"From my house to Western, its a two hour bus ride. Two hours just to get to school"-Carla Underwood, a tenth grader.
Carla Underwood attends Western International High School. She shared that she wakes every morning at 5:30 just to make it to school on time. Many students travel far distance to school. It can be bit discouraging to students to attend school because of the long commute. Simultaneously to other children who walk to school on a daily basis, they may not mind walking to and from school but that mindset is not the same in Detroit. Detroit possess prevalent abandoned houses they have a high crime rate. Detroit violent crimes range the highest in assaults. Often, students are afraid to walk to school because of the fear of being assaulted or simply afraid they wouldn't make it to school because of the fear of being kidnapped. Young school-age students and high schools and parents of these students shouldn't have to fear for their lives as they travel to school. Their focus should be doing their homework correctly not if they will make home from school safely. Many high school students travel in packs and walk in lighten areas to keep safe. Also, with the abundance of abandoned houses many fears that someone could be in there watching them or would attack them. Although, it’s a sad situation, it’s also very inspiring. These students face unmeasurable danger just to get to school but they continue to attend school despite the challenges.
Walking is one way students can travel to school. Public transportation is another way students can travel to school. Of course, public transportation isn’t amiss. Many students in different cities especially inner cities travel to school on public transportation. But, in Detroit it’s a different setting. Many students are traveling afar to school. Any day could take them an hour or more just to travel to school. As mentioned above Carla Underwood must wake up at 5:30am every morning to make it to school on time. Even though Detroit is well known for its auto industry, it never invested into public transportation. Denique Robinson, a parent of three, who children travel on public transportation to school. Their schools are a mile and half away from but through public transportation it could take them 3 and half hours to travel to school. They catch a 6:10 am bus every morning and even if they miss that schedule bus, the next bus doesn’t come again until the next hour. She estimates that her children miss an average of 10-15 days yearly at school due to weather conditions or missing their targeted bus. It's poignant to watch teenagers endured stress at a young age. Also, it could be detrimental to their school work and health, it could be tiring for them and may cause them slack on their school work because of the stress of traveling to school and tired from not properly receiving enough sleep. Another factor is school-aged students and high school students who do take public transportation to school it results in expensive expenses. The average bus ride in Detroit cost $2 dollars per ride plus 0.25 cent each transfer to another bus. As, we view these numbers it doesn’t seem as an issue since the cost is low which to some extent that is agreeable. But for Detroit that could be inconvenient for them. Detroit is facing extreme poverty issues. The poverty rate is 39.3% so an average household accumulates $24,003 per year. So, an average bus ride for a week can really affect the household expenses of these students. The students who are incapable of affording public transportation or those unable to walk to school eventually drop out or they begin to attend school less because of inefficiency to get there as mentioned about Denique Robinson children. Which can contribute to the decrease of enrollment in schools. Its unfortunate that these students must sustain such hardship to travel to school.
Literacy Deficiency
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Detroit illiteracy is among the highest in the nation. In DPS, 96% of eighth graders are not proficient in mathematics and 93% of them are not proficient in reading so in other words only 4% and 7% are proficient in these subject matters. It's disturbing to know our future children are lacking educational proficiency. How can these students be encouraged and flourish in their educational and vocational career if they are incapable of forming sentence or unable to do general math? They are lacking basic educational functions. Furthermore, fourth graders are only 5% proficient in math and only 6% are proficient in reading. DPS is a failing district and it has it be a reason for it, doesn’t it? Let’s begin with the shortage of resources they encounter. Most schools are teaching from obsolete textbooks. In addition, to obsolete textbooks, many schools don’t posse enough books to allow the students to take them home. They are forced to learn only from the classroom without extra practice at home. Learning doesn't only transpire inside a classroom it must be developed at home too. Likewise, parents should be contributing to their children's educational needs but if the students are illiterate than we have all rights to suspect that some parents are illiterate as well. We can conclude that they are because of the poverty rate and since 47% of adults are "functionally illiterate." It's almost as if these students are being set up to fail intentionally. Another factor are textbooks are beyond damage that they are unreadable. How are these students expected to be proficient and retain information if the proper tools aren’t in place? Simultaneously, with the obsolete and unreadable textbooks, with sky-rocketing rate of illiteracy and shortage of books, a student was forced to teach themselves and their entire class. A seventh grade and eighth grade teacher at Hamilton Academy left the school during class because frustrations with school districts and the lack of support being offered. After a few failed attempts of finding a replacement, the "highest-performing” eighth grader was left to teach themselves and their peers which took place for an entire month. That's blatantly disrespectful and under minding to have these students self-teaching themselves. A student, Jamarria Hall attends Osborn Evergreen Academy of Design states "I have friends who can't read, but it’s not because they aren’t smart, it’s because the State has failed them." He also goes further to say "it seems if we(students) don’t care about our education but we do!" (to see more, view the video at the bottom) So, for the district to be confused and shocked to why literacy score is so low is absurd. Per Heraldnews.com, students often struggle to form complete sentences, let alone write long essays and once an eleventh grade asked how to spell the word "the." It’s extremely heartbreaking that many students are failing at the hands of the school districts. As, previously mentioned a former school board leader was illiterate as well. If we have noticed the illiteracy that occurs in Detroit isn’t a new dilemma but it continuously affects generation after generation.
Pictured above are accurate charts that displays the scores of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) This test is taken frequently taken to represent of the knowledge of the nation's students. As, shown Detroit is the lowest scoring amongst other fourth and eighth graders in the nation. Also, its noticeable that other cities are somewhat close in scores and average the same amount of progress but Detroit is nowhere close to any other cities in their educational progress. Why is that? Is it because of their books are obsolete? Is it because textbooks are beyond damage that they can’t read it? Is it because of the shortage of books that are being provided to a class of students? All these questions and many other factors are the reasons these students are failing so rapidly.
"Literacy is fundamental to participation in public and private life and is the core component in the American tradition of education."
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On September 13, 2016, Detroit public schools students filed an action lawsuit in federal court against Governor Richard Snyder and state education officials charging that the State of Michigan denies children their constitutional right to literacy. The filing in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan is the first of its kind. The lawsuit states: "Decades of State disinvestment in and deliberate indifference to the Detroit schools have denied Plaintiff schoolchildren access to the most basic building block of education: literacy. Literacy is fundamental to participation in public and private life and is the core component in the American tradition of education. But by its action and inactions, the State of Michigan's systemic, persistent, and deliberate failure to deliver instruction and tools essential for access to literacy in Plaintiffs' schools, which serve almost exclusively low-income children of color, deprives students of even a fighting chance." (to view the complete complaint, you can click here). The plaintiffs are students at five Detroit's lowest performing schools: Hamilton Academy, Experiencia Preparatory Academy, Medicine and Community Health Academy at Cody, Osborn Academy of Mathematics, and Osborn Evergreen Academy of Design and Alternative Energy. To grasp a better understanding of the filed lawsuit by the students, the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution must be examined. The 14th Amendment of the U.S Constitution was ratified in July 9,1868 states that every person whose born in the United States are full American citizens entitled to the same civil rights as other Americans. Originally, this Amendment stated that every black person instead of every person because of the discrimination they were facing. Majority of Detroit Public Schools population are black low-income families. The 14th Amendment can be argued that education isn’t included into this amendment because of how vague the message is. Or, it could be said that the students are receiving an education which is equal to other schools in the nation. If we deeply examine what "equal" is or how it’s being conveyed in this context, it could be equal to another comparable school’s district in the nation but which school(s) are experiencing such unmeasurable distress as Detroit Public Schools? Along with the Fourteenth Amendment, Brown v. Board of Education represents the conditions of African-American students are facing. If familiar with the in 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education, it is one the most influential case that was filed against a school board in Topeka, Oklahoma. In which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white was unconstitutional. In current times, they are not necessarily separating the students by white and black. But there's isn’t any doubt if a suburban school was facing half of these traumatic, dehumanized situations these black inner cities students are facing that new protocols wouldn't be in enforced. However, the students are positive that the outcome will reign in their favor. They are being represented by Public Counsel, the largest pro bono law firm in the nation, the international business law firm Sidley Austin LLP, which is handling the case pro bono, Michigan law firm Miller Cohen PLC, University of Michigan Law School Professor Evan Caminker, and University of California, Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, with these exceptional lawyers that are ready and speaking loud and clear on their behalf, the students have a chance to fight this. This could be compared to Muhammad Ali (DPS students) and Joe Frazier(Governors) fight. They both were undefeated, they both fought long and hard, Muhammad Ali lost a fight to Joe Frazier but came back to gain his victory in 1975. They both were bruised and pulverized but only one came out on top which was Muhammad Ali. Hopefully, DPS students will gain such victory. They have been training long enough (with all the unfortunate events) now it’s time for them to fight. The students deserve this momentous victory, this will be for prior generations, this will be for future generation as well. Whether win or lose, it will be an achievement for Detroit Public Schools students.