Wednesday, July 31, 2019

UMich Opens a "Social Justice-Themed" High School

2010:
In a stunning rebuke to Stanford University, the Ravenswood City School District Board of Trustees Thursday voted to shut down a Stanford-run charter elementary school at the end of the school year, citing poor academic performance...

(Superintendent) De La Vega cited poor results on state tests, and said visitors to the school site had observed serious problems with classroom behavior management. She said the school's current program was inadequate and that Stanford was unlikely to be able to improve it sufficiently.
2014:
How is the education establishment going to react to this?  Charter schools, which they hate, run by state universities, which they love, being recommended to be shut down, which they love, by an organization, which they hate, that supports charter schools, which they hate:

The California Charter Schools Association called Thursday for the closure of a West Sacramento charter school that is run by UC Davis, Sacramento City College and the Washington Unified School District...
No matter how you look at it, though, the performance of the students at this school is among the worst in the state.  It ranks in the bottom 15 schools in a 4-county region.  They may be doing wonderful things at that school, but there's no empirical evidence for such a belief.
2015:
Running a charter school is harder than the United Federation of Teachers thought. The New York City union will close its failing charter school’s elementary and middle school, but ask for authority to continue its high school.

“When the school opened in 2005, then-UFT President Randi Weingarten said its success would demonstrate that unions could play a starring role in efforts to improve the school system,” write Geoff Decker and Sarah Darville on Chalkbeat NY. Weingarten also hoped to show that a union contract was not an “impediment to success.”

The UFT Charter School has been one of the lowest-performing charters in the city.
2019:
The University of Michigan is opening a “social justice-themed” high school in partnership with Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) in the fall.

The School at Marygrove will focus on social justice and engineering, according to The Michigan Daily.

DPSCD spokeswoman Chrystal Wilson said that the "social justice-themed" School at Marygrove “has been designed to develop critical thinkers and community-minded citizens who have the skills and knowledge to be makers and leaders creating a more just and equitable future,” reported the Michigan Daily.

The university has assisted the school district in picking teachers and creating curriculum.
Michigan stands a chance of doing better than the other three schools I mentioned because, based on the following quote, I don't get the sense that Michigan's school is designed to help disadvantaged students:
According to Superintendent Nikolai Vitti, 97 percent of accepted students are Detroit residents, half of whom are returning to DPSCD after leaving for suburban districts or charter schools. He also noted 75 percent of the accepted students live within two miles of the Marygrove campus.
Marygrove is a college campus on which the new high school will be housed. 

BTW, justice doesn't need a modifier.  If you're preaching social justice, we all know you're focusing on the social and not the justice.

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