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Renaissance: Detroit’s Top School Deserves Better

By Desmond Johnson Editor

The quality of the books at school are getting progressively worse every  year. They are noticeably torn, have ripped or missing portions and just very under kept.

If walking  into any classroom, people will more than likely find textbooks that look as if they belong more in the dumpster than on a desktop.

“Our books are straight up crap here,” said junior Alton Kirksey about his Algebra 2 textbooks. “We don’t even enough books for each student to take home. I feel like the best school in Detroit should have the best things.”

Renaissance is (and has been) the top-performing school in Detroit for many years. It also hold the award for the top attendance rate in DPS.

“They [the textbooks] are really outdated,” said sophomore Ravin Hardaway. “I don’t think we should be learning out of 10-20 year old books.”

The Algebra 2 book currently used to teach students math is over 10 years old. U.S. History and Geography is currently being taught from a textbook about seven years old. There aren’t even enough textbooks or music books for the coral program,and Ms. DeBose is forced to copy textbook pages for her students.

“Some of them don’t even have a front or back cover. That makes carrying them harder in certain cases,” said junior Lynarious Collins. “They could be missing pages or be written on a lot. If poor condition books are given out and become worse, the student may have to pay for a new book to replace it.”

There are some positive changes happening regarding the current poor conditions of the textbooks.  A committee is being set up to pick new textbooks for the 2015-’16 school year.

“There is a committee of teachers to pick new books for NEXT year,” said Ms. Juanzetta Tolliver Algebra 2 and accelerated geometry teacher.  “I am the head the committee. We’re working hard for our students”.

 

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