DPS needs volunteers to teach reading
By TAMMY STABLES BATTAGLIA
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
As parents decried the De troit Public Schools’ dismal test scores Saturday, the dis trict’s emergency financial manager called on volunteers to spend 100,000 hours teach ing students to read.
“Going forward, we have to create a situation where we create a reading revolution in the city of Detroit,” DPS Emer gency Financial Manager Rob ert Bobb told about 300 par ents at a breakfast meeting sponsored by a parents group. Bob talked to the parents about the district’s test results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test, in which Detroit students ranked the lowest in the nation.
Detroit Parent Network Executive Director Sharlonda Buckman said parents should be irate that their tax dollars have had little effect on their children’s education.
“They can’t read; they can’t count!” she yelled to a standing ovation at the Westin Book Cadillac hotel. “It would not be acceptable in any other com munity! We need to get on board with changing this!”
Bobb said his attempts to rework operations at the school system should be mir rored in the community. Some of the issues contributing to the problem include children living in unsafe neighbor hoods, parents with mental health or drug abuse issues and unemployment, he said.
Celia Huerta said four of her five children attended DPS — and two didn’t get diplomas. Her fifth, age 6, is attending a Melvindale school until she sees improvement in DPS.
“They’re so organized at this other system,” said Huer ta. “I think the Detroit system could learn something at some of these other schools.”
No comments:
Post a Comment