ACLU sues State of Michigan over quality of Highland Park schools

[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]

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.