Published: 9/1/2010
When asked to compare his school district with Detroit's, Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Andrés Alonso lets loose a little laugh and tries to step around the question. "That's a stigma we're trying to shake," he says. In some ways, though, the comparison is unavoidable. The tw...[MORE]
Published: 8/25/2010
How green is my campus? by Metro Times staff Student dispatches from five area universities that gauge the new 'greening' Add it up by Sallyann Price Biker speed has come a long way ... A season in Detroit by Simone Landon And no, it's not about people coming to 'save' the city ...[MORE]
Published: 8/25/2010
How important are sustainability practices and environmental policies at a particular college or university to prospective students? Well, if you believe the folks at the Princeton Review, the answer often is: very important. For 19 years, the Princeton Review — those good folks who help you...[MORE]
Published: 8/25/2010
WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY Bureau of Urban Living 460 W. Canfield St., Detroit; 313-833-9336 Located on the ground floor of the Canfield Lofts in midtown Detroit, Bureau of Urban Living calls itself a "modern-day urban general store." Wayne State students and staff looking to garnish ...[MORE]
Published: 8/25/2010
The speed-freak coed has long been an established archetype in the social stratification of college campuses, right up there alongside white kids with dreads and Pabst-swilling hipsters. Wide-eyed, jittery and acutely productive, you can spot them in libraries during midterms and finals, with their ...[MORE]
Published: 8/25/2010
Scan the low end of the radio dial on a typical Tuesday night and this is what you might hear: At CJAM (99.1 FM), a man with a Southern drawl gives a "big howdy to Lollipop, Oliver and Flopsy" before introducing the "first bona fide rock 'n' roll song recorded" — Ike Turn...[MORE]
Published: 8/25/2010
My platoon was under heavy machine-gun fire coming from across the Euphrates River. We ducked into ditches along a paved road that led to the Highway 8 bridge we were to secure. Right then, however, we were pinned down, and without the bridge, there would be no way of securing As Samawah, the small ...[MORE]
Published: 8/25/2010
Ashlee Stratakis grew up on the Dearborn-Detroit border and moved to the Dearborn side so, she says, "I wouldn't have to go to Detroit Public Schools." Dwayne Riley was raised on the city's west side near Joy and Wyoming. While his grandmother "used to tell stories about the riots a...[MORE]
Published: 8/25/2010
I've taken an SAT prep course, six practice SATs, an ACT prep class, six practice ACTs, three actual ACTs, and an MME. I've visited nine colleges and have plans to visit three more. I'm taking two AP classes next year and have 22 honors credits. I'm a typical 17-year-old high school girl, and I'm st...[MORE]
Published: 8/25/2010
Growing up in metro Detroit, my parents always told me that smart girls can go to college wherever they want. I was encouraged to work hard and dream big. So after graduating with honors from a suburban private school, I matriculated to another private school, this one in Chicago. My college life co...[MORE]
Published: 6/16/2010
Two of the hottest Detroit topics — education and insurance reform — will top the agenda at a community forum at 6 p.m., Monday, June 21, at Second Ebenezer Church, 14602 Dequindre St., Detroit. Hosted by Rep. Bert Johnson (D-Highland Park), who will give his annual "state of the ...[MORE]
Published: 6/16/2010
The lawsuits and other tensions between Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb, the elected board of education and the Detroit Federation of Teachers — or at least a faction of it — play out in courtrooms and headlines every week. But supporters of one doomed ele...[MORE]
Published: 5/5/2010
Everyone knows that Detroit still has the largest public school system in Michigan, even if students have been fleeing it in droves. But what's the second-largest system? Grand Rapids? Lansing? Not even close. The answer is Macomb County's Utica Community Schools, which has an astonishing 29,283 st...[MORE]
Published: 3/3/2010
Although the debate wasn't supposed to be about him specifically, Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb was frequently the focal point Monday, when a Michigan House subcommittee on school district academic emergencies held a public hearing at City Hall. The question being c...[MORE]
Published: 2/17/2010
Forget about irrelevant classes, students who never use their degrees and faculty who sit isolated in their ivory towers. A five-year-old master's program in social justice at Detroit's Marygrove College is more like guerrilla academics. "The program encourages each student to get out there a...[MORE]
Published: 2/17/2010
During the last two monthly meetings of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, News Hits has hovered nearby, trying to keep tabs on what's happening behind closed doors. We can tell you with certainty this much: Things are getting really ugly inside the New Center headquarters, and besieged union pres...[MORE]
Published: 1/27/2010
Editor's Note: When staff writer Sandra Svoboda said the clashes over public education were a Shakespearian-level drama unfolding, we said, "go forth, our muse, and tell the tale in the bard's vernacular." The result unfolds before thee, dear reader. Miss Juliet and Mr. Romeo are fictional...[MORE]
Published: 1/20/2010
With hundreds of millions of dollars of federal money available for school improvement in Michigan, educators and school districts should be clamoring for their shares, right? Not necessarily. The state's application for the "Race to the Top" grants went to Washington, D.C., this week, s...[MORE]
Published: 12/23/2009
The latest national firestorm involving Detroit Public Schools came last week, when a Fox News program host speculated that he'd burn down the district's buildings if his child had to attend them. With district and city leaders roundly criticizing him, anchor Shepard Smith backed away from his rem...[MORE]
Published: 12/16/2009
By now, the nation knows Detroit kids can't add but what we learned — or re-learned — from the reaction to the now-infamous National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) results is that adults involved with the district have mastered politicking on the platform of educational failure....[MORE]
Published: 10/14/2009
Before the Monday, Oct. 12, editorial in The Detroit News, Detroit school board member Anthony Adams all but predicted the paper's endorsements — or lack of them — in the eight-candidate election for four at-large board of education seats next month. "There is a natural bent along ...[MORE]
Published: 10/7/2009
With a state-appointed emergency financial manager in charge of money and a mayor wanting eventual control of the district, why worry about a Detroit Board of Education election this November? Mainly because it ensures some sort of locally elected representation and would check the "absolute&q...[MORE]
By Curt Guyette
Published: 8/26/2009
Although specifics differed, as budgets for the coming school year were set, Michigan's public universities began issuing press releases with a similar tone: They were working hard to put a positive spin on unwelcome news. All the schools, dealing with anticipated cuts in funding from a state gover...[MORE]
Published: 8/26/2009
Hi, I'm average. I graduated high school this June with a GPA smack in the middle of the "average" range. I did well on my ACT and state tests, and, like most kids in my grade, I didn't take the SAT. Like the other average kids in Michigan who test well, I was promised money my whole scho...[MORE]
Published: 8/26/2009
Detroit is a city with myriad problems — and an image that's even worse. But colleges and universities in the metro area and beyond are offering an array of classes, service programs and other efforts to bring some perspective to "the dirty D." And by "paying" students with...[MORE]
Published: 6/17/2009
In Washington, D.C., where he was city administrator and deputy mayor, Robert Bobb had a view of the White House on his morning walk to work and Capitol Hill on his way home. Now he has an office in the Fisher Building across the street from the former General Motors Corp. headquarters and drives t...[MORE]
Published: 6/10/2009
The word "family" kept cropping up at a festive gathering held on Detroit's west side last Friday afternoon, even though none of the people involved were actually related. It just felt that way when some of the young men and women who have passed through Covenant House came back for a reun...[MORE]
Published: 3/4/2009
Always on the lookout for ways to fix — or at least start to improve — the Detroit Public Schools, News Hits chatted with state Rep. LaMar Lemmons Jr. recently. The east side Detroit Democrat has introduced two bills this session related to the troubled district but has bigger ...[MORE]
Published: 2/11/2009
Market forces Admitting Detroit students to one but not the other of Ferndale's public high schools amounts to racial segregation, says Donna Stern, an organizer with the civil rights group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN).And, as the school district has refused to make changes to BAMN's satisfact...[MORE]
Published: 1/21/2009
Northern Pakistan has perhaps come to be best known to the American public as the effective refuge of Osama bin Laden, its rugged unwelcoming terrain sheltering its tribal villages from outside influence beyond the terrorist groups seeking safe haven. But to Greg Mortensen, the region is a plac...[MORE]
Enter your email address to get our weekly emails.
Full Feed