Almost Half of Detroit's Adults are Functionally Illiterate

[infomama]

I know this isn't just in Detroit but...wow. How does this happen? I am dumbfounded.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/07/detroit-illiteracy-nearly-half-education_n_858307.html

[ahisma]

Underfunded schools have a lot to do with it.

(not trying to be snarky, just particularly frustrated with school funding in MI tonight)

[infomama]

I don't think you're being snarky at all..I totally agree. I think the fact that these people were passed from grade (with no business being passed) to grade is terrible.

[Thatchermom]

DS is attending a very low income public school this year in WA. There are twenty seven kids in his 3rd grade class. in November one third of those kids couldn't read at all, seven more had very basic phonics skills that didn't really amount to reading (per his teacher), only three had above grade reading ability. There were only two third grade classes, so at best 25% of the kids in his grade couldn't read at all, though likely it was an even higher number.

With functional illiteracy defined as reading and writing skills that are inadequate to cope with the demands of everyday life, rather than a complete inability, it isn't hard in this situation to see where that number could easily be more than half in our community as well.

DS, who reads at a 9th grade level, will not be continuing at this school.

[niccig]

I think also add in being poor and lack of access to resources. This is Detroit city proper and not the surrounding suburbs that have more money, better school districts etc.

Maybe also attitudes towards education. I was in Costco here in LA, and we heard a boy asking his mother if they could buy some books, she said "why spend money on books, when we have a perfectly good TV." I was speechless...but there are many families where education isn't supported, maybe because the parents don't see it as important, or the parents are too busy working several jobs to feed the family and can't oversee homework.

I think language can be a barrier too. I tutored in college and the student came from a family where English was the 2nd language. The parents weren't confident helping with homework, but they could afford to pay me to help, so they did. Not everyone can afford that.

[ellies mom]

There is often also a generational aspect to it. If the parent is functionally illiterate, they cannot help their children with their homework and generally cannot afford to get their child extra help.

[niccig]

There is often also a generational aspect to it. If the parent is functionally illiterate, they cannot help their children with their homework and generally cannot afford to get their child extra help.

:yeahthat: think of all the help we can give our kids if they're having difficulty with spelling or reading because we can spell and read.

A friend's son is struggling with reading and over the summer he is doing a very expensive reading program to help him catch up. His parents have tried helping, and they had a private tutor, but as he makes improvements, his peers are too. So they're trying an intensive program to get him to where he needs to be.

[wellyes]

Hope I don't offend any Detroit moms here in saying this but: Detroit is the most blighted city I have ever seen in the US. And stories like this one just remind me that poverty perpetuates itself.

[California]

Sad article. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Where we live our kids are in school about 7 hours a day. Lunch and recess have been cut way back to put the focus completely on classroom instruction. And yet, some kids just aren't learning to read. Someone brought up class sizes before and I think that plays a huge role in this. Children need one-on-one time to learn to read. How much time does a teacher have to work with a child individually? Not much.

[daisymommy]

I totally understand that schools are underfunded, and often overcrowded. I get that some parents are illiterate and unable to help with homework and practice time.

But kids are at school for 7 hours a day. It doesn't take much money at all to use a piece of chalk on the blackboard to write and teach phonics. I just don't understand what they are doing all day long if by 3rd+ grade kids can't read.

[dogmom]

I totally understand that schools are underfunded, and often overcrowded. I get that some parents are illiterate and unable to help with homework and practice time.

But kids are at school for 7 hours a day. It doesn't take much money at all to use a piece of chalk on the blackboard to write and teach phonics. I just don't understand what they are doing all day long if by 3rd+ grade kids can't read.

First, it's 6 hours. I'm not sure even where to begin. In the worst case you have a kid that wasn't care for, hasn't slept because no one puts him to bed, has no stability, may not have a consistent presence in his life, and may not have had breakfast. Might have learning disabilities and or brain damage from everything from exposure to drugs to physical abuse. Oh, and lets not forget sexual abuse. I see these people as adults coming to visit their family members, it's like some bad Jerry Springer episode. I can't help but feel that they were doomed from birth, things are just so screwed up. I just feel like it's Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, how the heck can anyone learn when basic things are not being met. I don't care how freaking good the teacher is. Sure, there are some kids who get out, but you really have to change a whole community, like the Harlem Children's Center.

And I'm willing to bet their were numbers like that in the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's any number of places across this country. So I don't think it's anything new.

[swissair81]

Hope I don't offend any Detroit moms here in saying this but: Detroit is the most blighted city I have ever seen in the US. And stories like this one just remind me that poverty perpetuates itself.

It's not offensive. It's true. Those of us in the suburbs are not pleased that it's 'spreading'. If I sent my kids to public school, I wouldn't live in the city I live in now. The reason for that is that my city's school is full of Detroit's problems because people use alternate addresses to get their kids out of the DPS system. Accordingly, people who live in my city send their kids to better public schools, and my city is cracking down on it and not allowing kids to go to any school system that is considered 'better'. They should really wise up, because if they don't stop forcing people to send their kids to the schools here, they will move (and Detroit will keep spreading into other suburban areas).

Even worse, one of the best of the DPS schools Catherine Ferguson Academy (for pregnant teens and teenage moms) will be closing this summer. It has the best high school graduation and college graduation rates in the city.

[egoldber]

First, it's 6 hours. I'm not sure even where to begin. In the worst case you have a kid that wasn't care for, hasn't slept because no one puts him to bed, has no stability, may not have a consistent presence in his life, and may not have had breakfast. Might have learning disabilities and or brain damage from everything from exposure to drugs to physical abuse. Oh, and lets not forget sexual abuse. I see these people as adults coming to visit their family members, it's like some bad Jerry Springer episode. I can't help but feel that they were doomed from birth, things are just so screwed up. I just feel like it's Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, how the heck can anyone learn when basic things are not being met. I don't care how freaking good the teacher is. Sure, there are some kids who get out, but you really have to change a whole community, like the Harlem Children's Center.

I went to a school like this. It's one of the reasons I can barely stand to visit my family. The stuff that happens in my not quite immediate family is like a bad soap opera. Only it's real. Addiction, undiagnosed and untreated mental illness, lack of education, lack of role models, children having children, etc. And it is soooo hard to break the cycle because this is their world, this is what their friends and family are doing, and wanting better means (or at least feels like) repudiating the people in your immediate social circle.

And the poverty and lack of access to meaningful, stable jobs (even if they had the skills to hold them) and the accompanying dysfunction and instability this breeds is a LOT to ask of the average elementary school teacher, many of whom are barely in their 20s. I see how overwhelmed older DD's teachers are in a WEALTHY (by comparison) school just meeting the various and competing needs of all their kids without the additional level of the huge amounts of generational poverty and illiteracy.

[KrisM]

First, it's 6 hours.

Ours are 7 hours. I am Metro Detroit. I don't know what Detroit is. Might be just 6 hours as you say.

Both my parents went to elem school in Detroit in the 50s. My grandparents went up through high school in the early 40s. I'd have to ask which school, etc. Detroit proper used to be a very different place with quite nice neighborhoods and kids outside playing, etc. I don't really know when things started changing for the worse, but they definitely have. I know my grandparents had a Detroit mailing address until the mid-70s. I remember that house vaguely. We can see the house my mom grew up in from a freeway, but she won't get off to look at it, as it's not in a safe area now :(.

The schools in Detroit have had a lot of issues over the recent years.

[swissair81]

Ours are 7 hours. I am Metro Detroit. I don't know what Detroit is. Might be just 6 hours as you say.

Both my parents went to elem school in Detroit in the 50s. My grandparents went up through high school in the early 40s. I'd have to ask which school, etc. Detroit proper used to be a very different place with quite nice neighborhoods and kids outside playing, etc. I don't really know when things started changing for the worse, but they definitely have. I know my grandparents had a Detroit mailing address until the mid-70s. I remember that house vaguely. We can see the house my mom grew up in from a freeway, but she won't get off to look at it, as it's not in a safe area now :(.

The schools in Detroit have had a lot of issues over the recent years.

Detroit changed after the 67 riots. Most of the city's whites moved out when Coleman Young was mayor. My family hasn't been here as long as yours. My grandparents moved to the Detroit area in the late 60s, and they moved straight to the suburbs.

[egoldber]

My ILs have lived in Detroit metro all their lives. My MIL was a teacher and then a school psychologist in the Detroit Public Schools for over 30 years, until the late 90s. In the latter part of her career, she would never buy a new car or even carry a purse with her when she went to the schools she worked at. Teacher's cars were routinely broken into and vandalized. In the school parking lots. My FIL owned a pharmacy in Detroit until the 80s when he no longer felt safe dispensing medication downtown.

It has always been an urban area with all that entails, but Detroit proper in the early part of the 20th century was mainly working class. When the auto plants moved from Detroit to the burbs, things changed. And now the loss of so many automotive jobs has made a desperate place even more desperate. People who had options have left. The people that remain are truly, truly desperate and struggling.

[KrisM]

Detroit changed after the 67 riots. Most of the city's whites moved out when Coleman Young was mayor. My family hasn't been here as long as yours. My grandparents moved to the Detroit area in the late 60s, and they moved straight to the suburbs.

Yes, you're right. In my head-cold fog this morning, I forgot about the riots. That year, my dad was at Univ. Detroit for college and my mom was a senior at a Redford High School.

[Glizmo]

I just feel like it's Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, how the heck can anyone learn when basic things are not being met. I don't care how freaking good the teacher is.

:yeahthat:

My SIL has taught kindergarten for years at a Detroit Charter School. Many, if not most, of the kids personally know someone that was either murdered or in jail. Many show up to school unwashed and unfed after sleeping in their car all night. Many have no idea how to hold a pencil or which way is up when holding a book when they start school. It's heartbreaking. This past year my SIL successfully created a Reading Intervention Specialist position in her school, to help those kids that just get pushed along through the system (I'm very proud of her for that).

Just throwing money at the schools won't help (DPS has higher per-pupil spending than many of the better performing suburbs). Having awesome teachers (like SIL) helps some, but not enough. Having smaller class sizes won't help if every.single.kid needs one-on-one attention. The underlying poverty and cultural issues need fixing - and I don't think anyone has any idea how to really do that.

[wellyes]

25 years ago the parents who are failing their kids now through lack of ability, funds, time and hope were in school themselves. And in 25 years today's kid's kids will be starting school and will face the exact same issues. It's rough.

[Indianamom2]

:yeahthat:

My SIL has taught kindergarten for years at a Detroit Charter School. Many, if not most, of the kids personally know someone that was either murdered or in jail. Many show up to school unwashed and unfed after sleeping in their car all night. Many have no idea how to hold a pencil or which way is up when holding a book when they start school. It's heartbreaking. This past year my SIL successfully created a Reading Intervention Specialist position in her school, to help those kids that just get pushed along through the system (I'm very proud of her for that).

Just throwing money at the schools won't help (DPS has higher per-pupil spending than many of the better performing suburbs). Having awesome teachers (like SIL) helps some, but not enough. Having smaller class sizes won't help if every.single.kid needs one-on-one attention. The underlying poverty and cultural issues need fixing - and I don't think anyone has any idea how to really do that.


This is so, so true. The culture is the problem and until that is fixed, Detroit public schools could be the richest schools in the world and it wouldn't matter.

[MrsMcGwire]

Yes, you're right. In my head-cold fog this morning, I forgot about the riots. That year, my dad was at Univ. Detroit for college and my mom was a senior at a Redford High School.

My mom and her siblings went to Redford! My grandfather moved them out in '72 to a rural part of the Thumb because he saw the city/burbs going downhill.

Detroit just has had the worst happen. Coleman Young was as crooked as they come. He made Kwame look like an amateur. It's going to take a lot to rebuild the city let alone the schools.

[dogmom]

I think the Harlem Children's Zone is a good model. The founder, Geoffrey Canada, is very articulate about how if you go to the suburbs there is the base knowledge of how to enrich your childrens' that just doesn't exist in many places. Compare it to a couple generations ago when the educated professionals were telling mothers not to touch their babies. That's why HCZ starts with "Baby College" for 0-3 which is really very intense parenting classes. It is not cheap, however, and he is doing it in a very small area, although many people, from a similar culture. All those confounding variables.

[crayonblue]

First, it's 6 hours. I'm not sure even where to begin. In the worst case you have a kid that wasn't care for, hasn't slept because no one puts him to bed, has no stability, may not have a consistent presence in his life, and may not have had breakfast. Might have learning disabilities and or brain damage from everything from exposure to drugs to physical abuse. Oh, and lets not forget sexual abuse. I see these people as adults coming to visit their family members, it's like some bad Jerry Springer episode. I can't help but feel that they were doomed from birth, things are just so screwed up. I just feel like it's Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, how the heck can anyone learn when basic things are not being met. I don't care how freaking good the teacher is. Sure, there are some kids who get out, but you really have to change a whole community, like the Harlem Children's Center.

And I'm willing to bet their were numbers like that in the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's any number of places across this country. So I don't think it's anything new.

You are sooooo right. I volunteered for several years in a failing school. The first graders would come in 1) without breakfast (and some without dinner the night before), 2) after staying up half the night watching TV, 3) after staying up half the night listening to someone screaming and yelling, etc, etc, etc. None of these children were from English speaking homes which added other problems.

I realized what my teacher friend was up against when we did Thanksgiving crafts and some of these first graders had no earthly idea what a Turkey was. These kids lack so many experiences that we just take for granted. And they have a whole heap of other experiences that we cannot even fathom.

[Binkandabee]

I think also add in being poor and lack of access to resources. This is Detroit city proper and not the surrounding suburbs that have more money, better school districts etc.

Maybe also attitudes towards education. I was in Costco here in LA, and we heard a boy asking his mother if they could buy some books, she said "why spend money on books, when we have a perfectly good TV." I was speechless...but there are many families where education isn't supported, maybe because the parents don't see it as important, or the parents are too busy working several jobs to feed the family and can't oversee homework.

I think language can be a barrier too. I tutored in college and the student came from a family where English was the 2nd language. The parents weren't confident helping with homework, but they could afford to pay me to help, so they did. Not everyone can afford that.

This has A LOT to do with it IMO. If a child doesn't have a parent supporting them (for whatever reason) with their education, making sure homework is done, making education a priority the child is not going to see education as important, either. A school can only do so much.

[swissair81]

My ILs have lived in Detroit metro all their lives. My MIL was a teacher and then a school psychologist in the Detroit Public Schools for over 30 years, until the late 90s. In the latter part of her career, she would never buy a new car or even carry a purse with her when she went to the schools she worked at. Teacher's cars were routinely broken into and vandalized. In the school parking lots. My FIL owned a pharmacy in Detroit until the 80s when he no longer felt safe dispensing medication downtown.

It has always been an urban area with all that entails, but Detroit proper in the early part of the 20th century was mainly working class. When the auto plants moved from Detroit to the burbs, things changed. And now the loss of so many automotive jobs has made a desperate place even more desperate. People who had options have left. The people that remain are truly, truly desperate and struggling.

I'm afraid it's possible for things to get worse (assuming they don't get better quickly). Detroit Medical Center which has always been there for the city's neediest, got bought out by Vanguard health systems, and they have no intention of keeping their charity work as a priority. They reported in the news that within the next 10 year, they intend to be completely for profit. That will be really bad.

[Kindra178]

And I'm willing to bet their were numbers like that in the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's any number of places across this country. So I don't think it's anything new.

I completely agree with your first paragraph. I am not sure if the US literacy rates have fallen, or if certain populations weren't even considered in the statistics back then, but I can tell you that my grandfather, who only completed 8th grade, had excellent literacy and math skills. His parents barely spoke English and I am not sure they were even literate in their native Polish. He certainly didn't get any help at home with any homework he may have had.

I am not saying at all that because he did it other people should be able to do what he did for a myriad of reasons (certainly he had white privilege and other institutional advantages in play that aren't factors today (namely no fear of gang violence and a two parent family)). I think schools focused solely on reading and math back then and probably nothing else. I think they also shamed kids into reading (he told stories about "green" kids, which meant just off the boat, or kids being forced to wear a dunce cap and stand in the corner).

[daisymommy]

So, what am I hearing is, the real truth is we need to stop making our sole focus being P.C issues like money and funding, and start bringing to light the embarrassing non P.C. issues like family dysfunction/problems at home, lack of support and role modeling, etc. Because unless you know someone who works in these school settings, the rest of the world has no idea that these are the problems causing illiteracy and the like. We just keep hearing it's because the schools lack funds.

There obviously needs to be some social reform programs, or something darn it! ;) But I think not enough is happening because we keep harping on money and not family and social problems and what that does to a child's education.

[wellyes]

So, what am I hearing is, the real truth is we need to stop making our sole focus being P.C issues like money and funding, and start bringing to light the embarrassing non P.C. issues like family dysfunction/problems at home, lack of support and role modeling, etc.What's needed is not school funding, but it's still all about money. Parents with no job, no money, no opportunities. The culture problems are, I think, largely related to that hopelessness. Remember that the jobless epidemic going on right now is almost entirely concentrated on the working class. And Detroit had it tough in that regard even in the best of times.

My DH is an automotive engineer and I told him early on: no way are we moving to the Detroit region, even though there are jobs there for his rather elite specialty. We obviously wouldn't be living in Detroit proper, but still. The disparity between the haves and have nots is especially stark in that area and the have nots are in an unusually rough spot.

[kozachka]

Sad article. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Where we live our kids are in school about 7 hours a day. Lunch and recess have been cut way back to put the focus completely on classroom instruction. And yet, some kids just aren't learning to read. Someone brought up class sizes before and I think that plays a huge role in this. Children need one-on-one time to learn to read. How much bettime does a teacher have to work with a child individually? Not much.

I know this is not going to be a popular opinion on this board, but I grew up outside of US (in the former Soviet Union) and our class size was larger than it is common here, the smallest class in my school was ~27 kids and the largest just over 30, including in the elementary school. We were challenged a lot academically (I scored in top 7% for math when I took GMAT test for business school based on what I learned in school and I had limited knowledge on English terms) and all the kids read more than adequately. The few kids that struggled had major issues at home, like a dad who was an alcoholic. So I don't think large class size on its own is the problem.

Most of our parents would not have been considered well off, at best middle and lower middle class. But they were highly educated and wanted the same or better for their kids. IMHO demographics is the main reason for this situation.

ETA: Just saw all the other posts that appeared while I was typing up mine, and, I could not agree more - just throwing more money at these schools won't help.

[vludmilla]

I agree that class sizes are not the primary issue. Parochial schools in the past routinely had 30 or more students and were successful. The teachers in parochial schools often had less formal teacher education and less pay than the public school counterparts. In my own experience at a parochial school with 30-35 students in the class at all times, most of my classmates did well. We had a little elementary (K-8)reunion recently and almost everyone had gone to college and had good jobs. There were assistant DA's, principals, investment banker, trader, insurance sales, school psychologist (me!), fundraisising director, math teacher, registered nurse and other business professionals. The parochial school we attended was nothing special or fancy. We lived in a very working class city with awful public schools and our very working class parents wanted more for us and sent us to the most affordable private option which was this parochial school. I think the issues with illiteracy are much more complicated than just the quality of teachers or schools though that is a part of it. I do believe that sociocultural factors are the single largest determinant of outcomes.

[ha98ed14]

This kind of thing surprised me until I worked at a very poor high school. I had a 15 y.o. freshman student who did not know her address and could not tell time on a face clock. She was in my Alg I class. It was sad. The student was an American born ESL student, and I think she was below grade level in her command of both English and her native language. It's sad. Most of these kids never make it out of their neighborhood.