Horrific 10 Percent Literacy Rate Prompts ACLU to Sue Michigan Schools

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What happens when almost all the 11th graders in an entire school district aren't proficient in math or reading? According to Michelle Johnson, a concerned parent in Michigan's failing Highland Park schools, the kids "are going to be statistics. They are going to be in prison. They are not going to get the things they need in life."

Johnson makes her plea for support in the ACLU video The Right to Read: Protecting Michigan's Future, saying, "We need someone to step in now, or our kids are going to fail."

In the Highland Park school district, just outside of Detroit, only 10 percent of students from third to eighth grade are proficient in reading and math. As to be expected, the statistics get even worse as the students get older. Each year, kids in 11th grade take the Michigan Merit Exam to see if they are college-ready. In 2011, 90 percent of Highland Park students failed the reading portion, 97 percent failed the math section, and 100 percent failed the social studies and science portions.
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http://news.yahoo.com/horrific-10-literacy-rate-prompts-aclu-sue-michigan-193900112.html


Holy shit
 
Wow how can it get that bad.

What are the parents doing? The school isn't all the kids education, it's a shared responsiblity with the parents so what about that???
 
Gowans007 said:
Wow how can it get that bad.

What are the parents doing? The school isn't all the kids education, so what about that???
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Yeah, I was able to read before I ever entered any sort of school. Not every parent has the time for that, of course, but still by 11th grade more than 10% of kids should know their shit one way or another.
 
Manos: The Hans of Fate said:
Something tells me that there is a lot more than blame the schools and teachers at play here in terms of portioning out the blame.
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Holy shit. "Portioning out the blame"? Are you kidding me? You really feel it's that necessary to make the "parents are at fault" post immediately after this kind of story?

Poor kids from poorly educated parents in bad neighborhoods are more likely to struggle. No shit. But when institutions completely fail at their stated goals, there's no need to portion out blame. The school is failing, completely, without aberration.

And what about the institutions that helped make their parents, grandparents, and great grandparents poorly educated, contributed to them struggling to find jobs? How quickly do you point to those failings rather then the "parents need to take responsibility" argument?

This shit drives me crazy. For it to be first reply after a terrible story about kids lives being ruined and having no recourse from their schools is just mind blowing. Do you really give that little of a shit about these kids? Is it really that core to your being to find blame in their parents so you can feel a little bit less responsible for contributing to a society where this shit happens? I know you know there are schools doing better for kids in similarly fucked up situations, and yet still you can't help yourself from making this sort of loaded political post in a story where 100% of kids are behind.
 
Obviously the parents don't care (EDIT: Or may be illiterate themselves) but how on earth a school have a stat that bad unless there weren't any teachers. It should be near impossible to have numbers that high even if kids were the only ones in the building.
 
Gowans007 said:
Wow how can it get that bad.

What are the parents doing? The school isn't all the kids education, it's a shared responsiblity with the parents so what about that???
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Parents aren't going to do anything. If their parents didn't read to them when they were children, they aren't going to do the same for their children.
 
Kosmo said:
Hey, right up the street from work. Here are the main culprits:

Parental involvement, or lack thereof.
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You are a terrible human being. You simply don't give a shit if you're making these sort of statements that relinquish any sort of broader responsibility or blame.

My neice grows up in a neighborhood like this (edit: okay, not this bad). People like you make her life harder, worse. You have no idea what you're talking about.
 
Telosfortelos said:
Holy shit. "Portioning out the blame"? Are you kidding me? You really feel it's that necessary to make the "parents are at fault" post immediately after this kind of story?

Poor kids from poorly educated parents in bad neighborhoods are more likely to struggle. No shit. But when institutions completely fail at their stated goals, there's no need to portion out blame. The school is failing, completely, without aberration.

And what about the institutions that helped make their parents, grandparents, and great grandparents poorly educated, contributed to them struggling to find jobs? How quickly do you point to those failings rather then the "parents need to take responsibility" argument?

This shit drives me crazy. For it to be first reply after a terrible story about kids lives being ruined and having no recourse from their schools is just mind blowing. Do you really give that little of a shit about these kids? Is it really that core to your being to find blame in their parents so you can feel a little bit less responsible for contributing to a society where this shit happens? I know you know there are schools doing better for kids in similarly fucked up situations, and yet still you can't help yourself from making this sort of loaded political post in a story where 100% of kids are behind.
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Yeah, I'm sorry but that just excuses shit parenting and encourages unrestrained passing the buck on to others.
 
Gowans007 said:
I'm with you, so this might be less to do with the education system and more to do with the support at home.

I can understand that.
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There are kids from all over with horrible family life that can still read. It's largely the school at those numbers.
 
Manos: The Hans of Fate said:
Who needs a fake one? I suspect ample real examples exist.
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Click on any trending #ShitGirlzDo trending topic, or the like. You'll find plenty.

How is that even possible if the kids and their parents aren't complete idiots?
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Herein lies your problem.

You are a terrible human being. You simply don't give a shit if you're making these sort of statements that relinquish any sort of broader responsibility or blame.

My neice grows up in a neighborhood like this. People like you make her life harder, worse. You have no idea what you're talking about.
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There is a solution: All day charter schools (hell, don't even need to be charter, just all day schools). There is one in Detroit that the kids are at from 7am - 7pm, they get 3 meals a day and the kids all get their homework done before going back home at night. They had a 100% graduation rate in a recent article I read (maybe 3-4 months ago). Their home life IS the problem.

Then you have shit like the City turning down $200M for a philanthropist who wanted to have that money all go to building new charter schools, but the city rejected it due to pressure from the teacher's unions.
 
JGS said:
Obviously the parents don't care (EDIT: Or may be illiterate themselves) but how on earth a school have a stat that bad unless there weren't any teachers. It should be near impossible to have numbers that high even if kids were the only ones in the building.
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Most likely because the teachers are afraid of the students and just let them run wild. I went to an inner city school in the 80s and that was pretty much how it was unless you got identified as a high achiever and were segregated into normal class rooms. But I absolutely dreaded the few classes like shop or gym when I was put back into "general pop". That shit is a nightmare and from my personal experience the only way to clean this shit up is military style discipline with like former drill instructors running everything. You have to have discipline before you can hope to have any kind of learning whatsover.
 
Gowans007 said:
Wow how can it get that bad.

What are the parents doing? The school isn't all the kids education, it's a shared responsiblity with the parents so what about that???
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I'm going to bet that many of the parents are in the same situation.

There's little to no excuse that a parent who is literate can't raise a child that is at least somewhat.

Heh, interesting example from the article. Better than some online postings I've seen at least. :D

Kid named Quentin said:
My name is Quemtin and you can make the school gooder by geting people that will do the jod that is pay for get a football tame for the kinds mybe a baksball tamoe get a other jamtacher for the school get a lot of tacher.
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I'd be willing to bet a lot of the parents who are employed in that neighborhood work nights, evenings, or two jobs. And how many are single parent or single grandparent families?
 
Manos: The Hans of Fate said:
Yeah, I'm sorry but that just excuses shit parenting and encourages unrestrained passing the buck on to others.
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No. I'm not excusing shit. We need to find ways to help parents be better. But when you take a story about a completely, 100% shitty school district and decide to ignore the obvious problems in favor of saying "parents are at fault", all you're doing is relinquishing any responsibility and making yourself feel better about terrible shit that happens. All you're saying when you say it's the parents' fault is that it's not your fault so you shouldn't have to do shit to make the situation any better. It indicates a lack of caring about people that grew up in shittier homes than you or I did.

I'm in a rush, and would like to say more, but shit like this makes me furious. You don't give a shit why the parents are where they are, just as you don't give a shit about trying to make the lives for these kids and their future kids any better.
 
What in the hell... greater than 90% failure rate?!

Something HAS to be wrong here, right? Like this data is bad somehow? Or skewed?

It has to literally be impossible that this is accurate for kids in public school, doesn't it?!

Edit: Ah...one school district, not the whole state...that's a little better I guess?
 
Oh it's definitely both, but the parents could have the excuse of lacking education to begin with and not seeing the importance of education in context of the living conditions.

The school's primary purpose is education and 90% of the students being uneducated means it might as well be a charter school run by Walmart.
 
Why aren't people in this thread focusing on the schools role in this? I understand the parents should take a portion of the blame, but holy shit, what the fuck is happening at the schools?
 
JGS said:
There are kids from all over with horrible family life that can still read. It's largely the school at those numbers.
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That crazy, I can't fathom how it can get to that.

I really can't even reason it.

It must be a mix, surely? you don't need a school to learn to read and write.

Feel so bad for those poor kids.
 
Telosfortelos said:
No. I'm not excusing shit. We need to find ways to help parents be better. But when you take a story about a completely, 100% shitty school district and decide to ignore the obvious problems in favor of saying "parents are at fault", all you're doing is relinquishing any responsibility and making yourself feel better about terrible shit that happens. All you're saying when you say it's the parents' fault is that it's not your fault so you shouldn't have to do shit to make the situation any better. It indicates a lack of caring about people that grew up in shittier homes than you or I did.
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It means the parents have to pick up some slack too.

Hari Seldon said:
Most likely because the teachers are afraid of the students and just let them run wild. I went to an inner city school in the 80s and that was pretty much how it was unless you got identified as a high achiever and were segregated into normal class rooms. But I absolutely dreaded the few classes like shop or gym when I was put back into "general pop". That shit is a nightmare and from my personal experience the only way to clean this shit up is military style discipline with like former drill instructors running everything. You have to have discipline before you can hope to have any kind of learning whatsover.
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I'm sure the ACLU would throw a shit fit if someone tried to do that.
 
Big Baybee said:
Why aren't people in this thread focusing on the schools role in this? I understand the parents should take a portion of the blame, but holy shit, what the fuck is happening at the schools?
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Because I doubt they can hire many quality teachers that want to teach in a dangerous neighborhood like Highland Park. It's a cyclical problem.
 
Holy Shit all of those scores are awful. And I thought my high school was bad. I mean what is even the point of going to school if you don't learn anything?
 
Manos: The Hans of Fate said:
Yeah, I'm sorry but that just excuses shit parenting and encourages unrestrained passing the buck on to others.
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So you see a school with a 90 percent failure rate, and instead of thinking maybe just MAYBE there's something wrong with the school, your first thought is that 90 percent of the parents are shitty parents?
 
Big Baybee said:
Why aren't people in this thread focusing on the schools role in this? I understand the parents should take a portion of the blame, but holy shit, what the fuck is happening at the schools?
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Because discussing that requires acknowledgement that there's an issue with society at large, a much more difficult problem to discuss than, say, shitty parenting.
 
Hari Seldon said:
Most likely because the teachers are afraid of the students and just let them run wild. I went to an inner city school in the 80s and that was pretty much how it was unless you got identified as a high achiever and were segregated into normal class rooms. But I absolutely dreaded the few classes like shop or gym when I was put back into "general pop". That shit is a nightmare and from my personal experience the only way to clean this shit up is military style discipline with like former drill instructors running everything. You have to have discipline before you can hope to have any kind of learning whatsover.
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This means the school should have been shut down or run military style. All schools cannot be created equal since the environment itself can influence it. This is more of a problem when the school only has public funds to work with.

The schools my kids go to are constantly asking for additional money from us t keep programs going. Fortunately we can help, but poor neighborhoods don't stand a chance.
 
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