State of Opportunity from Michigan Radio

Michigan's own Betsy DeVos is now the most powerful education official in the nation. So what does that mean for Michigan? Let's start our story in Detroit, where DeVos played a big role in pushing for more school choice in the district.

Education in America remains deeply segregated. But at the same time, there are more students of color than ever before. In 2014, for the first time, minority students made up over 50% of public school enrollment . One district that’s seen those shifting demographics first-hand is Plymouth-Canton Community Schools . And it's been intentional about creating an environment where students and families from all backgrounds feel welcome.

For the past several days, there have been many, many stories about President Trump’s actions on refugee policy, and his administration’s travel ban for people from 7 Muslim-majority nations. But last week, the President also signed one other executive action that could have a big impact on immigrants in Michigan. The action spelled out how Trump’s administration would prioritize its deportations for undocumented immigrants. The plan Trump announced means lawmakers in Lansing could have a huge

The fates of neighborhoods and schools are intimately intertwined. That's especially true in high-poverty areas like Detroit. You can see those fates playing out in tandem across the city in part one and two of this documentary. So how do we make sense of what is happening, not just in Detroit, but in cities all across the country? And why, despite wave after wave of reforms, do America’s inner city schools continue to struggle?

In part one of our State of Opportunity documentary, We Live Here, we spent time in Littlefield — a Detroit neighborhood right on the edge. It’s trying for a comeback, but so much depends upon whether the elementary school there stays open. Now let’s visit a neighborhood that’s past that point. A place where most of the DPS schools are long gone - abandoned, torn down or replaced by charters. (You can find a full transcript of the documentary audio here .) A neighborhood with few options Things

Our State of Opportunity team has been looking all year at the connection between neighborhoods and opportunity for children and families. We've been hearing a lot of concerns in the neighborhoods of Grand Rapids about how new development is making life harder for long time residents. Down Eastern Avenue in Grand Rapids, just before the railroad tracks, there’s a little building. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but inside Jewellynne Richardson has built a rich world of culture. “I

(Support trusted journalism like this in Michigan. Give what you can here .) Over the last 15 years, cities across the country have faced wave after wave of school closures. Places like Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia closed down dozens of buildings at a time. But the district that closed the most schools during that time was Detroit Public Schools .

There have been lots and lots of studies on whether additional funding for schools really leads to better outcomes for kids. And, for a long time, some of the conclusions of those studies were a bit mixed. But in the past year or so, a few new studies have made the case that money does matter for student outcomes. And one study in particular uses Michigan’s Proposal A as the proof.

Finding a home in Grand Rapids is becoming more difficult, especially for renters with low incomes. According to Zillow.com, the average cost of a rental unit in Grand Rapids rose almost 8 percent last year. That was the 11 th highest increase in the country , among the 200 largest cities. Even for those who can afford to rent, finding a place isn’t easy.

I met Jamie Rykse a couple months ago, to talk about juvenile justice reform in Michigan . When she was 17, she was convicted of home invasion and sent to serve four years in adult prison. This week, I met up with her again to talk about what happened after she got out of prison, how she started helping out at Heartside Ministry , a place she’d gotten help when she was homeless.

Erik Lauchié always had a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit in him. He says he got it from his dad. And it started young. He started his own group in elementary school called Young Entrepreneurs. “When I was in second grade, I wrote a book called 'The Small Turtle,'” Lauchié says. “When I started Young Entrepreneurs, that was another thing that I did was bind that book and get the illustrations done by my cousin and then sold the book at my church.”

There are more than 90,000 kids in Michigan schools whose primary language is not English. The number of these English language learners has grown 45 % in the past 5 years, according to data from the state of Michigan. That has districts, and the state, scrambling to train teachers to help these kids learn.

The Salvation Army is a crucial resource for many people all year round. It provides housing assistance, food assistance, utility assistance and all kinds of other help to people in need. And around the holidays, that effort ramps up with Christmas assistance.

For more on this, read our previous blog post . The morning after the election, I reached out to a number of people I’ve interviewed in the past who are immigrants, or who work with immigrants. It’s fair to say there was shock, some in mourning. Some worried for the future. One mother wanted to know how she can set up guardianship for her kids in case she’s deported. She’s been in the U.S. since she was a child. She now has legal status through the Obama administration’s deferred action program.

Our most recent State of Opportunity documentary focused on Detroiters whose personal experience with violence has inspired them to advocate for peace in their city. We wanted to create a place for people from Detroit's neighborhoods and other Michigan Radio listeners to come together and talk about issues of racial equity and peace in the city. So, we teamed up with the folks at the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion to put on an evening of stories and conversation at the Matrix