I heard and read the news report on Detroit ranks lowest in graduation rates, which reported that less than 22% of Detroit students graduate High School. However, I wasn’t as shocked as I am disappointed. And for those wanting to know why or are stating that Detroit’s crime rate is the cause for the low percentage of graduates; I’d like to add some additional information to build on this subject and perhaps enlighten readers on another possible cause for the stats.
Prior to the city of Detroit opting to close several of its public schools creating an even larger problem than originally; they had serious problems.
Not only do the public schools in Detroit not receive the same financial funding and equipment as most of the suburban schools. The children are struggling to stay focus on the long-term goal of education due to a number of (deplorable) factors which interfere with their educational growth.
Some examples of what Detroit Public School Students have to endure include:
- Metal detectors
- Hostile environments created by students, teachers & outside forces
- No toilet tissue in the bathrooms
- No locks and or doors on the stalls of the toilets
- No bathroom pass until kidney’s are about to burst
- No current textbooks
- No computers or computer access
- No access to their lockers (having to carry ALL books for all classes throughout the entire day)
- Not enough desks for the students to sit at, therefore having to sit on the floor
- Extremely over-crowded class rooms
- Disinterested teachers with inflated attitudes about their personal lives
- Students having to supply the classrooms with such items as: tissue, toilet paper, paper towel, etc.
That’s just a small list of some of the elements students have to content with, it’s not a wonder a number of them opt to forgo the completion of school.
Maintenance implies there will be some form of reasonable upkeep provided. Not true in the Detroit Public schools. I’ve visited on several occasions more than one Detroit school at the grammar, middle and high school levels and none of them are maintained as they should be. The floors aren’t swept or mop let alone waxed. The trash isn’t emptied, the bathrooms are cleaned maybe once a month if then, and it goes on. I am aware that a number of adults will blame the students for the schools being in such raggedy conditions as they are the ones who sometimes mark the walls, but the pealing paint, the missing lockers, the falling bricks aren’t’ the result of student defacement. It’s due to the lack of maintenance which is due to the lack of care, due to the lack of funding, again due to the lack of care for the children of Detroit.
Due to the city’s rapid decline in economic growth, increasingly high unemployment rate, and the deplorable conditions of the public school system my son and daughter-in-law made the decision to move (their children) to a suburb outside of Detroit, so that their children would have a better opportunity at an education, with less drama. And a number of other concerned parents have and are doing the same; which can be another reason for the low stats, quite a few have dropped out of Detroit’s school system only to re-enroll in another school district.
Contrary to some reports, there are more children than not, who wish to obtain an education, but find it increasingly difficult to do when faced with the daily deplorable conditions as noted in the aforementioned paragraphs, not to mention the element of danger they face just commuting to and from school.
Amazingly there usually seems to be support and endorsement provided for funding that involves contracts for Casinos and Downtown/Midtown Ventures and Condos that the average Detroit Resident can’t afford to live in, but they can’t manage to keep the doors open on a neighborhood school or find the Lottery funds (the billboards claim supports the schools) to put back into the Detroit Public School system.
I’m all for improvement and growth for the community, but last I heard the community of Detroit consisted more of than just the Downtown area. Perhaps more attention should be given to improving the conditions of the school system as oppose to only concentrating on commercially building Downtown and its surrounding areas. Perhaps if Detroit hadn’t been asleep in development for the last 15 – 20 years they wouldn’t be struggling to crawl out of such a desperate economical decline.
In conjunction with the other elements, the lack of concern by the School Board, Administrators, and City Officials are the major cause for the decline in the Detroit Public Schools and its Graduates.
