Let's invite the Detroit Parent Network to our Conversation

ROCHELLE RILEY

Don't miss the bright spots in Detroit's schools

BY ROCHELLE RILEY • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST • December 11, 2008

The teacher stood at a recent community meeting on Detroit's future at Sacred Heart.
But she needed to talk about the present, and to remind us that while we talk about a school district plagued by financial mismanagement, missing textbooks and the feud between the school board and the superintendent, those kids who are forced to attend here, or attend city schools because their parents excelled in them, hear those things.

She said they are affected by them. Still, they find ways to thrive in the pockets they've created where they earn scholarships to Harvard and the University of Michigan.

They hide the pain and embarrassment the criticism brings and focus on their dreams. It's like having a fire go through a town, and everyone focuses on what's burned instead of what's left standing.

So on behalf of that teacher and those thousands of children who make Detroit proud while Detroit looks elsewhere, I plan to write a column about something positive in the city schools for every column I write about the madness. It is not a matter of head-hiding in sand. It is a matter of balance and encouragement.

The parents who care

Today, we focus on the district's greatest hope. It can be found in the parents involved in their children's education, those who help with homework and attend parent-teacher conferences and fight for their children's futures.

Those parents have been maligned for years, lumped in with parents who show up at school only to try to knock a teacher out, or who have no idea that their child must pass standardized tests.
There are just over 90,000 children in the schools, so the numbers say that thousands of children are thriving. Where are their parents -- and can we focus on their kids?

Conversations at the table

The Detroit Parent Network is doing it. It plans to host 300 such parents at its annual breakfast Saturday. But more important, in the coming months, the network will cohost "kitchen-table meetings" in parents' homes to talk.

"Most parents don't give a hot dog about a consent agreement," Sharlonda Buckman, the network's executive director, said Wednesday. "It's important for them to know. But what they really want to know is, 'How is my kid going to get this class?' and 'What's going on with safety?' They don't care who's running the schools. They care. But their needs are more local."

The parent network will send a representative to the meetings to field questions for 30 to 45 minutes and to leave the parents with specific ways to engage the schools about their children and other children.

The first meeting is Dec. 20, and anyone who wants to host a future one should call 313-832-0617 and ask for Buckman -- who will foot the bill for refreshments up to $50.

The conversations that are held at kitchen tables, in boardrooms, in the City Council chambers and in the newsroom will determine what happens with the future of this school district.

It is a conversation that every Detroit parent who cares should join.

Contact ROCHELLE RILEY at 313-223-4473 or rriley99@freepress.com.