Posted on 10/20/2015 7:10:19 AM PDT by MichCapCon
Despite a new attendance policy that could see truant students and their parents actually prosecuted in court, more than two-thirds of the students enrolled in the Detroit school district are still classified as “chronically absent.” This is defined by the state as missing more than 10 school days in a year.
Detroit saw 67.1 percent of its students deemed chronically absent in 2013-14, the latest year data is available. The statewide average is 25.5 percent. Even the troubled Education Achievement Authority, the state office given oversight of Michigan’s worst-performing individual schools, experienced chronic absence in just 23.7 percent of its students.
Other troubled school districts also struggle with student absence. In Benton Harbor, 58.9 percent of students met the chronic absence criteria. The figure was 52.7 percent in Flint and 49.9 percent in the Pontiac school district.
Detroit's students could be missing far more than 10 days of school as the state report doesn't quantify the total amount of missed school days. In 2013, Keith Johnson, who was then president of the Detroit teachers union, said data showed the average high school student in Detroit Public Schools missed 46 days of schools in 2011-12.
“Kids are not showing up,” said Gary Naeyaert, executive director of the Great Lakes Education Project. “It’s very difficult to learn if you are not in the classroom.”
The new Detroit Public Schools truancy policy calls for possible home visits by state agency workers when a student has six unexcused absences. After nine unexcused absences, students and their parents can be charged by the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.
The new program was launched in the 2013-14 school year but doesn’t appear to have had much impact so far. In the year before that, 67.5 percent of DPS students were classified as chronically absent.
John Rakolta, a co-chair of the Coalition for the Future of Detroit Schoolchildren, believes a multipronged approach is needed. "The state controls Detroit Public Schools, so nothing about this is easy," he said. “The DPS attendance issue is heartbreaking, and it is something that charters are dealing with too.”
Rakolta continued, "This is exactly why we need the governor, the mayor, and pragmatic lawmakers in both parties to come together to find a solution that gives all kids a fair shot. The fix is complicated. It likely involves comprehensive transportation, dealing with aggressive suspension and expulsion rates, addressing health and safety issues, and helping parents be a part of the solution. It’s on all of us to get this right and get kids back into quality schools in Michigan’s biggest city."
DPS and Wayne County Prosecutor Office officials didn’t respond to emails and voice messages seeking comment.
“we need to get kids back into quality schools in our biggest cities”
We would ALL love for these kids to be in quality schools, are these people kidding me??? These schools don’t give a damn about these kids only the dollars they don’t get when these kids are absent!!!!!
Chronic, an apt choice to describe the absentee students considering chronic is street slang for high potency mari-hootchie or laced MJ.
Usage and sales no doubt occupy the absentees day to the exclusion of skrewl.
“Two-Thirds of Detroit Students ‘Chronically Absent’”
Perhaps due to the “Chronic” most of them likely are smoking?
If you do this one, and roll back laws that prevent public shaming (no renting to unmarried couples, etc.) the problem would disappear in one generation.
Why would they want to go to school? If it’s cold out or they want a lunch maybe but Mooch has seen to it that the schools serve crap so that’s out. Everything is free all the time anyway so why go to school? They already know Whitey is the devil and everything else the liberals want them to know: Vote Democrat smoke dope, make babies, shoot people, die before 25 - any questions?
“It’s very difficult to learn if you are not in the classroom.”
These very students will blame the educational system for failing them when they find they are unqualified to keep even the most menial job.
My kids wouldn't dare..."Ok, google this: how am I going to buy food, shelter, and clothing for myself when my dad kicks me out of the house for not going to school?"
I remember taking a Friday off from school during my senior year...I had a 3.8 that year, my B was in calculus. My mom had me go with her to help out with something. Later in the day, she got a call from the school, as they received a call from one of their staff.
That was over 40 years ago.
No, I didn't get in trouble, as I rarely missed a day. My freshman year, I was out for a week with the flu. I doubt I missed a combined 10 days the other three years.
Also forgot that I technically graduated after the fall semester, thanks to taking summer school classes all four years. I took electives for the most part: cooking, typing, etc. I didn't coast my senior year, taking calculus, physics, chemistry, and civics.
So they think busing them to a predominately White skewl will change that?
...lowering the standards for all along the way.
Ten absences in a school year is “chronically absent.” That’s about one day per month. A good student in a school where results mattered wouldn’t find that missing one day per month affected his academic achievement at all (unless the one day was a test day).
I realize that’s not what we’re talking about here ...
Around 10 years ago, I had a telling discussion with the office liberal. It started with my telling him that the entitlement class had become so disjointed from the real world, that they literally didn’t know where things came from - for example most could not say what bread was made out of etc. The point of this was my trying to explain to him that our ‘poor’ purchase premade food, because they are too stupid (by gubmint design) to make their own bread, etc.
Anyway, he didn’t think anybody could be that dumb, and it devolved into my telling him that many in these urban hell holes cannot even read. He did not believe it, so we looked it up - Detroit has 25% illiteracy.
Now its 50%.
Seriously, I’d bet 10% of the teachers themselves are illiterate in Detroit.
My attendance may have been better than yours, but you were probably a better student. ;)
Didn’t we just read an article about the cost of education in Detroit is now 1 million dollars per day?
Doubtful. I simply knew that if I didn't get a 3.5, or close to it, my ass was grass. I was an avid reader from the time I was in second grade. My parents didn't mind that it was 99% sports books, they were happy I was reading.
From about 10 years old, I'd listen to the A's or Giants games and keep score, and then update statistics...baseball was great for that. My stepfather bought a lot of other books at flea markets that I found interesting, such as a six volume biographical encyclopedia of American history (published in 1889).
Everything just kind of rolled from there.
Remember! Behind every government teacher stands armed police.
BINGO!
A WINNER!
Everything just kind of rolled from there.
*************
It took awhile form me to come around. I was too distracted by other “extracurricular” activities. Things started rolling for me after a stint in the military. The experience proved highly beneficial; it reoriented some of my thinking about life and refocused me on some specific goals. After that, I returned to school (college) and my GPA from then on improved markedly. :)
I went to one of the worst school districts in the state, and it’s even worse today. Back then, there was no homeschooling, and my parents couldn’t afford to send my brother and me to a Catholic or private school. But my brother and I learned because we had parents who made sure we did. They encouraged us to learn.
Back then encyclopedias were all the rage, and my parents scrimped and saved to buy us a set. They were meant to be references, but I would actually take a volume and read it from cover to cover. All because my parents instilled in us a love for reading and learning.
You can go to the best schools, but if you have parents who don’t care (or parents who are absent), you won’t learn.
There so many ways to learn, without it seeming painful to the child. My 13 YO son loves history, and I'm happy to take credit for a bit of that. For example, while in Fredericksburg, we went to the Museum of the Pacific. His Boy Scout troop spent a night on the USS Texas.
While in Memphis, we spent a few hours at Sun Studio, where Elvis cut his first record.
He found out early that you enhance the experience if you read a bit about it first.
He also knows that learning never stops. A few months back, I bought him a few books to read over the summer. One of those books was on ten great generals in world history. I read the chapter on the Duke of Marlborough, John Churchill. During the Blenheim campaign, I learned that one of the battles took place in Trarbach, Germany, a town I lived in for four years while in the Army. I do not recall any landmarks noting that battle (not surprising, considering it was the British).
When I retire, I'd love to go back and spend a couple of months, to take in as much of the history of the Mosel River Valley as possible. There's a strong Roman influence, and the Germans and French fought for centuries over that territory.
My son will be 15-17 by then, and it will give me the chance to expand on the subject of viticulture. What better place to continue his studies than the Mosel? He's already been to several wineries in Texas and Oregon, and I think that's potentially a good career to pursue.
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