Frederick Douglass College Preparatory Academy is the full name of the all-boys Detroit high school which saw about 50 of its seniors walk out of class in protest last Thursday morning because they feel they're not being prepared for much of anything:
[Tevin] Hill said he was accepted to Bowling Green State University but left the college's math placement exam recently."I'm generally good in math, but I was embarrassed. I didn't know any of it."
Chanting "What do we want? Education! When do we want it? Now!", the students marched around the school, attracting media attention to a problem they say has been going on for far too long and that they want to see fixed for the younger students who will still have to deal with the under-performing Detroit Public Schools for years to come.
The students (and several parents and other adults joining their cause) were protesting the failure of the school to deal properly with teacher absences and administrative changes, and to provide them with proper educational materials. How did the school respond? By suspending the students.
One parent who joined the protest has had enough:
"They're failing these young black men," said Sharise Smith, who has two sons at Douglass. Smith said her son received an A in geometry during the first semester without taking a final exam."It was by default, just for showing up. It wasn't because he earned an A," Smith said.
She added, forcefully:
"They're pushing smoke up parents' butts, and the parents better get the hell up and do something different," Smith said.
Cue up to 1:21 of the video above for a local news report. That is one of a few stories that have our attention:
- Utah's attorney general is looking for alternatives to laws like Arizona's SB 1070.
- Speaking of immigration, a call for feminists to speak up against these sorts of laws.
- TPM on why overturning "Obamacare" could lead to single-payer.
- Newt Gingrich lost his embedded reporters last week, but his campaign thinks it will have "absolutely zero impact."
- Rush Limbaugh has a challenger: former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.
- Virginia has DNA evidence that could exonerate those wrongly imprisoned -- but will they use it?
- Is America ready for a black First Lady with natural hair?