The State of Michigan and Schools in Detroit and Flint

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November-08-19, 09:30 AM
renf

The State of Michigan and Schools in Detroit and Flint

Yesterday and today, the New York Times published essays sharply criticizing the way in which the state of Michigan does or does not support the education of children in Detroit and Flint. It will be interesting to see what the federal court rules in the current litigation concern the rights of Detroit children to obtain a state funded education that provides literacy training.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/u...bureau_detroit

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/o...bureau_detroit
November-08-19, 10:24 AM
Bigdd

Curious to see how they're going to blame the state for this.

The state helps fund,.. but it's the local school boards and the parents that are responsible for the teaching.

And the state already gives Detroit more than double the funding per student of other school districts.

The average school district in the country gets about $6,600 per student. The top scoring school district in the country is Miami-Dade Fl., which get something like $6,800 per student per year.

Detroit gets $15,500,.. and has the lowest testing scores in the country.

IT'S NOT THE MONEY !
November-08-19, 01:13 PM
Atticus

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bigdd

Curious to see how they're going to blame the state for this.

The state helps fund,.. but it's the local school boards and the parents that are responsible for the teaching.

And the state already gives Detroit more than double the funding per student of other school districts.

The average school district in the country gets about $6,600 per student. The top scoring school district in the country is Miami-Dade Fl., which get something like $6,800 per student per year.

Detroit gets $15,500,.. and has the lowest testing scores in the country.

IT'S NOT THE MONEY !

Good post. It is amazing how many people think schools can be “fixed”. Schools are a reflection of the parents who send their kids there. If the majority of parents are active, resourced, and involved in their kids well-being, the schools will succeed. If the parents are not, no amount of money will “fix the school”. It is that simple. Quit trying to fix a metric.

Yes Detroit and Flint schools are bad. But that is mainly because there are very few involved patents with resources who send their kids there. And while much of that problem is chicken-and-the-egg, there is no fixing that short of getting more involved families to send their kids to that school.

Yes you can improve the education system overall by raising teacher pay statewide [[and attracting more/better college students to go into teaching), but that is still one of those rising tides lift all boats scenarios, where the wealthiest districts always are relatively better off than the poor ones.
November-12-19, 02:52 AM
Wesley Mouch

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atticus

Good post. It is amazing how many people think schools can be “fixed”. Schools are a reflection of the parents who send their kids there. If the majority of parents are active, resourced, and involved in their kids well-being, the schools will succeed. If the parents are not, no amount of money will “fix the school”. It is that simple. Quit trying to fix a metric.

Yet, there are some examples where they do get 'fixed'. New Orleans seems to have, at least to a great degree, 'fixed' their schools.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atticus

Yes Detroit and Flint schools are bad. But that is mainly because there are very few involved parents with resources who send their kids there. And while much of that problem is chicken-and-the-egg, there is no fixing that short of getting more involved families to send their kids to that school.

This is an unacceptable argument. Certainly 'few involved parents' is a big problem, but to suggest that you can't educate is just an excuse

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atticus

Yes you can improve the education system overall by raising teacher pay statewide [[and attracting more/better college students to go into teaching), but that is still one of those rising tides lift all boats scenarios, where the wealthiest districts always are relatively better off than the poor ones.

Decent pay matters. But mostly spending on schools seems to have little impact. Whatever the truth, its certainly not true that just sending buckets of cash is useful.

What I am certain of... is that trying to 'fix' schools by more central control is not the solution. Killing off failing schools appears to be one of the only ways to 'fix' education. But most of us don't believe this, so we keep funding existing organizations in the desperate hope that they'll somehow be 'fixed' by more money. Wrong.