- Coming up next on "American Black Journal," Detroit Public School Superintendent, Dr. Nikolai Vitti, gives an up update on the current state of the district, plus September is Black Reading Month.

We're gonna talk about the importance of reading works by African American authors, and it's also Detroit Month of Design.

We'll examine how design impacts our everyday lives.

Don't move, "American Black Journal" starts right now.

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Thank you.

(bright music) - Welcome to "American Black Journal."

I'm Stephen Henderson.

The fall school semester is well underway, and the Detroit Public Schools Community District is continuing to recover from pandemic-related losses.

Finances, student enrollment, and attendance are among the primary focus areas for the district.

I sat down for a wide-ranging conversation with Superintendent Dr. Nikolai Vitti on the grounds of the school at Marygrove.

We talked about the successes, the challenges, and the priorities for the new school year.

Now, let's talk about absenteeism.

Talk about some of the things that you do or can do as a school district to try to intervene in that issue.

I mean, I know people at very small schools, private schools, who will go and knock doors to try to get kids back into the school.

What does that look like on the citywide scale of DPSCD?

- Yeah, well, first is it comes down to just good data systems.

And I just want to emphasize that we didn't have that 60 years ago.

So just taking attendance regularly.

The data system clearly shows who that risk of being chronically absent.

And that empowers the principal, the leadership team, counselors, attendance agents to engage in kids in a preemptive way, not waiting for the chronic absenteeism to occur.

Then, we have attendance agents at most of our schools that do the home visits.

In addition to that, I think we're investing more in marketing to get the word out that attendance matters.

I mean, just missing it one day a month leads to being identified as chronically absent.

But beyond that, it's also building out the health hubs, and that is critical because it starts to address some of the reasons for the chronic absenteeism.

So all of our schools have nurses.

When students naturally feel sick, they go to the nurse.

Because they talk to the nurse and the nurse calls home, parents are less likely to pick up the child, which then leads them to stay in school but not miss the next day.

And so we've seen an increase in attendance and a drop in a chronic absenteeism because of the nurses.

But starting this year through private funding, we're building out health hubs in each of the feeder patterns throughout the city.

So that means one high school or one K-8 will not only have a nurse there, but we will be doing outreach to families to offer mental health support for families and students, dental support, medical screenings and physicals, and just first review healthcare, along with eye support as well.

So there will be a family resource center at those health hubs too, where they can get help with evictions, with energy bills, and legal services.

So we're trying to address the issues that lead to chronic absenteeism at the school site through these hubs.

There'll be a referral system by employees for families, where families can just go there.

They'll be open in the evening and the weekend.

And we think that will curb some of the challenges to help families overcome the issues that naturally lead to chronic absenteeism.

- Yeah, I wanna talk a little about something that's going on at the state level.

For years, we've been talking about the need to provide equitable funding to school districts, not equal funding.

Right now, the way the formula works, everybody gets the same.

There was a study about a decade ago in Lansing about the need to change that.

The new majority in Lansing is saying, "Hey, we're gonna try that out."

What does that mean in a district like Detroit?

- Yeah, it means everything.

When I look at where we are as a district and the kind of improvement that we've made, systems and processes can improve, but we will hit a ceiling.

When you know about the average challenges that our children bring in the school, that are deeper, more severe, more at scale than let's say Birmingham or Southfield.

And I commend the governor and the legislature.

The gap has been narrowed, but we're still not at equal.

So the actual per pupil funding is equal, but doesn't account for local funding.

So every school districts in Michigan have to tax at 18 mils.

And if that tax doesn't generate the minimum, which is at about $9,600 now, then the state makes up the difference to ensure that there is a floor to funding at 9,600.

That's positive.

But what ends up happening is if you generate more than $9,600, you get to keep that revenue.

And that's part of local and state funding.

And so that's how you see the discrepancy in per pupil funding with DPSCD and mainly our neighborhood surrounding school districts.

So the challenge with that is threefold.

One, it affects teacher salaries.

So it's not like DPSCD doesn't want to pay our most veteran teachers more.

These other districts just have more revenue to put into salaries.

It also affects facilities.

So the state doesn't allocate any dollars for facilities.

So obviously, if you're generating more revenue, you can put more money in facilities.

So our buildings are, on average, 60 years old.

We're using $700 million of the COVID money to put major investment in facilities, which is gonna make a difference.

But that's going to be short-lived, knowing the outstanding issues.

And the third issue is just more dollars for wraparound services.

So if the average student in Detroit is facing a more severe concentrated poverty, it's only natural that you need more resources to help the child and the family.

Whereas opposed to Southfield or Birmingham, those problems are minimum because of the higher socioeconomic background in children.

So with them having more state and local funding, they can spread those dollars out more than we can.

And then we haven't even touched the issue of more social needs children in our district or just transportation because of the square footage or the acreage of Detroit.

And going East, Westside, Southwest, our costs of operations are just higher.

So I'm hopeful that we can at least move to equal and then equitable, and everyone talks about federal funding.

Well, DPSCD receives more federal funding.

We should, the idea of federal funding is to- - It files poverty.

- Exactly.

And special needs.

So it was always about supplementing, not supplanting, state funding.

And over the years, large districts like ours, large urban districts have had to use federal money to fill gaps that the state creates, which then doesn't allow us to use federal money the way it's intended, which is to build beyond state funding.

A last point would be to create more flexibility with the at-risk money that we receive.

That money is restricted so it can address teacher salaries, it can address facilities.

So even if the state isn't able to get to equal, then let us get flexibility with the at-risk money, so then we can address some of the issues that the inequity in state and local funding creates.

- I mean, if you had to think about just in maybe fantasy terms, what would be possible in Detroit if you had equitable funding if they came up with a new number, 13,000, 14,000 a year, whatever, that Detroit would get as a compensation for the deep poverty, what kind of things would you be able to do that you can't do now?

- Yeah, and you're right, that is a number.

It's about 13, which is the wealthiest school district.

So one, we would've teacher salaries that would be above our suburban school district counterparts.

Not only do teachers deserve that, the ones there now, but future teachers deserve that because you have to compensate them more to work in harder environments.

That just makes sense.

And if we have that consistent flow of teachers and staffing, then we can address student achievement at a better rate.

So that's one.

The other thing that would be different is the quality of our facilities.

With buildings being, on average, 60 years old, you really get frustrated as a superintendent when you have to close schools because it's too hot or you have to close schools because the boiler breaks down.

And that happens more than we know and that we even talk about publicly.

And this is 2023.

Why in the world are we talking about a building not having heat in the winter?

And it's not about, well, we're not investing the way we are.

These buildings are old and the dollars aren't there to revamp an entire boiler system.

So that would be a difference.

And then the other difference would be stronger wraparound services for children.

So we've already made significant investments in mental health support, nurses, but we want to go farther with expanded afterschool programming and summer programming.

And those are things that would be different in DPSCD with equitable or equal funding.

- Yeah.

Last question.

You've been here now, remind me- - Going into year seven.

- [Stephen] Year seven.

Okay.

- That's the second longest as superintendent.

- I was gonna say that's a long time for a Detroit superintendent, at least in modern terms.

Give me an overall assessment of the time you've been here and what you, I guess, are looking forward to as you get longer and deeper into that tenure.

- Yeah, I think even the sharpest critic would say that we've gotten better over the last seven years.

We've improved enrollment, improved staffing, we were at 500, 400 teacher vacancies, talk about 70 is a major improvement.

Teacher compensation has dramatically improved.

The quality of our principals has improved.

Graduation rates now have improved.

The financial status of the district has improved with... Before I became superintendent, we would have almost 30 audit exceptions with millions of dollars in penalty.

And now, two audits were completely clean.

We have a reserve actually funding on the side, which we're slowly investing in facilities.

Well, I think for me, it's about accelerating student achievement.

I want to be not only the most improved large urban school district in the country but I want to get closer to being the best large urban school district in the country.

I want to get very intentional about succession management not only for the school board, but for myself, for principal leaders in central office.

So we've turned around the district, but I want this to be sustainable.

When my time is done, I don't want all of this to fall apart.

And that's how a well-functioning organization operates, and that's what I believe DPSCD should look like.

- September is Black Reading Month.

That's a time to encourage the community read books, magazines, and journals that are written by African American authors.

It's also a time to promote literacy and to support Black-owned bookstores.

I spoke with one of the co-founders of Black Reading Month, Malik Yakini, about the importance of the September observance.

Talk about how you came up with this idea.

- Okay, I'll just give a very brief history.

In 1969, I was involved in an organization called New Directions Information Institute.

And one of the things that we did is we distributed Black books and magazines to various stores throughout Detroit.

So we noticed, for example, that in the supermarkets where they always have kind of magazines near the checkout counter, that none of those magazines were magazines that explored any aspect of the Black experience in a city that was overwhelmingly Black.

And so something was wrong with that picture to us.

And not only were we selling magazines, we're also selling various books primarily from the Third World Press, which is headed by Haki Madhubuti.

But what we noticed is at the end of the month, we were able to make inroads and develop relationships with many of these stores where we could get the magazines in the stores on consignment.

But when we came back at the end of the month, either one or two had sold or none had sold.

And so we saw it was more than a question of access, but we needed a campaign within the Black community, in Detroit in particular, to emphasize the importance of reading Black books as a way of becoming familiar with our own cultural and historical experience.

And our idea then, as well as now, is that this profound sense of being informed about our own culture and history is necessary for us to move forward in a sane and balanced way.

And so we started Black Reading Month as a way of having a large-scale public campaign to support and emphasize the importance of both reading Black books, magazines, journals, and newspapers, but also of supporting Black writers, supporting Black publishers, and supporting Black bookstores.

- And talk about how this connects to Black literacy.

And that's a subject that I feel like a lot of people get wrong an awful lot of the time, which we hear this statistic all the time about literacy in the city of Detroit.

People saying that, "Well, 40% of the people who live here are illiterate."

That's not true, A.

But this idea of Black Reading Month really is, I feel like, the targeted toward celebrating the reading that Black people do do and wanna do and are craving in cities like Detroit.

- Yeah, well, I don't want to deny that there's a literacy problem in Detroit.

I don't want to get into specific statistics because I don't know what the accuracy is, but certainly we need to improve the level of literacy in Detroit and other communities throughout the United States.

Let me say this, though.

Again, I wanna situate the Black experience in America with inside of this larger context.

Because the reality is, though, it is that although most people in America might be literate, the majority of people haven't read a book in the last five years.

Many people have not read a book since graduating from high school or graduating from college.

Literacy is not really a fundamental part of American culture in the time period that we live in now, and that's distressing because I think Americans in general have little knowledge about history, have little knowledge about geography, have little knowledge about global affairs, and thus don't know how to situate ourself within that context.

So Black Reading Month is both concerned about literacy, about people actually knowing how to read.

And we think that from our experience of peoples who have struggled for their liberation, such as in Cuba, such as in Guinea-Bissau, where Paulo Freire, in fact, worked with the leader of the of the revolution in Guinea-Bissau, Amilcar Cabral, to create a literacy campaign.

So we know that campaigns that encourage people to learn how to read, and to read better, and to make that a fundamental part of their lives is an essential tool for people who are striving to be more self-reliant, who are striving to be more self-actualized.

And so on that level, reading anything, learning how to read and reading anything is important.

- September is also Detroit Month of Design.

This is the 13th year for the citywide festival that brings together designers, and companies, and educational institutions for a celebration of Detroit's designation as a global design leader.

"American Black Journal" contributor, Cecelia Sharpe, of 90.9 WRCJ spoke with the festival's director, Kiana Wenzell, of Design Core Detroit, about this year's event.

- Kiana, welcome.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- Absolutely.

It is festival time.

It's Detroit Month of Design Festival taking place throughout the city of Detroit.

Over 80 events and activities happening.

We have studio tours, popup events, family-friendly outdoor activities.

It's a lot to take in across the city and there's something for everyone.

- Yes, that is right.

2023 marks the 13th Annual Detroit Month of Design, which is a multidisciplinary festival occurring throughout the city of Detroit.

And we are just super excited for the schedule this year.

- Kiana, what is the theme for this year's festival?

- This year's theme is United By Design because we are focused on what connects our community.

Designers don't just create product, but we create services and systems, and we are all connected by the items and things that we use as we navigate through space.

We've been reflecting a lot on the power and the joy of interdisciplinary teams, and that we are relying on each other.

We are focused on community-based approaches to design, where you have residents, business owners, policy makers, and a designer on the team from the beginning, rather than just the designer and the funder designing for the residents without them being a part of the process from beginning to end.

So we are united by design, and that's how the theme unfolded.

- So take us through some of the events that are happening this year during the festival.

- Yeah, so this year, our top five story angles that have risen to the top from the events that are happening are advanced technologies.

Detroit is known as a transportation capital and motor city capital, but we're so much more.

We have the first 3D-printed home in the state of Michigan that is on the calendar this year.

Citizen Robotics is a company, and they're really addressing affordability in housing, helping to make housing affordable by creating materials and products through their 3D-printed concrete machine.

And using that as a way to kind of balance housing.

We also have Newlab at Michigan Central, which is all about mobility startups.

Another strong theme is sustainable fashion.

So we have the Industrial Sewing and Innovation Center, ISAIC, hosting an event and giving tours of their newly renovated and high-tech workshop that people can walk through.

Clearline Magazine is doing a magazine release, their sustainability issue.

We have crafts.

Detroit is a very strong craft-based region.

We have the College for Creative Studies and Cranbrook that really rooted us in that technique and process.

So there are exhibitions at I.M.

Weiss Gallery.

There's encounter with Nina Chou.

She's a furniture designer.

Minjing Namkoong is a fiber artist.

Elizabeth Sloan is doing an exhibition called "Thread."

We have events that are looking at land use.

Detroit is rich in natural resources, but how do we program and activate that land?

So the Detroit Land Lab, led by Tanya Stephens and the University of Michigan, is looking at how landscape designers, land advocates, and resident land stewards can come together and approach land activation using a holistic community-based process.

There's also, Detroit Future City is working with residents in the East Warren neighborhood.

It was a neighborhood that experienced a lot of disinvestment, and they are gonna show how the community has come together using a community-based approach to activate the land in that neighborhood.

And then lastly, we have a lot of hyper-local events.

You touched on some of them, like Eastern Market After Dark.

There's gonna be Design Days @ the Dequindre.

So that's a little bit of what's going on in the festival this year.

- There is definitely a ton going on.

How does design improve the lives of everyday people?

- I like to say that design can impact our lives for better or for worse.

Design is not neutral, and designers don't just create products like a chair or a table.

We also create services and systems.

And so if you have a designer that is creating a transportation system, or a team that's working on a healthcare system.

Or if you have products that are used by the public, like how a school is designed, that's gonna impact the learning of a young person.

If you have a designer that's working in a hospital and you're looking at healing and recovery, that's impacting health.

And so designers are there at every intersection of our life, whether it's the chair that we're sitting on, the computer that we're using, or the train station that we're walking through.

Our quality of life is impacted by the design of that product, service, or system.

- Thank you for bringing that to life and making it clear on what design is and how it impacts us.

It's everything around us.

You mentioned Design Core?

Design Core Detroit is where you are the co-executive director.

Who is Design Core Detroit, and what is the mission?

- Design Core Detroit is a nonprofit economic development organization that is housed at the College for Creative Studies.

We were founded in 2010 by business leaders from Michigan and CCS to support design-driven businesses because we know that the creative economy is a huge contributor to the economic landscape of Detroit.

So we say that our tagline is "Champions of Detroit Design," and our mission is to continue to establish Detroit as a globally recognized and valued creative capital.

We work to tell Detroit's design story locally, nationally, and internationally.

And the Month of Design is a platform for us telling our story on an annual basis.

- Kiana, where can people find out more information about the festival?

- [Kiana] You can find more information at detroitmonthofdesign.com.

- What are you hoping that people that attend the festival will take away this year?

- Yes, I hope that festival attendees will take away that the power of design and creative tools can be used by everyone to improve their quality of life and their environment.

The purpose of the festival is to connect designers with each other; connect designers with new audiences, and new customers, and consumers; and to help business owners and residents really see the value of design and how it could impact their life.

So if every person just took one of those home with them, then I would be very happy.

- That'll do it for our show this week.

Thanks so much for watching.

You can find out more about our guests at americanblackjournal.org, and you can connect with us anytime on social media.

Take care, and we'll see you next time.

(bright music) - [Announcer 1] From Delta Faucets to Behr Paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV.

- [Announcer 2] The DTE Foundation proudly supports 50 years of "American Black Journal" in covering African American history, culture, and politics.

The DTE Foundation and "American Black Journal" partners in presenting African American perspectives about our communities and in our world.

- [Announcer 1] Also brought to you by Nissan Foundation and viewers like you.

Thank you.

(mellow music)