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.

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