 So, hello. Good afternoon. My name is Brian Jacob. I'm co-director of the Education Policy Initiative at the Ford School of Public Policy here, and a faculty member here as well as kind of affiliated with the School of Education and the Department of Economics. So the mission of the Education Policy Initiative is to engage and apply policy-relevant education research to help improve overall student outcomes. This takes the form of training and graduate students disseminating best practices and facilitating discussions like this one about education within the university and the larger education community. So I'm very pleased to co-host the event today with the School of Education. Elizabeth Moje, the Associate Dean for Research and Community Engagement at the school, is joining me here today, and she'll be facilitating the Q&A in the second half of the panel. So on behalf of both of our schools, we welcome you to the Ford School, and thank you for joining us today. We'd also like to welcome the audience viewing this event online or via a simulcast at the University of Michigan Detroit Center, and thank Adele Anderson, Director of the UM Detroit Center, for sponsoring this portion of the event. I'd like to thank all the great staff who made this possible, especially Mahima Mahadevan, Julie Montero de Castro, and Angie Underhall. And finally, we'd like to thank Charles H. and Susan Gessner for their generous support of this education policy seminar series. So I'm pleased to welcome you to today's event, the Future of Education Detroit. This is a continuation of a talk we hosted last October. The first panel sparked a vigorous debate about the impact and success of educational reforms in Michigan, and generate interest in hearing additional viewpoints on the reform efforts in Detroit. And so we're honored here today to have four distinguished speakers. These individuals bring an intimate knowledge of the Detroit public schools system along with considerable experience and insight regarding the city more generally. Before I introduce each speaker, I'd like to let you know the format of today's program. Each speaker will present for 10 minutes. After the speakers are presented, we'll open up to questions from the audience, moderated by Elizabeth Moje. For a local audience, you can please use the note card to write down your question. We'll have staff members who will be circulating to collect the questions. The people collecting questions raise their hands, just okay. So Mihima in the back will be running around Robbie here in the front. For our online audience, we welcome your comments and questions via Twitter, the hashtag capital DET, lowercase edu. Capital DET, lowercase edu. And so now let me just briefly introduce each of our speakers, and then we'll let them take it away. We're starting to my immediate left, Chastity Pratt Dossy, is the Urban Affairs Reporter for Bridge Magazine, a publication dedicated to inform Michigan citizens about critical issues in the state. Prior to Bridge, she provided authoritative coverage of Detroit schools for the Detroit free press. Her work has also appeared in the USA Today Essence Magazine and the investigative reporters and editors journal. She's an alum of the University of Michigan and she has the highest hopes for Jim Harbaugh. And we can tell she's wearing the colors today. So to Chastity's left, there's Tawanna Petty. She's a mother award winning activist, social justice organizer, poet and author. She's the past recipient of the Spirit of Detroit Award, Woman of Substance Award, Women Creating Caring Communities Award, and was recognized as one of Who's Who in Black Detroit in 2013. Tawanna is committed to youth advocacy and is heavily engaged in the transformative work on the ground in Detroit. She's a board member of the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to nurture community leadership and a member of Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management. Next, Diana Presadio is a world language instructional specialist for Detroit public schools. She's taught in Detroit for 16 years, including teaching all levels of Spanish language and literature and courses for English language learners. She has a bachelor's degree in secondary education from Eastern Michigan University and a master's of education from Wayne State University with a major in bilingual and bicultural education. And last but not least, Lamont Satchel is the chief innovation officer for the Detroit public schools. He oversees a number of key units within DPS, including, but not limited to, the community schools program, the office of charter schools, and the office of school turnaround, which is responsible for the district's lowest performing priority schools. His previous positions with the district include deputy general counsel, general counsel, chief of labor relations, and interim general superintendent. So I think we have a great set of speakers representing a very nice diverse set of perspectives on education in Detroit. So I'd like to just start off with our first speaker, Chasti Pratt-Dosse. Thank you. It's good to be home. I haven't been here for 20 years, and I do not recognize the place, let me tell you, but that's a good thing, I guess. So I am going to try and squeeze in a lot of slides in 10 minutes. All right, we'll try. So first slide here. We're going to just jump right into it. Detroit School Children Excel. If you've read anything I've written in the Free Press or Bridge over the last 12 years, you might be wondering, really, did Chasti write that? I mean, Detroit School Children Excel, because I've spent a lot of time writing about the troubles and the ills and the problems and things of that nature. But I was always taught you want to start with the end in mind, and if school reform is about children doing well in school, then let's talk about Detroit School Children Excelling, right? What is happening right now in the poorest communities of America, which are largely black communities, is the worst situation black America has faced in slavery. We need to look no further than our schools. And that's a quote from Congressman John Lewis in his memoirs, Walking with the Wind. And you might recognize his name because he was, at the time, a student walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma 50 years ago with Martin Luther King. And he said that in his memoirs, and I think that is it's really poignant now. When we talk about school reform, we talk about these key elements. And please correct me if you think I am wrong. But we talk about governance, right? We talk about the elected school board, the state school board, the mayoral control, the emergency managers. We talk about money, taxes, whether we're paying enough, whether it's adequate, deficits, class sizes, enrollment. In Detroit, we talk about school closure. I know we're supposed to be talking about the future of Detroit schools, but we have to set a baseline. And I might be speaking to the choir, but just indulge me here. When we talk about school reform, we talk about test scores, the Meep and the ACT, right? Those are going away, but that's what we talk about when we talk about school reform. We talk about graduation rates, no child left behind, the elementary and secondary education that common core teacher evaluations. We talk about school choice, right? Charter schools and other states vouchers. We gently talk about segregation and gingerly talk about racism and classism. We talk about safety sometimes, depending on if you're in a place like Detroit, you'll talk about security, bullying, social media. And we talk about parental involvement, whatever that means. It depends on who you ask. These are the things we talk about when we talk about school reform. These are the things that we have spoken about over the last generation when we talk about Detroit schools. So let's talk about governance. The elected board in Detroit in the 1940s, and I know this because I read Jeffrey Morrell's book, right? 1940s, DPS was removed from the city control. Then in 1999, John Engler in the Legislature passed the reform law, which was actually called the Michigan Education Reform Law, but only referred to Detroit schools. He removed the elected board. This action is arguably spurred by the elected board's failure to spend $1.5 billion construction bond that voters approved in 1994. DPS had no deficit at that point. And you can talk about the elected board in governance without talking about the Milliken versus Bradley decision that the Supreme Court of the United States decided Detroit and the segregated schools here were very key in the discussion about integration and segregation of schools. We talk about governance. You have to understand that Detroit public schools have been under state control for most of the past 16 years. We had a time where we talked about the mayor running the schools. Remember that? In 2004, voters rejected that. No, no, no. No, Kwame Kilpatrick, we do not want you to run the schools. And then in 2010, the city council, I mean, this was a time when the city council meetings were on fire. Should the schools be run by the mayor, the city council said, no, leave us out of it. It's not going on the ballot. So we've had bursts of conversations about mayoral control. We have had state control for most of the past 16 years. And since 2009, the emergency managers have run the schools, which is a form of state control. And then in 2011, you might all remember that the Education Achievement Authority was created. It's a reform district. I'm just laying the groundwork here, people. You might know this all, all this stuff, but to talk about the future, we got to know where we came from, right? Money. We talk about money when we talk about school reform. Detroiters always approve villages. Am I lying Lamont? They will always say yes if you ask them for money for schools. This has always been the case. 2005, state is controlling a school district. $200 million shortfall. This is where things start to get really dicey because this is when we start in Detroit to build a huge long term debt. And our bottom line, we talk about money in our schools. This is something we talk about deficits. We talk about the emergency manager. We talk about bonds. The biggest number that people need to understand really come to grips with when we talk about the schools in the city of Detroit is the $1,100 plus dollars per student that is spent on long term deficit, I mean debt. 20, 30 years they have left to pay on these bonds. And next, that's a 300 million. For every $7,600 that they get for students, $1,100 goes to paying off debt. When you lose a kid, for every kid you lose, that number goes up. That is the number that everyone needs to get their heads around. That is the number that is strangling the Detroit school's budget. The financial pressures have reached the point of desperation. That was from 1991. That might as well have been yesterday, right? This is where we need to center all of our conversations. 81% of DPS students are from low income families. 73% of EAA students are from low income families. Income is the determinant of academic success in America. We can talk about governance. We can talk about money. This is the number that determines academic success, whether your kid goes to school with mine in Birmingham or where my son used to go to school in Detroit. This is the number, people. Poverty. Your poverty rate is going to determine your success. How do we know that? On the first try, Detroit schools scored last on the nation's report card in 2009. It was bad. 5% of students were proficient in reading. Why are we here today? Why do we talk about the future of the schools? Because there has been inconsistency across all platforms. From governance to finances, the inconsistency in Detroit schools has led us to where we are. And yes, charter schools had a lot to do with it. Yes, competition with entering suburbs had a lot to do with it. But when you talk about a school district that has had governance structure changes three times in 16 years, has had 10 leaders since 1999, what do you expect? DPS has had four emergency managers since 2009. City of Detroit had one who with state support revolutionized the city's budget and left town in 18 months. And DPS had emergency managers since 2009. Good schools can go a long way toward helping poor children achieve better, but the fact remains that educational inequity is rooted in economic problems and social pathologies too deep to be overcome by school alone. Our biggest hope is to break the cycle of disadvantage that lies outside the influence of the school day. We remember Susan Newman, don't we? She used to be here. That was from her book, Changing the Eyes for Children at Risk. So a few weeks ago I wrote a story called It Doesn't Matter Who's in Charge. Because when you look at 10 urban districts that have had governance changes, deficits, charter schools, no governance structure is attached to any improvements in academic outcomes. How do we know? Because Detroit still rakes last after taking the NAEP three times and changing governance three times. What works? We know what works. High standards, early childhood, coordinated services that include families, well-trained staff, accountability, and equitable and adequate funding. We know what works people. So what's next? March 31st, the Coalition for the Future of Detroit School Children is going to come out with recommendations. There's going to be another change in Detroit's school systems. We know it. It's been announced. It's been in the news, so it must be true, right? By March 31st, this coalition is going to make recommendations to the governor, the mayor, the legislature, as to what the stakeholders, the investors, the foundations, the muckety mucks, the big people, the important folk, the parents, the teachers, everyone, what they really think should happen next with schools. Those recommendations are going to come out in the 31st. Why are they so important? Well, when I call the city and when I call the governor and say, well, what's going to happen? We hear the governor is going to change the structure again. They say, well, we're going to wait to see what the coalition comes with. There's a lot of power being invested in this coalition. So sometime this month we're going to see, again, some changes in Detroit schools. So I'm ending that. Starting where we began, Detroit School Children Excel. If it's really, what, if school is really about school, then we have to believe this. We have to believe that Detroit School Children can Excel. I went to Detroit Public Schools, Detroit School Children can Excel. We know this, right? When I, when I do these kinds of speeches, I try to tell people something they don't know, because all this stuff is, if you've been paying attention, you know this stuff. A couple of stories I never told. There was a security guard who helped a child give birth in a high school in 2007. That same year there was a teacher who gave a student's father a kidney. There are people in these schools who care about the children who are there. We know it works and the future of Detroit School Children depends on whether we just put it into play. That's all. Thank you, Chastity. I'm just going to have a heart-to-heart with you all. This is the first time I've ever written what I was going to say at a presentation. So I wanted to make sure I said what was on my heart. That's okay with you. Dear Detroit, watching online and Metro Detroit. When I was a child, we moved around a few times. My mother was always seeking what she thought was best for us. Because of these moves, I attended quite a few elementary schools, most of which no longer exist because they've been demolished or closed. When you are only 38 years old and you can barely retrace your primary education, it does something to you. You resort to Facebook groups attempting to dredge up old memories, hoping somebody will hold that missing link to your identity. It's like most of your educational past outside of a limited transcript and maybe a few photos has been erased. Because of realities like this, many of our young people and young adults are suffering an identity crisis. You don't have to go back to slavery or Jim Crow South to find that folks are having a difficult time relating to their cultural identities. When you don't feel like you belong anywhere, you function as one who has been displaced. These are only a small few examples of why I feel compelled to do my part. Why I feel it is my responsibility to help fill in the gaps where a system continues to fail our children. I thank God for the many teachers, parents, nontraditional educators, mentors, coaches and organizers who get it, who recognize that there are too many who have been left behind stuck between finger pointing and accusations. Those who have remained committed to going above and beyond their cause to duty in order to vision a way forward for our young people. The ones who recognize there is enough blame to go around and that they cannot exhaust their energy in a tug of war. Right now we are all failing our children. No particular entity or person can claim less fought than any other. I grew up in Detroit public schools. I educated my child through Detroit public schools. I have been a football team mom, a basketball team mom, a debate team mom. I do not have the luxury to drag parents through the mud for failing to attend meetings, games and practices, many of which I spent plenty of years unable to attend for my own son until I was somewhat liberated from the binds of a particular profession. Unfortunately, we live in a job culture that forces us to commit our lives to investing in the businesses and pockets of the wealthy while neglecting our family's needs as well as our own needs. We're suffering abuse and allowing our children to be abused because we have accepted the notion that schooling and education are synonymous and that we do not have what it takes to stand in the gap for our children. Detroit has suffered over half a century of propaganda assault and at the forefront of that has been criminalization of black bodies and we have absorbed that as a culture. The same media that has been telling black children that they are insignificant, that they are thugs, that they are illiterate and menaces to society are the same media reporting on their confusion about the epidemic they helped to foster. Young people need to feel valuable just as adults do and when we hang our heads low in despair and constantly call ourselves and our children failures, products of failing schools, students at risk, families in poverty, we weaken their spirits and resolve. Young people have began to believe the propaganda assault and identities we have used to dictate their existence and because of that many have given up hope. We have people advocating for public education and pointing fingers at everyone but themselves when they don't even consider DPS good enough for their own children. There are plenty of fingers to go around but I'm not here to point fingers. I'm not here to talk about taking power. I'm not here to talk about creating power. I'm here to talk about creating power, creating solutions, visioning a way for re-spiriting young people, nurturing their inherent talents and gifts and reimagining what education can look like. We must stop teaching our children to be robots. We must stop making unrealistic economic decisions for our children and squashing their imaginations based on our corrupted dreams of success and prosperity. We must nurture and celebrate the imaginations and collective visioning and co-creating that comes naturally to children. Don't steer them away from their creativity. Celebrate it. Don't tell your children they can't be poets. Buy them notepads. Don't tell your students they have too much vigor. Put them in plays. Encourage the singers to join choirs. The kids with extra energy to join the marching band. In the words of my mentor, Grace Lee Boggs, children are not a school of fish and it is child abuse to treat them that way. I could sit here and say that the conditions that our young people face is not my fault because I have faced many of these challenges as both a former DPS student and a parent of a DPS graduate. The principle of my former high school, Henry Ford, was indicted in 2000. I could shrug my shoulders and say that the future of our children is out of my control because I did not loot money from the school system and I have never been on the school board. I could turn my back to this crisis because I did not advocate for the school to work opportunities act, the elementary and secondary education act, the school to work the no child left behind common core or the ACT work keys test. I could say that I have done enough because I have actively resisted emergency managers in many capacities as an organizer and activist. I have already nurtured my son through graduation and into a four-year university so I could stop advocating for young people but that would be cowardly and irresponsible. This is my fight, much like the water struggle, the land grabs, the poverty and propaganda driven crime rates and the police brutality in my city. They are all connected. These programs did not wage war on poverty, they wage war on people, most of all children. I say all that to say that there are solutions, some of which should happen in schools and many which need to happen outside of schools. Invest in debate programs, they have proven to nurture critical thinkers and produce graduation rates in the 90 percentile. There are too many teachers exhausting their resources and energy volunteering long hours after school and on weekends to support debate programs because they recognize the value of debaters. We need community-funded and supported debate programs. Donate food and resources to the Detroit Urban Debate League. Offer to sponsor tournaments, show the children who come from all different schools, economic and cultural backgrounds across Detroit that they are worth the time and effort and that you recognize their 60 plus week commitment, 60 hour a week commitment. Children excel and invest in what they enjoy and that is okay. Reinvest in programs like home economics, wood shop, robotics, music and other skill building programs. Teach poetry in a classroom, not just a blurb during English class but as an actual lesson on culture and skill. Connect young people to true grassroots organizations doing amazing work in their city. Send them on a tour and political discussion with the box center. Take them by conscious corner cafe for poetry and to support the ownership of a cooperatively owned run business by folks who look like them. Connect them with we the people of Detroit so that they may contribute through sweat equity and volunteerism to the needs of their neighborhood currently facing massive water shutoffs and tax foreclosures. Show them they have a role in the true revitalization of their city from the ground up and through their own actions. We must stop trying to educate and prepare our children for jobs we know won't exist for many of them when they leave school. Jobs that for most black and brown students will steer a clear path away from their identities and passions and into a dead end road of TGIF Facebook and Twitter posts and Instagram memes articulating their daily despair. Even as we watch the crumbling of capitalism and its desperate attempts to clean on for dear life we remain conditions to pursue the American dream by any means necessary. We have spent significantly less time thinking about whether our children could even ever obtain that dream or whether it is even right for them. We have become desensitized to our children's needs as human beings and programmed to prep them for their rightful place in the economy. All they have to do is go into debt looking like they want it looking like they're in pursuit of a good job whether or not they ever get that job or whether they are ever able to dig themselves out of debt is of little concern to many. It's not part of some post-adult debrief even though even those of us that have been unhappy and victimized by this pursuit still push our young people towards it much like frequently running to the lottery store hoping for a big win only to be left questioning why we spent our limited dollars in such a frivolous way. We must nurture the inherent talents skills and gifts in our young people every school can have a mantra that builds the morale of its young people every school every day should be telling its children they are number one children mimic what they see in adults if we do not believe that we are number one then children won't believe it either. We cannot afford to sit by while the children are in exile we must stop producing test takers and funneling those who fail tests into prisons. If you don't have a dog in the fight for our children please do not interfere with their education. I took my first breath in Detroit and it is my responsibility to love her back to life as a resident an organizer a neighbor to many children and a parent who knows that children are seeds that we must ensure are rooted in firm foundation educational and otherwise in order for this city to grow from the inside out restoring the village mentality and becoming a beloved community are not just notions they must be the roadmap we follow as residents of Detroit as parents as teachers as organizers as youth leaders as pastors our young people deserve our encouragement and support so they can be visionary leaders of the future that we know they can be we're not victims we're more than survivors it is our time to become solutionaries just as the kids at the box school believe themselves to be thank you. Good evening everyone I'm very honored to be here in this panel and I'm very grateful for the opportunity that I was given to talk about a subject that is that I feel very passionately about which is the future of education in Detroit. My preparing for this talk was a roller coaster of emotions. I was thinking back of all the experiences that I had that were rewarding but equally challenging. The best part of my job would definitely have to be having encountered or having met so many wonderful individuals who were deeply committed and who were so hard working so hard so that our students could have a better future. These people have been wonderful role models to me and I'm still very passionate and I still believe in my students because they believe in me. The most disappointing part of my job on the other hand is when I see some of these hardworking committed individuals when they start feeling like their efforts alone are simply not enough to make no worthy change. This feeling of disillusionment and isolation ultimately causes many to give up or leave our school system so then what can we do to prevent our teachers administrators parents and students in our current system from becoming discouraged or like they're being set up for failure. How do we empower each of these groups and increase their sense of value purpose and commitment to the future of Detroit's children. Think of the daunting task of moving a 1200 pound piano. You will probably know that the chances of moving it properly without damage to yourself or the piano are highly unlikely because the ads are against you. However when many people collaborate to help you lift and carry their part of the piano in unison the chances for success are much greater. The piano is lifted. I suggest we continue developing a culture of individual responsibility and collaboration in which each group and individual involved has a clear understanding of what is expected of them assumes full responsibility for their own actions and is willing to support others so that they can also perform to the best of their ability. In achieving this goal no one person is more important or responsible for lifting and carrying the piano's weight than another. Likewise in our efforts for improving Detroit's academic system none of these groups is more important than another. We all need each other to equally to succeed. Although there are many groups that are equally important for this collaborative system to succeed I chose to focus my attention on the four that can start putting this practice in place immediately. These groups are the teachers, the administrators, the students and the parents in every school of Detroit. The first group I would like to focus my attention on is the teachers. In order for teachers to be highly effective they need to provide our students with quality instruction. Teachers must know which skills, content, technology and assessment tools to include as they create engaging lesson plans that will keep their students interest. Other responsibilities include communicating classroom expectations, procedures, grading policies, academic goals, students progress and meaningful feedback in a timely manner. It is important to realize that even the most effective and hardworking teachers need the proper setting resources and support and support of others to succeed. As a teacher for example I provided my students with a list of expected behaviors and procedures. I explained how I will reward them individually and as a group for their cooperation. I also gave them many tools in order for them to moderate and correct their own behavior by choosing their own consequences from a selected list. Whenever a student decided not to cooperate with me I felt very comfortable involving a parent or administrator because I could explain the many ways I had tried to work with the student before requesting their help. Classroom management is one of those daunting tasks that teachers cannot do on their own. We need all the students collaboration parents support and reinforcement from an administrator in order to actually be successful. When they call a classroom management classroom management does not work if when we actually ask for other people other people's help and they don't come to our rescue or they don't support us it doesn't work that way but we're still the ones who are playing for it. Under mining students behavior or teacher's concern will only make matters worse. The second group I would like to focus is the administrators on the administrators. Highly effective administrators are responsible for creating schools that promote academic excellence. Highly effective administrators actively support their teachers instructional best practices by providing the training resources textbooks and technology they request when the budget is actually available. They are equally responsible for communicating their expectations to their teachers evaluating and providing valuable feedback promptly allowing them to make the necessary adjustments to their instruction or classroom management. Administrators can also support their staff by providing professional development in the form of workshops webinars coaching or other from instruction specialists or other master teachers. They are also responsible for tracking their teacher's progress in specific areas where they think they need to improve. Although we did lack many valuable resources in my class I was very fortunate to have administrators who saw the value in continuous professional development. They encouraged me to attend workshops because they saw that the time and money spent in training was an actual rewarding investment. Moreover I had additional support from wonderful co-workers and coaches as well as administrators who gave me ideas on how I can continue to improve. I began to see the positive impact of these other factors and how they affected my performance and my confidence in the classroom. I was able to create more engaging lesson plans which in turn motivated my students to learn. The third equally important group whose support we cannot thrive without is that of the parents. Many parents still rely on their children to provide them with all the information about grades attendance standardized tests requirements for graduations and college as well as tuition assistance. Many parents do not realize how involved they can actually be. Our parents most see themselves as equal partners in their children's academic success. A greater effort from teachers and administrators is necessary to inform our parents on the resources and services they can use to help their children. Once the parents get all the information they need they are equally responsible as well as empowered to be involved in their children's academic progress in a more proactive manner. It is devastating to see the parents reactions when their children do not get the opportunities they had hoped for them. Lastly I had the pleasure to work with some extraordinary students who happen to be here. Some of them are here. These students understood the value of hard work and determination. These students were the source of inspiration to many of the administrators and teachers. These students motivated me so much that I even decided to request my administrators to open a new advanced placement class that had never been offered in the district before because they didn't think any kids would actually want to do it. I was willing to teach four different classes a day because I knew this class would give them or help them develop many important skills they will need in college. And now that I talk to them when they text me or they email me four pages telling me what we need to do differently in Detroit. They tell me that those skills did help and that is how I get my motivation but we know there is a broken system if that's how teachers get motivated every day and we need to change that. Even though we could not get the books to arrive on time or have the access to the to the technology we needed my administrators made the necessary arrangements in order for us to have that class available. Although the work was excessive and then later I found out that I wasn't as cool as I thought it was and that they actually kind of dreaded the amount of work we did and I'm over it. It was very gratifying to see how when everyone is doing their part the challenges can become more easily attainable. Most of them are currently attending the University of Michigan and they are very grateful for having accepted the challenge in our in a class. Many of us still remember as one of the most rewarding academic experiences of our lives. The piano was lifted. Moving forward the strategy to deal with our current challenges is to unite and conquer. Unite in efforts unite in purpose unite in voice. Once we start implementing this sense of community internally we can then communicate with the rest of our partners at the local state and national level letting them know in which ways they can support our endeavors. Dividing our efforts now will not bring about any positive change. Listening to others perspectives and helping them with their needs is a step in the right direction and I am very proud to be part of that type of movement. Thank you. Good evening everyone how are you? Let me first start by thanking the four school and the College of Education for convening this event. I think it's very important that you continue to do this if we're going to see significant change in education here in Michigan. It's going to be because thinking folk like you have forums and talk about the issues these pressing issues that many of us don't want to talk about because they're uncomfortable. But as long as folk like you are talking about this it keeps it out there and forces us to deal with these issues that are significant here in the state of Michigan. I'd also like to give a special shout out to the College of Education and particularly Dean Moji. The University of Michigan College of Education has been in the district for about eight years as a partner with us and one of the I think the highlights of that relationship has been their participation in the Detroit School of Arts. We went to a very unique arrangement with some of our high schools where we have their self-governing schools where we have a self-governing council that sort of assists and oversees the program at that school, works very closely with the district through a contract in terms of driving home the mission of that school. So thank you Professor Moji, I appreciate that. I'd like to talk about several things but the first thing I'd like to talk about is sort of the context within which we're having this discussion. Because I know we're here to talk about the future of education in Detroit but there's a larger context within which this education discussion is happening because it's not just a Detroit issue. This is a Michigan, a state of Michigan issue. If you look at the issues plaguing the Detroit Public School, you see them in other communities. Granted I think as Chastity pointed out they're probably more pervasive or visible in predominantly African-American communities but you see them in suburban communities also and so we ask ourselves what is driving this need for reform in the state of Michigan particularly down in Detroit and I think the primary cause of this is funding. It's something that we have not grappled with. I remember when I was back in the district I was there from 97 to 2007 as a general council and one of the issues that we were prepared to follow the lawsuit on was adequate funding because it was clear at that time that we were not funding education the way that we should be particularly with respect to in urban environments. It was clear that if we were to achieve at the levels that the state wanted us to and that we should that we had to seriously address that issue and I think this is an issue that plagues a number of communities and it's caused us to engage in what I call a lot of maladaptive behaviors across the state. I think some of the other common issues that we share are we see these decreases in the indicators and measures of academic success. Look at the state meep scores and data. This is a you see it's not just Detroit problem. Now Detroit clearly is not achieving as high as other schools but if you look just across the state you what you see is the state is not performing at the levels that we all would expect with respect to education. Another issue is we've seen this precipitous increase in the number of charter schools now listen if whoever can do the job let them do it but you reach a point where you have to ask yourself look is this working I mean the idea behind charter schools and quite frankly Detroit public schools in Detroit was probably one of the first to charter schools and I think we ended up moving away from what we intended because a lot of them were themed schools right so it's things that we couldn't do wholesale across the district but if there was a significant number of parents interested in that we'd do it. We had a lot of African themed schools charter schools at the time in the district but what you've seen is this increase in the number of of of of charter schools to the detriment of public institutions that are required to provide education. I like to Detroit public schools and say you know I'm through with this wash our hands of it we're out of this you're required to provide education to to students in the city of Detroit. It's not the case for for a charter school if they decide that hey I want to give this I'm finished with this I want you know I want to give it up they can go away and so what has happened what you've seen is as this funding issue has exacerbated issues within within the district it's complicated because now you have this proliferation of charter schools a hundred a hundred students here 200 there 300 there and it's primarily where at the k-8 level and as many of you may know that's where we make our money that's what school districts make their money it's a k-8 level so what we've done is we've created a system and put a system in place that hampers the ability of the entity that's required constitutionally to provide education to kids to do so um how has this impacted the dps uh some of you may know as early as 2003 2004 and I know because I was there we were predicted we knew that we were going to lose 10,000 kids a year I had demographers told us that and that's when I talk about our maladaptive response to a financial issue what we decided to do was fix the problems through closures and consolidations that's not to say that we should not have have done that but that became our means of dealing with the issue instead of asking ourselves what if I'm losing 10,000 kids a year why why am I losing them where are they going and granted they it was a decline in population of the city that was expected that was factored in but what you saw was a lot of kids were leaving the district to go to charter schools and so we should have asked ourselves why why are they leaving us why are they doing this and I think what happened is um what we primarily see is it's an academic issue that we have to confront it's an academic issue that we have to confront but what has happened is we've now treated this as a financial problem and so now we have to try to cut cost cut and concession our way out of this now that's not to say that that you don't have to fix the financial problem but you see what happens when you do that the academics right takes second seat to that right and to me that's what is primarily driving it right the district is healthy is vibrant financially because of the number of students that you have if the number of students is decreasing significantly and you know that then you have to ask yourself and tell ask them intelligent discussion about why is that happening and what do I need to do to save that off to fix that um so we were losing 10,000 kids at the time 76 million dollars a year I don't know any company can adapt to the loss of 76 million dollars a year and so what does it force you to do it force you into that maladaptive mode right what are we going to do you have okay there's a 10 cut that's concession right because it's easy it's something you can do right away you outsource right you you you engage in all of these other behaviors that have a direct or indirect impact on your ability to drive academic achievement again example we used to have one of the one of the best um principal academies right here in the state we trained principal before you became a principal you went through this principal academy you were ready to assume the helm well what happens when you get into financial fix let's we cut that right cut salaries when I last left in 2007 we were on our third round of salary cuts it's happened probably every year since then and so you know in a situation where how do you attract the best and the brightest when the starting salary for a teacher in tps is 35 36 thousand dollars right and it's been frozen at that level for two three years right and all the other incentives that we provided teachers and educators with respect to um uh uh working in the district have been taken taken away um the other issue I think we need to deal with we need to talk about is and have an open and honest discussion about this is at-risk students the district the city of detroit has a significant number of at-risk students and so the question becomes knowing that how do you respond to that how do you deal with that does that require you to fund that at a different level because they have needs that other communities may not have but it needs to be addressing nonetheless a segment the one minute one minute flag here um let me move on to the fix right so as you know there are a number of folk out here looking at planned solutions to fix the problem here in the in the Detroit public schools which would likely have a ramifications throughout the state you have the governor legislative solutions that are being looked at uh the coalition for the future of of uh education in Detroit uh is taking a look at that in fact I serve on one of the the committees you have other actors out here charter school and others who are developing plans to I think provide to the governor with respect to their take on what needs to be um to be done here's my belief on this I think what's required is for us to view education as a meaningful critical investment with clear with a clear understanding as to the return on that investment which has economic social and other measures then what we have to do is make the appropriate and sustained investments necessary to achieve our educational goals this must be literally viewed as viewed and approach as in my estimation the greatest experiment in collaboration across silos with a no failure policy that removes every opportunity for failure I have a I have a favorite saying kids are not cars you can't recall a kid and my concern is our approach to education has been to treat it as if it's you know a widget company you know what I mean if everyone understands the vow you can't name anything that that is not in some way touched by education by some individual right who was educated who has an aptitude to do something and so if that's the case how do we then say look let's elevate the discussion let's elevate the paradigm and treat this as an investment what are we willing to invest in our future in our kids so that we can have the type of future the type of financial social economic society that we want and it's going to take some sacrifices right some folks are going to have to sacrifice and be willing to say I can sacrifice in the short term and be willing to give someone else across eight mile if you will the resources that they need because I know in the end it'll renew to the benefit of not only myself but my children their posterity and so I think those are the types of approach that's the type of approach in the way I view and I think we should view education and deal with the issues that plague us because listen governance is important we know that it's very important but at the end of the day we know what drives academic achievement and if you don't have the money to invest in that it's for naught we know we know that three key components one you have to have high performing leaders principles right how do you do that right that should be our focus how do you do that how do you measure that how do you support them high performing teachers what does that look like how do you do it how do you support it and lastly students which is lost in our discussion it's the last thing I want to say with respect to students it's it's it's amazing to me how we treat students um often we plan for students and not with them and I think it requires us to have some open honest discussions with students with respect to their needs their desires and what is important to them what we traditionally do as adults I'm a parent I know I do it I decide what's best for you but I think if we're going to do this it has to be very collaborative and we need to be able to reach out to kids to understand the issues that are affecting them that are plaguing them so that we can address them it's time out for fixing assumptions it's time for us to fix problems and to fix problems means you have to put down go across the aisle walk out of your silo and listen listen listen thank you oh well thank you thank you very much can we get another round of applause for these amazing speakers it's really great for really inspiring speakers and for speakers who have raised a lot of questions for us while questions are being collected oh it looks like we might even oh no we're going to collect questions now I have a question to launch the discussion and I'd actually like to hear from each of you if you would and then we're going to collect questions from the audience I'll be reading those from index cards and we'll also be collecting questions from Twitter people will be tweeting it's what I'm told is the proper lexicon so so we heard from Deanna about the moves and practices of the four key participants in in educational success and really how to really support the education of Detroit children and youth and Deanna is an amazing teacher and I'm a first-hand witness to her teaching we heard from Tawana about being solutionaries what a great word Tawana I love that and and you gave great examples of some of the solutions we could pursue we heard from Lamont that it's all about funding and so you know those solutions may depend on an investment that we want to make and we heard from Chastity that we know what to do so you know just do it right let's do it so why don't we why aren't we making progress and so I'd like to hear from each of you what your perspective on why we're not stepping forward why we can't do it is it money is it will is it racism is it struggles for power thought I'd just you know open it up and try to create some havoc here what's going on it's all of the above I would hope that people would look at a story that appeared last fall in bridge magazine where Ron French and I went to four different states to find out what other states are doing why are they passing us up why is michigan in the bottom third of states when it comes to achievement and what we found is is is all of the above we in michigan have not done what Lamont said which is create a a priority around schools that everyone agrees to and sticks to I went to massachusetts I mean they're the the golden child of school reform these days and what I saw there was a state where they said 20 years ago we are going to come up with a plan the business community pushed the plan researched the plan for a year not 90 days but an entire year to come up with some recommendations put them forth to the legislature they came up with this of the massachusetts reform plan and they stuck to it through democratic governors through republican governors it was it was you know it was like this holy thing don't mess with it school reform is going to work children they are failed miserably for the first few years of reform there but they stuck to their plan and now they in massachusetts are far far far far and above everyone else in the united states and I think that's it we just have it come up with a plan and everyone agreed to it to stick to it a plan that says that school is about school let's talk about school really what happens in the school first what are expectations what is johnny going to learn what is he going to read what is he going to do let's talk about how we fund that secondarily after we've decided what they should all be able to do and make sure that we give the students who need the most the most money uh-oh that's political we don't like to talk about that in michigan giving poor kids more money than we give rich kids so they did all that and they're far above us and Mike Flanagan our state superintendent in a interview with bridge magazine said that we've not done those things we're ten years behind them ten years behind the people who leapfrogged over us because we didn't do what they did we know what works we know it works well i'm going to say first and foremost that finances can't be an excuse to miseducate children we've been in poverty in detroit for a very long time so if we're going to stick to that paradigm then we're never going to educate our children so i can't i can't support that uh that theory and i also say that i mean right now our children are in the hands of people who consider them at risk i mean that very narrative is destructive to their humanity and so i don't care if you dump millions of dollars into a classroom if the students in the classroom feel like they're at risk then they're going to function like they're at risk there is a difference between a school that you know uh you walk into the building and you hear you're number one second to none nobody nobody's better than you you're great you're incredible and there and then a school where you walk into the school and an educator says to them i'm going to get paid whether you learn or not so and i've i've experienced both so i i just i really want us to you know i need you know lamont uh thank you for for your work but when our administrator of dps doesn't focus his response on dps i find that difficult to deal with this is not a michigan discussion this is a detroit discussion and we need to be focused on talking about the education of detroit children and that's one of our downfalls is we don't like to have the difficult conversations and we like to talk about well it's not just the detroit thing is no 45 percent of the students in detroit are not graduate more than 45 percent of the students in detroit are not graduating high school we need to talk about that and it's not about money it's about the fact that we have gotten so hung up on the propaganda of what our young people are supposed to be considering themselves that we get lost in what we're supposed to be educating them we're not supposed to be telling them that we can't educate them until we get some more money and so i'm have i have an issue with that for me for me of course i have to speak as a teacher and i think that as a teacher you get a lot of mixed messages um you you need to be you need to plan a rigorous lesson but it also has to be very fun and it also has to be creative but it also has to be something that's going to help the kids so they can prepare for the test and then you want to be strict in the class and you have to make sure that the kids feel safe and but you also have to be cool and likeable and because if the kids don't like you they're not going to want to have your class and then they're going to go to the other cool teacher and you become a problem to the administrator if you're not likeable if you're you know pushing the kids a little bit more than another teacher and then that becomes a fear of losing your job thinking that if if the kids are saying you're asking for too much so i'm going to drop your class and other adults listen to the kids they listen to the kids a lot more than the adults who are in charge they take their word for it they um they don't believe us and we say well no we're doing everything in our power to help your child the parents think we are victimizing sometimes when we're really trying to prepare them and giving them the skills but when we see that it's that we're upsetting everybody by actually giving the skills that they need then we don't know who to please anymore or what to do another issue that i see is that a lot of times from the beginning we do feel like sometimes we're set up for failure and there are many reasons why it could be because somebody retired or quit and last minute they got sick now we have vacancies now we have teachers who are put in a classroom where they were not really prepared to teach and that was not the teacher's choice it was something that had to happen i am not blaming anybody i'm just saying that's a reality so you're uh there was a time when i was teaching five different class five different classes because i'm certifying different things in four different classrooms and i i mean i i was a completely abandoning my family and working overtime but still i did not feel like i was a great teacher because there was no way so a lot of teachers feel like there's no way they can do it and i use the analogy of the piano and i was thinking you know i'm thinking of the piano but i think if i gave that analogy to another teacher or another group of people outside Detroit they would say well just why are you pushing this piano why are you lifting it just buy wheels and put them underneath it and just roll it down you know but we don't think like that we don't think because a lot of times we have to do what we have to do with what we are given because we know there is no budget for something that's going to simplify a task you got to start it didn't you dr emoji now you're on the defensive um let me see if i can answer this question with respect to why why it hasn't happened i can answer it from the perspective of the Detroit uh Detroit public schools in order for a problem to be addressed in order to see sustained growth academically otherwise whether it's in an academic setting or company or whatever there's some key things that you need one of which is a vision and stability to carry it out and resources right from 99 until the present and i i calculated today in a meeting i think we've had including myself so long-term and short-term uh assistant superintendents maybe about i think it was like 13 or 14 right and now we're in an emergency manager model where every 18 months you've seen someone come in i think there's been no give me i think there's been progress uh particularly on the emergency manager model um in terms of moving the district in the in the in the right direction but you have to you have to grab grapple with that and understand it when when the district got into the financial fix that it did look at what it did it put academics on the back burner and we now became an institution had to fix a financial problem right and the focus was on fix the deficit fix the deficit balance the budget make payroll right and if if it's not like you had a long you could prepare a long term a long term strategy or plan to deal with that 10 000 student loss right what folk did was every year they're figuring what to cut i need another 10 percent i need another 10 percent we can outsource this right we can cut that and what you ended up doing is you you crippled the organization you crippled the organization in a way that you could not provide the level and the quality of education that you needed to uh to the students in the in the in the in the district i think there are other factors that that uh chastity touched on i think in moji mentioned that um it exacerbated uh this but one of these you want to talk about sister brought up with respect to to at risk see i don't use that as an excuse but see i'm to the point now where i have to deal with reality and if the reality is that that we have a population of kids a significant population of kids that have a different set of circumstances they're bringing to school i need to know that so that i can deal with it right in terms of wraparound services right so it's hard for some folk to conceive what a kid is coming to school dealing with and what's last edition 2007 it occurred to me as i bet you a lot of these kids are under a level of chronic stress that we as adults are missing right because i know what you're probably doing you're under stress some you go play basketball you go you do right we have developed healthy responses to our stress right what is it a four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve what what do they do what do they do mom i'm going to go down to bimini now i'm a little stressed out you see what i'm saying right they bring that to school they act it out it impacts them and affects them and you want to sit them down and say johnny listen and you can speak listen focus you know we need to get through this lesson today all i'm saying with respect to that is you have to realize and treat folk where they're at where they're at is not where they can ultimately where they'll stay it's not where they'll be in the future but i need to understand how you got here why you're here so i can give you the level of support that you need to be um successful and with respect to my trying to frame the debate with respect to a michigan problem as opposed to a detroit problem it's it's for this reason because what happens every time the issue is it's detroit right silos go up the racism come in the prejudice come in but when you elevate the discussion say hey look let us get outside of of those boxes and let's look at this holistically as a state issue and where does this state need to be from an education perspective understanding that different communities will have different needs but i'm willing to make the investment in that because it endures to the benefit of the state and everyone in the state i'm not using this as a as a cop out to say let's not deal with detroit we don't deal with detroit detroit is being dealt with and detroit will be dealt with in a very responsible way but at the at the end of the day you have to make sure that that you have the level and the type of discussion that allows you to have long term sustained growth where where you're breaking down these silos and you're removing all these barriers and and and what i call opportunities for failure you got to get them out of the system so let me with that let me turn to a question that will you know answer all of this and completely quell any controversy so what and where this is from the audience and we actually have two questions that are somewhat related so i'm going to read one and then kind of play on the other one what governance model do you recommend for all ea a dps and charter schools detroit schools so all the ones that exist right now what is one governance model should there be an entity that oversees all three types of schools and the second question my glass is on it's not because the person has bad handwriting how do you find a balance between the traditional public and the public charter schools so who wants to take that and we probably so we can get through a few questions because we're going to end in just a few minutes let's hear from one person well let me i'll quickly answer the first one i'm on the governance committee with respect to the coalition so i'm not at liberty to talk about that so i'll let my colleagues it doesn't matter what governance model we choose it none of it has anything to do with academic achievement and when you say um should there be one entity that controls the schools there is one entity that controls all of these schools this is the state of michigan state of michigan runs the dps the state of michigan runs the ea a and the state of michigan runs the charter school so we already have one entity running all the schools in detroit all right uh let's try another one uh this is for lamont it says mr satchel this is also from the audience so far i haven't gotten a tweet and i'm very disappointed uh it seems like your main recommendation is more money that is investment how do you ensure that the money is well spent that it's used effectively there's lots of examples of big funding increases with little return i agree with that so i could not in the 10 minutes get out what what the district is doing which i think is necessary to fix the problem it's not just it's not just the money the money is a component um but there are other things that we're currently doing in the district that i think are very responsible that if if sustained over a period of time you will see the type of academic achievement that we expect from uh from a school district look look this isn't this isn't rocket science it's not as if no one else with the same issues and struggles uh as we have have not done this we can do it it can be done and and and it will be done but with respect to the funding issue listen listen if you're telling me seven thousand i'll be generous and say three hundred thousand dollars enough to educate a kid i'm just talking about the foundation allowance and put aside the the money we get from title money if that can educate a kid then i can save every school district in the state of michigan money go to that model do it we have to be honest with ourselves if if you're serious about education then treat it seriously if you can tell me seven thousand dollars seven thousand three hundred dollars is enough prove it to me show me and then live by that it's not it's all listen it's all right to help someone else it's all right to do that it's 21st century it's all right to say i am willing to make a sacrifice smaller grade for you because i don't see you as any different from me you have to do it listen that's why the governor is have you seen legislation passed to do an equity study it has to be done it should be done now the issue is how how do we make sure the money will be be spent responsibly look guys i think you put in place make sure you put in place responsible people leadership to make sure things get done but we should not say i'm not going to give you the money because there's a chance that you may misspend it listen if that's the show me a company that doesn't have any efficiency right or any issues in that area right show me that company that should not be a reason for not providing the funding which we have to do is think intelligently about how do you make sure that it's spent responsibly i don't have a problem with that i have a problem with that but we should not fund education appropriately because i'm afraid that three years from now you know someone may have scorned with twenty dollars i know i'm being facetious but so so i'm going to switch down to another question thank you um this is for chastity history reveals major media's role in dividing rather than uniting as diana preciado calls for collective support toward schools one motive behind major news outlets reporting is being a force for accountability and transparency but where are the efforts to contribute to the solutionary work bogs and miss petty toana calls for media on the media you're on the hook now let's hear it um i would say of the past 10 years there was so many problems going on it was just like low hanging fruit you you couldn't turn your face one way without seeing 20 different problems so there was so much going on in the past generation we had to keep up with the problems and the issues but i would submit that over the last couple of years you've seen a lot of solutions based stories the big huge charter school package that i was involved with at the detroit free press that was solutions based uh everything we try to do at bridge is policy and solutions based i think that we've come to a point in the media that yeah we we wrote a lot about problems and a lot of he said she said and when every us versus them i love my school district i hate yours all of those arguments in the legislature that do continue today we very much covered them probably uh to the detriment of the issue but now i think that we're seeing more solutions based reporting going on probably because we are at a very critical time as michigan and as detroit and um if we don't do something quick it's going to be bad uh or worse i should say uh the the us versus them the local control i want my money don't care what your school district gets kind of attitude that we've seen uh just get just like grow like a disease in michigan uh is is the basis of our academic problems in michigan i mean that it's just simple as that if we we know from other states and from research what works we're not doing it here you've got to wonder is it the hearts of man is it ignorance what is it we need to get through our issues as people to help our children and i think that the media is um online media print media all of us are starting to really get into solutions based projects great thank you well i got a one minute card i think i'm going to call it uh and say that it's time to stop to again thank our panelists for this really enriching and um you know maybe even exciting uh conversation we are going to have a chance to talk with all of the panelists at least you will if you come to the reception that's in the lobby so join us out in the lobby and you can pepper them with questions you can't pelt them you can only pepper them with questions also we wanted to let you know to watch for future events the ford school hosts a number of these events and hopefully we've started a a blissful partnership and the school of education will work with the ford school on these kinds of education events so thank you to all of you for attending and please join us in the lobby for refreshments and for their conversation thank you panelists