When Pershing High School opened in 1930, it was designed to serve more than 2,200 students in what was then a fast-growing part of the city’s east side. Today, the school serves just 314 kids. That means Pershing is more than 85 percent empty. It’s a similar...
At least three Detroit-area charter schools will close in June after years of low test scores, leaving hundreds of families to scramble for new schools — including some who haven’t yet been notified. The schools set to close include Woodward Academy, one of Detroit’s oldest and most established charter...
Nikolai Vitti, the Florida school leader selected this week to run Detroit schools faces many steep challenges. Among the most daunting: He’ll be working with people who wanted someone else to get the job. “Educators wanted Alycia Meriweather,” said Andrea Jackson, a college advisor at Osborn Collegiate Academy of...
Some of Detroit’s most celebrated selective schools saw their standings plunge on the state’s most recent school rankings. Renaissance High School was one of the highest ranked schools on Michigan’s 2014 Top to Bottom schools list, scoring in the 98th percentile, better than 98 percent of state...
The 38 Michigan schools that were threatened with closure in January could now have a way to stay open. State superintendent Brian Whiston sent letters this week to eight school districts that have schools on the closure list inviting them to participate in a “partnership” to fix the schools instead...
Parents, students and staff at the Fisher Upper Academy on Detroit’s east side gathered at the school last fall for an exciting announcement. The Ford Fund, the carmaker’s philanthropic arm, planned to spend $5 million on a new “resource and engagement center” inside the school. Parents were thrilled...
A sophisticated new enrollment tool that was supposed to make signing up for school easier in Detroit won’t be of much use to the thousands of families whose children could be displaced by upcoming school closures. Despite the more than $700,000 and countless hours of planning that went...
Thousands of Detroit parents last month opened their mailboxes to find an alarming letter. “You are receiving this letter because the school your child attends is at risk of being closed by June 30, 2017 due to academic failure for many years,” the letter states. The letter, signed by State...
Michigan education officials’ aggressive school closure plan faces a major challenge: It’s unlikely that most students displaced by closures will end up in substantially better schools. That’s because there are few schools in struggling cities like Detroit that have test scores significantly higher than the schools facing closure....
The news that state officials are moving to shutter as many as 38 Michigan schools triggered fear and fury from parents and educators. Concerns were especially heightened in Detroit where 25 schools were put on notice that they’ll have to close their doors in June unless the state decides...
The state of Michigan Friday put 38 struggling schools on notice. After years of rock-bottom test scores and disappointing results, the schools were informed that they’re in serious danger of having to shut their doors forever in June. “Because we want all kids to have a good life after...
The era of democratically elected school boards running Detroit’s schools officially returned Wednesday night with the swearing in of the seven new board members chosen by voters in November. “I do solemnly swear,” the board members said as they raised their right hands for the oath. “That I will...
Michigan schools waiting anxiously for word on whether they’ll be shut down next year will have to wait a little longer. State officials initially planned to release their annual state rankings, which will be used to decide which schools will be forced to close, by the end of this...
It was four days into the two-week enrollment period for the new Detroit Prep charter school and Kyle Smitley was starting to worry. Smitley, the school’s co-founder, had opened Detroit Prep in September with grand ambitions of building the city’s first truly diverse charter school. She had embraced...
While most of the anxiety you’re surely feeling today is appropriately directed at the presidential race, people who care about Detroit should also be paying attention to the city’s historic school board election. Voters on Tuesday will choose seven Detroiters to help shepherd our schools out of a...
More than 60 candidates are running for seven seats on the new Detroit school board — and most are running their campaigns on a shoestring. A Chalkbeat review of state and county campaign finance records shows that just 15 candidates seeking seats on the crucial new board reported receiving campaign contributions...
On paper, the Michigan Technical Academy looks exactly like the kind of school state officials are planning to shut down. The charter school in northwest Detroit has posted test scores in the bottom 1 percent in the state in recent years, and fewer than 5 percent of fourth-graders passed last...
Three weeks into the school year at Spain Elementary-Middle School, the teachers are starting to get used to their new classes. Students are starting to get back into the swing of things. And now it’s time for something unexpected: A PR blitz. The school in Detroit’s midtown neighborhood...
