Educators say Michigan Merit Exams, ACT tests reveal 'shameful' achievement gaps

State educators are celebrating scores on standardized tests offered to high school students, but call achievement gaps between some student groups “shameful.”

Those concerns are echoed by an education advocacy group’s analysis of last week’s Michigan Merit Exam and Act scores that show black and low-income students are falling even further behind the state’s white students.

While white student achievement has risen slightly over five years, scores for black and Hispanic students and students in poverty “remain grim,” according to the Education Trust-Midwest.


The state Education Department last week announced improvement on the MME, but gains come only when the scores are compared to past exams re-scored to reflect new, more difficult standards set in place this year.

State Superintendent Mike Flanagan applauded the fourth year of overall gains on ACT college-entrance exams, which are issued to most state juniors.

But Flanagan also expressed concern about the disparity in scores among groups.

http://www.mlive.com/education/index.ssf/2012/07/educators_say_michigan_merit_e.html#incart_river_default

Pew Hispanic Center Releases Study on US Hispanic Population

Among the 50.7 million Hispanics in the United States, nearly two-thirds (65%), or 33 million, self-identify as being of Mexican origin, according to tabulations of the 2010 American Community Survey (ACS) by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. No other Hispanic subgroup rivals the size of the Mexican-origin population. Puerto Ricans, the nation’s second largest Hispanic origin group, make up just 9% of the total Hispanic population in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.


Overall, the 10 largest Hispanic origin groups—Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Salvadorans, Dominicans, Guatemalans, Colombians, Hondurans, Ecuadorians and Peruvians—make up 92% of the U.S. Hispanic population.  Six Hispanic origin groups have populations greater than 1 million.


http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/06/27/the-10-largest-hispanic-origin-groups-characteristics-rankings-top-counties/

More Than a Place to Sleep: In Rhode Island, a housing first solution for chronic homelessness

Recession Widens Wealth Gap Between Races

White Americans have 22 times more wealth than blacks -- a gap that nearly doubled during the Great Recession.

The median household net worth for whites was $110,729 in 2010, versus $4,995 for blacks, according to recently released Census Bureau figures.

The difference is similarly notable when it comes to Hispanics, who had a median household net worth of $7,424. The ratio between white and Hispanic wealth expanded to 15 to 1.

The gap between the races widened considerably during the recent economic downturn, which whites weathered better than blacks, Hispanics and Asians.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/06/21/news/economy/wealth-gap-race/

Nine of 26 Battle Creek Area School Districts have No Minority Teachers or Administrators

Nine of the 26 local school districts counted zero minority teachers or administrators last fall, according to recently released state data.   (Another 11 of the 26 had no minority administrators, but one or more minority teachers.)

All of the combined 55 administrators and 372 teachers counted at Athens, Mar Lee, Tekonsha, Quincy, Union City, Bellevue and Galesburg school districts, as well as the Battle Creek Area Learning Center and Marshall Academy, were white.

But 15 percent of those schools’ combined 6,398 students were minority.

That means the combined 31 American Indian, 33 Asian, 95 black, two native Hawaiian, 141 Hispanic and 103 mutliracial students counted at those schools have no one who looks like them to look up to at school.

http://blogs.battlecreekenquirer.com/wholechild/2012/06/19/9-local-schools-have-no-minority-teachers-administrators/#more-689

Catholic nuns bringing anti-budget cutting message to Michigan this week

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney isn’t the only one with a bus tour passing through Michigan this week.

A group of Catholic nuns will be touring the state to criticize Republican plans to cut federal spending.

The Nuns on the Bus tour started over the weekend in Iowa and will reach Michigan by Friday.    The bus tour has stops planned in Grand Rapids, Jackson and Detroit.

While in Michigan, the group plans to demonstrate outside the offices of two Republican congressmen who voted to turn Medicare into a voucher program, and cap non-defense spending.

http://www.michiganradio.org/post/catholic-nuns-bringing-anti-budget-cutting-message-michigan-week

Report finds almost 1 in 4 local kids at risk of hunger

Battle Creek’s Amanda Sellers said she’s trying to build a better life for her and her three kids, ages 7 to 10.
The 32-year-old mother said she’s going to school in Delton, trying to get her high school diploma. She has some experience at a Sears store, and she wants to be a manager there.


For now, Sellers said she’s a stay-at-home mom, and she sometimes struggles to make sure her kids have enough to eat. That’s why she came to St. Thomas Episcopal Church on Wednesday morning for the free pancakes, sausage, fruit and cereal offered during the summer.


“Sometimes I run low on food,” she said. “Especially breakfast, because I have three growing kids and they want two to three bowls of cereal. We run low.”


The Sellers aren’t alone.

http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20120616/NEWS01/306170003/Report-finds-almost-1-4-local-kids-risk-hunger

Michigan Finally Eyeing Changes To Lawyers For Poor

Lawyers on all sides agree the system enshrined nearly 50 years ago that gives all defendants the right to a lawyer is not working. The Justice Department calls it a crisis — such a big problem that it's been doling out grants to improve how its adversaries perform in criminal cases.

Consider Michigan: Five times since the 1980s, independent groups have called on Michigan to change the way it pays lawyers for the poor. Each time, state officials have done nothing. And a 2008 study by a legal nonprofit association said the state's indigent defense system had reached a "constitutional crisis."

But a lawsuit and a growing number of exonerations may be starting to change that.

35 Years For Someone Else's Crime

On a sticky afternoon along Detroit's riverfront plaza, children jump through chutes of water in a fountain. Nearby, Edward Carter sits on a park bench and talks about his life behind bars.

"I was 19 years old when I went in, and I got out on my 55th birthday," Carter says.

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/14/154849477/michigan-finally-eyeing-changes-to-lawyers-for-poor

New Study: Michigan Early Childhood Efforts Produce Startling Results

Children who attended a public pre-K school program had greater success throughout their K-12 career, including graduating at a higher rate, according to a first-of-its-kind study that followed more than 500 Michigan children for 14 years.

That study to be discussed today at a meeting of the State Board of Education, provides fuel to growing calls for increased funding for early childhood education in the state.

Michigan’s public pre-K program, called Great Start Readiness Program, provides early childhood education to about 30,000 poor and at-risk children. The study followed 338 children from Detroit, St. Clair County, Kalamazoo, Muskegon, Wyoming and Roscommon who attended Great Start as 4-year-olds in 1995-96, and 258 demographically similar children who qualified for Great Start, but didn’t attend any type of pre-school before entering kindergarten.

The results were startling.

http://bridgemi.com/2012/06/study-on-michigan-early-childhood-efforts-provides-startling-results/#.T9dV1pj4J7c

Detroit Representative Asks: If Welfare Recipients are Drug Tested, Should Legislators be Subject to Tests Too?

Michigan lawmakers are considering a suspicion-based drug testing program for some welfare recipients, and it's raising questions about who else should be subject to that type of monitoring.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, opposes the plan that passed the House last week and is now pending in the Senate. But Tlaib says if the state is going to require drug testing for cash assistance recipients, lawmakers also should be screened for illegal substances.

"We're all being paid through public, taxpayer dollars – just like the taxpayer dollars that are paying for public assistance for needy families," Tlaib said. "I think that we should be held to the same standards that we ask from some of our poor families."

Tlaib's amendment to the welfare bill, which would have required state lawmakers to be tested for illegal drugs as a condition of holding office, was dismissed without a vote.

http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/06/drug_test_lawmakers_draft.html#incart_river_default