Stakes are high for a teacher/parent fighting for better conditions in Detroit Public Schools
Teacher who commutes to one of nation’s worst districts explains why she sends her kids to DPS schools and why she participated in sick out
Detroit Public School teacher Alise Anaya drives children Victor, 10, and Analise, 8, to a public school in Southwest Detroit from their home in a nearby suburb. Photo: Erin Einhorn
Thousands of people have fled the Detroit public schools, but Alise Anaya decides every day to do the opposite, commuting from the suburbs to teach in one city school and drop her children off at another.
It’s a surprising choice. Anaya grew up in Southwest Detroit, but many of the families she was raised alongside have left the city’s public schools in part because of conditions like those Anaya and hundreds of her colleagues have highlighted in a recent series of protests and sickouts — dead rodents, rotting floors and overcrowded classrooms.
The sickouts have shuttered dozens of schools on several days this month including on Jan. 20 – the day President Obama was in town – when 88 of the city’s 100 schools were closed. The teacher’s union took their complaints even further on Thursday, filing suit against the district to demand building repairs and the removal of the state-appointed emergency manager who runs the system.
The teacher’s frustrations reflect the alarming realities of a district struggling to survive after losing the bulk of its students. As Detroit’s population has plummeted and its schools have faced new competition from suburban and charter schools, the city’s public schools have gone from educating nearly 300,000 students in 1966 to just under 48,000 today. The district now carries an estimated $515 million dollars of debt.
And families are not the only ones leaving. Many of Detroit’s teachers have left, too, in search of better pay and cleaner, safer conditions in charter schools or the suburbs.
But Anaya, 32, is among those who’ve doubled down. Not only has she remained committed to the school system where she and her mother have both taught for years, she has chosen Detroit schools for her own kids, driving them in every morning from her home in suburban Allen Park.
Her son, Victor, 10 and daughter Analise, 8, attend the Academy of the Americas in Southwest Detroit, where classes are taught in both English and Spanish. Anaya teaches English as a Second Language Stakes are high for a teacher/parent fighting for better conditions in Detroit Public Schools - The Hechinger Report:
