Detroit Parents Embrace School Choice

Seventy-nine percent prefer an alternative to the public schools

Aridrinanna Turner gave Detroit Public Schools a chance.

Last year, the Detroit mother sent her 6-year-old daughter to the neighborhood DPS elementary school. There, the first-grader shared books with other students, spent every morning waiting for a school bus on a dangerous block and sat in a classroom where the teacher had to buy nearly all of her own class supplies.

Turner didn't wait another year to see if conditions in the state's largest school district would improve. She enrolled her daughter in a Detroit charter school this fall. So far, she's happy with the results, including the added security in and around the school.