Posted on 07/18/2012 5:19:03 AM PDT by Former Fetus
Students are suing the state of Michigan and their Detroit-area school district for violating their "right to read."
The class-action lawsuit appears to be the first of its kind, and potentially signals a new wave of civil rights litigation in the United States to enforce laws intended to boost academic achievement, education law experts say.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan filed what it has dubbed the "right to read" lawsuit on behalf of the nearly 1,000 students in the impoverished district.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Two-thirds of 4th-graders and three-quarters of 7th-graders [...]not proficient on state reading tests
Why did it take until 4th and 7th grade to get concerned? I know both my children were reading at above grade level at the beginning of 1st grade! Where are those students' parents?
Nearly 100 percent of the district's students are African-American
I reckon that's the answer to my previous question
I’ve been on a forum that has been discussing this...let me just say generational poverty, drugs, gangs, crime, and war zone.
Another variation of the lawsuit lottery, the only hope Eric Holder’s people have of ever earning anything.
I heard this story on CNN at lunch time yesterday; the woman they interviewed was saying that being able to read was a right guaranteed to us in the Constitution.
We demand the right to read but we’ll take cash instead if it’s available.
I am not shocked at all with these findings. I used to teach HS at an inner-city charter school - I now teach at a private HS. I see and hear what these kids think about education. Parents of these kids are nonexistent, these kids are the adults in most of the households - after school they are watching younger sibs while some of their parents are out smoking crack and weed. I witnessed EOC (end of course) exams, which our state uses to measure preformance, where students were just filling out the scan-trons in a pattern. Of course teachers get blamed for not teaching, but it is the student who wants to remain on the government eltitement listing.
I kid you not when I tell you this. On day one, as we were going through our syllabus, I’d have kids say things like “you do too much”, “i ain’t doing all this”. And then the best one ever, “i get rent paid on the first, food stamps on the 8th and the 25th, what are going gonna do for me?” to which my response was “I am going to kick your hind end in this class and make you proud of your work”. By the second week of class I had started to see changes in some.
Believe it our not about 40% of these kids are itching to get out and make something for themselves. I know that one day I will call one of my former students doctor - I can’t wait, I will be so proud of her - she is so proper and driven - when you meet her parents you wonder where she gets it from because they are the epitome of ghetto. Two of my favorites are heading to Mizzou - with my oldest - to study engineering. Another handful are starting culinary school this fall. Another is staring MSU to study pyschology. I have a few who are going to Chicago Art Institute and St. Louis Art Institute. There are some good seeds out there - true diamonds in the rough. In a way I feel like I have let the remaining students down by leaving that school, but I have to watch out for myself sometimes.
Probably the kid’s best hope is to privatize the schools. But of course that would never happen. The teacher’s union will never permit the loss of the teacher’s cushy no accountability jobs.
There have been many legal cases arguing that states have not adequately funded certain schools or districts, or that students' constitutional rights have been violated by being in de facto segregated schools. But this case takes a new approach by focusing narrowly on the core skill of literacy and a state law that addresses it.
Sure it is always the fault of the Evil White Man!
NO it couldn’t be rampant corruption in the school’s administration.
NO it couldn’t be incompetent and unaccountable teachers.
NO it couldn’t be the predominant Black culture that disrespects education and ostracizes those that speak intelligently, study hard and seek to achieve academically.
NO it has to be the Evil White Man because that is what the “Black Leaders” tell us and it gets the Black society off the hook of having to own their own problems.
I am no friend of teacher’s unions and whatever bad that happens to them is probably too good for them, BUT...
How, EXACTLY, did the teachers STOP these kids from learning to read? I mean, I agree you have a right to learn (though it isn’t in the Constitution - if she could read, she could see that herself), but how in this lawsuit are they going to convince twelve jurors that the teacher’s union STOPPED them from learning to read?
I mean, did they ban all books from their homes? Did they refuse to allow these kids access to the library? Did they threaten their parents to ensure that they did not teach their kids reading skills?
What is that old saying, “Just because you hear doesn’t mean you were listening!” That is the same situation here; just because I teach doesn’t mean you were learning. In both situations, it takes ACTIVE participation of BOTH parties!
This is the epitome of FRIVOLOUS LAWSUIT!
I think I would have taught myself to read even if no one else tried. I was raised in a family of readers and was trying long before I set foot in any school.
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2007/05/the_achievement_gap_separating.html
Anti-education mind-set hurts black boys, study says
Thanks for the link
HOW DID THEY STOP THE KIDS FROM LEARNING TO READ? Are you serious? They NEVER STARTED teaching the kids to read. They never STARTED correcting mis-spoken language. The NEVER corrected wrong spelling. The NEVER taught proper punctuation.
These kids cannot speak, read, or spell properly. They cannot find their home state on a map of the USA, let along the world. They can’t do simple math in their heads.
(You want to control the country? Gain control of the battery industry)
Their problems are not all the kid’s own fault. The fact is they were NEVER taught in those overpriced “education centers”.
All of my four daughters were reading before they went to 1st grade. While in school, all of them read on levels well above their actual grade.
Everyone in my family reads; we all love to read. We will read a book, and recommend it to each other and then it will make the rounds through everyone’s house.
Of course, everyone in my family reads to the kids and grand-kids, everyone encourages the young ones to sound out words, associate pictures with the words and to put it all together. All learning (even the INTEREST in leaning) starts at home. No lawsuit that will ever correct THAT short-coming!
My grandmother has a picture of me as a toddler surrounded by books in the dark trying to read.
Very true, but what has changed 5 years later? If anything, it seems like every effort to close the so-called “achievement gap” has centered in bringing down the white students to the level of the African-american ones. How sad!
How does that Gangsta Rap song go again?
Don't getta education, that be actin' white, man.
Don't be doin' nothin' to be actin' like the White Man.
Sell some crack, run some hos, you be doin' right, man
If you actin' white, then we gonna fight, man.
I wouldn’t know.
Listening to rap makes me hurl dood.
Reading it gives me a headache.
I must have an allergy to rap.
While all of what is described in the blog about the study is sadly true it has all been identified years ago.
What is even sadder in the blog is the black leaders quoted in the article trying to discount and diminish the conclusions of the study.
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