Embracing the Motor City

For anyone who has worked successfully in Detroit, we know the spirit and commitment to improve resides in this challenged city.  If truth be told however, the public will has not sufficiently been there as the late and deeply missed Asa Hilliard often remarked.  Pockets of excellence have been blunted by social, political, and economic challenges, as well as the dynamics of reactive and incessantly shifting policies .  But walk into most schools and one observes the indomitable nature of young minds -- ready to be led, eager to be embraced and recognized.  Collective statements of joy when a classmates succeeds, and tears when a desk is left empty by the loss of a classmate to violence, and the relentless suffocating pressure of poverty.  Rather than heads held high in achievement, many are shamed by the stern lectures delivered by well meaning people who point accusatory fingers of blame at their families calling for "personal responsibility."  What emerges is the helpless feeling of being trapped by circumstances beyond one's control. As I have written, poverty is a circumstance -- not an identity. Glenn Loury has posed the question to those who would listen: "are we willing to cast ourselves as a society that creates crimogenic conditions for some of its members, and then acts-out rituals of punishment against them as if engaged in some awful form of human sacrifice?"

As educators we recognize the one area where society can strategically and successfully work to level the playing field is public education.  Yes the challenge of policies affecting housing, transportation, jobs, health and response to the "war on drugs" poignantly cries out for redress, but in spite of these deep challenges, all of us have witnessed the improved life trajectories of children when educators boldly lead. 

I write the above in recognition of the leadership in Detroit schools who have committed themselves to the mission of school improvement.  I write simply to reinforce efforts that are underway in the district. I write to in some small way mobilize the required out-of-the-box thinking and action the motor city will require. It will begin with a nurtured and guided teaching force.  It will involve breaking down program silos so sustained collaboration might emerge.  It will involve providing system-wide, coordinated and cohesive professional development which specializes in cognitive, neuroscience and culturally responsive teaching, mentoring and implementation of rigorous content.  The emerging movement will engage the community in a conversation which changes beliefs, engages hope, and results in determination and confidence: culminating in the realization that virtually all Detroit children are born with the capacity to succeed in a highly competitive global knowledge environment. 

The public will to change must be mobilized.  The Mayor has asked for support.  Will we respond?  We at the NUA certainly hope so. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/07/AR2011020705338_3.html?wpisrc=nl_politics&sid=ST2011020705726