Middle and Upper Income Traditional Families in Grand Rapids

[ModSquad]

Thats an exact ditto for my situation. I moved to GR 6 years ago. After the realtor I chose asked me about my family and job backround, literally his 1st words to me were, "well we need to focus our search in the FH, EGR or Rockford area because of the school system." As I began to meet people while staying here before my family moved to join, I heard almost the same thing - "you have to be in FH, East or Rockford and then they added -"dont let your agent show you anything in GRPS." Having just moved to a new area with ZERO family or friends that had been in the area, I immediately (and at the time, innocently) made a pre-judgement about GRPS. Was it fair? Probably not, but these were the first recommendations to my family from people FROM GR.

Actually if that is what your real estate agent said, it is highly illegal. It is called "block busting." There is a multi-million dollar case being settled int he Detroit area for the same reason. CEntury 21 is being sued for millions!

Additionally, do we not have a case of a self fulfiling prophecy here? Real estate agents steer families that have a choice away from Grand Rapids because of the school system. Therefore, families that have a choice do not end up in GRPS and we end up with a system that has a higher percentage of poor and minority students.

The only way...let me repeat THE ONLY WAY GRPS is going to truly turn around is if more familes come back to the school system.

I have posed this question here before...what wopuld happen if 20 or 30 supportive invovled families, families with a choice, familes with elementary age children, decided to all send their kids to their local GRPS School?

I will tell you what would happen...instead of City High, the Zoo School, or our Montessori programs being islands of excellence...it would permeate throughout our district.

[Mark Miller]

Man, I feel like the only time I post here is when I am defending Grand Rapids Public Schools. the grading system the State uses for schools is one of the biggest forms of institutional racism and classism I have ever seen.

Here is how it works:

Every school must test every ethnic and people group in its school. For example there are 85 languages spoken by Grand Rapids Public School Students. A student that has just moved to the City from Somalia and speaks no English must take the test. All of our special education students are a group and all must take the test. My wife was a one on one teacher for a student with SEVERE autism. He had to take a pencil and fill out the bubbles on the test. A student with a learning disability must take the test. You get the point?

To make matters worse Grand Rapids Public Schools runs center programs. Because Special Education is so costly to provide and GRPS has built such a wonderful infrastructure for providing it, we provide special education for 90% of the special education students in Kent County. Here is the kicker. Whatever school a special education program happens to reside in, that school has to count those kids as their kids.

Special education prograns are disbursed throughtout the district. There are special ed. classrooms in every building. Sibley school has two whole classrooms for elementary kids with autisim. This is not because the neighborhood around Sibley School has so many children with autism...it is where the program is housed. Sibley school has to count all these kids on test day.

Suburban schools have significantly fewer special education students taking their bubble tests. Suburban schools which are homogenous have significantly fewer language deficient students taking their tests

This is where the rubber hits the road however: if any one cultural or people group fail to make adequate yearly progress the entire school is failed. If any one cultural group or people group...regardless of language or disability score low...the whole school scores low.

So when one judges a school by this stupid grading system it is no wonder GRPS is viewed as failing. Students that attend GRPS that have invovled parents and a solid supportsystem around them do as good or better than any other student in any other district. Ottawa Hills scored a failing grade. My dughter graduated from OHHS and completed 2 years at Aquinas with a 4.0 and is graduating from Grand Valley with honors.

Thank you for this post. It is always nice to have some of these very specific examples to help shed some light on things. The bubble tests and grading system unfortunately appear to be the only method that we have to rate our education system, and that just seems to be not good enough. These methods unfortunately aid in creating the overall perception of the school system and ultimately factor into the decision making process for families with kids. Right or wrong that is the way it is, summed up pretty well in the posts by suydam and WOT. The realtors aren't going to take the time to dig into these issues and frankly most families are not going to either. They are going to use the established yard stick as a guide.

I agree that these methods are some of the biggest examples of institutional classicism and racism that we have and they only perpetuate it further. It is very sad to hear the examples of kids with autism being forced to take these tests. That is tragic. The entire cycle that this testing creates seems to be as counter to any kind of democratic process as possible and yet it is the measuring stick that is consistently used.

This testing system also does not show the general failure of the U.S. education system, which by many accounts seems to be in decline relative to other countries in the world. It does not show how we seem to have failed to educate, but have succeeded in credentialling.

So again, how do you fix the overall U.S. system or does it need fixing at all? If the system needs to be fixed, probably over hauled, then it will start in the school systems which are perceived to be in trouble, the urban, inner city school systems. It will not happen where everything seems to be just idyllic.

This is an opportunity for the GRPS to rise above all of this and become a model rather than a statistic.

All of the great stories, like the success of your daughter, or the millions of dollars in scholarships that went to seniors from City High last year need to be built upon and celebrated. But it is really time to stop putting so much emphasis on these damn bubble tests and start the process of educating the youth. I realize that these bubble tests are the carrot (or the club) from the state, but that is not a good enough reason to simply buy into them.