Students in Detroit have spent decades grappling with educational challenges, leaving many without access to the opportunities they deserve. Jaquetta Lee joins the Overton Window Podcast to describe the city’s complex education picture, explain the importance of personalized learning, and recommend policy reforms that would better serve Detroit’s children and families.

“What we're doing is not working.” Lee says. “it’s not working because we have children out here who are not educated. We have children out here who can't read. We have children out here who are not learning.”

Lee hopes to get past the rigidity of the education system in Detroit.

“Human bodies are not one size fits all,” she says, suggesting that educators should follow the example of the medical community, which builds treatment around the individual patient. “Just because A, B, and C kids were able to understand it doesn't mean D and F would too. So, we have to find something that both sets of children can learn from. And I'm finding that everything is cookie cutter. Everything is one-size-fits-all.”

Based on this assessment, Lee points to a lack of change and invention in education.

“We haven't changed the educational system, and we can't teach them all the same. We have to learn their weaknesses from their strengths,” Lee says. “If a child is stronger here, put the strong child with the weak child because children teach each other.”

Through her classroom work with Engaged Detroit, a homeschooling co-op that prioritizes child-centered teaching, Lee teaches homeschooled children the fundamentals of farming, healthy cooking, herbs, and the importance of connecting with the earth.

“Each child is different,” says Lee. “For some children, public school is fine; for other children it is not. Schools of Choice is good. You have to learn your child and listen to your child... Sometimes we have homeschool children who do both public and homeschooling. They go to school and then they come to classes for other continuing education.”

As both a former student and a parent in Detroit’s school system, Lee has come away with one clear lesson: “All of what I've been doing in education has showed me how broken the system is.”

When it comes to policy change, Lee emphasizes that the needs of children should be heard.

“We all should be in the room making policies to make children better so they can change because they know what they want,” she says. “And we don’t know what an eight-year-old wants. I mean, as far as teaching, I know some of it, but if you have ever been in my class, I'll ask them what do you want to cook next week?”

Lee sees the potential that Engaged Detroit can provide for students and parents to be involved in education.

“Starting a community group like that is helpful in giving those parents and kids another option,” she says. “The one beautiful thing about what Engaged Detroit does is we prepare facilitators, which is what I am. If you think about this, if you give parents the power to facilitate things in school, I think things would change because of what the principals would learn. A lot of stuff would be lifted off their chests. If you give the parents a responsibility, some things would be lifted off their chests too.

“We have some great scholars coming out of the city of Detroit,” Lee continues. “We have some great artists. I know some great children who are doing great things, but I'm tired of the exception to the rule. I want all of them to be these scholars, educators, creators, chefs and farmers. I want them all to do it. I don't want five, I don't want a hundred kids out of 10,000 kids. I want all 10,000 children.”

Listen to the full conversation on the Overton Window Podcast.

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