She had to work part time, and be a teenage mother. My sister made one big shitty choice, but my mother wouldn't let it derail her life. My sister is now a teacher.

My point is, I am what I am because of a school system AND parents. My sister made a mistake, but my mother refused to let it ruin my sister's life.

You need a good school system, but you need parents too. Even if it's only one parent, you've got to step up. Life's about choices, and if you choose to make babies when you're young, then you've got to step up, eat your mistake, and keep charging forward.

Don't expect a school system to magically do everything for you. They're a partner, not a replacement for parents.

[fryar]

I disagree. If her child couldn't read at all, she would have to be pretty oblivious not to notice it. But if you can read at a third-grade level, you can read well enough to handle the usual tasks a child needs to do outside of school. If the child wasn't inclined to do outside reading, how would you know that they were bad at it except via school reports? So if the school passes them along grade by grade, how do you know they haven't learned anything, particularly if you don't know anything either.

Precisely. Look at this excerpt from a letter a 7th-grader wrote to Governor Snyder, per the article: "My name is Quemtin . . . and you can make the school gooder by geting people that will do the jod that is pay for get a football tame for the kinds mybe a baksball tamoe get a other jamtacher for the school get a lot of tacher."

This kid Quentin [[sic!) obviously does not reside in a household where he is frequently pressed to parse and then evaluate the arguments presented by Messieurs Krugman and Brooks on some subject matter they disagree about [[I don't know...Citizens United or some such?) in the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times. I dare say that, seeing as how it is no longer published, the family study is likely to remain deprived of the complete Encyclopedia Britannica.

He probably comes from a long line of Quentins. It is a realistic possibility for his parents not to have much of a clue about anything having to do with any of that. To play Devil's Advocate for a moment, they can't really much help that.

Assuming, however, that we have now agreed to blame Quentin's parents, perhaps we choose to find them unfit, and remove him from their care. Or perhaps we find it beside the point to lay blame, and proceed to do so for pragmatic reasons. Either way, with luck, he will be placed with some other folks who not only press him for his opinion on the discussion between Krugman and Brooks, but did wisely foresee this day and purchase the complete Encyclopedia Brittanica when they had the opportunity. All's well.

Good luck with that. Liberals will surely detest the idea, call it racist, and some well-informed members may point to similar experiments in Australia in decades past that the Prime Minister in recent memory apologized for. Conservatives, meanwhile, are certain to find it off-putting, as it is hard to imagine a more invasive act of government activism. Hmm... the Greens, mayhaps? Closeted racists? Now there's a workable coalition.

For anyone seeking to solve this persistent problem - our society, say - schools are quite likely the path of least resistance, at least at first glance. Assuming we can get past the blame game, just for long enough to act. Thereafter, we can resume placing blame to everyone's content.

[fryar]

The article the OP linked to goes on to specify the following:

The complaint, to be filed in state court in Wayne County, is based on a 1993 state law that says if public school students are not proficient in reading, as determined by tests given in grades 4 and 7, they must be provided “special assistance” to bring them to grade level within a year.
But at Highland Park, a three-school district bordering Detroit, most of the struggling students are years behind grade level and never received the kind of assistance required by law, the ACLU said.

The state is not enforcing its own law. So is the claim, anyway. Testing that claim seems like an exemplary use of the courts to me.

[Hermod]

One more thing, ACLU lawyers do not make tons of money. This isn't call Sam or Joumona money. True enough it will cost public money to defend this suit, but if it brings justice for the children of Highland Park it will be money well invested. No one will be hitting the jackpot and pocketing millions.

Every child that becomes an educated tax-paying functioning member of society and not a prisoner housed at $35K a year offers a huge return on investment.

Lowell, it won't bring "justice" for the children. The courts will find for the ACLU. The lawyers will get paid [[something) and the state will have to pony up more money for the school district [[a "special" educational supplement) that will be used to hire more assistants for the teachers. There will be some benefit but will do little to magically convert them into "an educated tax-paying functioning member of society" as you foresee.

[noise]

I'm glad we have so many lemmings willing to tow the party line at any opportunity. Thankfully, we know from this thread that the school district is stellar and plays no part in this problem. Praise ye Jah.

[kenp]

Maybe Highland Park could hire Arthur Blackwell to lead them, he only requires $1 for a salary and that could save money for the kids.

[Lowell]

Lowell, it won't bring "justice" for the children. The courts will find for the ACLU. The lawyers will get paid [[something) and the state will have to pony up more money for the school district [[a "special" educational supplement) that will be used to hire more assistants for the teachers. There will be some benefit but will do little to magically convert them into "an educated tax-paying functioning member of society" as you foresee.

I disagree. You seem to be making a argument for inaction.

We can only speculate on what the court may order if anything, but any and all assistance will be an improvement for children of that district. I don't think anyone is arguing, certainly not me, that the children presently in the systm will be 'magically converted' in any way.

The damage is large done there. But intensive remediation can offer a way for the future and breaking the cycle illiteracy while hopefully recovering some still in the system. Everyone of those children are important and they both need and deserve the opportunity to rise above their circumstances.

[Lowell]

Maybe Highland Park could hire Arthur Blackwell to lead them, he only requires $1 for a salary and that could save money for the kids.

Highland Park has undoubtedly been plagued by that family but malfeasance on the part of public officials, inept parents and other screw ups are distractions that many seem to want to play up to avoid dealing with a serious issue.

The children are the innocent victims in this educational drive-by shooting and the ACLU with the suit against the state is making that point clear.

The past can't be undone, but the future can be righted.

[Wesley Mouch]

One more thing, ACLU lawyers do not make tons of money. This isn't call Sam or Joumona money. True enough it will cost public money to defend this suit, but if it brings justice for the children of Highland Park it will be money well invested. No one will be hitting the jackpot and pocketing millions.

Every child that becomes an educated tax-paying functioning member of society and not a prisoner housed at $35K a year offers a huge return on investment.

If, and only if the taxpayer's money accomplishes the result.

I agree with your goals, Lowell. Any decent person does. The debate is about methods. I don't see any evidence that money helps students. Do you?

That is why I'm in favor of radical change in schools -- regardless of whose ox is gored. Unions, corporate schooling, schools districts, anyone. We need to allow new methods to flourish. More money spent with the existing commisars of education isn't doing the trick for our children in HP.

[Lowell]

I agree with your goals, Lowell. Any decent person does. The debate is about methods. I don't see any evidence that money helps students. Do you?

Ab-so-lutely. As mentioned in my first post, I experienced Head Start first hand as a Highland Park parent. It prepares both student and parents. Some of the parent were inspired to restart their own educational improvement. Statistics on success of head-started students, vs those that aren't, are striking.

For districts like HP that intensive form of education needs to be extended to all grades. I would be happy to see it start with the current head start class and be extended through all their years and for the successive classes. It needs to start and start now.

I do not advocate aimlessly throwing money at a problem. However when a proven highly successful model exists, money will not be wasted. The long term savings will immense.