Detroit mayor pursues more charter, private schools: Detroit Free Press

Check out this article from today’s Detroit Free Press.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said yesterday he wants to establish more charter and private schools across the Motor City, this despite the pending opposition of the school board and the local teacher’s union.

An excerpt:

“I tried to take over the schools, and there was a vote, and they voted no. … It’s the craziest thing,” Kilpatrick said. “So I can’t make decisions about what happens to schools. I didn’t make decisions on what schools to close. They didn’t even tell me about it.

“It’s a really bad situation. We have a new housing community going right up next to a school that was being closed. I had to … run over to the school system and say, ‘Please leave this school open because we have 1,500 houses going up around it.’ So we have a really deformed process in the city of Detroit right now.”

The district’s board voted Friday against closing any schools, despite the district running a deficit and losing a tenth of its student body last year. The mayor said he’s looking at what works in all schools — public, private and parochial.

Comments?

E.C. 🙂

CIS Series Continues: HP Enterprise

My friend and former colleague Katisha Hayes continues her High Point Enterprise series on Communities in Schools. Click here for today’s main article and click here for the sidebar.

An excerpt:

Site coordi­nators are as­signed full time to 13 schools in the High Point area, working in conjunction with school so­cial workers and counselors to bring enrichment programs and other activities into the school setting.
Dwight Hash, assistant prin­cipal at Penn-Griffin School for the Arts, said the site co­ordinators are largely respon­sible for the success of CIS.
“They play a major role and have the most impact on the program,” he said.
Coordinators help assign tutors for struggling students under the Jump Start reading program. And they find the perfect meal buddy to give spe­cial attention to youngsters during breakfast and lunch. They also partner high school students with career mentors who help keep them on track until graduation.

E.C. 🙂