Commentary

COMMENTARY: It’s time to show Detroit teachers the respect they deserve

MICHIGAN CHRONICLE — This country, despite its rhetoric for honoring teachers, does not respect traditional public education — including teachers and their students — enough to put their money where their mouths are. It’s empty talk.

Published

5 years ago

June 1, 2019

Patreice A. Massey

By Nikolai Vitti, Ed.D., Superintendent Detroit Public Schools Community District

I am often asked what is the most important strategy that can be leveraged to improve Detroit Public Schools Community District, or public education in general.

My response is: make teaching and teachers the most important priority in educational reform. By doing so, you immediately improve the outcomes and experiences of all children, because teachers have the most consistent interaction with children outside of families.

As we know, for some children, this consistency is vital due to home life challenges. Despite this reality, we often hear leaders and elected officials honor the hard work and sacrifice of teachers without emphasizing and prioritizing budgets and policy to enhance teacher status as one of the most important professions in our society. This is why we are seeing fewer undergraduates enter the teaching profession and others leaving it.

This country, despite its rhetoric for honoring teachers, does not respect traditional public education — including teachers and their students — enough to put their money where their mouths are. It’s empty talk.

As a result, our children, community, and the future of this country continue to suffer. We allow the ideology of choice, lower taxes and weak government to dictate elections and education policy. We ignore what works — best practice and research — for silver bullets and quick fixes. There are few examples that better reflect the disrespect toward traditional public education — and toward teachers and their students — than what occurred in Michigan, and namely in Detroit, through emergency management.

One example is the current state of our facilities. We have buildings that are in dire need of repair due to years of neglect. This would have never been tolerated in any of the surrounding suburbs but yet it became the status quo in Detroit under emergency management. Another is the lack of systems and processes that “normal” organizations have in place. Something as simple as a customer service response process was missing. Basic payroll systems, accountability metrics and inferior curriculum are just some of the basics that created the corrosion I witnessed when I first came to the district almost two years ago.

Let this low point in history always serve as the extreme governance model that should never be imposed again in any state or school district.

Over the past two years, we have worked deliberately to rebuild DPSCD from the debacle of emergency management while placing our focus on improving the conditions of teachers. We have not achieved victory but we are improving.

We have raised teacher salaries and are committed to doing so through reoccurring and one-time bonus increases in the future. We must put as much money in teachers pockets as our budget will allow while being fiscally responsible as a district under state financial review. We returned TIP funding to teachers before retirement. (Under emergency management, the incentive plan took money from teachers on a bi-weekly basis and held it to pay them when they left the district. There was doubt that this funding would be returned. Last year, we made an agreement with the union to pay the teachers back and we did that last year.) We have enhanced teacher voices through the selection of curriculum, reduced testing, lowered class sizes, revised the evaluation tool, and funded additional school-based positions to address chronic absenteeism, discipline, and academic intervention.

Additionally, we expanded paid professional development opportunities and provided a new career pathway for strong teachers through our master teacher role. We provided all teachers with a laptop and the opportunity to complete a survey about their experiences at their school.

The survey results are used as feedback to coach and develop principals as instructional leaders and talent managers. We are most excited about the opportunity to develop the next generation of teachers through our Marygrove initiative with the University of Michigan, where aspiring teachers will learn to teach before becoming the teacher of record.

No different than doctors, teachers must be given the time and resources to learn from veteran teachers before entering the classroom full time.

Despite this work, the legacy of our school board and my leadership will rest on making Detroit teachers the highest paid in the state and country. Detroit teachers deserve to be the highest paid because our children deserve the best teachers in each of the classrooms they enter and leave every day.

To accomplish this goal, we must demand equitable funding in Michigan where property tax revenue, which is included in the state’s foundation allowance along with state per pupil funding, does not imbalance the scales of equal opportunity for students.

On average, school districts in Grosse Pointe, Southfield and Farmington generate $130 million dollars more in annual revenue than DPSCD. This allows these districts and countless others to offer teacher salaries and school facilities that are superior to ours.

Although DPSCD typically receives more federal funding than many other districts due to the concentration of low income families, those funds are restricted and cannot be used at scale for districtwide salary increases, but instead for additional school-level support positions, creating more vacancies that are difficult to fill.

If we are truly committed to all children and we reject the notion that the greater likelihood of success is afforded to those in higher income zip codes, then we need to provide equitable public school funding. This will allow us to retain our veteran teachers and develop a new generation of teachers who will live in the city and see teaching as a career, not an experience. This is how we will rebuild the city, communities, and even our country.

This article originally appeared in the Michigan Chronicle.

Patreice A. Massey

Posts by Patreice A. Massey

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Commentary

Opinion: Surviving the Earthquake, an Eclipse and “Emil Amok.”

Last Friday, a 4.8 magnitude earthquake shook New York City, reported as the “biggest earthquake with an epicenter in the NYC area since 1884” when a 5.2 quake hit. A bit bigger. The last quake similar to Friday’s was a 4.9 in 1783.Alexander Hamilton felt it — 241 years ago. That’s why New Yorkers were freaking out on Friday. They were in the room where it happens.

Published

23 hours ago

April 17, 2024

Oakland Post

In New York City, the eclipse was about 90 percent visible. Good enough for me. Though a full solar eclipse is a celestial rarity, blockages of any sort aren’t generally celebrated. My one-man play is about growing up with the eclipsed history of American Filipinos and how I struggle to unblock all that.

By Emil Guillermo

I’m a Northern Californian in New York City for the next few weeks, doing my one-man show, “Emil Amok, Lost NPR Host, Wiley Filipino, Vegan Transdad.”

I must like performing in the wake of Mother Nature.

Alexander Hamilton felt it — 241 years ago.

That’s why New Yorkers were freaking out on Friday. They were in the room where it happens.

And it just doesn’t happen that often.

Beyonce singing country music happens more frequently.

When I felt New York shake last week, it reminded me of a time in a San Francisco TV newsroom when editors fretted about a lack of news an hour before showtime.

Then the office carpeting moved for a good ten seconds, and the news gods gave us our lead story.

On Friday when it happened in NYC, I noticed the lines in the carpeting in my room wiggling. But I thought it was from a raucous hotel worker vacuuming nearby.

I didn’t even think earthquake. In New York?

I just went about my business as if nothing had happened. After living near fault lines all my life, I was taking things for granted.

Considering the age of structures in New York, I should have been even more concerned about falling objects inside (shelves, stuff on walls) and outside buildings (signs, scaffolding), fire hazards from possible gas leaks, and then I should have looked for others on my floor and in the hotel lobby to confirm or aid or tell stories.

Of course, as a Californian who has lived through and covered quakes in the 4 to 6 magnitude range, I tried to calm down any traumatized New Yorker I encountered by taking full responsibility for bringing in the quake from the Bay Area.

I reassured them things would be all right, and then let them know that 4.8s are nothing.

And then I invited them to my consoling post-Earthquake performance of “Emil Amok, Lost NPR Host…”

It was the night of the eclipse.

ECLIPSING THE ECLIPSE

For example, did you know the first Filipinos actually arrived to what is now California in 1587? That’s 33 years before the Pilgrims arrived in America on the other coast, but few know the Filipino history which has been totally eclipsed.

I was in Battery Park sitting on a bench and there was a sense of community as people all came to look up. A young woman sitting next to me had a filter for a cell phone camera. We began talking and she let me use it. That filter enabled me to take a picture of the main event with my iPhone.

For helping me see, I invited her and her boyfriend to come see my show.

Coincidentally, she was from Plymouth, Massachusetts, near the rock that says the year the Pilgrims landed in 1620.

In my show she learned the truth. The Pilgrims were second.

History unblocked. But it took a solar eclipse.

Next one in 2044? We have a lot more unblocking to do.

If you’re in New York come see my show, Sat. April 13th, 5:20 pm Eastern; Fri. April 19, 8:10 pm Eastern; and Sun. April 21st 5:20 pm Eastern.

You can also livestream the show. Get tickets at www.amok.com/tickets

About the Author

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He does a mini-talk show on YouTube.com/@emilamok1. He wishes all his readers a Happy Easter!

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Commentary

Commentary: Republican Votes Are Threatening American Democracy

In many ways, it was great that the Iowa Caucuses were on the same day as Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We needed to know the blunt truth. The takeaway message after the Iowa Caucuses where Donald Trump finished more than 30 points in front of Florida Gov. De Santis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley boils down to this: Our democracy is threatened, for real.

Published

2 days ago

April 16, 2024

Oakland Post

It was strange for Iowans to caucus on MLK day. It had a self-cancelling effect. The day that honored America’s civil rights and anti-discrimination hero was negated by evening. That’s when one of the least diverse states in the nation let the world know that white Americans absolutely love Donald Trump. No ifs, ands or buts.

By Emil Guillermo

In many ways, it was great that the Iowa Caucuses were on the same day as Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

We needed to know the blunt truth.

The takeaway message after the Iowa Caucuses where Donald Trump finished more than 30 points in front of Florida Gov. De Santis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley boils down to this: Our democracy is threatened, for real.

And to save it will require all hands on deck.

It was strange for Iowans to caucus on MLK day. It had a self-cancelling effect. The day that honored America’s civil rights and anti-discrimination hero was negated by evening.

That’s when one of the least diverse states in the nation let the world know that white Americans absolutely love Donald Trump. No ifs, ands or buts.

No man is above the law? To the majority of his supporters, it seems Trump is.

It’s an anti-democracy loyalty that has spread like a political virus.

No matter what he does, Trump’s their guy. Trump received 51% of caucus-goers votes to beat Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who garnered 21.2%, and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who got 19.1%.

The Asian flash in the pan Vivek Ramaswamy finished way behind and dropped out. Perhaps to get in the VP line. Don’t count on it.

According to CNN’s entrance polls, when caucus-goers were asked if they were a part of the “MAGA movement,” nearly half — 46% — said yes. More revealing: “Do you think Biden legitimately won in 2020?”

Only 29% said “yes.”

That means an overwhelming 66% said “no,” thus showing the deep roots in Iowa of the “Big Lie,” the belief in a falsehood that Trump was a victim of election theft.

Even more revealing and posing a direct threat to our democracy was the question of whether Trump was fit for the presidency, even if convicted of a crime.

Sixty-five percent said “yes.”

Who says that about anyone of color indicted on 91 criminal felony counts?

Would a BIPOC executive found liable for business fraud in civil court be given a pass?

How about a BIPOC person found liable for sexual assault?

Iowans have debased the phrase, “no man is above the law.” It’s a mindset that would vote in an American dictatorship.

Compare Iowa with voters in Asia last weekend. Taiwan rejected threats from authoritarian Beijing and elected pro-democracy Taiwanese vice president Lai Ching-te as its new president.

Meanwhile, in our country, which supposedly knows a thing or two about democracy, the Iowa caucuses show how Americans feel about authoritarianism.

Some Americans actually like it even more than the Constitution allows.

About the Author

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He does a mini-talk show on YouTube.com/@emilamok1.