Inner city kids are at an uncanny

disadvantage

when it comes to equality in their schools verses mostly white schools. Old news. However, new data shows that black kids who have just one black teacher in 3rd thru 5th grades decreased their chances of

dropping out by 39%.

The Role Model Effect: a positive role model, particularly one of color teaching poor or lower-income children of color, gives them something to hope for, something better than what they have. But what happens in places like Detroit, when schools with primarily black students and teachers is closed down?

Enter Betsy DeVos, the former

lobbyist

who has a problem with

civil rights laws

. After she lost a voucher to procure more charter schools in Michigan, she spent millions to raise funds for politicians who’d voted against her lobbies. The policies that her GOP adversaries had voted for shifted. Surprise, surprise. Soon, more charters began—creating a steady flow of for-profit charter schools, where advisors can do what they please with little-to-no oversight over what happens with acquired federal monies.

Charters sound good though. Choosing the school your child can go to based on how well that school has done should be a good thing. Sadly, charter schools in many states are incredibly

segregated

. Segregation doesn’t cut down on violence. We’ve learned

that

.

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Remember that thing DeVos said about the need for guns in schools, how she could see a necessity for them if a school needed protection from grizzly bears? That’s pretty funny. But seriously, children are up against a war zone in the classroom; in 2014 alone, 486, 400 students were wounded on campuses across the US in shootings, knifings, and other nonfatal victimizations.

Pouring over

$1 billion dollars a year

into Michigan’s for-profit charter schools has netted abysmal results. A major argument for these types of schools is that

on average

, they receive less government assistance than traditional public schools. Again, disbursement of those federal funds, isn’t monitored as tightly as others, and these types of schools have a strong track record of abusing those reserves.

in that state, test scores have remained near the bottom in the nation. What’s worse, districts in Detroit house over 100, 000 school-age children, but less than 47,000 students are in the public schools. This means that some $400 million dollars stays out of districts that desperately need it. This may not seem a huge amount to a city that filed for bankruptcy because of

$18-$20 billion dollars-worth

of debt, but many of those same problems leading up to the financial crisis are repeating themselves, namely, low-education rates, high-unemployment due to the shut-down of businesses (in this case, schools), and government intervention implemented to slash budgets of a system already scorched due to prior incompetence.

Despite the myth that American schools (K-12) used to be

top of the line

, we have never tested in the top ten-lists worldwide in math, science, or any other category. Worst still, our system of education has fallen a greater distance from sub-par than where it used to be, as evidenced by this 8th grade exam from

1895

.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] After two decades of charter growth [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]These facts and figures are great, and they go to serve a valuable lesson, but the point is that our schooling system has been ailing since it began. No number of headlines and graphic videos of vicious attacks and murders posted to YouTube or Facebook can paint a clear enough picture—America is in dire need of academic redemption. We need safer schools. We need better schools. We need schools that are more inclusive. The administration’s track record has shown how little black lives matter.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]