“Osborn Evergreen Academy of Design and Alternative Energy”?
Since they got rid of phonics, I agree. The kids aren’t even taught the skills to sound out words anymore. It’s an atrocity.
Literacy starts at home , not at school.
It’s governemnt’s fault I can’t read!!!
Their problems started out a long time ago—no home work, no reading, writing, and arithmetic. Gimmicks are no substitute. The teachers failed, their union failed, the administration failed, and, ultimately, the parents failed. Sue themselves.
There are plenty of free apps on the internet that teach children to read and that can be used by adults, too. Additionally, all public libraries have books and reading programs. All it takes is a little effort. A Constitutional amendment won’t magically make it easier.
Democrats never did like blacks being able to read and write.
In the 1960’s, Boston Technical High School produced competent students for technical fields. Black enrollment was about five percent. Now, the school is named after a black politician. In a hall it has a soviet size mural of Nelson Mandela. White students are rare since they have fled the Boston public schools. Why would anyone be surprised that black students raised in single mother households filled with step siblings and fed a steady diet of social justice would be near illiterate at the end of their schooling.
So they closed all the public libraries there?
I’m willing to be the house that the troubles for the Detroit schools didn’t just start a couple of decades ago.
Someone must go back and compare the educational results for the high schools (and others is possible) from say, 1950-2015 concerning the basics - English (speaking, reading and writing); math (I was lousy at math); Science (Biology, Chemistry); foreign languages; Civics/Government; and History.
I can understand that the black schools might have been disadvantaged even after desegregation for a while, but I would have expected a general rise in student proficiency showing up by 1970 or so.
Then look at who controlled the Mayorship and City Council of Detroit from about 1975 onward. Hint, hint. Communist Party member Coleman Young, mayor; Members of the City Council including chairmen, Maryanne Mahaffey (Marxist) and Erma Henderson (Marxist), Carl Levin (member and chairman, incompetent liberal), and others.
See how they deformed basic education by switching teaching programs and what they emphasized in place of the Basic course programs I listed above.
I’m willing to bet that if you use a graph chart to show educational progress or regress in each teaching group, you will see what happened and when (re overall achievement scores).
A subsidiary study would involve the role that the Marxist-led UAW (United Autoworkers Union) in destroying the economy with their never-ending wage raise demands/benefits, and how that drove jobs out of the area/state, and led to a severe decrease in taxes that could have been used to maintain a good educational system.
There is an old adage of “Suffer the children” and Detroit did that, made them suffer. Now we need to know why in order to correct it.
Science, math, geography, languages, Government studies programs are “color blind”. A chemical doesn’t discriminate on race or religion, etc. Nor does learning French since literally none of us are born speaking it. We had to learn it from scratch.
I believe the kids will “learn” when you teach the foundation blocks first, then make the upper wall bricks exciting, informative and challenging.
Maybe this lawsuit will have some teeth and do some good. Only time will tell but these children need help, and the sooner the better.
“Hall, 16, said he has friends who can’t read “but it’s not because they aren’t smart...”
How did he learn to read? Did they hold a lottery and he won the prize of being taught to read?
Seems to me his so smart friends had the same opportunities.
The mere fact that you owe it to yourself should be enough. But children who come from families with illiterate parents are at a tremendous disadvantage.
I can attest that the SRA program I went through at when I was 9 helped me a great deal.
My kids were educated in Michigan, and they both could read quite well. It isn't the state that failed, it is the city of Detroit, run for decades by corrupt Democrats. Pardon the redundant description.
The Constitution can’t force knowledge into someone’s head. How can there be a Constitutional right to knowledge and proficiency in reading, when it requires a willing student who will work at it? It’s not all the fault of the teachers and schools. Throwing money at an unwilling student is throwing money away.