The students at Western High School who waited six weeks for a chemistry teacher were told that they would “pass the class.”
The ones with whom I spoke, all 11th graders, hope to go to college. They know that if they get accepted by a college (and they will get accepted, based on their grade-point averages), they will be sitting next to students who did have teachers, text books, labs.
Theoretically, the Western High students went to school. They receive a grade of “P” in cases where they were present but there was no teacher.
Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan – the people who imposed Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb on Detroit public schools – would never send their children to schools without teachers or where there were 60 students in a classroom with no text books.
They do to us what they would never allow to happen to their own children. But our students have no recourse against this economic violence – they are currently at the mercy of this merciless state.
School districts that are hamstrung by lack of funds and taken over by the governor are easy prey for the big educational foundations and their charter schools.
In the last year, the foundations – working through non-profits – took parents to the City Council and tried to get it to abolish the School Board by forcing it to put the issue on the ballot.
The City Council recognizes that the foundations have the money to impose their will at the ballot box by way of advertising and other media like the movie “Waiting for Superman.” They declined to put it on the ballot.
Never before has the role of the foundations in education been so visible. But we are holding our ground.
