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I drive my daughter 17 miles one way to school every day so she can attend a better district. The travel time is a minor inconvenience considering what the kids will gain.
I don't think Detroiters want neighborhood schools considering what their schools have delivered. For the people already in the burbs, they will still have neighborhood schools. Bringing in other kids doesn't change that. Me driving my daughter 17 miles to school doesn't change what the people who live in the district have.
I think the move will make things worse. I've worked for a charter school. One of the better ones as a matter of fact. I sent my kids there until I worked for them for a year and then I pulled them out. Charter schools are all about making a profit for the owner. They pay low wages and offer nothing in the way of benefits (Last I read, only 4% of Michigan's charter schools participated in the state teacher pension program). They can't keep teachers. The turnover rate was 33% at the charter where I worked and, as I said, they're one of the better ones. The charter I worked for cared more about sports programs than academics. They had me teaching classes of up to 35 in a 700 squre foot room that doubled as both classroom and lab. The NSTA's stance is that one teacher can only, safely, supervise a maximum of 24 students in a room twice that size while conducting labs. The name of the game is cram as many kids into each classroom as you can and pay the teachers as little as you can to maximize profits for the owner. I really don't see this working for Detroit.
Busing has failed miserably all across the country. I don't think many people would want to do that.
Busing won't fix it. If I knew that an influx of kids from Detroit were headed to my kids' school, I would figure out a new place for them to go to school. I bet a lot of other parents would do that, too.
It failed because it was done for the wrong reasons. This isn't the same. This isn't trying to find equality. This is a situation of helping kids who are stuck in a failing district while helping the host districts at the same time. This isn't desegregation. This is a failed school system. I went to high school with kids from a failed school system. We didn't mind them being there because we knew they had nowhere else to go. There were no protests when they came. What was there to protest? They had no schools to go back to and they had to get an education somewhere.
My city still busses kids in from another city because the boundaries were never changed back after that city was able to take their own students back. They'd probably love them back now with dwindling populations.
The Detroit school system has failed. There is no fixing it. The only thing left to do is look to the schools that are doing a halfway decent job to absorb these kids. No, it's not ideal but there is no fixing Detroit. I think as long as the money comes with them, there will be no issue. If the infrastructure monies stay in Detroit, however, there will be protests and there should be. Detroit shouldnt' get to keep the infrastructure monies if they are not keeping the kids.
You could have riots if what you suggest ever became reality.
Busing won't fix it. If I knew that an influx of kids from Detroit were headed to my kids' school, I would figure out a new place for them to go to school. I bet a lot of other parents would do that, too.
Neither will charter schools. I think these kids have a better chance if they are sent to schools that are already established than starting up more charters. Charters haven't shown to be a raving success. They tend to be an improvement over the neighborhood schools but they don't compete with the schools in the suburbs.
I'm not sure what the resistance to sending the kids to the suburbs to go to school is. Those schools are established and have shown to do a better job than Detroit schools and most charters. Declining enrollment has made room. This is not bussing for social reasons as has been tried before. It's a school system failing and the surrounding districts absorbing the kids.
We have an influx of kids from Detroit where I live. Housing prices have dropped so much that people are moving from the city to here. So far, it hasn't been a problem. It will only become a problem if people make it one. Do you think kids from Detroit aren't entitled to an education alongside your children?
I think getting kids out of dilapidated buildings in Detroit and into areas where education is taken more seriously could be a positive for the kids in Detroit. It is high time we faced that we cannot fix what ails Detroit schools and realize that we already have schools that are doing a decent job that we can send these kids too.
You could have riots if what you suggest ever became reality.
In this day and age, I would hope not. Do people really think these kids aren't entitled to an education? That it doesn't matter how lousy their education is as long as you keep them out of my back yard? They're kids. Kids who have been shortchanged their entire lives who need a chance.
That's why I don't think the charters will work. That and the revolving door of teachers they tend to have due to low wages. Kids need stability.
One thing about sending them to the burbs is that you won't be sending whole schools to the same school. You'd be adding to an already existing population. I think this is why the busing of kids in from a defunct school district when I was in high school worked. They brought in three or four busloads of kids and added them to a school of over 2000. They weren't a big enough presence to change the atmosphere of the school.
I think you're right and the issues would just follow them to the charter schools. It would be the same neighborhood school just under new management.
One question just came to mind. The accusation is that bussing kids to the suburbs won't fix the issue of parents not caring about education. My question is, how does creating charter schools address this issue? At least with bussing to the suburbs, the kids will be around peers who have a different attitude about education that might rub off.
And you will get more of this:
Black influx impacts school choice in Detroit suburbs | detnews.com | The Detroit News (http://www.detnews.com/article/20110324/METRO/103240393/1021/census/Black-influx-impacts-school-choice-in-Detroit-suburbs - broken link)
those "peers" will go elsewhere.
I am amazed atthe ease in which teachers can be dismissed for nothing other than the school admin / board failed to do their job (have they been laid off?)
Detroit Public School teachers union members get pink slips | detnews.com | The Detroit News (http://www.detnews.com/article/20110415/SCHOOLS/104150347 - broken link)
DPS and more may well be beyond fixing. After Governor Snyder dismantles Flint, is Detroit going to be next?
I can't comment on charter schools good or bad, but they had to change a state law to allow this restructuring of the DPS teacher's contracts.
DPS has a $327M deficit. Enrollment has dropped by almost 50% over the last decade. If DPS has 73,000 students and 5,466 teachers, the ratio is 13.3 students/teacher. That is a rich ratio.
The union would otherwise not allow any reductions in staff, so what do you expect the district to do? The school district must be downsized as enrollment falls, and that means teachers have to go to.
DPS' problems are surely widespread and can't possibly be all the board's fault. They can't help it that the population of Detroit fell by 25% in the last ten years.
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The travel time is a minor inconvenience considering what the kids will gain. 
The name of the game is cram as many kids into each classroom as you can and pay the teachers as little as you can to maximize profits for the owner. I really don't see this working for Detroit.
Do people really think these kids aren't entitled to an education? That it doesn't matter how lousy their education is as long as you keep them out of my back yard? They're kids. Kids who have been shortchanged their entire lives who need a chance.
