“Why couldn’t we be a site for an alternative energy school? Why wouldn’t we be a training school to support the rail industry? Why wouldn’t we have a design school to look at mass transportation? Why couldn’t we train students in demographics?” she said. “Whatever the relevant needs are for the employment market, we are uniquely qualified to provide workers for those needs.”

More here. The Detroit Public School superintendent. She oversees a school program that has a 38% graduation rate. I talked to someone who works with the school system. The Detroit high school her husband graduates from had four students who were proficient in math out of their graduating seniors.

Four out of two hundred.

Now I have a question. High school graduates need jobs, no doubt. But is there a difference between preparing people to be workers, and preparing people to be citizens? Which should come first? Why?