Sarah Lenhoff, assistant professor; Ben Pogodzinski, associate professor; and Erica Edwards, assistant professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies wrote an opinion, "Schools and researchers must collaborate to help Detroit students
Bridge, 5/15
Ben Pogodzinski, associate professor;
and Erica Edwards, assistant professor
in Educational Leadership and Poliy Studies
Opinion: Schools and researchers must collaborate to help Detroit students
By Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, Ben Pogodzinski and Erica Edwards
Wayne State University College of Education professors Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, Ben Pogodzinski and Erica Edwards wrote an opinion piece exploring approaches to improving lives of Detroit students, focusing on issues of student enrollment and attendance. "Researching the challenges most cited by school leaders and community advocates, we found that roughly a quarter of students who lived in Detroit in the 2017-18 school year attended a school in the suburbs, taking their talents and state school funding out of the city's schools. We also found that nearly one-fifth of Detroit students switched schools between school years, which can negatively impact achievement and destabilize the schools they left. Additionally, over half of the students who attended school in Detroit missed 10 percent or more of the year, contributing to lower academic achievement and greatly increasing their risk of high school dropout. Findings like these can play a pivotal role in educational policy decision-making, but the policymakers and advocates who could benefit from such information rarely have access to the journals where academics like us typically publish our research…Our research joins a growing body of scholarship that suggests that a collaborative approach to school improvement, with community, school, city, and university partners, could help overcome challenges facing Detroit schools.