Two-Thirds of Detroit Students 'Chronically Absent'

[CassTechGrad]

From the Michigan Capital Confidential:
By TOM GANTER, Oct. 15, 2015

Two-Thirds of Detroit Students 'Chronically Absent'
Despite a new attendance policy that could see truant students and their parents actually prosecuted in court, more than two-thirds of the students enrolled in the Detroit school district are still classified as “chronically absent.” This is defined by the state as missing more than 10 school days in a year.

Detroit's students could be missing far more than 10 days of school as the state report doesn't quantify the total amount of missed school days. In 2013, Keith Johnson, who was then president of the Detroit teachers union, said data showed the average high school student in Detroit Public Schools missed 46 days of schools in 2011-12.

Detroit saw 67.1 percent of all its students deemed chronically absent in 2013-14, the latest year data is available. The statewide average is 25.5 percent. Even the troubled Education Achievement Authority, the state office given oversight of Michigan’s worst-performing individual schools, experienced chronic absence in just 23.7 percent of its students.

The new Detroit Public Schools truancy policy calls for possible home visits by state agency workers when a student has six unexcused absences. After nine unexcused absences, students and their parents can be charged by the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.

The new program was launched in the 2013-14 school year but doesn’t appear to have had much impact so far. In the year before that, 67.5 percent of DPS students were classified as chronically absent.

[Gannon]

They can write any new rules and laws that they want, not a one of 'em will reverse the absolute need for some of the children I've met at Southwestern High to be translators and such for their parents. My friend who teaches there told me it is not uncommon for even his BEST students to miss a day per week sometimes.

This policy is brute-force when the problem is not nearly as simple as skipping school.

Yay, let's make another way to criminalize the next generation and their parents. Stupid fucks.

[preserve]

Sure it was Southwestern?

[Gannon]

Sure it was Southwestern?

Ha...the one across from Clark Park.

Is it Western International? I always think SW'tern for that area, there is so much of the city west of there...makes no damn sense.

[Gpwrangler]

The penalty for skipping school is actually worse than that for destroying and scrapping DPS buildings. Probably just as strictly enforced too.

What at a non-story.

[canuck]

The penalty for skipping school is actually worse than that for destroying and scrapping DPS buildings. Probably just as strictly enforced too.

What at a non-story.

Maybe not such a non-story really. It's as contrasty as a high contrast black and white photograph, maybe. I mean Gannon hit it on when he mentioned "translating" in his post about these kids. There is a whole world of ghetto that has settled on Detroit over the last 45 years and it shows more rather than less with time. It's a story if ever there was one. The penalizing of parents and kids in a judicial stance is the cherry on the sundae. It just keeps ghettoizing a ghettoized ghetto.

I don't wish ill on GP'ers, but if this is the measure of things to come, I don't value your property much in the next lil' while, period.


Maybe that is the penalty for turning the other cheek and avoid seeing from that side of the street.

[Honky Tonk]

Maybe not such a non-story really. It's as contrasty as a high contrast black and white photograph, maybe. I mean Gannon hit it on when he mentioned "translating" in his post about these kids. There is a whole world of ghetto that has settled on Detroit over the last 45 years and it shows more rather than less with time. It's a story if ever there was one. The penalizing of parents and kids in a judicial stance is the cherry on the sundae. It just keeps ghettoizing a ghettoized ghetto.

I don't wish ill on GP'ers, but if this is the measure of things to come, I don't value your property much in the next lil' while, period.


Maybe that is the penalty for turning the other cheek and avoid seeing from that side of the street.

I guess my question is what is the solution? DB posted on the WSU thread "State universities are more interested in admitting out of state and foreign students where they make much more money than worrying about educating their own residents." How do you do that? How do you educate residents that aren't taking education seriously? This isn't a case of making the horse drink, the horse won't even show up @ the water. Everyone seems to be blaming someone else for their troubles, but change has to come from within. No one can do that for you.

[Gpwrangler]

I don't wish ill on GP'ers, but if this is the measure of things to come, I don't value your property much in the next lil' while, period.


Maybe that is the penalty for turning the other cheek and avoid seeing from that side of the street.

Homes are selling in a few days here, but thanks for your concern. The view "from that side of the street" must be pretty good from Montreal, eh?

[canuck]

Homes are selling in a few days here, but thanks for your concern. The view "from that side of the street" must be pretty good from Montreal, eh?

It looks scary as hell, as it does to you, I'm sure. I was in Paris last week and decided to visit St Denis basilica in the far north end of the city. When we stepped out of the metro station, there were throngs of African, and Arab immigrants milling about the Vast open air marketplace near the church and city hall of St Denis. There were maybe less than 5% French natives about. Many houses were boarded up and awaiting demolition. The difference with Detroit in spite of the very high unemployment there was the omnipresence of retail run by the minorities themselves. There was something eerie about the oldest church in Paris now surrounded by a large Muslim population. A church that weathered the crusades was circled by old enemies. There was a density there that made the place look less disjointed than a NorthAmerican city but a certain sadness and more aggressiveness butut also some hope. I just think that punishment is not a solution, just look at the overworked and overly punitive justice system in the States and how little it has to show in terms of positive results. Detroit is already punished enough, the less fortunate, uneducated folk need to awake to the same hopes that a hipster outsider gets from a move to the creative space it claims to be. In other words, folks need to be told they are worth something and express their worth via purposeful outlets.

[Gpwrangler]

... I just think that punishment is not a solution, just look at the overworked and overly punitive justice system in the States and how little it has to show in terms of positive results. Detroit is already punished enough, the less fortunate, uneducated folk need to awake to the same hopes that a hipster outsider gets from a move to the creative space it claims to be. In other words, folks need to be told they are worth something and express their worth via purposeful outlets.

Definitely true. I'm just not sure how you reverse the cycle without some sort of enforcement, and that takes resources, which takes a tax base...

[Hypestyles]

the kids deserve better.

[Honky Tonk]

the kids deserve better.

Better what? Parents?

[night-timer]

Are schools excluded from Detroit's gradual comeback? Detroit schools get routinely mentioned and bagged, but they won't improve without a better city, better prospects and better parenting.

Personal development gets stunted without a reasonable level of education, but many kids are too young to notice that. It's up to the parents, not just the teachers or 'the system'.

That has all been said before, I'm sure, but the education problem seems systemic or multi-generational in Detroit.

[GPCharles]

My wife teaches in DPS. She has always said there are two types of students that she can't teach - [[i) those that aren't there and [[ii) those that show up but just don't care about learning. The ones that don't care make if extremely difficult to teach those that do care.

[Shai_Hulud]

My wife teaches in DPS. She has always said there are two types of students that she can't teach - [[i) those that aren't there and [[ii) those that show up but just don't care about learning. The ones that don't care make if extremely difficult to teach those that do care.

I wonder what the break down is per grade. I would imagine that high schools are responsible for most of that.

Speaking from my limited experience, most schools have a few students who have no interest in learning and show up when they are bored. Everyone else is better off with them absent.

[jmarie]

I wonder what the break down is per grade. I would imagine that high schools are responsible for most of that.

You would be quite surprised. I quit teaching after a decade this spring. While I never taught in Detroit, I did teach in Flint for a brief period. I taught elementary and I've had kids miss 40, 50, 60 days in a year. I spent half of my career in a different state and there they retained anyone missing over 20 days without proper medical documentation, although my principal waived it sometimes. I wish they would do that here. At my last school, about 1/3 of my students had truancy cases filed.
And there are kids of all ages, including kindergarten, that don't care and make classrooms very difficult to manage.

[Shai_Hulud]

You would be quite surprised. I quit teaching after a decade this spring. While I never taught in Detroit, I did teach in Flint for a brief period. I taught elementary and I've had kids miss 40, 50, 60 days in a year. I spent half of my career in a different state and there they retained anyone missing over 20 days without proper medical documentation, although my principal waived it sometimes. I wish they would do that here. At my last school, about 1/3 of my students had truancy cases filed.
And there are kids of all ages, including kindergarten, that don't care and make classrooms very difficult to manage.

Well, if young children are missing lots of school it makes sense to target the parents either punitively or to provide resources to them. By the time they get to high school, I don't know how effective that would be.

However, I was amazed at how toothless some of the administrators at DPS were. Once the student and the parent make it clear they have no interest in success why continue to put up with a chronically misbehaving student in a high school?
Do the paper work to expel them so that you can focus your meager resources on the students who want to learn. Didn't happen.

[canuck]

Well, if young children are missing lots of school it makes sense to target the parents either punitively or to provide resources to them. By the time they get to high school, I don't know how effective that would be.

However, I was amazed at how toothless some of the administrators at DPS were. Once the student and the parent make it clear they have no interest in success why continue to put up with a chronically misbehaving student in a high school?
Do the paper work to expel them so that you can focus your meager resources on the students who want to learn. Didn't happen.

It makes sense to punish the parents or children only if you use the same dumb models that have proved damaging to everybody in its passage. Of course, if the available models of success in a ghetto circumstance have been Hollywood driven as much as neighborhood processed, then yes, you are fucked. The more exclusionary the measures, the surefire result will be self destructive.
I think that extraordinary measures to promote inclusiveness is what will work, nothing else. That said, I am not a teacher or principal, and I admire those who do their best at it, I can't imagine doing their job in the best of environments.

[Richard]

Well, if young children are missing lots of school it makes sense to target the parents either punitively or to provide resources to them. By the time they get to high school, I don't know how effective that would be.

However, I was amazed at how toothless some of the administrators at DPS were. Once the student and the parent make it clear they have no interest in success why continue to put up with a chronically misbehaving student in a high school?
Do the paper work to expel them so that you can focus your meager resources on the students who want to learn. Didn't happen.

On one hand I agree,but then if one takes a survey that gives everybody a choice if they wish to be in school or not,not many would show up.

Then you also have the expelled ones that are roaming the streets all day with no supervision, with probably not good results.

So they kinda need a forced day care of sorts.

Maybe within the school separate the rowdy ones and put them in separate classes away from the rest.

Through out time there has always been an uneducated aspect of the population,they ended up working low wage jobs and only if they wanted to get further ahead they had to work twice as hard.The push for the minimum wage of $15 per hour long term to me kinda kills the incentive.

$15 per hour with government subsidizes kinda gives one $25 per hour flipping hamburgers,what does one need school for?

[Wesley Mouch]

My wife teaches in DPS. She has always said there are two types of students that she can't teach - [[i) those that aren't there and [[ii) those that show up but just don't care about learning. The ones that don't care make if extremely difficult to teach those that do care.

Curious her thoughts on Charters. It seems obvious to me that there are some reason why DPS can't self-improve as much as is necessary -- and that a new start is appropriate. The usual answer to that is that we just need to invest in DPS. I don't think money usually solves problems. Her thoughts?

[CassTechGrad]

Think about how many times you skipped school and what would happen if your mom and dad found out! And what are you doing by not being in school? Hanging out on the street? What do you get out of that?

[GPCharles]

She taught one year at a charter. It was no better.

She is currently teaching out of subject. The school is short almost 10 teachers. Who wants to work in DPS? The pay is low, the benefits keep being diminished and many of the kids are wild. Her situation is ok, which is why she is still there.

You can invest all the funding you want, but until the consumer [[defined as students + parents) want to invest their time in the students' education, you are not going to improve DPS. The consumer has to want to be educated and to succeed.

[mwilbert]

I think it should be pointed out that, in general, parents who both care about their children's education and have the means, either financial or psychic, mostly aren't going to be sending their children to DPS. The bulk of the children who are registered in DPS have parents who either don't care very much about their children's education, or have financial or other challenges which limit the support that they can provide, and it isn't surprising that their kids often don't show up.

As was pointed out earlier, forcing uninterested kids into the classroom isn't exactly a recipe for improvement either.

[Wesley Mouch]

I think it should be pointed out that, in general, parents who both care about their children's education and have the means, either financial or psychic, mostly aren't going to be sending their children to DPS. The bulk of the children who are registered in DPS have parents who either don't care very much about their children's education, or have financial or other challenges which limit the support that they can provide, and it isn't surprising that their kids often don't show up.

As was pointed out earlier, forcing uninterested kids into the classroom isn't exactly a recipe for improvement either.

I hope that's not true.

I would expect a skewing towards 'less engagement', as the 'more engaged' parents would chew through glass to get their kids into a Charter or other private school -- but I would be surprised if the 'bulk of the children' have parents who really don't care. Are our fellow Detroiter's really that pathetic? If so, isn't this a bigger problem than fighting against Charters [[for example)?

[Gannon]

As for what I overheard...the situation sounded borderline desperate, >40 kids per class with less differentiation of learning level along with the occasionally awkward special needs crises.

It was tough to hear. Thought this place might've improved after losing their kickback-lovin' principly-challenged principal last year.