Detroit Schools: The fight for Catherine Ferguson Academy continues and other Detroit news
EducationMay 15, 2011Picture of outgoing ‘Emergency Financial Manager’, Robert Bobb one of Eli Broad’s capos.
To see slideshow of students (mostly students who were involved in the occupation, see:http://lightbox.time.com/2011/05/12/teen-moms-in-detroit-fighting-to-save-the-school-that-saved-them/#8. Also see references to the occupation and our march below.
The Catherine Ferguson Academy, part urban farm, part college prep, has horses grazing along the former running track, hay growing in empty lots and an apple orchard with hens running through it, all in the heart of burned-out Detroit. In a city that has a graduation rate of 62%, the academy, part of the Detroit Public Schools system, grants diplomas to 95% of their students—all pregnant teens or young mothers—and every one of them has a college acceptance letter in her back pocket.
The farm at the Catherine Ferguson Academy, Detroit, May 2011But even a success story, and the subject of a prize-winning documentaryGrown in Detroit, has no guarantee of survival in a district that is $327