Detroit high schools graduate just a third of their students, according to an estimate by Michigan State University. But when a philanthropist offered to spend $200 million to create 15 new charter high schools, teachers staged a walk-out. Mayor [Kwame] Kilpatrick spurned the offer. These failing schools throw kids with no skills into a struggling economy in an environment characterized by social breakdown.Mr. Lowry suggests some useful topics that could profitably be discussed, not in a conversation about race, but about good governance of our cities. Apparently, a ONE-THIRD graduation rate from Detroit government schools has not been sufficiently alarming to the citizens of Detroit to initiate such a discussion on their own.
It's a black city. Do those black people care about the education of their children? Is that a fair question or not? Who exactly do they blame for this and who are they waiting for to come in and educate their children? What are they themselves telling their children about the value of an education?
The parents of those children clearly aren't doing much of anything and they are willing to tolerate some bizarre teachers' union dynamics.
Did I hear someone say "vouchers"?
"The City that Liberalism Ruined. Detroit is a stark statement on the failure of urban liberalism." By Rich Lowry, NationalReviewOnline, 4/1/08.
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