Sometimes, people email me things that are too good not to share. Thanks to William Peterson for putting this all together and in perspective. My comments at the end.
Mayor Cieslewicz, alders, and members of the Economic Development Commission and community leaders:
Yesterday’s Wisconsin State Journal Editorial “Yet another reason for school reform” points out the embarrasement Wisconsin has that “Black fourth-graders in Wisconsin just posted the lowest reading scores among the 50 states and the District of Columbia”. This follows on the Wednesday Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Article “State’s black fourth-graders post worst reading scores in U.S.”
If you think this is a Milwaukee problem, think again. Isadore Knox has told me that some Madison grade school students score lower on exams that students in Milwaukee.
An October 8th article “Study Finds High Rate of Imprisonment Among Dropouts” in the New York Times states “On any given day, about one in every 10 young male high school dropouts is in jail or juvenile detention, compared with one in 35 young male high school graduates, according to a new study of the effects of dropping out of school in an America where demand for low-skill workers is plunging. The picture is even bleaker for African-Americans, with nearly one in four young black male dropouts incarcerated or otherwise institutionalized on an average day, the study said. That compares with about one in 14 young, male, white, Asian or Hispanic dropouts.”
A recent article “The Economic Benefits from Halving the Dropout Rate: A Boom to Businesses in the Nation’s Largest Metropolitan Areas” says “Few people realize the impact that high school dropouts have on a community’s economic, social, and civic health. Business owners and residents—in particular, those without school-aged children—may not be aware that they have much at stake in the success of their local high schools. Indeed, everyone—from car dealers and Realtors to bank managers and local business owners—benefits when more students graduate from high school.” It then goes on to show an economic analysis in our largest 50 metropolitan areas showing what economic benefits we might get if the dropout rate was cut in half. If you look up the data for Madison East High school, less than 70% of students get the equivalent of a high school diploma.
An April 8th, 2009 Huffington Post article “A Scandal More Shameful than AIG and Just as Costly for Taxpayers”
Though Madoff and the Wall Street meltdown have forced some of us to finally become more aware of the world beyond our comfortable middle and upper-middle class bubbles, another issue has been lurking for years that threatens to bring about even greater financial Armageddon for our country down the road: America’s burgeoning dropout epidemic. Before you decide that this issue has nothing to do with you (and therefore decide to move on from this blog post) consider these facts for a moment:
• A 2008 study found that high school dropouts cost the American public more than $100 million a year.
• A 2009 study found that one high school dropout in Ohio will cost that state’s taxpayers $200,000 from the time they dropout until they are 65 years of age.
• Every 29 seconds another American student becomes a dropout, meaning two (depending on how quickly you read) have dropped out since you began reading this post.A WISC-TV Channel-3000 article “Wisconsin: Worst Place To Be Black?” references a Blackcommentator.com article that said “If you are African-America, Wisconsin is the “worst place in the nation to live,”” based upon a ranking that lists Wisconsin as the state with the highest percentage of its black residents behind bars.
A July 5th New York Times article “In Prisoners’ Wake, a Tide of Troubled Kids” says:
The chances of seeing a parent go to prison have never been greater, especially for poor black Americans, and new research is documenting the long-term harm to the children they leave behind. Recent studies indicate that having an incarcerated parent doubles the chance that a child will be at least temporarily homeless and measurably increases the likelihood of physically aggressive behavior, social isolation, depression and problems in school — all portending dimmer prospects in adulthood.
In “How to decide where to live” by Penelope Trunk a national blogger that writes for more than 200 newspapers talks about her decision to move from New York City to Madison and what factors she considered. She says
“I had never been to Madison in my life, and you know what? It was a good decision. Except for one thing: I ignored the data about schools. I didn’t believe that a city known for progressive social programs and university filled with genius faculty could have poorly performing public schools. But it ended up being true, and all economic development research says do not move to a place with crap schools—it’s a sign that lots of things in the city are not right.”
So, you may think this is a problem for the school system to solve, but it isn’t. It is a problem that we must all work on to solve.
You may say that you didn’t have a personal role in creating the situation we are in. That may be true, but it is now our collective responsibility to make it right. I was fortunate to hear Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine speak at Edgewood College. She said that she moved back to Little Rock and all of these former high school students that she used to go to school with came up to her and said things like “I wasn’t one of the ones that harassed you”. She pointed out that it is not good enough to say you weren’t involved because you were there and you turned your back on the situation and let it happen, so you are responsible. This happened on all of our watches, so we collectively need to all work together with the community to start to correct the problem. It is going to take all of us to do it!
Lastly, I heard there is a movement to look at city processes to see how they might be changed after we have gone through this long process with the proposed Edgewater rebuild. Personally, I think this is very misguided and the real examination we should be making is how the business community, developers, lobbyists, the mayor, city staff, the Economic Development Commission, and others have spent all of this time and money to influence and take over, and intimidate the public process of making decisions about the proposed expansion of the Edgewater while completely ignoring things that are much more important to the overall economic health of our community.
Bill Patterson
Williamson St
Ignore the part about the Edgewater for a moment. Do you think anyone will respond to Mr. Patterson. Do you think anyone will take up the cause? Do you think anyone will even get it placed on a city committee agenda? Do you think people even read it all the way to the end? I wonder how many of my blog readers even read it to the end, for that matter.
I happen to agree, this is one of the biggest issues facing our city, and yet our city leaders stand idly by. Meanwhile, I know at least 4 alders care very deeply about these issues, but probably feel powerless to do anything about it, because the council won’t support their efforts to address these issues. I know my own efforts to address issues of inequality for women were derided by my colleagues and I suspect the same thing would happen here.
Kudos to Bill for continuing to raise these issues with our city leaders, lets hope it doesn’t fall on deaf ears.
