Editorial: Off the mark on Detroit schools

[begingri]

It's tempting to get excited about Robert Bobb's new short-term solution for the financial and academic woes of Detroit Public Schools. But there are significant drawbacks to the proposal from the DPS emergency financial manager.

Rather than shutter scores more buildings and stuff more kids into fewer classrooms, Bobb now suggests turning 41 schools into charters. This, he says, would save money and infuse the system with new, innovative educational energy.

In theory. On paper. Maybe.

But it is a short-term fix as opposed to a long-term strategy for the future of public education in Detroit -- a future that depends on leadership after Bobb. And that leadership has yet to emerge.


Continued at: http://www.freep.com/article/20110320/OPINION01/103200461/1133/Sports21/Editorial-Off-mark-Detroit-schools-?odyssey=nav|head

[English]

Excellent article. Especially this part:

Academically, the massive charter plan is weak. Overall, charter schools have been a hit-and-miss experiment in Michigan, and especially in Detroit.


The best ones -- schools that have high retention and graduation rates and solid test scores -- have rigorous academic models that take a while to design and construct.


It's nearly April, and Bobb wants his plan to launch in September. No high-performing charter operator would accept a challenge to take over a school on such short notice. Those likely to jump at the chance are also likely to be those who are less focused on, and less capable of, producing excellence.


Detroit has plenty of underperforming charter schools now; it doesn't need 41 more in September.

10 years from now, when the Detroit Board of Ed is no more and the district has been run by EFMs and the state the entire time, the number of middle class, upwardly mobile professionals who will put their children into DPS will STILL be statistically negligible.

Why won't we just be honest? That demographic just doesn't want their kids attending school alongside poor and working class black and brown children, no matter how well behaved they are. Harsh... but true.

[noenaim]

Excellent article. Especially this part:

10 years from now, when the Detroit Board of Ed is no more and the district has been run by EFMs and the state the entire time, the number of middle class, upwardly mobile professionals who will put their children into DPS will STILL be statistically negligible.

Why won't we just be honest? That demographic just doesn't want their kids attending school alongside poor and working class black and brown children, no matter how well behaved they are. Harsh... but true.

Good point Detroit area charter schools are even more segregated than DPS schools

[mwilbert]

10 years from now, when the Detroit Board of Ed is no more and the district has been run by EFMs and the state the entire time, the number of middle class, upwardly mobile professionals who will put their children into DPS will STILL be statistically negligible.

We can certainly hope it will be zero because with any luck there will be no DPS. It looks as if that is the direction we are heading--maybe some kind of rump special ed district.

Why won't we just be honest? That demographic just doesn't want their kids attending school alongside poor and working class black and brown children, no matter how well behaved they are. Harsh... but true.

Definitely true up to the part where you said "no matter how well-behaved they are". I would also add "no matter how ill-prepared they are." I think you can get those parents to use the public schools for early elementary, but less so as the kids get older, and the achievement gap and behavioral issues become more salient. That appears to be the pattern in other cities.

Possibly they will break up the district so that you could have some public districts within Detroit with more attractive demographics. It looks as if an EFM might have the power to do that. The key is that it NOT be the DPS--that is about the worst brand in education.

[detmsp]

Why won't we just be honest? That demographic just doesn't want their kids attending school alongside poor and working class black and brown children, no matter how well behaved they are. Harsh... but true.

oh wow. And here I thought that these parents just wanted to send their kids to a decent school. But really it's just racism/classism. They would totally send their kids to a terrible school if the kids were white.

[English]

And here we get the inevitable chorus sticking their heads in the stand.

Most White middle-class professional parents will NOT send their kids to black and brown schools even if there are decent or good test scores. If this weren't the case, you'd get hordes of yuppies putting their kids into schools like Golightly, Bates Academy, University Prep, Cass Tech, and Renaissance... let alone majority-minority suburban schools. It just doesn't happen, not only here in SE Michigan. I will say it again: it doesn't happen anywhere in the country.

Detroit Public Schools needs to be transformed for the benefit of those who already live in the city. It doesn't need to be reformed, changed, or created anew for the benefit of those who might move into the city. The target demographics for gentrification will NOT send their kids to urban public schools in majority-minority cities. They just will not. I have had this conversation with teachers, teacher educators, educational researchers, and ed policy wonks from all over the country. I will have it again when I go to our major conference next month. It will not happen and does not happen anywhere in the country.

You can quibble about it because it looks ugly when it's written out or said aloud. You can pretend that it's not true. But it's not just about test scores and student achievement, it's about the perception that even middle and upper class black and brown kids aren't necessarily desirable classmates for the majority. I mean, we're even seeing white flight in some areas of California that are becoming "too Asian" -- http://online.wsj.com/article_email/...DMyNjAzWj.html -- historically, Asians were considered the model minority and desirable schoolmates for kids, but in a shrinking economy, honors, accolades, scholarship dollars, and admissions to elite universities matter.

Nearly 60 years after desegregration, let's just face it -- Brown vs. Board of Ed failed to integrate schools. There was some progress towards school integration made in the 1970s and early 1980s, but that is a distant memory now. As one editor in New York told me candidly about her decision to pull her daughter out of a pretty good NYC public school, it wasn't just about the teaching or the test scores, it was about her daughter being around kids who were "more like her." She "refused to sacrifice her daughter to political correctness." I have had other White friends who are my mirror images -- upwardly mobile professional women, Ph.Ds, well-traveled, and colleagues that I respect a great deal -- tell me apologetically that test scores along with the demographics of a school are important for them. They're liberal -- most professors & publishing industry folks are -- but they aren't "willing to use their children as a social experiment."

I want us to have the REAL conversation about schools in Detroit, not the Waiting for Superman -- Waiting for the Reversal of White Flight pretend conversations. I want schools that work for the kids who don't have any other options but to stay in Detroit. But I also want a return of options for older teens, and adult education. Apparently a certain governor didn't believe that stuff was too important, and so it disappeared. Crime dropped in the late 1990s in the city because there was stuff for my younger siblings and their peers to do. A friend of mine ran adult ed for the state of Michigan in the 1980s and 1990s, and then was put out to pasture.

The folks we want to move back into the city care less about the schools and more about crime, blight/abandonment, retail & street activity, and car and home insurance rates. If you think people with options move to any large inner city for the schools, I've got a bridge to sell you.

[Scottathew]

Nothing to do with race here. DPS sucks because kids #1 aren't safe there and #2 learn little compared to even the worst schools.

It's time for poor urban folks [[regardless of race) to start speaking proper English so their kids can learn proper English, start actively parenting, and start demanding more of their children.

[Augustiner]

It's time for poor urban folks [[regardless of race) to start speaking proper English so their kids can learn proper English, start actively parenting, and start demanding more of their children.

You mean like Queen Elizabeth?

[English]

It's time for poor urban folks [[regardless of race) to... start actively parenting, and start demanding more of their children.

The dismantling of Michigan's adult education programs, which were some of the best in the country, was a crime. I've noticed that DPS critics and charter school advocates have zero solutions for the hundreds of thousands of undereducated adults in the city. There also isn't much attention paid to our huge population of special needs students [[especially those with emotional and behavior disorders) and second language learners. Charter schools don't take them, and magnet schools kick them out. So it is our inner-city schools that end up picking up the slack.

Never have I heard a "school reform" advocate for or mention anything about this growing group of young people. Some of my buddies and I quip that in 20 years, these groups won't be educated at all -- they'll be sent straight to prison. Why not cut out the middleman in the cradle-to-prison pipeline?

Gallows humor, but I suppose only noble urban kids with heroic parents deserve access to schooling. Kids from troubled homes, who usually have had problems since birth, simply don't deserve much. If they had wanted a better life, they should have been born to better parents, I suppose.

[65memories]

English's comments regarding Adult Education are on point. I taught Adult Ed at Henry Ford High School in the 70's. At that time , classes were filled with older students who never completed their diploma or were trying to upgrade their skills. Most students were in their 40's or older and some were parents of my regular day school students. Those adults attending classes at night were inspiring. When the program was dismantled, it created a tremendous void, one from which education in the city has not recovered.

[maxx]

The business model doesn't work very well for schools. You just can't throw out all the widget/people who don't work out the first time. Schools with adult ed. may not be very efficient ways to educate, but they are more cost effective than prisons or welfare.

[Locke09]

Both of English's posts make a number of excellent points. We are advocating dismantling public education when we advocate dismantling DPS. But, there are too many children that charter schools still cannot and will not educate.

[Zacha341]

Well stated English. Charters where the goal from the beginning -- now revealed at the end. This is only a money 'shift' from the district to the new crop of CEO's of the charters. Sure some charters do a great job, but excellence is not be default with charters, nor are they non-profits. Education is big money to 'someone' always... and the continued 'tethering' of the high paid consultants [[who have been exponentially increased since Bobb) to sort out the mess [[the quick from the dead).

Excellent article. Especially this part:

10 years from now, when the Detroit Board of Ed is no more and the district has been run by EFMs and the state the entire time, the number of middle class, upwardly mobile professionals who will put their children into DPS will STILL be statistically negligible.

Why won't we just be honest? That demographic just doesn't want their kids attending school alongside poor and working class black and brown children, no matter how well behaved they are. Harsh... but true.

[Zacha341]

I think it's time to get into the charter school business. It will be the new cash cow. LOL!

Both of English's posts make a number of excellent points. We are advocating dismantling public education when we advocate dismantling DPS. But, there are too many children that charter schools still cannot and will not educate.

[maxx]

The best ones -- schools that have high retention and graduation rates and solid test scores -- have rigorous academic models that take a while to design and construct.

The "models" they are talking about include entrance exams. That was the plan to increase graduation to high school at the charter school where I taught.

[maxx]

Zacha: Education is big money to someone always...

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...2/b4005059.htm

English:Kids from troubled homes, who usually have had problems since birth, simply don't deserve much. If they had wanted a better life, they should have been born to better parents, I suppose.

The kids from troubled homes are a sad lot, but it's nearly impossible for the average teacher to deal with the myriad of needs they have and also teach twenty-five or more other children. The answer is family planning and only having children you can take care of financially and emotionally. That means responsible adult behavior instead of "partying" .Is this taught anywhere? Am I missing something? Children should not be accidents that must be endured.

[mwilbert]

The "models" they are talking about include entrance exams. That was the plan to increase graduation to high school at the charter school where I taught.

I thought Michigan charters had to have open admissions. What I've seen is schools structure their curriculum or schedules to discourage some classes of applicant, but how can they have entrance exams?

[mwilbert]

Most White middle-class professional parents will NOT send their kids to black and brown schools even if there are decent or good test scores.

I think that is probably true, although I know people who have.

If this weren't the case, you'd get hordes of yuppies putting their kids into schools like Golightly, Bates Academy, University Prep, Cass Tech, and Renaissance... let alone majority-minority suburban schools.

I don't think this is true. There aren't hordes of yuppies at all conveniently located to those schools. The schools, regardless of their quality, are branded with the scarlet "D" of the DPS. And lots of these people are too nervous to send their kids into Detroit anyway, regardless of the destination.

It just doesn't happen, not only here in SE Michigan. I will say it again: it doesn't happen anywhere in the country.

There aren't that many well-integrated districts. You might want to look at the demographics of Cambridge Rindge and Latin in Cambridge, which is the only public high school in that city. [[I picked it because I know someone who teaches there and has told me about it.) A lot of professionals in Cambridge send their kids to private school, but a lot don't.

For your convenience: http://www.cpsd.us/web/SAA/NCLB09-10/CRLS.pdf

[English]

Thanks for the link, mwilbert. I did attend school with non-Black/Latino kids whose parents lived in the city and sent them to Renaissance in the early 90s. By the time I taught at Cass Tech 10 years later, the magnets in Detroit were far less diverse.

To be honest, I understand my friends completely. When they tell me these things, I reply that there is nothing more precious than your children, and in the end, you have to do what you feel is best for them.

[English]

The kids from troubled homes are a sad lot, but it's nearly impossible for the average teacher to deal with the myriad of needs they have and also teach twenty-five or more other children. The answer is family planning and only having children you can take care of financially and emotionally. That means responsible adult behavior instead of "partying" .Is this taught anywhere? Am I missing something? Children should not be accidents that must be endured.

You and I agree. However, what do we do with the children who are already here? An even more pressing question is this: what do we do with the adults who are here in Detroit, struggle with literacy and numeracy, and are not well integrated into mainstream society?

There was a politician recently who suggested that we deport undocumented workers, and send inner-city blacks out into the fields to do farm work:
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/03/...er-city-blacks

Chilling stuff.

[DetroitTeacher]

This is quite the truth. I just received a student on Friday who came from Day Treatment [[a school for those who can't hack it in any other school and who need a rigid environment). He was previously in my class prior to his mother taking him out of school before an expulsion could take place [[yep, he's that disruptive). Day Treatment couldn't handle him so he's back in my class! I have NEVER been afraid of a kid before. I am afraid of this kid. His other teachers feel the same. We HAVE to accept him back with open arms because we are a public school. Charters won't take him because of his track record [[and he's been convicted of rape and with armed robbery of an elderly man). I have no clue how to address his needs. He's NEVER turned in ANY assignment and just disrupts the class all hour. I've tried everything I can think of to engage him in the lesson. He stares right through me. The kids are even wary of him and keep their distance. THIS is what I deal with when other schools won't or can't. I am sure I am not alone. He has a brother just like him and his mom is pregnant AGAIN! She doesn't want him at home, either [[she's said this to us).

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...2/b4005059.htm



The kids from troubled homes are a sad lot, but it's nearly impossible for the average teacher to deal with the myriad of needs they have and also teach twenty-five or more other children. The answer is family planning and only having children you can take care of financially and emotionally. That means responsible adult behavior instead of "partying" .Is this taught anywhere? Am I missing something? Children should not be accidents that must be endured.

[mwilbert]

The question of how to integrate the disadvantaged into the mainstream is probably one of the most important questions facing our society, but it isn't a question anyone our society wants to deal with. It is much easier to get support to help kids who theoretically aren't responsible for their situation than it is for adults who presumably haven't taken advantage of whatever chances they had previously. Nonetheless, support for those kids is clearly not adequate--what can we expect to be able to get for the older uneducated? Look at the fights over extending unemployment benefits for people who had been [[at least more or less) in the mainstream until a couple of years ago. There just isn't that much sympathy, or at least not enough to overcome our rather flawed political system.

[mwilbert]

I have NEVER been afraid of a kid before. I am afraid of this kid. His other teachers feel the same. We HAVE to accept him back with open arms because we are a public school. Charters won't take him because of his track record [[and he's been convicted of rape and with armed robbery of an elderly man). I have no clue how to address his needs. He's NEVER turned in ANY assignment and just disrupts the class all hour.

I understand that the public schools have to take everyone, but I have never understood why there can't be some kind of separate school for people who have no interest in doing what they are supposed to do. There really needs to be some kind of reciprocity between the student and the school or things cannot work. Even one really disruptive student makes teaching almost impossible, especially if you have a large class and no assistant.

[DetroitTeacher]

There are schools such as the one of which you speak. They are called Day Treatment. THEY don't want this kid because he's totally disruptive and equally mentally unstable [[and those are they types of kids they deal with and were designed for). I really don't know what to do with this kid. I am documenting EVERYTHING he does that he's not supposed to do and it's a full time job. I finally got the kids back on track after he left the first time. Now that he's back, I fear my other kids will slip into the abyss because of his disruptiveness. I've tried everything short of duct taping him to the desk with a blindfold and mouth gag to get him to not be so disruptive. Some of what he does is downright scary and he has no remorse or feeling about what he does. That's what makes it so darn scary.

[R8RBOB]

This is quite the truth. I just received a student on Friday who came from Day Treatment [[a school for those who can't hack it in any other school and who need a rigid environment). He was previously in my class prior to his mother taking him out of school before an expulsion could take place [[yep, he's that disruptive). Day Treatment couldn't handle him so he's back in my class! I have NEVER been afraid of a kid before. I am afraid of this kid. His other teachers feel the same. We HAVE to accept him back with open arms because we are a public school. Charters won't take him because of his track record [[and he's been convicted of rape and with armed robbery of an elderly man). I have no clue how to address his needs. He's NEVER turned in ANY assignment and just disrupts the class all hour. I've tried everything I can think of to engage him in the lesson. He stares right through me. The kids are even wary of him and keep their distance. THIS is what I deal with when other schools won't or can't. I am sure I am not alone. He has a brother just like him and his mom is pregnant AGAIN! She doesn't want him at home, either [[she's said this to us).

DT, I was done with public school when I graduated in 1989. Being a product of DPS, I remember that there was a special education class in the school for troubled students. These were the disruptive little bastards that made a teacher's day hell so they landed in the special ed class.

When I worked for DPS in late 2004, early 2005, I was given a dose of reality when I went through the schools and there were multiple special ed classes. These kids were out of control. They would talk to me like I was a peer and I'm like duh, I'm grown but they didn't care. I remember going to Chadsey one day and I was in a class with troubled students and I witness a boy almost ready to murder a young lady. Both of them where throwing out cuss words like drunken sailors and the teacher was powerless to control. The boy gets up and grabs the girl's hair and all hell broke loose. I was at Osborn and I recalling going into a class and I had my bluetooth exposed and a young lady asked what it was. This was 2005 and bluetooth headsets wasn't mainstream yet so to keep it simple, I said it is part of my phone. Another young lady says "that ain't no fuckin' phone" to me and my mouth drop.

I was at Emerson one day and I was talking to a young teacher in the hallway and a little boy and his friend is walking down the hallway saying "bitch this and bitch that" and I had to say something because when I was that age, I knew to respect my elders and this boy didn't have a clue. My brief time at DPS opened my eyes to the fact that teachers have so much on their plate. They have to deal with the parents of these out of control kids and they have work for a broken school system.