Education Conversation in Michigan Focuses on Family

Opinion by Stephen Boyle

The following comment was offered to the Free Press opinion article "Editorial: How Lansing can get in step with the people's agenda for public education". An additional story well worth reading is "Low-income Americans languish in jail because they can’t afford bail" at RawStory.com.

The War on the Poor being waged through cutting services, redlining, and preying on youth to drive felony charges upon them has to stop. Hope for bringing poor families together is being destroyed by several things. Taking care of these will change the opportunity for conversation about family involvement with our children's education.

1. Cutbacks in transportation (Detroit NEEDS 24 hour buses for work opportunities). Basic jobs are not core business hours and transfers on buses makes commuting to work up to 3 hours one way (6 hours commuting). Families end up bouncing from home to home as job opportunities dry up in one place and open in another. If you can't get to work from where you are you move, then move again, and again as jobs change.
2. Predatory lending & forced evictions due to speculation in housing. The poor are being driven out of their homes through fraudulent activities of the mortgage industry and bankers. Driving without insurance happens when redlining jacks insurance higher than a house payment - we end up with people living in cars if they can afford them.
3. Quasi-military/prison environment in the schools and on the streets which seeks to pin felony charges on black and brown youth. This destroys the opportunity for jobs that deny felony offenders. Educate about expunging records more to allow hope to return.

Until the agenda around Lansing moves away from taking away from Detroit and EMPOWERS Detroit there is going to continue to be a problem with family involvement in education. A child can't learn well when they are hungry, or they have a cocktail of meds causing their minds to become mush. Pride, dignity, and hope are needed for education to work.

Stop turning schools into private for profit centers that educate up to the level of test taking to achieve score. Creative education must happen and will happen on the street if it isn't in school. Schools need to look at how their curricula engages students and families. Are the parents interested in the topics being taught?

POVERTY in Detroit - 2/3 of Female head of households with 3 children are under federal poverty line. If 5 children then 90% are under poverty. Look at the ACS stats for 2011. Educating our young adults in raising a family with pride, hope, and purpose is needed.

Resource: The Public's Agenda for Public Education from the Center for Michigan, recently released statistical look through conversations with the public of Michigan.