Detroit: The Fight to Save Catherine Ferguson Academy Continues!

Please forward to all DPS:

While DPS Emergency Manager Roy Roberts has made the announcement that Catherine Ferguson Academy is to be closed, the fight is not over. The students, teachers and supporters of CFA have NOT surrendered. We have already won the right of many other Detroit schools slated to be closed to remain open. We can still win. We are calling on everyone who supports Catherine Ferguson, the City of Detroit, public education and the basic right of every child to a bright future, to come out to the school at noon – 6 pm on Thursday, June 16th. (Many DPS teachers are coming after school) If you are unable to come in person, you can still help by doing the following: Forward this email, text, twitter and post on Facebook the call for everyone to gather at CFA on June 16th at noon. The number of defenders will determine our success.

Make a donation at https://www.bamn.com/1/donate.asp to rent buses and vans to help people from Metro Detroit get to the school on June 16th (CFA is not in a convenient location for those without cars) and to defray legal costs. Why this battle is central to the fight for civil rights, public education and the future of our nation: Catherine Ferguson Academy (CFA), a Detroit Public School for pregnant and parenting teenage girls, is a jewel of Detroit. With a 90% graduation rate and 100% college attendance rate for graduates, CFA is a stunning success story. And, contrary to the misinformation fed to the public by EFM Roy Roberts and local newspapers, CFA costs the district only $750,000, because most of its budget comes from special federal and state funding. CFA’s significance is not only the hope and opportunity it provides several hundred students and their children each year. The success of CFA is important because it gives lie to all the racist stereotypes of black intellectual inferiority or some mythological weakness of black culture or black families being the cause of the high dropout rate for black students. CFA’s success makes it unarguably clear that the solution to the high drop-out rate is small class size, interesting and relevant curriculum, basic social service programs that address the challenges of poverty such as medical care, high quality childcare and early child development programs, flexible schedules to accommodate the real needs of real people, and a culture and community that constantly, concretely (through its investment in girls who have been previously told they will amount to nothing) reinforces the essential human value of its students and provides them with the motivation and tools to succeed.

In part because of this, CFA is slated to be closed. While giving lip service to “leaving no child behind,” the wealthy of our nation do not want to pay the taxes required to fund successful schools for poor children who do not come from educated and privileged families. They would rather create stripped down, inferior schools that communicate to children from the moment they enter pre-K that they are condemned to limited horizons and, at best, a service job upon graduation. This is the face of the New Jim Crow. For this reason, the fight to keep CFA open is a fight for the life of Detroit, and ground zero in the most significant civil rights struggle of the twenty first century – the fight to preserve public education as an institution of democracy, equality and social mobility in our nation.

It’s time to recognize, as did Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that we must act on “the fierce urgency of now”, and that, together, we can move mountains. For more information on what you can do to help save Catherine Ferguson Academy, call 855-ASK-BAMN or email donna.stern@bamn.com.