By Lou Glazer
A decade ago it was reasonable to ask whether low income and minority (predominantly big city) kids could learn what is needed to do well in today’s increasingly knowledge-based economy. There were few open enrollment urban schools anywhere in the country getting good student achievement. No more!
There now are simply too many schools here and across the country – most newly created – where urban kids are graduating and going to college at rates equal to, if not better, than in the suburbs to ever again question whether urban kids can learn. The problem isn’t the students, it’s the adults.
That is why the recent release of the Excellent Schools Detroit plan is so exhilarating and important. It marks a fundamental change in strategy and, for the first time, offers a realistic possibility that we can get big increases in student outcomes.
What’s different this time? A diverse group of adults (including me) came together and committed to focus on the kids, not institutions. All the past reform efforts have been about fixing the Detroit Public Schools. All have failed miserably. Finally we have learned the lesson that outsiders cannot change institutions like DPS, only those who run it can.
Up to now they have not wanted to change. All too often putting the interests of employees and contractors ahead of the students. Robert Bobb, the district’s Emergency Financial Manager, may change that. He certainly wants to. And we are all rooting for him. But this plan can succeed even if he doesn’t. That is what is so revolutionary about it.
At its core, the strategy is designed to use markets combined with tough student achievement standards, rather than politics, to drive change. Parents – in their role as shoppers rather than voters – can transform teaching and learning in Detroit by enrolling their children in high quality schools. To do that we need to increase the supply of good schools, and by helping parents become better shoppers, also increase the demand for those schools.
The plan has a simple foundation: that all children in Detroit will attend a quality school by 2020. No excuses!
It calls for opening seventy high quality new schools by 2020. We don’t care about the form of governance. All the ideological wars between public, charter and private school advocates are irrelevant to us. We will work with any school as long as it has a high likelihood that it will have it’s students on track to succeed in college.
It will create a Standards and Accountability Commission to set tough standards to measure whether students are on track to succeed in college for all schools (starting with pre school). The Commission will release an annual report on every school to help parents and students make good decisions on what schools to enroll in and which to avoid and to pressure DPS and charter school operators to close their chronically failing schools.
What we have learned over the past decade is that schools matter in and off themselves. No matter what barriers Detroit kids bring to school, quality schools can get good student outcomes. We just need to make sure that far more students are enrolled in high quality schools. If we do that we can get far more Detroit kids to graduate from high school, enroll in college and have the foundation skills to get a college degree. Our goals are 90% of the students graduating from high school, 90% of them enrolling in college and 90% of them entering college without the need for remediation.
The report – which is definitely worth checking out at excellentschoolsdetroit.org – is called Taking Ownership. This is the other fundamental change in approach. Those of us who signed the report committed to implementing its recommendations no matter what. No more telling others what they should do, this is about making a difference ourselves. Of course we want those who authorize and operate schools to follow our recommendations. But, if they don’t, we aren’t waiting.
The approach we used to develop our strategy can be used in any community and at the state level to improve student achievement. Once adults agree to focus on kids, not institutions, all sorts of option get on the table that were previously kept off.
Believe me nearly every community needs big improvements in student achievement. This is not just a Detroit – or big city – problem, it’s a Michigan problem. In a time when education attainment is the most reliable path to prosperity for both our children and the state, not to do so – to continue to put adult interest ahead of the kids – will insure that Michigan will be one of the poorest states in the country. Getting teaching and learning right is that important.
Lou Glazer is president of Michigan Future Inc., an Ann Arbor think tank that focuses on how the state can succeed in a knowledge-based economy.
4 Comments
Lou,
What you and I and so many of us “Do Gooders”, have failed to recognize in our efforts to improve Detroit schools is that their failure is often not happening in the classroom.
It is happening outside of the classroom!
We refuse to acknowledge that children who are hungry have difficulty learning. Children who have crack addicted parents, parents in prison, no lights, no heat, no supervision, who smell bad, look bad and who are not encouraged by their parents and teachers have a tough time graduating.
When you look only at “race” when you measure student success in other situations you are ignoring the baseline!
Do we plan to throw these kids out with the wash? I hope not! Are we going to kick them all out of school so that we can make our “expected graduation rates” and keep our jobs?
I believe that all children can learn! I also believe that we need to quit looking at all of these children like they are all dealing with a level playing field. THEY ARE NOT!!
Mr. Bobb is not the answer for these children! He is the same guy who got rid of all the school counselors at the most crucial time in a kids development; enrollment and scheduling! Taking away counselors from kids with problems, you think that is a good answer?
Mr. Bobb should focus on the economics! He appears to be very good at that.
Not educating children!
We are not going to improve student success in our Urban Districts if we don’t first acknowledge the “baggage”, that they have to deal with daily.
Drugs, violence, neglect, class size, dying infracstructures, those are the things that must be dealt with first in our Urban Centers.
Any school that can kick out a kid because they don’t like them, or their parent’s don’t participate is not engaging in “Public Education”. Public schools take in everybody, “baggage and all” and they do their best to educate everybody!
Let’s drop the “Blame Game” and come up with some solutions! ~The TIP Lady
Getting kids enrolled in high quality schools is a geat goal. But first you have to be sure the school a kid enrolls in is high quality. What defines a high quality school Lou? Your piece does not addreess that.
Alan Connor
Whither democracy?
Mr Glazer, I hope you and others continue with your efforts, you are headed in the right direction after nearly 40 years.
Now a message to the “Tip Lady”. I am sure you have the right intentions but the wrong approach to solving the problem with the same “story” line used in the past. Yes, the problem is also outside the classroom, but how do you think it got there? I went to the Detroit Public Schools in the late 50’s and we economic issues, we had parents in jail, we had parents with alcohol and other drug problems. We had people losing jobs and wondering where money to pay utility and mortgage would come from, but most of us survived like our parents survived during the depression. You know what else, the high school graduation rates in Detroit were much higher (look them up), youth crime was lower, we did not have counsilors in school acting as surrogate parents, we did not have large government programs spending lots of money on education with increasingly poor performance, we did not have all those free lunches in school, we did not have all those powerful teachers unions, we did not have all that money spent on sports programs, and we did not have all the corruption in the Board of Education and City Council in “horrendous” mismanagement of funds. We did have family members and neighbors who put a priority on getting a high school diploma regardless of race.
Mr Bobb IS the right answer. Educating the children is too important a priority of the Detroit community to leave in the hands of people who claim to be “professional educators” because they have such a terrible track record.
Many who claim to be “Do Gooders” are in denial that their actions and solutions look more like “Do Badders” although that is not their intent.
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