2-day summit tackles dropout prevention
Governor, state and business leaders discuss ways to get more kids to finish high school.
Karen Bouffard / The Detroit News
SOUTHFIELD -- Dashawn Parks, 14, was an excellent student until he hit middle school.
Depressed by the deaths of nearly a dozen family members in a year and a half, including two who were murdered, he started hanging with the wrong kind of kids. Before long, he was expelled from eighth grade at Detroit's Brenda Scott Middle School. Now, he's trying to get back in school.
Shaniqua Madison, 17, made the honor roll until she got to high school. She dropped out, and now she's pregnant. But she re-enrolled at Osborn High and hopes to graduate.
Parks and Madison told their stories to several hundred educators, state officials and business leaders Friday during a Dropout Prevention Summit at Lawrence Technical University in Southfield. The two-day summit kicked off Thursday with remarks from Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
"It's not acceptable to have a dropout rate where we're losing talent like a sieve out the bottom," Granholm said, noting that Michigan has lost 400,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000. "It's a moral imperative, but it's an economic imperative as well.
"We've got to fill that gap with jobs that we know aren't going to be outsourced. (Employers) aren't going to come if we don't have the talent."
The summit was hosted by United Way of Southeastern Michigan, the Skillman Foundation, the Detroit Parent Network and other nonprofits and businesses. It was funded by America's Promise Alliance, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that hopes to hold 50 such events nationwide, in urban areas with low graduation rates.
Studies peg Detroit Public Schools' graduation rate at from 25 percent to 32 percent, the lowest in the nation. A recent report by America's Promise Alliance found that fewer than half of the students graduate in 17 of the nation's large urban school districts, and 1.2 million drop out annually.
"This is the social justice issue of our day," said Mike Flanagan, state superintendent of public instruction. He says the students will be doomed "if we can't get them through high school and give them a meaningful diploma."
Edsel Ford III said the business community is behind efforts to improve the region's schools.
"I know in my heart that we are going to get a handle on this dropout problem," Ford said. "We have to, because the stakes are too high."
Pershing High School geometry teacher Sidney Lee said Parks and Madison are typical children in the Detroit Public Schools district.
"You have the pregnant girls," Lee said. "And the young men who all have had different degrees of tragedy that has had an impact on their behavior."
You can reach Karen Bouffard at (734) 462-2206 or kbouffard@detnews.com
No comments:
Post a Comment