Us Fellows just wrapped up five weeks of work in the wacky world of Detroit education. To call our strange collection of schools and learning opportunities a “system” is perhaps a bit ambitious—some schools inspire and sustain real growth, some are just buildings now, some are crippled beyond sensibility. I drive by  two excellent schools on my way to work each morning, but I also drive by rough-sleeping wanderers and molted buildings.

All of this has me thinking about Detroit’s kids. About equal numbers of them go to public and charter schools. More than half won’t graduate high school. They cost about $8,500 to teach and $5,800 to support, but if they stay in the city to look for work then about a quarter of them won’t find it. Lots of people are doing great work to fix up schools, protect kids, create opportunity, and otherwise improve the education landscape, but the futures of Detroit’s youth look pretty bleak no matter how many rounds you’ve had at Hopcat. Think about your odds as a kid in this world if you’re ever feeling a little too optimistic about the city.

So I’m wondering: what about the “New” Detroit kids, if you’ll pardon that reductive nomenclature? The ones born into comfortable, successful, and/or wealthy families, whose parents chose to come here or remain here? Right now there aren’t a ton of children that fit this description, but that will certainly change as young and economically mobile Detroiters (like me) start reproducing. Will these kids play along with DPS? Will they go to high-performing charter and magnet schools? Will they ship off the the suburbs for some whiz-bang private education?

There’s no knowing, at least not yet, and no use speculating about a group that’s more diverse than hipster-haters tend to recognize. But should we be worried if raising kids in Detroit is just another Motown experiment? Will Detroit-positive families balk at sending young scholars to failing schools? Is increased demand for an education environment that has its sh— together going to spur some change? I’m cautiously optimistic, as I try to be with most issues facing my adopted city, but when the field is this wide open it’s hard to know what to expect.

Here’s another opportunity to tear down the Us and Them, to treat Detroit as a friend and not a fetish. I hope that we can teach our children well.