News, Comic Bill Cosby lends support to Detroit schools. (2009, loan)

[John1960]

DETROIT – Bill Cosby had heard about the tough-as-nails, uncompromising man tackling fraud and improving education throughout the Detroit's public schools, and wanted to help.

So the 72-year-old actor, comedian and activist decided to loan the district his celebrity as Detroit tries to hold off plummeting enrollment amid a fiscal crisis that a few weeks ago spurred suggestions of a possible bankruptcy.

Comic Bill Cosby lends support to Detroit schools - Yahoo! News

[Wingnatic]

I think alot of the parents are sending their kids to other schools because its safer , the buildings are kept up , they actually have toilet paper in surburban schools , etc . Detroit Public Schools have been in a free fall for years now . This made National news by the way ,as if we needed anymore negative things about the city . I like this temporary emergency management guy , too bad he won't be sticking around .

[Coldjensens]

IN the district that we used to live, every student was assigned something to bring in on their first day of school. Several kids were to bring in packs of 24 rolls of toilet paper, others were assigned paper towels, boxes of tissue, crayons, paper, etc. Along with donations from community groups, the schools go enough to get by. One year we had to donate janitorial supplies because they ran out. At first they rejected them because they were not the certified brands. They had an agreement to only buy certain brands from a specific supplier. However they decided that since they werte not bought, but donated, they couldd accept tem. Otherwise they would have had nothing to use.

[Vicman]

In the Houston school district, school supply packs included tissues for classroom use (along with the standard pens, pencils for use of the student); other than that, the school district provided everything (janitorial supplies, toilet paper, etc)

[Cliffie]

Since most parents in Detroit have no choice but to send their kids to the schools there, the real focus needs to be on reducing the dropout rate. Of course, there's no point in graduating from there if they aren't learning anything in the system. There were kids I knew who came out of Detroit schools who thought they'd studied Latin, but all they taught them were common expressions used today like ipso facto. They didn't even know how to form a sentence in the present tense! They thought they knew algebra but they hadn't been taught any! It's crazy! What do they do all day with these kids?

[BurtsBees]

A lot of them are animals with no desire to learn, thus the high drop out rate. Even when they come into the suburbs they end up dropping out or failing. If they don't want to learn, they WON'T.