K1
SUNDAY, MAY 10, 2015
OPINION + ANALYSIS + DEBATE
Help 20,000 adults
change their lives
T
Ambitious goal aims to bolster our workforce
Earlier this year, James Samuel — who had never learned to
read and write — sent his wife a
love letter.
“Edwina, you are my best
friend and my lover. I love you.
Love, James”
It was a big accomplishment
for the 55-year-old Highland
Park man, who earlier this year
joined a literacy program at the
FROM THE
DETROIT NEWS:
For Mahorn and mom,
a cap is never too late
READING WORKS
Detroit Free Press
19A
Nolan Finley:
Toya Graham
is mom of the
year 26A
313-222-6583 [email protected]
By Frank Witsil
WWW.FREEP.COM
Parkman Branch of the Detroit
Public Library, a Reading Works
partner. It was his first letter,
and something, he said, that he’d
always wanted to do. He struggled to spell the words.
But, he was determined —
and he had help.
Reading Works, an organization that aims to improve adult
literacy in metro Detroit, has set
an ambitious goal to enroll
20,000 adults, like Samuel, in litSee READING, Page 20A
JESSICA J. TREVINO/DETROIT FREE PRESS
James Samuel, 55, of Highland Park looks at the love letter he wrote to his
wife. Samuel had gone his whole life without being able to read. With help
from Reading Works, he has made great strides toward changing his life.
EDITORIAL: TWO PLANS FOR DETROIT’S SCHOOLS
What’s
the
answer?
F
he tassels hung from the top of her bedroom
lamp. Four of them belonged to her children. One
of them was hers.
Alice Faye Mahorn dropped out of high school when
she was 16 to give birth to a son. Three more children
kept her from returning. But she vowed she would earn
her diploma before any of her kids got theirs.
And so this single mother in Hartford, Conn., cleaned
houses to support her family and went to night school
classes after making the kids dinner. She did this for
years, whenever she could
clear the time.
And finally, true to her
word, several months before her oldest son walked
across a stage, she did it
first, because she felt a
MITCH ALBOM
mother should set the example.
“She wore her cap and gown,” Rick Mahorn recalls.
“It was a big deal because education was so important
for her.”
Her tassel went on the lamp. Rick’s older brother’s
followed, then his two sisters’ and finally his. One by
one, they were hooked together where Alice could see
them before falling asleep and upon waking up.
But Rick had a chance to add one more — a college
tassel, the first in his family.
He came close.
“I was recruited to Hampton Institute (in Virginia)
for football and basketball,” he says. “I went for four
years. Originally, I only went for the education, but
when I got the chance to play in the NBA, I still had
about 12 credits to go.”
He left. And didn’t go back.
A Bad Boy in the NBA
or decades, we’ve
asked, cajoled, begged,
ordered and instructed
the powers that be to fix Detroit’s schools.
We’ve made arguments
ranging from the pragmatic
— the state can’t succeed
without a functional Detroit,
and Detroit can’t succeed
without a functional school
system — to the elegant altruistic: Detroit’s kids deserve
better.
Finally, two recently released plans describe longterm visions for Detroit’s
public schools, one the product of the Coalition for the
Future of Detroit Schoolchildren — a community, business and civic group — and
one developed by Gov. Rick
Snyder’s education team.
Which plan charts the right
course for Detroit’s schools
and Detroit’s kids? Maybe
neither. Maybe parts of both.
We’ve tried to evaluate each
plan in realistic terms and
find the common ground
between them. There are
opportunities for collaboration and for improvement.
Regardless, community members, local elected leaders and
state officials must find a
viable path forward.
Of course, Mahorn did do some other things. He was
a second-round draft choice of the Washington Bullets.
Became a league celebrity as part of “McFilthy and
McNasty” with Jeff Ruland (and later just as infamous
with his Bruise Brother, Bill Laimbeer). And of course,
as Pistons fans remember well, Mahorn won an NBA
championship with Detroit’s Bad Boys team in 1989.
His mother rooted him on. But deep down, she still
wished he had graduated from college. She wanted that
tassel on her lamp.
“I’ll go back,” he told her.
“You promise?”
“Yes, Mom.”
We all think our mothers will be there forever, and
the things they harp on, they will harp on just as long.
But in 1993, a few days before Christmas, Alice Mahorn
suffered a massive heart attack and passed away at 57.
Mourners at the Hartford church celebrated her spirit
and generosity. Rick attended with some NBA colleagues (he was then with the New Jersey Nets) and
among the accolades given his departed mother, he
heard about her love of learning.
“That was so important to her,” he says. “A single
mom. We were on government assistance most of our
childhood. She didn’t want any of us to have to rely on
that. She insisted on education.”
He instilled that idea in his own children, three of
whom already have college degrees. But while Mahorn
obviously did well enough as an NBA player, the idea
that he hadn’t earned his diploma weighed on his mind.
Then, four years ago, he saw a story about Earl
Cureton, the former Piston, who went back to the University of Detroit Mercy to get his degree, and presented it to his 94-year-old mom.
“To see the smile on his mother’s face that her baby
boy got his degree,” says Mahorn, now 56. “I would
have loved to have given my mother that feeling.”
Governance
A weekend trip to Virginia
Where they’re different:
The coalition’s and the governor’s plans lay out two distinctly different versions of
Detroit’s schools: The coalition sees Detroit Public
Schools, in its current format
— including its elected board
— as the way forward. The
governor proposes a dramatic
change, splitting the district
into two entities, old and new
districts. It’s not entirely
clear how this would legally
be accomplished, with regards to creating a new district, dividing the debt, accounting for pension liabilities, transferring DPS’ physical assets and negotiating or
re-negotiating labor contracts.
The key to Snyder’s plan is
See EDITORIAL, Page 21A
And so he made a call to his old school, now called
Hampton University. He found out his status. And in
between his duties as a Pistons broadcaster, he did
online classes, first one, then another, working in hotel
rooms, at home after dinner, quietly, the way his mother
had done her own extra-hours studying.
And today, wearing a gown that will admittedly use a
lot more fabric than the average graduate (Mahorn is
6-feet-10) he will walk with the class of 2015 — a mere
35 years behind his original group — and be recognized
as a Hampton graduate with a bachelor of arts degree.
His family will be in attendance. And in many ways,
so will his mother. Maybe not in a seat. But in everything it took to get there, and everything he will do that
follows, because studying may stop, but teaching and
learning never do.
Alice Mahorn knew that. Her youngest son does, too.
He plans to put the tassel once meant for her lamp on
his own lamp instead. You know what’s already there?
All the graduation tassels of his kids — her grandchildren.
If there’s a better Mother’s Day present than that, I
don’t know what it is.
Contact Mitch Albom: [email protected].
234577.pdf
POINTS OF VIEW w
20A
WWW.FREEP.COM
SUNDAY, MAY 10, 2015
The Editorial Board
Detroit Free Press
A Gannett company
160 W. Fort Street
Detroit, MI 48226
[email protected]
Free Press editorials reﬂect the consensus of our editorial board:
313-222-6659 [email protected]
313-223-4550 [email protected]
313-222-6545 [email protected]
313-222-6584 [email protected]
313-223-4534 [email protected]
313-222-6585 [email protected]
313-222-6616 [email protected]
Stephen Henderson
Jewel Gopwani
Dan Austin
Brian Dickerson
James G. Hill
Nancy Kaffer
Mike Thompson
Free Press Executive Staff
Robert Huschka, Managing Director
Nancy Andrews, Chief of Innovation
Julie Green Topping, Senior Director of Content Strategy
Ashley C. Woods, Consumer Experience Director
Paul Anger, Editor/Publisher
Stephen Henderson, Managing Director/Opinion
and Community Engagement
Jewel Gopwani, Community Engagement Director
READING: Program helping to change lives
FROM PAGE 19A
eracy programs by the end of
2020. The organization wants
to increase its financial support to its nine partners teaching adults to read, something it
considers essential to Detroit’s
revival.
“It is important for the wellbeing of our whole community
to invest in adult literacy,” said
Paula Brown, the executive director of Reading Works.
“These are people who need
good jobs so they can provide
stable homes and security for
their children.”
For years, Samuel hid his illiteracy from family, friends
and people he worked with. He
lived in fear of what would
happen if others knew.
“Now,” he said, “I tell anybody who will listen: I can’t
read, but I’m learning how.”
The library made copies of
Samuel’s two-sentence note to
save, because more than an expression of love, it represents
something he and millions of
READING WORKS
PARTNERS
ACCESS-Youth
and Education
Anisa Sahoubah, director
2651 Saulino Court, Dearborn
313-842-6762
salarashi@telecommunications
www.accesscommunity.org
Adult literacy English classes for men
and women
Detroit Public Library
Parkman Branch
Annette Lotharp, reading and Literacy
specialist
1766 Oakman Blvd., Detroit
313-481-1814
[email protected]
www.detroit.lib.mi.us/branch/parkman
Literacy classes and one-on-one
tutoring to men and women
Dominican Literacy Center
Sister Janice Brown, director
5555 Connor, Ste. 1414, Detroit
313-267-1000
[email protected]
www.dlcliteracy.org
Adult Basic Education and GED preparatory courses for men and women.
Focus: HOPE
Alexis Hollins, manager, Fast Track
1355 Oakman Blvd., Detroit
313-494-5500
[email protected]
www.focushope.edu
Skill enhancement courses to help
students upgrade reading and math
skills
Macomb Literacy Partners
Alisa Diez, interim director
16480 Hall Road, Clinton Township
586-286-2750
[email protected]
www.macombliteracy.org
One-on-one reading tutoring for adults
in Macomb County libraries.
Mercy Education Project
Amy Amador, executive director
1450 Howard St., Detroit
313-963-5881
[email protected]
www.mercyed.net
Literacy classes for women and girls.
St. Vincent and Sarah Fisher
Center (SVSF Center)
Diane Renaud, executive director/CEO
16800 Trinity St., Detroit
313-535-9200
[email protected]
www.svsfcenter.org
GED preparatory courses for men and
women in northwest Detroit
Siena Literacy Center
Donna Nesbitt, Director
16888 Trinity St., Detroit
313-532-8404
[email protected]
www.sienaliteracy.org
One-on-one tutoring to Adult Basic
Education students in northwest
Detroit
Southwest Solutions
Tim McGorey, director, Adult Learning
Labs
4214 W. Vernor Hwy.
313-451-8055
[email protected]
www.swsol.org
English as a Second Language and GED
classes to men and women in southwest Detroit
other
Michiganders
who
struggle to read and write are
looking for: hope for a better
life.
Reading Works — through
its efforts to seek donations
and grants, recruit volunteers
and tutors, and set standards
and track the progress of participants — is giving adults in
metro Detroit the skills to fill
out employment forms, comprehend medicine labels and
read bedtime stories to their
kids.
Scope of the problem
Three days a week, Samuel
works with a tutor and does
lessons on an iPad.
At home, he practices reading with “The Berenstain
Bears” and the Bible. He studies a worn handbook, “What
Every Driver Must Know,” so
he can pass the written test to
get a Michigan driver’s license, something he’s never
had.
“They always tell me if you
read a book, your mind will
start wandering into another
world,” he said. “That’s what I
want. I don’t even know what
that world would feel like, but I
would love to find out.”
To understand the magnitude of illiteracy in Michigan,
consider these numbers:
■ About 36 million adults
have poor reading and writing
skills in the U.S., according to
the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development, a Paris-based think tank.
That’s nearly the population of
California.
■ Nationally, according to
one study, the rate of adults
with low literacy is 1 in 6. In
Michigan, it’s 1 in 3. And, in Detroit, experts say the problem
is worse.
■ The single most significant predictor of children’s literacy is their mother’s literacy
level, according to a U.S. Department of Education report.
Reading Works was created
because community leaders
realized in 2011, after working
with Detroit Public Schools’
Reading Corps program for
children, that more needed to
be done to address the problem
of adult illiteracy, board chairman Paul Anger said.
“The thing that makes
Reading Works, and all the
agencies that teach adults, so
important is that it’s the forgotten piece,” said Anger, who
is retiring this month as editor
and publisher of the Free
Press. “It’s really time we did
something about that. That’s
what Reading Works is trying
to do.”
Anger said he plans to continue working with the organization after he retires.
“It’s really a passion of
mine,” he said. “Journalists
have a love of words and love
HOW YOU
CAN HELP
Encourage people who need
help reading to call United
Way 2-1-1. They can connect with
a Reading Works Impact Partner
in their area.
Volunteer! Our learners need
you! Training and materials are
provided. To ﬁnd out more, go to
www.readingworksdetroit.org or
call United Way 2-1-1.
Donate now. Your contributions will directly support
programs and services across
metro Detroit that are helping
adults learn to read. Your gift of
reading will help improve
economic opportunities for
individuals, health and household
management for families and
literacy outcomes for children.
Thank you for supporting
this critical mission to improve
the outlook for our region
through adult literacy.
JESSICA J. TREVINO/DETROIT FREE PRESS
James Samuel works on his reading with tutor Rosemarie Abate, 77, of Detroit. “They always tell me if you read a book, your mind will start
wandering into another world,” he said. “That’s what I want. I don’t even know what that world would feel like, but I would love to find out.”
to convey to the community
what’s going on around them.
All of us want to make the community better. This is something we believe in deeply.”
Putting people to work
Southwest Solutions, a nonprofit in southwest Detroit,
joined Reading Works as a
partner last year.
“We’re preparing people to
read English, speak English
and preparing them to take the
GED,” said Tim McGorey, the
senior program manager.
“What Reading Works has
done is provide us with a wider
network of adult education
programs.”
Many adults, McGorey
said, are learning English as a
second language and enroll in
the program with limited reading skills — reading, at best, at
the sixth-grade level. After
about two years of classes,
they are able to read at an 11thor 12th-grade level.
But, reading, McGorey
said, is just a starting point.
“We’re trying to help people
get more reading skills so they
can get jobs and be more effective in their daily lives,” he
added. “When you’re inundated with words, if you don’t understand what’s coming at you,
you lost out. You don’t have the
tools to survive — and thrive.”
Adult literacy is a challenging problem to address, said
Alisa Diez, executive director
of Macomb Literacy in Clinton
Township. It takes time —
months and years — to learn to
read and write, and every
adult starts at a different level
and has different needs.
“No one ever says: ‘I can’t
read,’ ” she said. “There’s a
huge stigma around that. People are hiding.”
But, she said, boosting literacy helps put people to work —
and it changes lives.
Diez recalled a father who
joined the program who
worked at a car wash and realized he couldn’t advance and
make more money without
better reading skills. He also
had a son who needed prescription medicine.
“The thought of giving it to
him everyday without knowing how to read the instructions was so scary,” she said.
‘Your life will be better’
Annette Lotharp, a librarian and literacy specialist at the
Detroit Public Library’s Parkman branch, said Reading
Works adds a dimension of
support and collaboration that
they otherwise wouldn’t have.
It ties the programs into a
larger network, she said.
Samuel said he started
struggling with reading and
writing in elementary school.
His mother didn’t read well either. By the seventh grade, he
dropped out. He said he got his
first job by asking a cousin to
fill out his application for him.
After that, he’d ask someone to
help him every time he needed
to read something or fill out a
form.
He got a job doing laundry
at the Detroit Medical Center.
He worked there for 17 years.
But, Samuel mostly concealed this inability, blaming
reading troubles on bad eyesight. Once, he said, he needed
to fill out a form, and broke his
glasses so he’d have an excuse
not to. Another time, he got lost
taking a bus. He couldn’t read
street signs. He wandered for
miles, trying to find his way
home.
His step-daughter, he said,
discovered his secret when
she was 18. She asked him to
drive her to Lansing, but noticed, when he needed directions, he was reading the map
upside-down. He told his son
he couldn’t read when the teen
started using his cell phone to
text him.
The look his boy gave him,
Samuel said, cut deep.
One person who has known
his secret is his wife, who has
read for him for years.
But, he wondered aloud, if
anything happened to her — or
if she left him — how he would
care for himself?
“It’d mean a lot to me if I
could start reading, writing,
spelling, and start doing it for
myself,” Samuel said. “Don’t
be scared to tell people you
can’t. Just say: I can’t, and I’m
going to do something about it.
If you do, your life will be better.
“My life is a whole lot better.”
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or
[email protected]
The Giving Cutout Coupon
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Enclosed is my check, payable to “Reading Works,” for $_______________________
or use my credit card information below.
Send check to Reading Works, 645 Griswold, Ste. 2600, Detroit, MI 48226
You may also make your gift securely online and arrange for monthly donations
at www.readingworksdetroit.org. All donations are fully tax-deductible.
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READING WORKS
LEADERSHIP
HONORARY CHAIRS
■ Judge Damon J. Keith
■ A. Alfred Taubman (posthumous)
■ Rochelle Riley
OFFICERS
■ Paul Anger, chairman;
editor & publisher, Detroit
Free Press
■ Elizabeth W. Brooks,
co-vice chairwoman; chairwoman, Charles H. Wright
Museum of African American
History
■ Cynthia J. Pasky, co-vice
chairwoman; president and
CEO, Strategic Staffing Solutions
■ Debora Scola, secretary;
community affairs director,
Michigan.com
■ Daniel F. Smith, treasurer;
partner, Ernst & Young LLP
DIRECTORS
■ Ismael Ahmed, University
of Michigan/Dearborn
■ Michael Cheatham, Comerica Bank
■ Robert Cohen, Jewish
Community Relations Council
■ Gary Dembs, Non-Profit
Personnel Network
■ Ahmad M. Ezzeddine,
Wayne State University
■ Eve Haley, Bosch Community Fund
■ Stephen Henderson, Detroit Free Press
■ Kendra L. Howard, Detroit
Jobs Alliance
■ Joyce Jenereaux, Detroit
Free Press and Michigan.com
■ Thomas Linn, Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone
■ Thomas G. McGinnis,
Deloitte
■ Jonathan D. Parks, MIGEARUP, Wayne State University
■ Susie Schechter, philanthropic advisor
■ Tim Smith, Skidmore Studio
■ Chuck Stokes, WXYZ
(Channel 7)
■ Bankole Thompson, Michigan Chronicle
■ Joni M. Thrower, McDonald’s dba/Jamojomar, Inc.
■ Donnell White, Detroit
Branch NAACP
STAFF
■ Paula Brown, executive
director
■ Kristen Barnes-Holiday,
director of program outcomes
vPOINTS OF VIEW
SUNDAY, MAY 10, 2015
WWW.FREEP.COM
21A
Together, we can make giant
steps in metro Detroit literacy
By Paul Anger
and Paula Brown
You can feel the energy in
metro Detroit that’s directed
at improving schools, building
more seamless public transportation, creating more and
better jobs, making our city
core vibrant. All are priorities,
as they should
be.
But there’s
an important
thread often
forgotten as we
work to transform our comPaul
munity: adult
Anger
literacy.
We need
more adults
across the region with the
skills to hold a
good-paying
Paula
job, create a
Brown
learning culture
for children in
the home, and move on to higher education so they can get an
even better job — but the
amount of private and public
money funneled to adult education has historically been a
drop in the bucket of what’s
needed.
Fortunately, momentum on
behalf of adult literacy is
building.
You can see it in the efforts
of Reading Works, now in its
fourth year as a nonprofit
leading the charge across the
community.
You can see it in the backing of visionaries such as the
late A. Alfred Taubman,
Judge Damon J. Keith, Free
Press columnist Rochelle
Riley, philanthropist Richard
Manoogian, business and
community leaders Cindy
Pasky and Joyce Jenereaux
and civic leader Betty Brooks.
You can see it in the significant support from organizations such as the DTE Energy
Foundation, the Community
Foundation for Southeast
Michigan, the Alex and Marie
Manoogian Foundation,
Quicken Loans and the Comerica Charitable Foundation.
And you see it in the community goals set by Reading
Works and the major adult
literacy providers we work
closely with: ACCESS, Dominican Literacy Center, Detroit
Public Library-Parkman
Branch Library, Focus:
HOPE, Macomb Literacy
Partners, Mercy Education
Project, St. Vincent and Sarah
Fisher Center, Siena Literacy
Center and Southwest Solutions.
By 2020, we aim to reach
20,000 adult learners enrolled
in a structured, credible literacy program like the ones run
by our current partners or
others we will add in the coming years.
And we won’t stop there.
We’ll keep building on our
efforts to solidify the work
force and bolster a learning
culture that gives schoolchildren the support they need in
their homes.
Right now, nearly 3,000
adults are enrolled with our
literacy partners. That’s an
increase from a little more
than 2,000 learners when
Reading Works formed in 2011.
So there’s progress — and a
long way to go.
We can get there. Our literacy partners are outstanding,
and they’re working together.
They’ve been meeting monthly
to share best practices, set
priorities and address barriers
to learners’ success. They
have business plans on how
they can expand, with more
resources. They’re putting
their data — tracking learner
progress — into a common
database provided by Reading
Works.
We’re at the point where we
can make a great leap forward.
It wasn’t always like this.
Literacy providers had struggled as one-offs historically,
competing with each other for
crumbs of funding and having
anecdotal success with some
learners, but not really pulling
together in a community effort
on the scale needed. Now, we
have that community effort.
Through donor support,
Reading Works has recently
launched three pilot programs
toward our collective goals of
scaling up our efforts and
accelerating progress among
learners.
The first pilot involves six
impact partners — ACCESS,
Dominican, Macomb, Mercy,
Parkman and Southwest Solutions — testing literacy applications for hand-held devices
provided by Charter One
Foundation. They’re designed
for the beginning reader, and
initial reports show that adults
otherwise uncomfortable in a
beginning reading program
are having fun with these
apps. They help build confidence and give learners a
jump on more intensive programs.
The second pilot pairs the
Dominican Literacy Program
with Detroit Public Schools
Adult Education East Campus
to provide small-group tutoring to help learners advance
faster. And the third pilot pairs
the St. Vincent and Sarah Fisher Center with the Detroit
Rescue Mission for a literacy
program involving female
shelter residents and their
school-aged children.
Even with all these initiatives in progress, perhaps the
greatest gift Reading Works
can provide to our partners
and learners is a consistent
voice for change. Reading
Works is seeking committee
volunteers over the next six
months to help us communicate with businesses and policy-makers who can help with
funding and in-kind support.
The needs are great. To
increase capacity at our current and new partners and
reach 20,000 learners by 2020,
we will need hundreds — maybe thousands — of volunteers,
and millions of dollars. It can
be done, but only if we continue to work together.
“Through our collaboration,” said Diane Renaud, executive director and CEO of
the St. Vincent and Sarah Fisher Center, “all of the partners
have raised a larger collective
voice for adult education.
We’re dealing with an important barrier — it inhibits true
economic change in Detroit.”
Not only is this worth our
investment as a community,
it’s critical now if we are truly
going to realize the prosperity
we seek for our city and our
region.
Adults are either productive or they’re not. The more
we help them join the work
force and take care of their
families, the more they will
contribute immediately to
rebuilding our communities.
Consider that, according to a
study by the Annie E. Casey
Foundation, $7.14 is returned
to our economy for every $1
spent on adult literacy.
We cannot afford to concentrate on only schoolchildren — as important as they
are — and wait for them to
grow up to address the lack of
an educated work force in our
community.
We cannot risk the future
of our children by neglecting
the needs of their parents.
We cannot turn away from
adults who could be gainfully
employed.
We cannot rebuild our
neighborhoods without productive people to live in them.
Join with Reading Works
— make a contribution, volunteer to help, become a tutor.
There’s no greater investment you could make for the
future of our city, our region
and our state.
Paul Anger is editor and publisher of
the Detroit Free Press and chairman
of the Reading Works board of
directors and Paula Brown is
executive director of Reading Works.
EDITORIAL: Two plans, lots of opportunity for Detroit schools
city pensions.
Aid for Detroit is a tough
sell in Lansing, and some
measure of state-level accountability will surely be
required to get a deal done.
How can the governor and the
coalition come together? Coalition members have community credibility. Endorsement of a temporarily appointed board could sooth
residents’ and parents’ fears.
It’s a big ask, but political
reality narrows opportunities
for common ground.
FROM PAGE 19A
splitting DPS into an “old
company” and a “new company,” similar to General Motors during bankruptcy. The
old district would collect DPS’
non-homestead 18-mill operating levy, and use that money to retire DPS’ $483 million
in operating debt. The new
City of Detroit Education
District would handle the
business of educating children, using the state’s perpupil foundation allowance
and a subsidy from the School
Aid Fund. The new district
would initially be governed
by an appointed board —
three by Detroit’s mayor, four
by the governor. Appointed
members would phase out,
starting in 2017, and the board
would be all-elected by 2021.
Both plans foresee the
creation of new entities to
provide oversight or consistency, but present starkly
different images for the future of DPS governance. The
coalition envisions a citywide
commission to call the shots
on school openings and closures, across traditional public schools, EAA schools and
charters, as well as community-led school and regional
advisory bodies to give parents and other stakeholders
input. The governor’s plan
would also create a commission, that would hire an education manager to administer
common enrollment, coordinate school closures and
monitor school performance.
A state review commission
would oversee each district
until DPS’ debt is retired.
Where they’re alike: Both
suggest the retention of a
public school district, configured much the way Detroit
Public Schools is now, and
they agree that, ultimately,
that district should be managed by a locally elected
school board.
That’s a significant starting point, and a victory of
sorts for Detroiters who worried that Snyder, whose close
adviser Paul Pastorek helped
create an all-charter school
district for New Orleans,
might try the same here.
Opportunities: Splitting
the district would handle
DPS’ debt, and a new district
could be more functional, if it
works. Snyder should consider the coalition’s plan a good
backup — because it may be
the only viable plan.
The EAA
2014 PHOTO BY RYAN GARZA/DETROIT FREE PRESS
2009 PHOTO BY SUSAN TUSA/DETROIT FREE PRESS
Gov. Rick Snyder and a coalition of Detroit community, business and civic
leaders have different school visions, but there’s room for agreement.
The expectations of parents and futures of children in the city ride on the
ability of everyone involved to settle those differences in school visions.
Funding
which sufficient lawmakers
vote “yes” on a plan that includes this provision.
And they shouldn’t have to.
The coalition’s recommendation offers a straightforward
way to handle the district’s
debt. Snyder’s own plan acknowledges state responsibility for DPS’ debt. So why take
it out of local districts? State
assumption of district debt
won’t be an easy sell, but
compared to the battle royal
that Snyder’s plan would
launch, we’ll take it.
Snyder should use what
political capital he possesses
to lobby outright for state
responsibility for DPS’ debt.
Where they’re different:
The coalition points out a
truth many in Lansing or
outstate won’t like or won’t
accept: Much of the district’s
debt was racked up under
state control. The state is
constitutionally responsible
for the bulk of DPS’ debt —
and it’s also morally obligated. The district has suffered
through not one but two state
takeovers, all predicated on
the theory that the state
would leave the district in an
improved condition. That
hasn’t happened. The district’s debt is crushing its
ability to operate — interest
alone consumes about 13% of
revenue, compared to 2% or
3% in other districts. DPS
spends about 43% of its operating funds on instruction;
other districts spend up to
64%, the coalition report
found.
The coalition’s plan embraces the state’s moral responsibility for DPS’ debt,
and asks the state to assume
full responsibility for the
obligation. The governor’s
doesn’t.
Where they’re alike: In
the governor’s plan to split
DPS, the old district would
collect the existing operating
millage to pay down DPS’
debt. The new, unencumbered
district would operate free of
debt, using the state’s perpupil allowance to fund operations. But the loss of the millage-generated funds means
the new district would be
about $53 million to $72 million in the hole.
And here’s where the governor’s plan at least tacitly
acknowledges that DPS needs
financial help — Snyder proposes backstopping the district’s budget hole with money from the School Aid Fund,
amounting to a $50-per-pupil
cut in districts across the
state. It’s a recognition that
DPS’ circumstances are different than other Michigan
school districts, even those
that are financially struggling, and over time, it means
the state will send as much or
more to DPS as it would have
if it took DPS’ debt outright.
Opportunities: The governor’s proposed $50-per-pupil
cut is the most noxious part of
this plan. Parents and superintendents in metro Detroit
and outstate districts — many
in financial jeopardy themselves — will mount fierce
opposition to any per-pupil
cut, particularly if those
funds go to another district.
It’s a false dilemma, creating
animosity where none needs
to exist by pitting school districts against each other. It’s
so ill-conceived, we wonder
whether it’s a poison pill; we
can’t imagine a scenario in
Local control
Where they’re different:
Local control is probably the
clearest demarcation between
the coalition’s plan and Snyder’s.
The coalition would keep
the Detroit Public Schools
intact and its elected board in
place; in fact, the board’s
authority would widen, as the
schools currently in the Educational Achievement Authority — which is the state’s
reform district — would transition back to DPS control.
The coalition would see the
creation of a handful of new
entities that would have a say
in DPS, all locally composed.
In Snyder’s plan, the elected board would remain in
control of the old district,
responsible for paying down
DPS’ debt. The new district
would be governed by an
appointed board. Members of
that board would be appointed by the governor and the
mayor of Detroit; appointed
members would begin to cycle off the board in 2017. By
2021, the board would be composed entirely of locally elected members.
But it’s not, at least at the
outset, local control.
Snyder also proposes a
state financial oversight
board for both the old district
and the new district, at least
until the old district’s debt is
retired.
Where they’re alike: Both
plans envision the addition of
several other entities, but
there’s a lot of daylight between them.
Opportunities: It galls us
that Detroit, alone among
districts in the state, should
be asked or forced to sacrifice local control. Communities have an absolute right to
decide how to educate their
children. But both plans hinge
on a significant state financial
contribution, and this is the
reality: Money always comes
with strings attached. During
the city’s bankruptcy, an oversight board was a condition of
the grand bargain that protected the Detroit Institute of
Arts’ collection and shored up
Where they’re different:
What to do about the Educational Achievement Authority, the state reform district
for low-performing schools?
The reform district has been
wildly controversial, its successes still largely a matter of
theory, not practice. It also
has been dogged by embarrassing financial scandals
that haven’t instilled community confidence.
The coalition thinks the
EAA’s days are over, that the
schools allotted to the district
should be returned to DPS
under the oversight of the
district’s elected board, and
that schools that are still
struggling use existing turnaround resources at the state
level.
The governor thinks the
EAA is worth preserving. His
plan doesn’t deal specifically
with the EAA, but his spokeswoman told us last week that
Snyder believes the EAA’s
methods work — suggesting
that the reform district, at
least in the short term, is here
to stay.
Where they’re alike: It’s
hard to find common ground
on this one.
Opportunities: The governor should take the coalition’s
suggestions to heart. The
EAA has done little to justify
its existence. Returning the
EAA schools to district oversight — especially with the
new layers of accountability
that Snyder hopes to add —
could prove positive for kids
in EAA schools. Regardless,
we don’t see much hope for
the EAA. Enrollment has
dropped by 25% in the four
years that it’s existed, to little
more than 7,000; we think that
trend will continue. How
many students can the district lose before it becomes
obsolete?
6A
WWW.FREEP.COM
SUNDAY, MAY 10, 2015
TOXIC ALGAE: Ohio’s governor and environmental chief are
asking leaders in Michigan and other neighboring states to look
at taking new steps to fight the toxic algae blooms that have
turned Lake Erie green in recent summers. Talks started
recently with officials from Michigan, Indiana and Ontario,
Canada, about reducing the algae linked to contaminated
drinking water and dead zones where fish can’t survive.
METRO
313-222-6600 [email protected]
Associated Press
Success stories, one reader at a time
Initiative is model for workforce training
T
ERIC SEALS/DETROIT FREE PRESS
Mary Olczak, 55, of Allen Park in the computer lab at the Dominican
Center in Detroit on Saturday, has been tutoring adults at the center for
the last nine years. She now works with six students a day.
he good news is that
Gov. Rick Snyder, some
state legislators and
many education officials have
finally begun focusing on the
challenge of training people
with limited reading skills to
get jobs that exist and that
are coming.
The great news is that
several community organizations, businesses and metro
leaders across the region
have done the same through
the Reading Works initiative,
which vets, convenes and
supports literacy agencies in
many ways, including helping
raise money for them to do
ROCHELLE RILEY SHINES
A LIGHT ON THE READING
WORKS INITIATIVE
their jobs better.
The best news is that this
mission has people like Mary
Olczak.
Olczak was born and
raised in Ecorse and lives in
Allen Park. She was a senior
security supervisor at the
“I love reading, and I feel so bad for
people who can’t do it. It is totally
delightful when a young student
meets their goals.”
MARY OLCZAK, who has taught 22 people to read
Renaissance Center before
General Motors moved in.
When she left that job, she
looked for ways to give back
to her community and found
the Dominican Literacy Center. That was nine years ago.
In that time, Olczak has
taught 22 people to read —
more than any other tutor.
And she has no intention of
Friends, family gather at
Stony Creek to mourn boys
Three 17-year-olds
killed attended
high schools in
Utica district
stopping any time soon.
“I love reading!” she said
with the excitement of someone who truly love books. “I
love to read, and I want others to enjoy it as much as I do.
Not to mention, I believe so
much in the importance of
education.”
Olczak is among hundreds
See RILEY, Page 12A
Mich. GOP
elects
Berden to
RNC post
She replaces Ronna
Romney McDaniel
By Paul Egan
Detroit Free Press
By Robin Erb
Detroit Free Press
Friends, classmates and parents came to Stony Creek Metropark on Saturday to sort through
anger and grief, making their
way through long grass littered
with broken glass and car parts
left behind from a car wreck Friday that left three teens dead and
two seriously injured.
Killed were Jonathan Manolios and Emanuel Malaj of Sterling Heights and Michael Wells
of Macomb Township. All were17
and students at Utica Community
Schools.
“I’m pissed. I’m angry. So
many of us get to right our
wrongs. These kids don’t,” said a
tearful Sherrie Logan of Dryden.
Manolios was her nephew; she
and her daughter, Allie Logan, 14,
leaned a bouquet of blue and pink
daisies against the chain-link
fence, bent at the place where the
car had gone into the water.
“There’s no chance to undo
this, to right this wrong,” she
said, covering her eyes and holding onto her daughter.
Over the edge of the fence, a
single rose swirled in the water
where the teens’ four-door Jaguar S-type sedan came to rest after it clipped a guardrail, overturned down a grassy embankment and dropped 20 feet to the
rocks and water below. Two Shelby Township youths, also 17, remain hospitalized.
“Everyone wants me to tell
them what happened, and I can’t
answer that” this early in the investigation, Macomb County
Sheriff Anthony Wickersham
PHOTOS BY ERIC SEALS/DETROIT FREE PRESS
TOP: Allie Logan, 14, of Dryden is
comforted by her mother, Sherrie Logan,
on Saturday at Stony Creek Metropark in
Shelby Township. They came to the site of
the fatal crash Friday and placed flowers
at the fence. One of the victims, Jonathan
Manolios of Sterling Heights, was Allie’s
cousin, Sherrie’s nephew.
LEFT: Thomas Alsobrooks, 15, of Shelby
Township follows his father Mike
Alsobrooks through tire marks down to
the car crash scene. Alsobrooks wanted to
warn his son, who has his driver’s permit,
about the dangers of reckless driving.
Although all the details about the crash
are not known yet, the Macomb County
Sheriff says evidence indicates the teens’
vehicle was traveling fast.
See CRASH, Page 9A
LANSING — The state committee of the Michigan Republican Party elected Kathy Berden as the party’s new national committeewoman at a
meeting in northern Michigan
Saturday, a party spokeswoman confirmed.
Berden of Snover in Sanilac County needed two ballots
to defeat Mary Whiteford of
South Haven in Allegan County, because no one won a majority on the first ballot.
“I look forward to meeting with activists across the
state and working with candidates and volunteers to build Kathy
our party and Berden
turn Michigan
red in 2016,”
Berden said after her election.
Berden replaces Ronna
Romney McDaniel, who in
February was elected state
party chairwoman.
Eliminated after the first
ballot was state Rep. Cindy
Gamrat of Plainwell, also in
Allegan County.
Berden, 61, is a state committee member and former
chairwoman of the Sanilac
County Republican Party who
was a Michigan delegate to
the 2012 Republican convention in Tampa.
The state committee —
which has 113 members mostly elected at the congressional
district level — elected Berden during a meeting at Boyne
Mountain Resort near Boyne
Falls in Charlevoix County,
See GOP, Page 12A
Deaf juror glad to do her duty for justice
Court provides sign
language interpreters
By Elisha Anderson
Detroit Free Press
ERIC SEALS/DETROIT FREE PRESS
Tracy Straub, 45, with her miniature pinscher named Whino in her
Trenton home. Straub, who is deaf, served as a juror in an armed robbery
case in Wayne County Circuit Court last month.
Tracy Straub’s eyes shifted
between witnesses on the
stand, exhibits displayed on a
TV screen and sign language
interpreters as she sat in a Detroit courtroom.
The 45-year-old Trenton
woman, who was born deaf,
served as juror in an armed
robbery case in Wayne County
Circuit Court last month, welcoming the chance to be in-
volved in the judicial system.
“I’ve got a lot of friends that
are deaf and have never served
jury duty before,” Straub told
the Free Press through an interpreter. “So I’m kind of the
rock star in that way.”
She watched as John Stuckless and Bethany James took
turns signing the words of witnesses testifying in the trial of
a person who was accused of
robbing a man and being present when he was shot.
The interpreters stood at
the front of the courtroom,
near the court reporter, for
about15 to 20 minutes at a time.
Then they switched to prevent
fatigue during testimony.
“They don’t interject an opinion, they don’t offer advice,
they don’t advocate,” said Laurie Finch, owner of University
Translators Services. “They
strictly interpret.”
Her company, based in Ann
Arbor, works with courts in
Wayne and Washtenaw counties and provides American
Sign Language interpreters for
witnesses, plaintiffs, defendants and others in courtrooms. But it’s rare to have a
sign language interpreter for a
juror.
Finch said she has been in
the business for 28 years and
hasn’t seen deaf people on juries until recently.
The State Court Administrative Office doesn’t keep statistics on the number of accommodations requested so people
with disabilities can serve on
juries, and the courts pay for
the services, said spokesman
John Nevin. SCAO works with
local courts so people with disabilities “have access to all aspects of the justice system,” he
said.
If jurors are summoned and
have a disability, they can indicate they don’t want to serve
for that reason, said Jim Inloes,
See JUROR, Page 9A
12A
WWW.FREEP.COM
METRO w
SUNDAY, MAY 10, 2015
GOP: Party’s state committee
elects Kathy Berden to RNC post
RILEY: Helping
others find
success, one
reader at a time
FROM PAGE 6A
FROM PAGE 6A
of volunteers across the region helping adults to improve their reading skills to
earn GEDs or enter job training that requires a higher
level of reading than they
attained in school. The increased effort to improve
reading comes as Snyder
touts Michigan as a businessfriendly state ready for companies to move in.
That can happen only if the
state has qualified workers.
That means improving reading, encouraging trade skills
and ending the cycle of poverty that is fed by poor schools.
For Olczak, becoming a
tutor has become not just her
donation to Detroit, but also
her passion.
“In the beginning, I was
working in the computer lab,”
she said. “But then, I was
maintaining the lab plus tutoring students how to read on
the computer at that time.
Right now, the philosophy of
our program is one-to-one
tutoring. I start sometimes at
10 o’clock in the morning and
don’t leave until 8 o clock at
night, three days a week.”
Olczak, who graduated
from Ecorse High School
before earning a bachelor’s in
accounting from the University of Michigan and an MBA
from Madonna University in
Livonia, now works with six
students a day. And she has
had many success stories,
including a student she
helped to pass her citizenship
test, another who got his first
driver’s license at age 26, and
still another who is, she said,
“a sliver away from getting
her GED.”
“I will continue to work
with her until she gets her
GED,” Olczak. “I will not stop
ERIC SEALS/DETROIT FREE PRESS
Mary Olczak, left, has been a tutor at the Dominican Center in Detroit for the last nine years. She is at the
center with one of her students, Teresa VanArsdale, 48, of Detroit, who is getting help with geometry and is
well on her way to getting her GED with Olczak’s help.
the month. I cannot turn down
a good home-cooked Polish
meal. That is some incentive.”
Olczak hopes talking about
her work will encourage others to join the cause and become tutors, something she
said benefits the teacher as
much as the student.
“The experience is so hard
to put into words, she said.
“It’s an abstract experience. I
know the need, especially the
students that can’t read. I love
reading, and I feel so bad for
people who can’t do it. It is
totally delightful when a
young student meets their
goals. I don’t plan to stop until
God tells me to stop.”
ROCHELLE RILEY TO COHOST WJR SHOW
Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley has joined veteran newswoman Marie Osborne as cohost of the newest talk show on WJRAM (760). Called “In the Mix with Marie and Rochelle,” the show is
what Osborne calls “a blend of news, politics, lifestyle, entertainment, art and pop culture with a fresh point of view.”
The show airs at 4 p.m. on Sundays.
Riley, whose radio experience has included appearances locally on
WDET-FM (101.9) and WJR, and nationally on NPR, has been writing
for the Free Press since 2000.
“I’m excited to join a tradition of excellence at WJR and to help
create something new,” said Riley. “I think that Marie and I are
onto something special. I love working with a veteran of her caliber, and I believe our show will capture all the ups and downs of a
city on the rise — heartbreak, joy, pain and celebration.”
until we’re successful. I
wouldn’t give it up.”
Teaching people to read
benefits more than the improved reader. Olczak also
has made some lifelong
friends.
“The young lady I helped
to get her citizenship, she and
I still keep in touch quite a
bit,” she said. “I have lunch
with her many times during
where the party held its
spring training conference.
Posts on the Republican
National Committee are unpaid. Berden joins former
state Rep. Dave Agema on the
RNC. Agema has resisted
calls from RNC Chairman
Reince Priebus, former state
party
Chairman
Bobby
Schostak and others to resign
over racist and antigay messages he has posted on social
media.
Berden and the other two
candidates pledged to work
with Agema and did not join
the calls for him to resign.
Both Berden and Whiteford claimed significant endorsements.
Berden was endorsed by
Paul Mitchell, the Republican
congressional candidate who
led the successful fight
against the Proposal 1 sales
tax and road funding proposal in Tuesday’s special election. Berden was also endorsed by U.S. Rep. Candice
Miller, R-Harrison Township,
and state Sens. Mike Green of
Mayville and Phil Pavlov of
St. Clair Township, among
other state lawmakers.
Whiteford was endorsed
by state Senate Majority
Leader Arlan Meekhof, RWest Olive; Sen. John Proos,
R-St. Joseph, and Rep. Lisa
Posthumus Lyons, R-Alto,
among other lawmakers.
Whiteford, 50, of South
Haven is a state committee
member who is vice chair of
the Allegan County Republican Party. In 2014, she lost the
GOP nomination in the 80th
House District to Gamrat.
Also Saturday, the party’s
policy committee postponed
consideration of a proposal to
move to a closed presidential
primary — a question that became a major issue in the national committeewoman election campaign.
Many in the party’s tea
party wing say they don’t
want crossover voting by
Democrats to influence the
choice of the Republican
nominee.
Others say that influence
is too minimal to justify the
limited participation and cost
that a closed primary would
produce.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or
[email protected]. Follow him
on Twitter @paulegan4.
Contact Rochelle Riley: 313-223-4473.
Follow her on Twitter @rochelleriley.
Read more about the Reading Works
initiative in today’s “A Better
Michigan” section.
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