Gov. Whitmer settles literacy case with Detroit students

[CassTechGrad]

“A group of Detroit Public School students filed suit in 2016 claiming the state denied them a basic minimum education and access to literacy. On April 23 the Sixth Circuit court determined the students possessed a federal right to education and literacy.

“As part of the settlement, the state will pay $280,000 to the seven students. Also Gov. Whitmer will ask for $94.4 million for literacy initiatives and pay $2.7 million to the Detroit Public Schools for “various literacy-related supports. The Center Square-May 14”

Just throw more money at it and move on to something else? The city already gets $14,745 per student but it doesn’t get to the classroom. Then check the attendance sheet, only half the seats are filled on any given day. How do you fix the problems in the home?

[veryhotair]

this is a really complex issue that i care deeply about. the education of our youth is paramount to our city, state, and nation. the situation in detroit is disheartening and dire, but we cannot as a society continue to kick this can down the road.

Just throw more money at it and move on to something else? The city already gets $14,745 per student but it doesn’t get to the classroom.

while it is true that dpscd students receive more funding, what is often not recognized is the true financial burden it is to provide an equitable education to children in the city. many of these children come from poverty and have experienced trauma of some kind or other. in order to succeed in the classroom, there are a range of other expectations or basic needs that need to be met. that is why we routinely read about how many students rely on school lunches and other community programs. many of these children also require counseling or therapy, which the schools can only provide at a basic minimum. as you noted, most of that funding does not make it to the actual classroom per se, but it does go to human resources [[teachers, administrators, aids, paraprofessionals, counselors, other staff) which are vital for any school. again this is a really complex issue with a lot of nuance and i believe it's time we faced it head on. this new ruling sets an important precedent and i'm glad the governor chose to settle, but her legacy as a progressive champion for students has yet to be fulfilled. let's see where we go from here.

[One Shot]

Why don’t we ever point out the spread eagles that pop out kids into homes where they are doomed from the start? These are the children that most of the time wind up as mentally unstable because they don’t have parents that care OR have the means to pay for them! You can’t then expect children like this to learn. They then become taxpayer responsibilities to feed, cloth and ensure they can read. It’s insane and just perpetuates generation after generation. I’m sick of my hard earned money supporting bad life decisions.

[Honky Tonk]

this is a really complex issue that i care deeply about. the education of our youth is paramount to our city, state, and nation. the situation in detroit is disheartening and dire, but we cannot as a society continue to kick this can down the road.



while it is true that dpscd students receive more funding, what is often not recognized is the true financial burden it is to provide an equitable education to children in the city. many of these children come from poverty and have experienced trauma of some kind or other. in order to succeed in the classroom, there are a range of other expectations or basic needs that need to be met. that is why we routinely read about how many students rely on school lunches and other community programs. many of these children also require counseling or therapy, which the schools can only provide at a basic minimum. as you noted, most of that funding does not make it to the actual classroom per se, but it does go to human resources [[teachers, administrators, aids, paraprofessionals, counselors, other staff) which are vital for any school. again this is a really complex issue with a lot of nuance and i believe it's time we faced it head on. this new ruling sets an important precedent and i'm glad the governor chose to settle, but her legacy as a progressive champion for students has yet to be fulfilled. let's see where we go from here.

Frau Whitmer spends money like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Do these kids have teachers, classrooms, books, related materials, and meals to boot? Then we're done. How are we not providing an education and literacy, and at a cost higher than anywhere else? At what point does the taxpayers responsibility end? Let's be honest and change the name from DPS to DPN, Detroit Public Nannies. Nannies work at a higher rate of pay, so at least then you could justify the expense. I'm sure this is going to end up hitting the taxpayers right in the pocket book.

[Johnnny5]

Frau Whitmer spends money like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Do these kids have teachers, classrooms, books, related materials, and meals to boot? Then we're done. How are we not providing an education and literacy, and at a cost higher than anywhere else? At what point does the taxpayers responsibility end? Let's be honest and change the name from DPS to DPN, Detroit Public Nannies. Nannies work at a higher rate of pay, so at least then you could justify the expense. I'm sure this is going to end up hitting the taxpayers right in the pocket book.

Much of the failure of DPS is a result of state action in the last 25 years, so they have a responsibility to fix it. Specifically the changes that allowed charter schools and School of Choice to funnel higher performing students from public schools in Detroit, but left DPS with a high percentage of more challenging students. It's also means DPS [[And now DPSCD) has reduced funding, a spread out district with increased transportation costs and an immense number of older, poorly maintained and underutilized buildings.

[Honky Tonk]

Much of the failure of DPS is a result of state action in the last 25 years, so they have a responsibility to fix it. Specifically the changes that allowed charter schools and School of Choice to funnel higher performing students from public schools in Detroit, but left DPS with a high percentage of more challenging students. It's also means DPS [[And now DPSCD) has reduced funding, a spread out district with increased transportation costs and an immense number of older, poorly maintained and underutilized buildings.

You have to go back 25 years and remember what was going on with DPS and it's administration that caused the State to intervene in the first place. Funds were being misappropriated to the point that administrators were actually buying homes for themselves in the 'burbs. Books and supplies were left to rot in a depository. At what point does the responsibility of "education" stop and raising children begin? Over the years the consensus seems to be to keep throwing more money at the system, and we're no further ahead. Where does Detroit stand as far as being educated? 2nd, 5th, 10th in the nation? I remember not to long ago new schools were built with the latest technology. [[back then) Still wrong results.

[GPCharles]

Much of the failure of DPS is a result of state action in the last 25 years, so they have a responsibility to fix it.

From talking to a DPSCD high school teacher - [[i) you can' teach kids that aren't there and [[ii) you can't teach kids that have no interest in learning, no matter how much money you throw at the problem.

[Johnnny5]

You have to go back 25 years and remember what was going on with DPS and it's administration that caused the State to intervene in the first place. Funds were being misappropriated to the point that administrators were actually buying homes for themselves in the 'burbs. Books and supplies were left to rot in a depository. At what point does the responsibility of "education" stop and raising children begin? Over the years the consensus seems to be to keep throwing more money at the system, and we're no further ahead. Where does Detroit stand as far as being educated? 2nd, 5th, 10th in the nation? I remember not to long ago new schools were built with the latest technology. [[back then) Still wrong results.

You're right, but all that stuff was still happening 10 years ago and much of it still happens today. I've seen it first hand having been to many of the auctions where DPS sold these goods off after they sat in warehouses and unused schools for years.

What the state did in the mid to late 90's didn't fix any of the above, all it did was hasten the decline of DPS and gave those in Lansing an easy out. Instead of fixing a failing district they gave parents the option to send their kids to others. They did this knowing the eventual outcome, and left DPS and the students there to suffer for the next two decades until it failed.

[Johnnny5]

From talking to a DPSCD high school teacher - [[i) you can' teach kids that aren't there and [[ii) you can't teach kids that have no interest in learning, no matter how much money you throw at the problem.

I agree with your first point, which is why every effort should be made to get and keep these kids in the classroom [[Even if that means public boarding schools for some). As for being unable to teach those with no interest, on that I have to disagree. There are ways to reach many of these kids, but it does take more effort and a lot more funding. In the end it's far less expensive to educate these kids for 12 years than it is to lock them up for 20 to life!

[CassTechGrad]

Why are the 7 students getting the $280,000? Shouldn't all the money go to the schools, that's what the whole case was about!

[Canadian Visitor]

Why don’t we ever point out the spread eagles that pop out kids into homes where they are doomed from the start? These are the children that most of the time wind up as mentally unstable because they don’t have parents that care OR have the means to pay for them! You can’t then expect children like this to learn. They then become taxpayer responsibilities to feed, cloth and ensure they can read. It’s insane and just perpetuates generation after generation. I’m sick of my hard earned money supporting bad life decisions.

Aside from the fact you're obviously a total @#$#

Let me explain to you about the birds and the bees.

People everywhere have this thing called sex.

If can result in pregnancies.

Nothing will stop people from having sex.

What can be done is to stop unwanted/planned pregnancies.

There's this thing called contraception.

Make it free to every woman in Michigan, rich or poor, watch the pregnancy rate decline.

Provide every woman free access to the 'morning after pill' and abortion and the rate drops further still.

Provide excellent, realistic sex education BEFORE a young person reaches the age at which pregnancy is a consequence of sex...........and the rate drops yet again.

Finally, provide good quality education to young men and women alike; and the rate goes to near zero.

Its not hard; it simply requires that people like you sit down and hush up so that people with an intellect and a conscience make all the decisions instead of people like you.

[Canadian Visitor]

I agree with your first point, which is why every effort should be made to get and keep these kids in the classroom [[Even if that means public boarding schools for some). As for being unable to teach those with no interest, on that I have to disagree. There are ways to reach many of these kids, but it does take more effort and a lot more funding. In the end it's far less expensive to educate these kids for 12 years than it is to lock them up for 20 to life!

Your posts on this subject have been spot-on!

***

When it comes to disinterest........that tends to come from falling so far behind you don't understand what's being talked about in the classroom.

When that happens you also lose faith in your own ability to graduate, never mind go to college.........and understandably the mindset goes to "What's the point"?

The key to addressing this is getting at learning challenges early on.

Letting a student get to Grade 9 with a Grade 4 reading level is simply not Ok.

Fixing that is about direct classroom investment.

But its also about targeting supplementary help.

The extra help needs to be focused on literacy and math as foundational skills.

It needs to be in-class with educational assistants.

It needs to be in the form of help before and after school.

It needs to in the form of online resources; and tablets that can be loaned out to kids who lack internet access at home.

It needs to be programs run through libraries and community centres; and daycare programs.

It also needs to be a summer school and summer camp programs that are targeted to help kids catch up on those foundational skills.

[Canadian Visitor]

Why are the 7 students getting the $280,000? Shouldn't all the money go to the schools, that's what the whole case was about!

This money is to fix the education those 7 students didn't get.

The terms of the settlement are outlined in this Free Press article:

https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/...it/5191807002/

She also agreed to pay the seven plaintiffs a total of $280,000, held in trust by the Detroit Public Schools Foundation. The plaintiffs, all former Detroit public school students, will use the money for future education.

There is also a direct investment of 2.7M in DPS for literacy; and commitment to ask the legislature for 94M more.

[GPCharles]

It also requires the involvement of parents in the educational process.

Parents have to read to their children from an early age to get them involved in reading. The school system can't do it all. Why do children in top-rated districts do well - in part because their parents are totally involved with their education. They attend back-to-school nights, parent-teacher conferences, they check their child's homework every night, etc. It goes on and on. Parenting school-age children is a full-time job.

[Richard]

What the state did in the mid to late 90's didn't fix any of the above, all it did was hasten the decline of DPS and gave those in Lansing an easy out. Instead of fixing a failing district they gave parents the option to send their kids to others. They did this knowing the eventual outcome, and left DPS and the students there to suffer for the next two decades until it failed.

Do you think that they figured that no matter how much money they threw at it,it would be hopeless to be able to fix without being able to fix the underlying core issues.

So their answer was to provide an opportunity to those who wanted to learn to transfer and what is left is basically a warehousing situation of those who choose not to learn?

It actually started in 1960 when the rule was African American women could get public assistance,but could not retain a man in the household,at that time the African American family structure was over 70% and dropped to less then 30% in a matter of a few short years.

Outside of funding,cities and states really have little control over school districts,they are self ruled entities.

Suing them is like suing a corporation.

We have removed the school systems ability to provide repercussions against those students that act out,which makes it worse,because they are learning early that there are no consequences for their actions,until they turn 18 and find out there really is,and it results in prison.

The abuse allowed to be given to teachers is appalling,very few in the rest of the world would even think about working under those conditions,we took away their ability to maintain control of the classroom,then wonder why it is out of control.

The only solution was to give those students that wanted to apply themselves an alternative in a more controlled situation.

[Honky Tonk]

Aside from the fact you're obviously a total @#$#

Let me explain to you about the birds and the bees.

No, no they're not. A total @#$# is someone who sits on a forum, lives 400 miles away from Detroit, in another city, in another country, and keeps sticking their pseudo intellectual nose in City affairs they know nothing about. That's a total @#$#. As far as you "explaining about the birds are the bees", if you had any clue, you wouldn't be here doing the afore mentioned, eh?

[Canadian Visitor]

No, no they're not. A total @#$# is someone who sits on a forum, lives 400 miles away from Detroit, in another city, in another country, and keeps sticking their pseudo intellectual nose in City affairs they know nothing about. That's a total @#$#. As far as you "explaining about the birds are the bees", if you had any clue, you wouldn't be here doing the afore mentioned, eh?

Lets review: You and people like you have had decades of opportunity to address the challenges facing Detroit and Michigan. What exactly have you accomplished?

Right. Nothing.

Where Detroit has had any successes [[and it has a had a few), it has had them despite you and not because of you.

You have contributed nothing to the community in which you live.

Your effort, just now was to defend another poster who said something both sexist and racist.

The sort of comment that engenders division and hatred.

There is exactly one of us who truly cares about Detroit, and it most certainly isn't you.

[Canadian Visitor]

It also requires the involvement of parents in the educational process.

Parents have to read to their children from an early age to get them involved in reading. The school system can't do it all. Why do children in top-rated districts do well - in part because their parents are totally involved with their education. They attend back-to-school nights, parent-teacher conferences, they check their child's homework every night, etc. It goes on and on. Parenting school-age children is a full-time job.

Sure.....but in the real world. Some of those parents didn't graduate HS themselves and may be functionally illiterate.

Many are also working 2 jobs just to keep food on the table, including evenings and weekends.

In an ideal world more parents would be capable of providing greater assistance in their child's education.

But one must start with the world as it is; not as one wishes it was.

[JonWylie]

Sure.....but in the real world. Some of those parents didn't graduate HS themselves and may be functionally illiterate.

Many are also working 2 jobs just to keep food on the table, including evenings and weekends.

In an ideal world more parents would be capable of providing greater assistance in their child's education.

But one must start with the world as it is; not as one wishes it was.

Great point to bring up. We are not that far past a time where blacks and other racial/ethnic minorities were systematically denied education, on purpose. Now if we agree that you can't learn if you don't have a support system at home, where exactly is that chain going to be broken?

So we can look at test scores and say kids in Detroit or other minority heavy areas don't want to learn and their family life won't support it, but how do we ever expect them to learn if in some cases their grandparents, or great grandparents, lived in a world where people actively did not want them to learn and offered no form of quality education. How would their grandparents be expected to help their parents, and then how would their parents be expected to help them?

If you are going to subscribe to the idea that a home life is absolutely necessary for a quality education, we need to address what our country did to restrict certain people's access to an educated and educationally focused family and what it's going to cost to fix it.

It will be a lot, but it's not these kids fault.

I think its possible, regardless of a child's home life, for them to be able to learn and should be given that opportunity to the best of our ability, but a good support system at home definitely helps and the lack of a support system will certainly stretch the school more thinly.

[Richard]

^ I agree with where is it broken in the chain.

Based on personal experience and living in the hood,most single parent AF mothers that I see,and no matter if they have 1 kid or 9 have zero problem instilling old school values in their children.

No matter what their circumstances are they still act respectful in public.

I still think that no matter what they are taught in the home,when they get to school they are in a whole different realm and under many different influences.

I have neighbors that had the most well behaved and respectful children,until they entered school and then you could see a distinct difference in attitude.

I still think the biggest problem is the loss of control in the classroom caused by a few vocal parents.

There have been many children from broken homes,drug addicted parents,bad family situations that still defied the odds and became successful in life.

I think until control of the classrooms and the learning environment is changed,it will not matter how much money you throw at it.

[Richard]

Lets review: You and people like you have had decades of opportunity to address the challenges facing Detroit and Michigan. What exactly have you accomplished?

Right. Nothing.

Where Detroit has had any successes [[and it has a had a few), it has had them despite you and not because of you.

You have contributed nothing to the community in which you live.

Your effort, just now was to defend another poster who said something both sexist and racist.

The sort of comment that engenders division and hatred.

There is exactly one of us who truly cares about Detroit, and it most certainly isn't you.

and your solution was to put an abortion clinic on every street corner,what’s next,forced sterilization?

We already been there done that as a country.

Although this is a Detroit centric site,it involves a situation that is repeated in every inner city in the United States,a solution in Detroit becomes a solution for the rest of the country.

Is it best practice to place blame on others or use the same energy working towards that solution?

There is nobody still alive in this country to blame where this all started,it is a systematic system that has been around for awhile.

[Honky Tonk]

Lets review: You and people like you have had decades of opportunity to address the challenges facing Detroit and Michigan. What exactly have you accomplished?

Right. Nothing.

Where Detroit has had any successes [[and it has a had a few), it has had them despite you and not because of you.

You have contributed nothing to the community in which you live.

Your effort, just now was to defend another poster who said something both sexist and racist.

The sort of comment that engenders division and hatred.

There is exactly one of us who truly cares about Detroit, and it most certainly isn't you.

More CV total B/S post. Are you a soothsayer now, clairvoyant? You have no clue what I do, so you post crap. You have no idea what goes on in Detroit, so you post crap. Thank the Lord we have a foreign internet intellectual to guide us and show us the way. The only thing you care about CV, is your pompous @#$# postings. Go straighten out your own neighborhood. "I truly care about Detroit..." Right, lol.