themselves. So here are the options under State management:
- Face being assaulted every day by gang members.
- Join a gang.
- Face expulsion from for bringing pepper spray.
One option that is missing under Governor Snyder is a commitment towards safe after school activities for
young people to meet one another and have a healthy outlet.
In a sworn affidavit from doctoral candidate Charles Bell of Wayne State University, we read:
While zero tolerance policies were intended to solve problems pertaining to violent crime,
weapons possession, and narcotics trafficking it appears they have not accomplished this task.
In light of research that argues zero tolerance policies may have caused more problems than
they have solved in the black community, the absence of research supporting these policies
mandates a thorough investigation into the appropriateness of school suspension, expulsion,
and mass incarceration as methods of social control. Lastly, black students are targeted for
school discipline and incarceration at much higher rates than their non-black counterparts.
Former State Representative, now LaMar Lemmons writes:
The intervention of State management: wasting construction dollars, closing recreational
centers where there were healthy positive outlets for Detroit young people, demolishing their
newly renovated neighborhood schools and pushing children to far away “failing schools” is
the driving force in the School to Prison Pipeline.
BENEFIT
The benefit is to Charter school operators like Leona Group which runs Caesar Chavez, contractors who
renovate and demolish schools, and ideologists who want to break up the union monopoly at all costs, even
when it harms children and the community.
ETHICS
This is a form of apartheid.
DISPARATE TREATMENT
The Governor is aware of the race of the majority of the students of Detroit. Despite this, he continues to deny
recreational opportunities in the community he control, insists upon renovating schools that he would demolish,
insists upon choosing better schools for closure, insists upon pushing students into schools he deemed failing,
driving up crime rates, and then insists upon zero tolerance policies for those same children. The children have
been stressed. Children should have school transportation provided if they must travel wide distances, healthy
ways to expend energy, and some understanding and lenience of their need to defend themselves, i.e. pepper
spray, if they must traveling long distances to attend a now school the Governor has anointed for them.
ALTERNATIVES
The State could have renovated the good schools, and closed the schools which he deemed failing, instead of
causing everyone to fail and then having agents falsify student records at EAA schools to demonstrate
requirements are being met.
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