2-News

2A — Thursday, February 25, 2016
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

THREE THINGS YOU 
SHOULD KNOW TODAY

In 
today’s 
B-Side, 

Natalie Zak grapples 
with the dark side 
of her once-favorite 

YouTube stars, and Jacob 
Rich chronicles how one 
chachannel is improving the 
platform.

>>SEE B-SIDE, PAGE 1B

2

CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES

CFE Workshop

WHAT: Learn about what 
an entrepreneur is and 
what it takes to become an 
entrepreneur as a female 
engineer or scientist. 
Refreshments will be served. 
RSVP required for this 
workshop.
WHO: Maize Pages Student 
Organizations and Center for 
Entrepreneurship
WHEN: 4 p.m. to 5:15 p.m.
WHERE: Johnson Rooms

SMTD Violin

WHAT: A concert featur-
ing solo strings perfor-
mances from students from 
the School of Music, The-
atre & Dance. They will 
perform pieces by Bruch, 
Bach, Paganini and Mozart.
WHO: U-M String 
Students, Presented 
by Gifts of Art
WHEN: 12:10 p.m. to 1 p.m.
WHERE: University 
Hospitals Main Lobby

Gendered 
Robots

WHAT: A lecture 
about the socio-cultural 
implications of gender. 
The speaker will address te 
question: Why are robots 
gendered?
WHO: Jennifer Robertson
WHEN: 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.
WHERE: Lurie Robert H. 
Engin. Ctr. - Third Floor

President 
Obama 

said 
it 
would 
be 

challenging for Senate 
Majority 
Leader 

Mitch McConnell to 

give reason for his decision 
not to consider a Supreme 
Court 
nominee 
without 

appearing to be motivated 
by politics, according to 
CNN.

1

Texas 
courts 

dismissed charges 
against 
former 

Gov. Rick Perry, 
who 
was 
being 

accused of abuse of power, 
according to The New York 
Times. He was the first 
Texas governor in about 
100 years to face criminal 
charges of any kind.

3

Mochas & 
Masterpieces

WHAT: Instructors from 
the Ann Arbor Art Center 
will instruct guests on 
how to create zentangle 
artwork on canvas. 
Refreshments will be 
served. RSVP required. 
Fee of $5 per person.
WHO: Maize Pages 
Student Organizatios
WHEN: 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
WHERE: Michigan 
League - Kalamazoo Room

Sang-Yong 
Nam Memorial 
Lecture

WHAT: Listen to an 
ambassador of the Republic 
of Korea to the United States 
speak about a security 
alliance.
WHO: Ho-Young Ahn
WHEN: 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. 
WHERE: Michigan League 
- Vandenberg Room

Detroiters 
Speak

WHAT: A session to reflect in 
the different perspectives and 
narratives of Detroit, taking 
into account the history of the 
city. Free bus transportation 
will be provided for this class 
via the MDetroit Connector 
Bus.
WHO: Semester in Detroit
WHEN: 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
WHERE: Cass Corridor 
Commons, 4605 Cass Avenue, 
Detroit

Cochlear 
Implants Lecture

WHAT: The second in a 
six-part series, this lecture 
will address how cochlear 
implants are engineered, how 
the technology has improved 
over time and how they’ve 
changed the lives of many.
WHO: H. Alexander Arts, 
professor of Medicine
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
WHERE: Rave Theater, 
4100 Carpenter Road

Music class

WHAT: An early music 
class by Nevermind, 
a young ensemble 
specializing in ancient 
music, comprised of 
four musicians from the 
Conservatoire National 
Superieur de Musique de 
Paris.
WHO: Nevermind
WHEN: 5 p.m.
WHERE: Walgreen 
Drama Center - Stamps 
Auditorium

ON THE DAILY

MARINA ROSS/Daily

Ann Arbor resident Devon Coasen makes a coffee at Comet 
Coffee on Wednesday. 

E YE ON ART

The cold 

temperatures weren’t the 
only thing freezing the 
diag today.

The sixth annual Diag 

Freeze took place today, 
from 11:32 a.m. to 11:37 
a.m.

Participants were 

asked to come to the 
diag and set two alarms 
on their phones, one for 
11:32 and one for 11:37. 
When the first alarm 
buzzes, they must freeze 
like statues in a position 
of their choosing. Then, 
when the second alarm 
buzzes, they are to 
unfreeze and carry on as 
if nothing happened.

This event is put on 

every year by DoRAK 
at the University of 

Michigan. The students 
organizing this event 
hoped that it would be 
bigger and better than in 
years past.

“This year we’re 

looking for more people, 
more creative poses, and 
a great time all around. It 
takes YOU to make this 
the best FREEZE this 
campus, or any campus, 
has ever seen!” reads 
a post on the event’s 
Facebook page.

Colleen Doran, a 

sophomore studying 
dental hygiene, attended 
the Diag Freeze with 
four of her friends. 
She said she admired 
the creativity of the 
event and appreciated 
how different people 

expressed their 
individuality.

“It was cool!” she 

said. “A lot of people had 
good ideas such as the 
light sabers, building a 
snowman, etc. We were 
wishing we got more 
creative. It would’ve been 
nice for a bigger turnout 
but I think the snow may 
have deterred people. 
But students were taking 
videos and smiling which 
is nice especially around 
midterms.”

According to the 

Facebook page, 73 people 
were planning to attend 
the Diag Freeze, with an 
additional 278 interested 
in the event.

-MARLEE 

BREAKSTONE

into the classroom.

“It’s a really, really tough 

environment,” 
Drabik 
said. 

“Three or four of the students 
in the classroom I work in 
should’ve been held back, but 
they didn’t have the money to 
support that. You come into this 
classroom and there are kids at 
such different levels.”

That disparity in ability, she 

added, is often extreme.

“Some kids can’t even read,” 

she said. “I had one kid that just 
moved from Mexico, should not 
have been in the third grade 
classroom, does not speak a 
word of English.”

Drabik 
said 
her 
school, 

however, 
has 
fared 
well 

compared to others in the area. 
Some schools have reported 
rodents running around the 
classrooms, 
cockroaches, 

ceilings falling down and water 
leakages.

Conditions like those, that 

Drabik and many other involved 
with the school system have 

noted, didn’t form overnight. 
For many, the deterioration 
is largely tied to the district’s 
now-crippling 
accumulation 

of debt, which has resulted in 
a number of efforts to reduce 
costs and boost the struggling 
district over the years.

In 
October 
2015, 
Gov. 

Rick Snyder announced his 
overhaul of DPS. The initiative 
aimed to create a new school 
system, transition the board 
and students to the new school 
district and require the existing 
district to pay off its debt.

The overhaul is estimated 

to cost the state $715 million 
dollars by its completion, or 
about $70 million dollars a year 
for the next 10 years.

Synder’s 
plan 
garnered 

negative reactions from multiple 
units within DPS. Beginning in 
November, seven instructional 
days were cancelled in select 
schools shortly after Snyder’s 
announcement. 
The 
reason: 

too many teachers called in 
sick and refused to come to 
work. These types of protests, 
called a “sickout,” were in 
direct response to the building 

conditions, pay cuts — teachers 
have faced multiple cuts over 
the last five years, including 10 
percent cuts in both 2011 and 
2014 — and Snyder’s plans.

Drabik, who only volunteers 

on 
Friday 
afternoons, 
said 

though none of the sickouts 
were on a Friday, her school, 
Bennett Elementary was one of 
the many schools affected by the 
sickouts. She added that though 
she was not directly impacted by 
the protest, she was saddened by 
the worsening conditions at the 
school.

“It worries me to see these 

teachers 
taking 
sick 
days,” 

Drabik said. “These students 
need to be in school, they need 
to be there.”

On Jan. 19, 2016, following 

the 
most 
recent 
sickouts, 

Snyder called on legislature to 
relieve the school district of 
$515 million of its debt. He said 
by April, DPS was in danger of 
running out of money.

For teachers, students and 

others invested in DPS, the 
problems Snyder has identified 
aren’t new, and stretch back 
much further than that January 
call to action or the sickouts, 
back through the past decades 
of the district’s history.

A teacher working for Detroit 

Public Schools, who requested 
anonymity due to fear of losing 
his job, said the conditions 
within his school have declined 
drastically over the decade he 
has worked for the district. He 
said his school participated in 
one of the district-wide sickouts 
in protest of the pay cuts and 
conditions of other schools.

“We didn’t want to get our 

principal in trouble for having 
a sickout, but we wanted to call 
attention to everything else and 
those people who have these 
chronic problems with lack of 
textbooks, lack of supplies and 
deterioration of buildings,” he 
said.

The teacher said his students 

don’t get a recess during the day 
due to understaffing. Instead, 
they have lunch in the cafeteria 
and have 20 minutes to play in 
the gym.

“Usually it’s chaos because 

you have so many children in 
there and there’s only one or 

two adults so it’s easier for 
them to have the kids sit in lines 
than it is for them to play,” the 
teacher said.

A lack of recess or recreational 

time is not abnormal for DPS 
students. 
According 
to 
the 

teacher, 
students 
are 
often 

given time inside a gym or a 
walk around the building in 
replacement.

He said he loves teaching and 

considers being in the classroom 
a passion of his, but he worries 
for the future of his students and 
others at DPS.

“My fear is that students 

aren’t going to get that good of 
an education,” he said. “My own 
children get a great education 
in another district. The kids in 
Detroit are just as smart, but 
they have a bad (reputation). 
The schools aren’t that great. 
The teachers are good, but they 
don’t have the other stuff. The 
last 10 years I’ve taught, none 
of my children have had art, 
music or gym. The children get 
computers two times a week.”

Overall, the numbers bear 

the teacher’s concern out — 
DPS falls far below national 
averages on many metrics of 
student performance. According 
to the National Assessment of 
Educational Progress, Detroit 
students rank last in all U.S. 
cities. Most notably, only 27 
percent of fourth graders in 
the NEAP were found to be 
proficient in reading and only 36 
percent proficient in math.

The DPS teacher said working 

every day against the harsh 
conditions and seeing numbers 
like that dishearten teachers in 
Detroit.

“It’s hard for Detroit teachers, 

seeing that we tap out our 
salaries at $55,000,” he said. 
“Out of that we have to pay 1.25 
percent to the city of Detroit, we 
have other things that come out. 
A Utica teacher makes almost 
$90,000, a Farmington teacher 
makes $82,000, Walled Lake 
makes $88,000. It’s difficult 
to say that we are so poor 
and Detroit teachers are the 
ones who are bankrupting the 
district, when we make $20,000 
less than suburban schools. 
We constantly see how we’re 
failing.”

At the University, which has 

multiple partnerships, programs 
and 
internships 
in 
Detroit 

for students, some linked to 
teaching, the overall impact of 
the current climate has been 
mixed.

Elizabeth Moje, associate dean 

for research and community 
engagement for the School of 
Education, said the University 
hasn’t 
had 
many 
problems 

with 
the 
sickouts 
affecting 

interns. 
However, 
she 
said 

allowing interns to experience 
these conditions is a learning 
opportunity for students in the 
School of Education.

“It’s 
really 
had 
quite 
a 

minimal direct effect on their 
experience,” Moje said. “We’re 
able to discuss the action both of 
the district and of the teachers as 
a teaching moment. It becomes 
a conversation with our interns 
about both the challenges and 
conditions 
that 
they 
might 

face and the decisions that 
teachers often have to make 
about how they’re going to work 
within those challenges and 
conditions.”

For some students, the impact 

is more personal. LSA junior 
Micah Griggs, who graduated 
from DPS Renaissance High 
School before enrolling at the 
University, said she thought the 
conditions in her old school were 
unacceptable.

“It’s really unfortunate that 

some of the schools have mold 
and a lack of supplies,” Griggs 
said. 
“That’s 
not 
conducive 

to 
learning 
at 
all 
so 
it’s 

unfortunate, students can’t go 
to those schools. Teachers have 
to have a sickout because they’re 
beginning to protest about the 
state. It’s not as if (just) the 
power went out. There’s rodents, 
there’s mold on the walls, there’s 
no heat.”

Griggs said she was fortunate 

to have attended one of DPS’ 
newer schools, so there was 
little decay or deterioration 
at the time. Renaissance High 
School, 
however,closed 
on 

multiple occasions for sickouts 
in January.

“It makes me feel as if the 

students 
are 
abandoned,” 

Griggs said. “I really think that 
education is so important and 

it’s key to a lot of success. It’s just 
being ripped away from them.”

Griggs’s 
siblings 
currently 

attend 
a 
private 
school 
in 

Detroit. Her brother will be 
starting 
Renaissance 
High 

School in the fall, and she said 
she worries about the quality of 
education he could receive.

“I’m concerned about the 

substance of programs for him,” 
Griggs said. “I’m hoping that the 
band, dance and arts aren’t cut. 
Those things are important for a 
holistic education.”

She added that it’s important 

for University students to know 
what is happening in Detroit, 
Ann Arbor’s neighboring city.

“A lot of people don’t know. 

Just being aware that these 
things happen — and they 
happen because we don’t have 
funding and our funding is used 
for other sectors.” She said. 
“This is our neighboring city 30 
minutes away.”

LSA junior Tishanna Taylor, 

a DPS Renaissance High School 
alum, echoed Griggs’ concerns. 
Taylor’s mother was a teacher at 
DPS and moved out of the district 
because of the conditions.

“It’s sad to see that teachers are 

not getting as much recognition 
they deserve,” Taylor said. “They 
do such hard work for those 
who do quality work and they 
care for their students. To not 
get compensated appropriately 
is kind of sad and they resort 
to leaving the district that they 
want to help.”

She said she hopes people 

don’t give up on DPS and the 
many assets and capabilities it 
still has.

“Right now, it just looks 

very bad with the schools and 
sickouts and the showcasing of 
the buildings, things like that,” 
she said. “I guess sometimes 
throughout that, we lose sight of 
what’s important, which is the 
education for the children.”

She said the future of DPS lies 

in the hands of more than just 
the people on top.

“People 
should 
just 
pay 

attention or even try to learn 
more, or watch and see what’s 
happening 
with 
the 
school 

system,” Taylor said. “It’s more 
than just the administration that 
has to be changed.”

DPS
From Page 1A

420 Maynard St.

Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327

www.michigandaily.com

ROSE FILIPP
Business Manager

734-418-4115 ext. 1241

rfilipp@michigandaily.com

Newsroom

734-418-4115 opt. 3 

Corrections

corrections@michigandaily.com

Arts Section

arts@michigandaily.com

Sports Section

sports@michigandaily.com

Display Sales

dailydisplay@gmail.com

News Tips

news@michigandaily.com

Letters to the Editor

tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Editorial Page

opinion@michigandaily.com 

Photography Section

photo@michigandaily.com

Classified Sales

classified@michigandaily.com

SHOHAM GEVA

Editor in Chief

734-418-4115 ext. 1251

sageva@michigandaily.com

EDITORIAL STAFF
Laura Schinagle Managing Editor schlaura@michigandaily.com

Emma Kerr Managing News Editor emkerr@michigandaily.com

SENIOR NEWS EDITORS: Allana Akhtar, Alyssa Brandon, Jacqeline Charniga, Katie Penrod, 
Emma Kinery

ASSISTANT NEWS EDITORS: Riyah Basha, Marlee Breakstone, Desiree Chew, Anna Haritos, 
Tanya Madhani, Camy Metwally, Lydia Murray, Caitlin Reedy, Alexa St. John. Brandon 
Summers-Miller

Claire Bryan and 
Regan Detwiler Editorial Page Editors opinioneditors@michigandaily.com 

SENIOR OPINION EDITORS: Jeremy Kaplan, Ben Keller, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Jason Rowland, 
Stephanie Trierweiler

Max Bultman and
Jake Lourim Managing Sports Editors 
 sportseditors@michigandaily.com

SENIOR SPORTS EDITORS: Minh Doan, Jacob Gase, Kelly Hall, Simon Kaufman, Jason 
Rubinstein, Zach Shaw, Brad Whipple
ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITORS: Betelhem Ashame, Chris Crowder, Sylvanna Gross, Leland 
Mitchinson, Ted Janes, Kevin Santo, 

Kathleen Davis and 
 
 arts@michigandaily.com

Adam Theisen Managing Arts Editors 
SENIOR ARTS EDITORS: Caroline Filips, Melina Glusac, Jacob Rich, Ben Rosenstock 
ARTS BEAT EDITORS: Matthew Barnauskas, Christian 
Kennedy, Rebecca Lerner, Natalie Zak

Amanda Allen and 
 
 photo@michigandaily.com 

Grant Hardy Managing Photo Editors 

SENIOR PHOTO EDITORS: Zoey Holmstrom, Zach Moore, James Coller
ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITORS: Claire Abdo, Robery Dunne, 
Sam Mousigian, San Pham, David Song

Anjali Alangaden and 
 
 design@michigandaily.com 

Mariah Gardziola Managing Design Editors 

Karl Williams Statement Editor statement@michigandaily.com 

DEPUTY STATEMENT EDITORS: Nabeel Chollampat and Tori Noble
STATEMENT PHOTO EDITOR: Zoey Holmstrom
STATEMENT LEAD DESIGNER: Shane Achenbach

Emily Campbell and 
 
 copydesk@michigandaily.com

Alexis Nowicki Managing Copy Editors 

SENIOR COPY EDITORS: Taylor Grandinetti and Jose Rosales
Nivedita Karki Managing Online Editor nivkarki@michigandaily.com

SENIOR WEB DEVELOPERS: Dylan Lawton and Bob Lesser

Levin Kim Managing Video Editor

SENIOR VIDEO EDITORS: Michael Kessler, Abe Lofy, Emma Winowiecki

Demario Longmire, Gaby Vasquez, Ryan Moody, 
Sarah Khan Michigan in Color Editors 
Michael Schramm Special Projects Manager
Emma Sutherland Social Media Editor
BUSINESS STAFF
Hussein Hakim Finance and Operations Manager 
Claire Ulak Production Manager
Jordan Yob Marketing Manager
Matt Pfenning UAccounts Manager
Asja Kepes Local Accounts Manager
Chris Wang Classifieds Manager
Colin Cheesman National Accounts Manager
Anna He Special Guides and Online Manager
Claire Butz Layout Manager
The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by 

students at the University of Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may 

be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for fall term, starting in September, via U.S. mail are $110. 

Winter term (January through April) is $115, yearlong (September through April) is $195. University affiliates 

are subject to a reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must 

be prepaid. The Michigan Daily is a member of The Associated Press and The Associated Collegiate Press.

