Allie Gross' News Hits blog post "This letter from a DPS student explains what's wrong with Lansing's plan for her district"(May 6), earned a few responses. On our Facebook page, Donna MacMurray Klein commented:
Parents in the successful districts are involved. They make sure their kids get to class. They volunteer. They meet the teachers. They hold standards high and back up their passion for academic excellence with voluntary high taxes for the schools. Compare that to the family support that DPS kids and teachers get.
News flash: Making this a race or class issue is the knee-jerk and PC reaction. But it does not answer the true issues. People — parents — are responsible. In the successful districts parents do not have to be threatened and warned and enticed to come in to parent-teacher meetings. And the dropout rate is tiny.
When parents are not watching carefully, of course it's easier to perform low and get away with crap.
To which Casey J. Cox replied:
Nice try. I hope you didn't spend much time on this post because your main point is completely wrong. Yes, the parents in white neighborhoods might be more involved. (Make no mistake, that's what you are implying) But all children deserve the same treatment from the state and local districts, regardless of what outside-the-classroom involvement may or may not be present. The state is shitting on these kids and it is absolutely because they are "just some ghetto black kids." There's no way this would happen in rich, white districts.
I should also add that Detroit teachers should not be made to suffer because a lack of outside-the-class parental involvement or participation. Good for you for being involved with your district. However, teachers are not to blame if the parental involvement isn't there, and they should not be punished for it. Your post does nothing but point fingers at the wrong people.
And Jessica Garcia responded:
Are you serious right now? You're going to lay the blame on parental involvement? When parents, teachers, and students have been vocal about this issue for years? I suppose you think the Flint water crisis is the fault of parents too, huh? Because that's how ridiculous you sound. I expect you think that these parents who already working full time and two or three jobs sometimes, are supposed to take what little time they have left to spend with their kids rewiring school buildings? Replacing gym floors that have 2-foot-high warps in them? Or, wait, maybe they would be more involved if they were trapping the rats and cockroaches that swarm these buildings. Or the flooding and standing water, the lack of heat, broken doors and windows ... Please, do tell me which part of this has anything to do with "parental involvement."
In response to Michael Jackman's blog post "Red Wings fans miffed over nixed LED arena roof"(May 3), Jack Frost posted:
Those who thought the Ilitches were going to be honest or that the public was going to get anything out of this deal are either in need of a head exam or are lying to themselves on purpose.
Every stadium ever built with public funds turns out to be a fleecing of the public for the very rich. Always and every time. The only think you might be about to do now is try and have the city government hold back some of the super sweet tax breaks and deals that almost always come with these projects. The public gets the short end of the stick on both ends.
And the rich keep on getting richer.
Erratum: In Adam Woodhead's article about Negative Approach, an error somehow got by us about the order of John Brannon's musical projects. After Negative Approach, he was in Laughing Hyenas, then Easy Action.
