Today the Detroit Free Press reported on the newest plan to cut the city's $139-million deficit by closing up to 18 schools. With shrinking enrollments over the last few years, the schools don't have the bodies to warrant operating half full (or half empty?) buildings. There are 52 schools currently being considered for closure which means 52 principals, 52 staffs of teachers, 52 groups of innocent children are now waiting anxiously to find out if it is their neighborhood school that will be next on the chopping block. 

As the city with the lowest graduation rate in the entire country, this newest news strikes a chord.  Students will need to be shuffled around to new schools next year in a district where working towards a high school diploma is clearly not the norm.  How many kids will slink into the shadows now?  With Detroit laying off hoards of employees every week and school enrollment doing a parallel nose dive, the bitter truth is that the current situation is not going to improve before the district decides which schools to close this summer.  Detroit might be sinking but that doesn't mean that the students that occupy her classrooms should pay the price.  The hope, of course, is that the DPS--even in the midst of its budget crisis--has set aside some resources to help acclimate the students who are required to change schools and minimize the disruption it will cause to their academic careers.  It's the least that can be done to provide a brighter future for some of Detroit's children.  If this news make you feel anxious, too, consider doing something to encourage hope and purpose for a child or school in Detroit.   

Photo credits: http://www.detroityes.com/webisodes/2008/080410-the50/103-McMillanSchool.htm, http://flickr.com/photos/51586455@N00/2807960166/, http://www.flickr.com/photos/detroitderek/1392880463/

Detroit's Academy of the Americas is finally getting what they need.  When the school sent home letters to parents requesting toilet paper and other supplies, they probably didn’t realize that its shortages would soon be the focus of national attention.  After The Detroit News ran an article about the school’s inability to purchase items like toilet paper and light bulbs, national news outlets picked it up, causing donors as far away as New Mexico and D.C. to call and offer support. Now, the school won’t need to send those letters home for quite some time.   

While it’s appalling that schools can’t provide for the basic health of their students, this story is indicative of the larger budget shortfalls in Detroit.  If the schools can’t even afford toilet paper, it goes without saying that they can’t afford afterschool programming, field trips, or science lab equipment.  This morning I spoke with a dedicated Detroit principal who chronicled for me the deterioration of elective offerings at his school over the last ten years.  The ten engaging, formative programs he was once able to offer have been reduced to a single “elective”: gym.  Over the last ten years, enrollment at his school has dropped by about 60% and he simply can’t afford to offer his current students the breadth of educational experiences that former students enjoyed. 

The fact that this toilet paper story went viral is fascinating.  There are schools across the country in which students’ basic needs aren’t being met, but something about this story caught national attention.  Maybe this is the ‘in’ that we (the educational establishment, low-income schools, The Generation Project, like-minded charities) need.  Maybe we, as a nation, will begin to realize that the plight of our lowest-achieving schools isn’t necessarily their fault.  If schools can’t even afford to meet the basic hygienic needs of their students, it is unlikely they are meeting their educational needs either.  Maybe there’s a way to translate this outcry into a larger movement that focuses on what we can realistically do to aid struggling schools.  Ideas?