The Education Issue
Why These Kids Get a Free Ride to College
Jeff Minton for The New York Times
Clockwise from top left: Molly
Gritter, 15; Magnificent Hanana, 17; Hirving Hernandez, 16; Shaquona
Gardner, 15; Gregory Hale-Sandifer, 16; Cheyenne Gandy, 15; Tinashe
Chaponda, 17; Zhi Xuan Wee, 17; Hope Nicholas, 14; Troy Swodzinski, 17.
By TED C. FISHMAN
Published: September 13, 2012 282 Comments
Wings Stadium, a dim, beery sports barn in Kalamazoo, Mich., is an
appropriate home for the K-Wings minor-league hockey team and the
Killamazoo Derby Darlins. Yet every year, in June, the site hosts a
spectacle more uplifting than a season of flip checks. This is when it
is the setting for the graduations of the city’s two main high schools. A
couple of nights after Kalamazoo Central High fills the arena, it’s Loy
Norrix’s turn. The rink is covered, and students, friends and family
take over most of the 5,100 seats.
Multimedia
Jeff Minton for The New York Times
When I Grow Up
The kids of Kalamazoo talk about college and other plans for the future.
Related
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The 6th Floor Blog: How Much Would Free College Cost for All New Yorkers? (September 13, 2012)
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According to census data, 39 percent of Kalamazoo’s students are white,
and 44 percent are African-American. One of every three students in the
Kalamazoo district falls below the national poverty level. One in 12 is
homeless. Many of them are the first in their families to finish high
school; many come from single-parent homes. Some are young parents
themselves: Kalamazoo has one of the highest pregnancy rates among black
teenagers in the state.
And yet, for the vast majority of the 500-plus students who graduate
each year in Kalamazoo, a better future really does await after they
collect their diplomas. The high-school degrees come with the biggest
present most of them will ever receive: free college.
Back in November 2005, when this year’s graduates were in sixth grade,
the superintendent of Kalamazoo’s public schools, Janice M. Brown,
shocked the community by announcing that unnamed donors were pledging to
pay the tuition at Michigan’s public colleges, universities and
community colleges for every student who graduated from the district’s
high schools. All of a sudden, students who had little hope of higher
education saw college in their future. Called the Kalamazoo Promise, the
program — blind to family income levels, to pupils’ grades and even to
disciplinary and criminal records — would be the most inclusive, most
generous scholarship program in America.
It would also mark the start of an important social experiment. From the
very beginning, Brown, the only person in town who communicates
directly with the Promise donors, has suggested that the program is
supposed to do more than just pay college bills. It’s primarily meant to
boost Kalamazoo’s economy. The few restrictions — among them, children
must reside in the Kalamazoo public-school district and graduate from
one of its high schools — seem designed to encourage families to stay
and work in the region for a long time. The program tests how
place-based development might work when education is the first
investment.
“Other communities invest in things like arenas or offer tax incentives
for businesses or revitalize their waterfronts,” says Michelle
Miller-Adams, a political scientist at the W. E. Upjohn Institute for
Employment Research, which is located in the city. “The Kalamazoo
Promise tries to develop the local economy with a long-term investment
in human capital that is intended to change the town from the bottom
up.” In this regard, the Promise can be seen as an exorbitant ante,
staked by private funds, that calls to Kalamazoo’s better angels. It
stokes hometown pride, prods citizens to engage and pulls businesses and
their leaders into the public sphere. To date, Miller-Adams says,
Kalamazoo’s Promise has inspired donors in 25 other cities and towns
around the United States — including Pittsburgh, New Haven and El
Dorado, Ark. — to start, or consider starting, similar programs.
Student orators at the June graduations thanked their teachers and
parents. A few moms shouted out, “We love you!” When the speakers, their
eyes scanning the stands for signs of their unseen benefactors, thanked
“the anonymous donors of the Kalamazoo Promise,” Wings Stadium filled
up with hollers, horns and whistles.
Without your gift, Kalamazoo may have swirled into a downfall, similar to many of the other cities in Michigan.
From a letter to the donors by Sam Barton, Loy Norrix High School, class of 2012
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