Metro Detroit schools coping with surge of homeless children

[JohnyCanuck]

DETROIT -- Cherish Brisbane loved Gompers Elementary School, where she was friends with girls named Tyler, Casey and Amanda. Now she's trying to find friends at Owen Academy, her new school near the homeless shelter in Highland Park that she now calls home.

"I miss my school, and that was a good house. Plus I miss my dog, Precious. We had to give her away to somebody," said Cherish, a pretty girl with her hair pulled into a puff on top of her head. "The hardest part was I lost all my best friends."

The 8-year-old is one of a growing number of homeless children attending schools throughout Metro Detroit, where the number of children known to have no fixed address has shot up by more than 70 percent in the last three years. Cherish has lived in two shelters since her family was evicted from their Detroit home in November.

The state Department of Education estimates it's serving about 20,000 homeless students statewide, including 3,540 in Detroit alone.

And those are just the children they know about.

Experts say many parents are too embarrassed to admit they are homeless, or are afraid to ask for help out of fear their children will be taken away and placed in foster care. According to Maureen Sorbet, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Services, homelessness that is solely attributable to poverty is not considered child neglect.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080407/SCHOOLS/804070387

[Bozita]

1. Will somebody remind me why we're in Iraq?

Short memory here.

[lpbk2713]

3. Cuz Halliburton needs the money.

Uncle Dick said so.

[MidwestTransplant]

2. You act as if a Trillion dollars here rather than there could do anything

to help folks /sarcasm

[Bozita]

4. How about three trillion dollars?

I'm using Joe Stiglitz's figure.

[MidwestTransplant]

10. Ok fine, 3T might build a few schools over here, but compared to the benefit

we are reaping in Iraq, you surely acknowledge it's better spent over there. ;)

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. My district won an award for its homeless programs

Our kids stay in their home school. They don't have to transfer and the district provides transportation. Whether they are homeless or placed in foster care, they get to stay where they feel more comfortable.

[Coexist]

14. do they separate homeless families?

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. No; the kids stay enrolled where they were before they became homeless

[Coexist]

17. so they stay with their parents?

I'm just curious.

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. In a shelter yes

We do have some who are put into a foster care and they don't stay with their parents but the homeless kids do, AFAIK.

[Skittles]

6. I lost all my friends every year as a GI brat

cannot imagine that AND being homeless :(

[spinbaby]

7. Oh, that is so sad!

K&R

[Octafish]

8. Detroit's public schools graduate about 25-percent of the kids who begin in kindergarten.

The only cure for poverty is a good education. That's why there's no money for public education -- Bush and his cronies benefit from ignorance and hopelessness. It is a tragedy for the kids, their families, Detroit and our nation.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

11. The problems with detroit schools

go *far* deeper than money

In 1996/97, Detroit Public Schools enrolled 183,447 students, and employed 22,077 staff. Enrollment has fallen every year since, averaging 147,808 during the 2003/04 school year. Employment in the District has not fallen. It has risen to 23,800.

After adjusting for inflation, the District’s total spending is only fractionally higher today than it was back in 1996/97 ($1.63 billion now versus $1.62 billion then, in 2004 dollars), but this represents a startling increase per pupil. The District spent $8,830 on each student in 1996/97, but more than $11,000 in 2003/2004.

Lets think about that 11K per kid! A class of 23 kids gets more than a quarter million dollars a year spent on their education! Thats not low funds, thats poor management!

I only bring this up because when we assume that the big problem is 'not enough money' we tend to ignore other things structurally wrong with education..

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. It is a lot more expensive to educate poor kids

A whole lot more expensive. And we have yet to adequately fund our schools serving these kids. So duh of course those schools are failing. Yes, it does take money, lots more than we have spent to date.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

18. Ask youself why its harder

If you cant take 23 kids and give them a solid education with a quarter million dollars a year then a half million wont matter...

Yes there are going to be challenges at poor schools most of which stem from lack of parental involvement and that has *nothing* to do with funding. How much more would make a difference? They are already spending as much as 200% what some districts in Utah spend per pupil and they are spending above 30% more per pupil than they were in 1998 so why is it worse today with more money than it was ten years ago? We are failing our kids and blaming money! Of course the schools in Detroit are doing nothing wrong why bother reforming anything in education lets just throw more dollars at it..

Can you please point me at the district that got better because funding jumped?

--

On edit: look at this

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1085399

Every year, hundreds of would-be classroom teachers fail the MTEL, the Massachusetts Test for Education Licensure. According to Charles Glenn at the Boston University School of Education, independent evaluations of teacher tests like the MTEL put the skills required at the eighth- to 10th-grade level.

Unfortunately, this is still too high for about 40 percent of the test takers each year. So last week, the Democrats of the Massachusetts Senate voted unanimously for a waiver program covering wannabe teachers who fail the test at least three times. Many of them would be allowed to teach ninth-grade English, for example, even after demonstrating that they couldn’t actually pass it.

And in 1998, the state Department of Education solved the problem of a 60 percent MTEL failure rate by simply lowering the passing score to a “D.” Voila!

--

Now, unlike the author of this piece, I'm all for paying teachers more to get better teachers in the door if thats what it takes but the teachers who can do their job have to stop protecting those who have no business teaching. In some European nations class sizes are far larger than the us let alone Asia and they both seem to do ok.

Pay teacher more, make classes slightly bigger (except, of course, special ed) and for the love of pete if you cant pass 9th grade English you should not be teaching!

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. Wow way too much to even know where to start

You are obviously not an educator. You appear to have a very limited understanding of what does work, how we do educate best and why we can't run our schools like they do in Europe. Or Japan. Or New Zealand. We can't due to cultural differences.

Multiple studies going back literally decades indicate one of the best ways to improve achievement in our schools is to REDUCE, not increase class sizes. But darn, that is pretty expensive too. Hence, the reason this strategy has never been taken seriously, in spite of the knowledge it works.

You also don't seem to understand that competency tests for teachers do not give us the best teachers. Quite the contrary in many situations. The things that make teachers competent are hard to put on a standardized test.

And believe it or not, yes it does cost money to provide our kids with a good education. In our urban areas, we have never yet spent enough money to properly educate our kids. Since many of them are culturally deprived, it is lots more expensive to educate them. But our pattern has been to abandon our urban areas and ignore the needs of our urban kids. This is a societal problem yet schools are assigned blame.

So yes, we do need more money if we want to do this right. And no we have never spent enough.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

21. Not any more but I have had to teach classrooms of 10-15 kids in the past

'Multiple studies going back literally decades indicate one of the best ways to improve achievement in our schools is to REDUCE, not increase class sizes.'

These studies typically ignore the quality of teacher. Of course *all things being equal* smaller classes are better but what happens when you increase teacher pay to get better teachers?

'You also don't seem to understand that competency tests for teachers do not give us the best teachers.'

Im sorry Ive seen some of these tests and if you are incapable of doing you sure as hell cant teach.

'The things that make teachers competent are hard to put on a standardized test.'

It would be far more accurate to say putting *everything* that makes a teacher good on paper is hard but there are certainly some prerequisites (like having a 12th grade reading and writing level) which can be measured through test and nobody who cant do that should be teaching, period!

'In our urban areas, we have never yet spent enough money to properly educate our kids.'

If 11k per kids is not enough how much is? 30k per kid? 60k per kid? hell 100K is a nice even number. The problem is right now were not actually trying to fix anything, were just saying give us more money and it will be better.. Well hire more teachers (a large percentage of which cant pass 12th grade English) and that will do it. Its lazy, self serving, and our kids deserve better.

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. I am going to have to ask for some support for your statements

about teacher competency. That seems to be what you are most concerned about anyway.

So how about a link that proves a large percentage of teachers cant* pass 12th grade English?

*should be can't
I believe that is taught in oh - 2nd grade English?

:rofl:

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

23. I posted to you a link above

There is a vast difference between caring about ones punctuation on DU and on a teacher certification exam. FWIW I come across terrible online but in the real world I tested out of English courses during college orientation, I just dont care here (see I missed the ' in dont)..

-http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041212/NEWS/412120357/1060-

More than half a million Florida students sat in classrooms last year in front of teachers who failed the state's basic skills tests for teachers.

A Herald-Tribune investigation has found that fully a third of teachers, teachers' aides and substitutes failed their certification tests at least once.

Teachers who failed more than 40 times teach everything from middle school social studies and grade school to mentally handicapped and learning disabled children.

Nearly 1,400 teachers failed 10 times or more.

--

Please lets not play grammar Nazi

"In our urban areas, we have never yet spent enough money to properly educate our kids"*.. There is a split infinitive. ;)

[proud2BlibKansan]

25. Don't imply teachers are incompetent

while you have your own issues with written language competence.

Seems fair enough to me.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

27. Fair enough..

LOL! how pathetic has your argument become when you (who also has posted grammatical errors on this thread) ignore the fact that more than a third of teachers in flordia cant pass a certification exam!

So rather than deal with the harsh reality that many teachers are, indeed, incompetent you'll attack the lack of an apostrophe on a verbal contraction.. Pathetic, utterly pathetic and more proof that no matter how much money you pump into a broken system its going to stay broken because people like you refuse to see anything but a funding problem as if a quarter million per Detroit homeroom is not enough money..

Can I imply an architect is incompetent for building a faulty building even if I myself cant design a building? Can we imply that a general is incompetent even if we ourselves cant run a war? Yes, when someone can not do the job they are being paid to do is completely fair to call them on it even if we ourselves cant do the job why should teachers enjoy protection?

[Wednesdays]

12. Those 75% who don't graduate can just go curl up and die

:sarcasm:

Unfortunately, that's exactly what a lot of them eventually do.

[knitter4democracy]

9. That just breaks my heart.

We switched my seven year old to the public school (couldn't afford the private school anymore) last fall, and she's still dealing with it and missing her friends and all. I can't imagine how she'd fall apart if she lost our dog and her home at the same time.

More and more of the homeless in this country are kids. It's beyond time to do something about housing in this country.

[Quantess]

13. This has got to impair self-esteem at a formative age.

It's very tragic for all involved.

[BigDaddy44]

24. Lets do some quick math, shall we?

Mayor Kwame "i'm innocent!!" Kilpatrick cost the city what, $9M for his escapades with that chief of staff of his? $9M divided by 3,540 homeless kids comes to (scribble scribble, carry the 2....) roughly $2500 per kid. Gosh, sounds like about 6 months rent in a habitable apartment to me.

I know who I'M blaming for this.

[EFerrari]

26. Because blame is such a productive strategy. n/t

[Wednesdays]

28. Yeah, that $9 mil. just ate up all of Detroit's school budget

:eyes: