Student Highlight of the Month: Chioma Ugochukwu

by with No Comment Gen Z

In today’s society, it’s easy for high school students to get distracted and let their grades slip or make bad decisions. Chioma Ugochukwu, a Senior at Detroit Renaissance High School, has remained focused by keeping her eyes on the prize. Not only is she a great student and a member of the National Honor Society, but she is also a model citizen in her community. 

And what’s this prize she’s keeping her eyes on?

She eventually wants to earn a doctorate degree in Molecular Biology, and open a free clinic in her hometown of Nigeria to provide free healthcare. She clearly wants to leave her mark and make a significant impact. When asked about her long-term plans, she responded, “There are children that walk around with no clothing or shoes, and many have a hard time getting to a doctor because of the distance and cost. I plan to set up a free clinic so that all the people in need can get free health care and not have to worry about traveling hours to an industrial inner-city hospital.” 

Such a lofty goal requires a strong academic foundation and a work ethic that’s hard to match, and Chioma has both. She has an extremely high aptitude for math and science, and she’s taken just about every AP and Honors class you can think of. She continuously tries to understand how things work and often searches for alternative ways or solutions to solve problems. As mentioned earlier, she’s a member of the National Honors Society. She serves as the historian, and has proven to be invaluable during meetings and frequently pushes members to reach their full potential.

Chioma has also volunteered for community service projects throughout the city of Detroit. She has served as a youth leader in several organizations and has successfully led teams of other young people to participate in service learning. She’s always thinking about how she can help others, which was evident when she played an instrumental role in getting an AP Psychology course added to her high school (solely to benefit students who will follow in her footsteps).

Considering her strong work ethic, endless curiosity and willingness to take risks, there is no reason to believe that she won’t continue to grow and make great strides in college and beyond. We believe in Chioma and want to see her continue to do to great things. Sooner than later, she’ll be graduating with her doctorate degree in Molecular Biology and planning to open a free clinic in Nigeria.

Chioma, congratulations for being highlighted as the student of the month!

Education Inevitably Judges Everyone

by with No Comment Education

There should be no doubt in any rational thinking mind that education is how we separate class. In America, education creates a hierarchy. In India, one is born into that class. Here in America, supposedly, you can be born in public housing and go to a low achieving school and still become a millionaire. All you have to do is work hard and pull yourself up by the bootstraps? Um, let’s be honest… that sounds delusional in 2017.

Education is like a rubric, it will be used to judge you. Here in America education is used by society to create a narrative for one to follow. Being that one’s future is scaled based on acquired skills learned in school, it is imperative we understand that schools are not dumping grounds. Therefore, it is very important that Washington and their delegates revolutionize every demographic area, from inner cities to rural America. We should supply all children with the necessary tools needed to hone their skills in every subject area. Our main goal should be social and academic success, regardless of their family’s income or the location of their school district. However, schools continue to heavily weigh math and reading ability, which doesn’t present an accurate picture regarding a child’s potential. Rating these schools ineffective for not reaching “standards” is unacceptable, and it denies them proper resources and/or more incentives to help give children some form of extrinsic motivation to go to school and do well. Some of these schools are truly ineffective; yet, we see students that require special needs education and students who have poor attendance be the primary focal point for determining what nominal funds will be allocated to their school. Why? Well, you have to make excuses to cut money somewhere to spend it elsewhere.

For example… There are three schools in America within a few miles of each other. One school is failing and ineffective and doing much worse than the other two schools. That failing school is going to be phased out and their students will get dumped into the second school, which performs slightly better than the failing school. Now all of a sudden there are two schools in one building forced to share and use the resources meant for one, which over-populates that school and makes each class size larger, subsequently reducing the teacher’s ability to reach each student. This is exactly how students fall behind. Oh, and the third school performs the best so they’re going to get the necessary funding. Now consider this new two-in-one school and the other school that received their funding; which school is going to perform the best moving forward? Why does performance matter? Well, whichever school performs the best is going to get the Mac computers, smart boards, grants for art programming to pay teachers, and so on. It doesn’t take an advanced degree to figure out that the third school is going to continue to perform the best, and the new two-in-one school will probably do worse if you just consider the larger classroom sizes. But why wouldn’t the new two-in-one school with larger class sizes receive the funding? Surely, they need more resources, right? It’s evident that certain kids are left behind regarding the tools and resources needed to academically thrive and keep pace with their generation. Technology is taking over and experimental learning is the way to go. Standard based testing does nothing but perpetuate a bias system, which allows the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.

The federal government allows states to control the majority of educational funding in an attempt to escape the blame for dismal school systems. So who do we blame… the states, Washington, or both? Bottom line, our school systems are failing many of our children while others prosper and prepare for a competitive job market in an ever-changing economy. Educational segregation is what you call it, and when resources are withheld from groups of people that clearly need them the most we should question leadership and inefficiencies on every level. If education inevitably judges everyone, which seems to the case in our capitalist society, how about we give everyone a fair and equal opportunity to reach their full potential?