Most people across the country with access to a major news outlet and an interest in public education have heard about the troubles of the Detroit Public School system. With the school system handed over to the undemocratic and reactionary will of Emergency Financial Manager, Robert Bobb (for serious his name is Bob Bobb?!? how evil is that?) upwards of 15 schools are doomed for closure and all of the city’s teachers have received pink slips attesting to their uncertain futures.
You probably never heard of roughly one dozen teen moms from Detroit’s Catherine Ferguson Academy staging a sit-in to take a stand against the drastic cuts. This is odd considering that Detroit police deemed them such a threat that they deployed no fewer than five units, at least one equipped with a police dog, to contain the young subversives. As documented in this youtube video, the police also engaged alarms in the quiet neighborhood during the arrests, presumably to drown inhibit the ability of onlookers to make an audible record of the events.
The protest was problematic. It was orchestrated by a group called By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) that has a reputation for using youth as pawns in their public actions. As illustrated by this BAMN member, organizers are often non-local, adult, white and of a different class than those they place on the front line who are young, Black and vulnerable.
But this shouldn’t deny the agency of those involved in the Catherine Ferguson protest. As the fight for accountability at DPS heats up, these youth are looking for options to have their voices heard.
Catherine Ferguson is a school that caters specifically to the needs of pregnant and teen mothers. There’s daycare on-site. I’ve visited Catherine Ferguson and was blown away by the transformation of the school grounds into a fully functional farm complete with livestock and hands-on learning experience for the young women. The school is a clear success story and a leader in the country. It has a 90% graduation rate and 100% of those who graduate go on to 3 or 4 year colleges with the help of financial aid.
Beyond reason this school, a haven for so many, is on the chopping block. The student protesters not only want to save their school but they want to stop the closures all together. They want their schools to remain public in resistance to chartering and privatizing of schools that is increasingly making schooling a corporate affair. They want all of their cut programs reinstated including art, music, counseling and social workers. They want student control of curriculum to ensure equality in the quality of education across the school board.
These students sound more reasonable than administrators who are unceremoniously gutting the system. Perhaps we should let them take the reigns before it’s too late.
thanks for keeping us informed; it’s a similar story here in UK.