Posted on 10/16/2015 7:08:58 PM PDT by MichCapCon
The Jalen Rose Leadership Academy sets for itself a goal of graduating 85 percent of its students, having 85 percent of its graduates enroll in college and then seeing 85 percent of those students graduate from college. But the public charter school on the northwest side of Detroit may have difficulty reaching those goals when more than half its students were, as defined by the state, “chronically absent” from the classroom.
Figures collected by the state show that 51.5 percent of Jalen Rose students met that definition by missing more than 10 school days in 2013-14, the latest year data is available. That’s a huge increase from previous experience at the charter school founded by basketball star Jalen Rose in 2011. That first year, only 5 percent of students met the state’s definition of chronically absent, but that number jumped to 17 percent in the second year. Unlike conventional school districts, the charter school does not offer transportation for students.
In several Michigan school districts, more than half the students are chronically absent. That is the backdrop for a new state law that will go into effect June 16, 2016. It gives the state the authority to strip welfare benefits from a “program group” — the current term for a household on welfare — in which children miss too much school.
Public Act 56 of 2015, signed into law by Gov. Rick Snyder in June, requires the Department of Health and Human Services to figure out within 12 months how to implement the policy.
That task is complicated by various conditions and exceptions in the new law, a consequence of legislators struggling to find realistic ways to punish a careless parent without punishing the children. In the end, they told the agency to figure it out.
Theoretically, families could lose benefits if their truant schoolchildren were age 15 or less. Minors age 16 or 17 could be removed from the home and placed in foster care or some other alternative, as determined by a court.
If the agency decides to give real teeth to the law, the impact could be enormous given the magnitude of the truancy problem in school districts with large numbers of “at risk” (low-income) students. Two out of three students (67.1 percent) in Detroit Public Schools were deemed chronically absent in 2013-14, and it’s likely many of those missed far more than 10 days. Districts with similar demographics also have high absentee rates, including Benton Harbor (58.9 percent), Flint (52.7 percent) and Pontiac (49.9 percent).
Sen. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, said he supports the law.
“You have to get the parents’ attention in order to affect student behavior,” Jones said.
He said the bill is a wake-up call to parents about their responsibility to get their children to school. Also, Jones said students need to go to school to be successful and parents must have a hand in that.
Gilda Jacobs, the president and CEO of the Michigan League for Public Policy, said her organization doesn’t like the law.
“This is the kind of thing that pushes families deeper into poverty,” Jacobs said. “It’s punitive. It doesn’t properly address what the causes are for the truancy of their kids.”
Jacobs said students may miss school for many reasons, including having to take care of sick parents or siblings, problems with day care, not having shoes, or parents who don’t have access to transportation.
“I really believe this is a knee-jerk reaction to a problem instead of really attacking the problems that are out there,” she said.
They ARE your problem since you’re paying for them and they are changing our society for the worse.
The attitude of “not my problem” is so prevalent, more in the last 30 years. Public school...not my problem since I send my kids to private school/homeschool. Hmmm...so then don’t bitch when the curriculum has changed to mirror the hard left (and it has in both public and private schools).
Not my problem how society is so crude and rank and degraded and perverted...yet it is since it affects your life too.
Not my problem that the media follows the agenda of the hard left...#blacklivesmatter, #marriageequality, #transgenderequality, #womensissues, blah blah blah.
They are your problem since they affect your life/society/our government.
which military? ISIS?
Wrong. It’s the 15% who are trying to live according to society’s rules/God’s rules. The other 85% not so much.
This naivete is a part of the problem.
What on earth is the point of having kids who don’t want to go to high school go to freaking COLLEGE?
When I say they are not my problem, i mean it in a harsher term.
That means they dont get a penny for anything, not food, not shelter, no money.
Charities can take them in.
They ARE my problem in this situation, you’re right.
They shouldn’t be my problem.
I DONT CARE if they dont have food and shelter. Go to the churches.
We ARE NOT in this together. That is communism and it never works out.
We have the right to PURSUE happiness, not have it handed out.
This country was founded on an independent streak a mile wide. What’s happened?
And the rest of the black Americans that aren’t in this group are the minority. Maybe 15% and that’s giving a huge benefit of the doubt.
Our society perpetuates this. Our government perpetuates this. Our Media not only perpetuates this, they actively encourage it.
It’s not just The Black Underclass. It’s the Culture.
A week ago being nicely retired and fancy free, I went to the movie on a Tuesday at 12:30 pm. In front of me was a Grandma, Mom and two school age kids getting their tickets and every bit of pop corn and candy known to mankind. I guess it was a school sanctioned field trip. Wasn’t sure if it was payed for by EBT though!
There’s actually a FEW Amendments that state they are INDEED illegal/unconstitutional.
Might want to let your rep and judges know /s
I’m with you here. If they could not care to ensure their brood is educated, on the public dime (while those NOT on welfare pay for their own PLUS some), then that would indicate they care not the ‘generosity’ of the taxpayer.
Pull the plug, rip it out by the root, salt the Earth and NEVER let it fester upon the body politic again...
Military/reform schools
Some may call us ruthless, but agreed on all accounts.
This essay sounds like it was written by someone who has no clue about growing up and living in the city. Frankly, I was shocked that anyone, the writer, didn’t know about this stuff.That is was surprising to him/her. Totally made the essay/writer a joke.
I get that some don’t know/realize what it’s like in the inner city/city/urban areas but really, this writer sounds like a child. Or a bleeding heart liberal.
Charity comes from those by CHOICE. What we have here is involuntarily/indentured servitude.
Easy fix: People do what’s in their best financial interest. When they know the gravy train is STOPPED; the BS as you posted WILL stop.
Else, you lock their (both ‘mom’ AND ‘dad’ up for negligence) and lower the 2x BS for adoption/fostering.
Sounds good to me. From some of the responses I was getting, I was afraid some FReepers getting soft.
I'm sorry, but I don't quite follow that. But I will tell you this: I don't know much about a lot of things. But I know a lot about urban public schools. I have decades of experience there. Not as some fancy consultant, but as an inner-city classroom teacher.
And in even the worst schools I've been in, 85% of the kids are good kids! They want to learn something, or at the very least get by. Yes, they are often lead astray by peer pressure. And yes, they are often not challenged to succeed due to the idiotic liberal school curriculum. But those 85% are decent kids, and they are being left to rot.
It is something money won't solve. It takes courage, courage urban politicians just don't have.
And sorry for the rant. It breaks my heart to see generations of kids lost like this.
This article states that white women teachers can’t imagine or control black students. WTF? How racist is that? It’s not that “white women teachers” can’t imagine or control a class full of black students...it’s that white liberal women can’t control them or understand.
Oh I can teach them, I can control them and their behavior isn’t shocking to me because it’s their behavior, not what the media, the government, the white guilters, are trying to portray. It’s the reality!
I find it shocking that it’s shocking to people, lol. This is what the culture is like and has been for at least 50 years.
We can’t teach them, control them, when we aren’t allowed to discipline them. And that is the bottom line.
You don’t need an education or to be a productive citizen if the government is just going to hand you money every week.
“it did no good to try to quiet them, and white women were particularly inept at trying. I sat in on one woman’s class as she begged the children to pipe down. They just yelled louder so their voices would carry over hers.”
She BEGGED the children to pipe down...yeah begging works. Really? Their voices carried over hers? And she allowed that? Of course she did since she BEGGED them to pipe down.LMAO!
And we wonder why teachers can’t or won’t control their classes/have classroom management skills.
No offense, but it’s no wonder it’s all going to Hell in a hand-basket!
Instead of starting at the beginning, most ‘debates’/conversations/etc. start at the WRONG premise!
Pre-welfare and ‘War on Poverty’ (TM), this was NOT a problem. So, instead of removing these illegal and unconstitutional acts/programs/etc. people start shouting off ‘just bolt XYZ...’, or ‘...how ‘bout “this”? or THIS? or...’.
No, let’s tack on a few more reams of paper to the tax code, to give (by FORCE) taxpayer funds to those GOVT believes ‘deserving’ (aka will vote for their party)...NOBODY even BLINKS to think how each and EVERY step of that process (and more) violates 4+ Amendments ALREADY!?!?
KILL welfare. KILL property taxes. KILL the DoE+. KILL the unions. Make EACH AND EVERY PARENT PAY for the education of their own brood.
Truant? I could give a F*; that means mom/dad is paying for an empty chair and, at the least, the goober isn’t impeding the education of the ‘REAL’ students.
/rant off (sorry)
“I know this will sound hard to believe, the THREE gals when i was younger asked me to have a kid with them while we were dating.”
Very hard to believe.
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