Opinion
A MIX OF IDEAS
Editorials are posted and archived on JNonline.us.
Editorial
Fixing Detroit Schools
T
he same day a public TV docu-
mentary aired on the history of
Jewish Detroit, news broke about
Detroit students posting the lowest math
scores ever on a well-regarded nationwide
test. Reading and science scores of these
same fourth- and eighth-graders won't
be released until spring, but there's scant
hope of a better showing on those aspects
of the National Assessment of Educational
Progress test.
This startling performance is exacer-
bated in the limelight of Detroit Remember
When: The Jewish Community, the Sue
Masx/Allyson Rockwell documentary
that premiered Dec. 9 on Detroit Public
Television. The broadcast reminded
Detroit Jews just how important the
Detroit Public Schools were for three-
quarters of the 20th century to the
upbringing of Jewish kids. From Durfee
to Vernor and Central to Mumford, many
Detroit schools not only once had a large
Jewish enrollment, but also today boast a
cadre of distinguished professional alumni
who are Jewish.
As late as the early 1970s, Detroit
ranked among the best urban school dis-
tricts in the nation. Its graduates went to
top public and private universities. By the
mid-1970s, the decline was in full throttle
and never looked back.
There's plenty of blame to attach for
initiate the handoff), the district actu-
this collapse in the wake of the 1967
ally runs the risk of imploding under the
Detroit riots — white flight, school crime, weight of illiterate graduates. How shock-
a shrinking tax base, aging school build-
ing would that be to a city already ridden
ings and equipment, declining gradua-
with crime, corruption and joblessness?
tion rates, incessant labor unrest, budget
Except for Bobb, no one in a position
upheaval, inadequate professional devel-
of power seems ready to embrace the
opment for teachers.
urgency of the problem and the boldness
School boards ill-equipped to end the
needed to solve it.
crisis lit the flames of unrest.
Detroit Public Schools can
Parental indifference fanned
be an excellent place to learn.
them. Kids must learn to
Look at the quality at Bates K-
succeed; we can't force-feed
8, Chrysler Elementary, Detroit
knowledge into their brains. But
Edison Public School Academy
it's awfully hard to learn and
and other Detroit schools identi-
mature in spite of an environ-
fied by the Skillman Foundation
ment where adults fail as role
as "Good Schools 2009."
models.
The Detroit Jewish commu-
E•t
Certainly, the Detroit school
nity hasn't abandoned Detroit
Give Robert Bobb
system is to blame for today's
school kids. Communal groups
more authority.
horrid curriculum plan. But
like the Jewish Community
why did parents wait till now to demand
Relations Council, Anti-Defamation
better leaders at the Detroit Board of
League and American Jewish Committee
Education offices? DPS emergency finan-
as well as some synagogues have reached
cial manager Robert Bobb seems the right out to Detroit schools and churches,
man to change the district's perfect-storm extending tutoring, support and counsel.
course, but lacks classroom oversight
We need to do more to help Detroit par-
authority. His call to action boasts after-
ents grab the attention of Gov. Granholm
school tutorials, tougher coursework and
and the Michigan Legislature. Detroit
better-trained teachers.
Mayor Dave Bing vows to translate his
If Bobb doesn't wrest academic control
alarm into mayoral support.
soon from the school board (Lansing must
For their part, parents of Detroit stu-
dents must own the problem of the public
schools and look deep within their collec-
tive souls for the still-elusive answer —
even if their kids go to private or charter
schools, which don't have moats around
them. As the public schools go, so goes the
fiber of the larger city.
Further, the Jewish community can
become a partner in Bobb's Reading Corps
to further credibility in a city with an
adult illiteracy rate flirting with 50 per-
cent. By 2015, for example, Bobb envisions
all third-graders reading at grade level.
The suburbs shouldn't delude them-
selves into thinking they're insulated from
the crisis state of Detroit schools. The
central city is the core of Metro Detroit —
economically, culturally and image wise.
Many of us have family roots in the city
going back 25, 50 or 100 years or more.
It really will take a regional effort
— from corporations to nonprofits, from
urbanites to suburbanites, from religious
coalitions to grassroots networks, from
government to philanthropy — to enable
the once-soaring Detroit Public Schools to
rise again like the mythical phoenix from
its own ashes. ❑
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www.thejewishnews.com/community. Go to
Local News.
Reality Check
Tell Me It's Over
I
never say that I am completely happy
to see an old year end. But consider
this:
In the last few weeks of 2009, I am
waiting for a prescription drug that is six
months overdue, fell out of an airplane,
was run down by a friend's car and am
praying for my six-weeks-early grand-
daughter. So let me put it this way about
2009: Get outta here.
By now, you are probably saying to
yourself, how has this man lived to tell the
tale? Well, there are a couple of clarifica-
tions I should make.
• The airplane, for example, was parked
at the time and I was disembarking after a
flight from Florida. My balance is not all it
should be these days and no one ever mis-
took my walk for poetry in motion.
I missed the gap between the plane and
the ramp, and forward I sprawled, rapping
my head sharply against the floor. It is air-
line policy that when a passenger makes
himself look like Hugo the Baffled Duck,
they send for a wheelchair. Aha! Sherry
was having back problems and
we'd already lined up a chair
for her.
But now she had to limp
along the corridors of the
McNamara Terminal at Detroit
Metropolitan Airport while I
got the ride for a minor flop.
Still, I couldn't help but reflect
that if I had taken the fall just
15 minutes sooner, it would
have much messier.
• The drug I am awaiting is
Cerezyme; the one that 1,500
patients in the United States,
a good many of them Jewish, depend
on to keep their Gaucher disease under
control. The lone Cerezyme production
line, owned by Genzyme, was shut down
in June when government tests found a
contaminated batch coming out. So, a drug
we're supposed to take twice a month has
been unavailable since then.
In many of my joints, such as my knees,
there is intermittent pain and it seems as
if I just have to brush against
something to get a vivid, red
bruise. Many people afflicted
with this genetic disorder have
it much worse than I do, which
comes under the heading of
cold comfort when you know it's
doing bad things to your spleen
and has caused two hip replace-
ments in the past.
It's been a long wait and
not one of Genzyme's shining
moments.
• I fell down again coming
out of a restaurant and some-
how found myself wedged in between the
curb and my friend Seymour Dubrinsky's
Oldsmobile. He didn't know where I was,
and as our wives urged him not to move, he
began backing up — right over my right
foot. Friends and neighbors, this is not a
good feeling. Making it worse, his big, fat
Olds came to rest right upon my big toe.
The notes I hit as I reacted to this situa-
tion were well beyond any previous limit to
the upper range of my voice, in an area that
only dogs can hear. The outcome: a bruise,
no break, no pain and a conviction that
The Almighty does sometimes watch over
stumbling dopes in Commerce Township.
• And then there is Hannah. When we
received the phone call in Florida that she
seemed determined to make her appear-
ance immediately, it was still two full
months before Jaime's due date. We were
told there was no need to come home, but
Jaime was being placed on total bed rest
at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak and all
we could do was hope. The delivery had to
be contained for two more weeks.
She emerged, our little miracle — at 4
pounds, three ounces — two days before
Thanksgiving. And there's no need to state
the obvious about that.
All this crazy stuff and somehow it
worked out. I'll breathe easier, though,
when the calendar flips to 2010.
George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614@aol.com .
December 24• 2009
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