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Detroit schoolseducationMichigan

Dozens Of Detroit Schools Added To State's List For Low Test Scores, But Forced Closure Not A Threat For Now

More than two dozen struggling Detroit schools will likely be added to the state’s “partnership” program after posting years of rock-bottom test scores. That will bring to 50 the number of Detroit schools in the program, which requires schools to meet certain improvement targets or face consequences. Those consequences could include closure or a staff shake-up but, for now at least, decisions about the schools’ fates will rest with local school boards. State officials say they currently have...

Detroit schoolsDetroit Teachers

The Prospect Of A $30,000 Pay Cut Pushed This Teacher Out Of Detroit Schools And To The Suburbs

When the school year began at Detroit’s Central High School last month, a beloved teacher was missing. Quincy Stewart, who was featured in a June Chalkbeat story about his innovative use of music to teach students about African-American history, had been determined to stay at Central. “I do this is because I’m a black man and these are black children,” he told Chalkbeat last spring. “These children have been robbed by this system from the cradle until right now … And when they walk in my cla...

Detroit schoolsLiteracy

A Legal Battle Brews Over Whether Detroit Students Have A Right To Literacy

A lawsuit filed nearly a year ago over the conditions in Detroit schools had its first day in court Thursday, but it could be a month before a judge rules whether it can proceed. The suit, filed in September on behalf of seven Detroit students, argues that Gov. Rick Snyder and state education officials have deprived city students of their right to literacy by not spending adequately on local schools. The 136-page complaint paints a bleak picture of life in the city’s schools, describing cond...

ChalkbeatDetroit schoolsDr. Vitti

Here's The 100 Day Plan For New Detroit Schools Superintendent Nikolai Vitti

When new Detroit schools chief Nikolai Vitti arrives in Detroit as soon as next Monday, he plans to make daily school visits with an early focus on some of the city’s most struggling schools. Those visits will include trips to the schools in the state-run Education Achievement Authority, which are set to return to the Detroit district this summer amid deep uncertainty. Vitti will also meet with a long list of Detroiters as he tries to develop what he says would be the district’s first “strat...

ChalkbeatDetroitDetroit schools

Is An Exodus Of Detroit Teachers On The Horizon?

Stefanie Kovaleski loves teaching kindergarten at Detroit’s Bethune Elementary-Middle School. “I love this building. I love the kids in it,” she said as she doled out hugs and high-fives to her young students while they lined up to get their backpacks at dismissal. “I love that I have autonomy and that I’m treated with professionalism here.” She hopes to stay in her classroom and remain a part of her students’ lives, she said, but she’s actively talking to banks and credit unions about worki...

Detroit schoolsPershing

Detroit's Schools Are Full Of Empty Classrooms. Can They Find A Way To Keep The Buildings Open?

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 story at Southeastern High School, Davis Aerospace High School and scores of other schools across the city that now serve just a fraction of the students they were designed to educate. Some schools, like the Douglass Academy for Young...

Cass TechDetroit schoolsMichigan Schools

How Changes To Michigan’s Ranking System Hurt Schools Like Cass Tech, Help DeVos Family Charter School

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 schools. But when the state in January released its latest ranking, based on 2016 test scores, the school had dropped to the 48th percentile, putting it slightly below the state average. Cass Technica...

Detroit schoolsEnrollment

Here's How Poisonous Politics And Bad Timing Killed An Effort To Streamline School Enrollment In Detroit

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 into creating a single application for Detroit’s competing district and charter schools, the effort has been put on hold indefinitely — a victim of bad timing, poor planning, and a toxic political environment....

ClosingDetroit schoolsWhere will students go

Where Are The Detroit Schools That Face Possible Closure? Everywhere.

Detroiters are only now absorbing the reality of potentially losing 25 struggling schools and trying to figure out where as many as 12,000 displaced students would go if their school is shut down at the end of the school year. This map, which was shared at a meeting of educators and community leaders on Wednesday, shows Detroit schools by a state ranking that measures primarily test scores and graduation rates. Red dots represent schools that have been ranked in the bottom 5 percent for thre...

DetroitDetroit Public SchoolsDetroit schools

25 Detroit Schools Could Be Shut Down In June, 38 Total In Michigan

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 high school, our office is responsible for taking action when schools have been chronically failing for several years,” state School Reform Officer Natasha Baker said in a statement. A statement from Baker’...

Charter SchoolsDetroit PrepDetroit schools

Detroit's first intentionally diverse charter school might not stay that way

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 an idea that’s gained momentum across the country as educators have increasingly acknowledged that the nation’s segregated schools are hurting children and communities, and had managed to recruit...

ChalkbeatDetroit schoolsEllen Degeneres

Spain Elementary, Once A Symbol Of Detroit's Troubles, Gets A Chance To Show Off

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 last year became a symbol of everything that was wrong with Detroit Public Schools. Photos of its dangerously buckling gym floors ricocheted around the world when teachers throughout the district starte...

bad school conditionsDetroit schoolsSchools in America

Eighth Grader Taught Classes And 23 More Startling Allegations In Schools Lawsuit

The federal civil rights lawsuit filed this week on behalf of a Detroit school kids isn’t likely to bring a quick fix to Detroit’s troubled schools. Even successful lawsuits can take years to wend their way through the courts. But as Detroit tries to turn things around with a new school district, the suit paints a bleak picture of what officials are up against. The 136-page complaint reveals allegations of condoms strewn on playgrounds, bathrooms leaking sewage into hallways, and students le...

Detroit schoolsEAAMumford

A Principal And His Staff Have Just One Year to Prove Their School Should Survive

It was the first day of school at the Mumford Academy high school and principal Nir Saar was working the hallways, shaking hands, introducing himself to new students. “There’s the football star!” he said as he greeted a returning 10th-grader. “How you doing, Mr. Varsity?” He high-fived a girl as she walked by. “I missed you, Zakiya!” he exclaimed. “How you been?” “I missed you too,” she answered. It was a scene similar to ones that played out in schools across Detroit and the nation in...

Charter SchoolsDetroit school closuresDetroit schools

Most Detroit Schools Are Off The Chopping Block For Now, But 5 Charter Schools Could Still Close

Dozens of low-performing Detroit schools that faced possible closure next spring may have gotten a stay of execution from Gov. Rick Snyder this week — but some city charter schools are still on the hot seat. Snyder has said low-performing schools should close. But an aide said this week that the governor had accepted the opinion of attorneys with the Miller Canfield law firm: New legislation requiring the state to shutter struggling Detroit schools does not actually apply to Detroit’s primary...

ChalkbeatDetroit Public SchoolsDetroit schools

Most Buildings Repaired, But School Starts With As Many As 200 Teaching Jobs Unfilled In New Detroit Public District

Eight months after hundreds of Detroit teachers made national headlines by calling in sick to draw attention to deplorable conditions like rodents and buckling floors in public schools, city officials today announced that they’ve spent $2.5 million to get most city schools into tip-top shape ahead of the start of classes next week. At a press conference at the elite Bates Academy in northwest Detroit, Mayor Mike Duggan and school officials said that all but eight of the 94 school buildings in...

ChalkbeatDetroit schoolspoverty rate

A Block Away, But A World Apart: Detroit And Grosse Pointe Schools Have Largest Poverty Divide In Nation

School district borders often divide students by income — and in Detroit and many other places across the U.S., that gulf is especially wide. That is the conclusion reached in a report released Tuesday by EdBuild, a nonprofit dedicated to overhauling the way states fund education. The report looked at neighboring school systems and found that the poverty rate can be eight times higher from one district to the next. “You’re talking about, really, haves and have-nots that are living across an...

Books for kidsDetroit Public SchoolsDetroit schools

Detroit Could Get Another First: Little Free Libraries In Every School In A District

Many of us carry our own little library with us. It’s called a Nook or a Kindle or one of the other e-readers. Mine’s a Nook. When I open it up sayings appear. One of them is a quote from Cicero, “A room without a book is like a body without a soul.” Reading books brings whole new worlds to life and sets the stage for future success. Unfortunately, the reading statistics for many kids in Detroit are dismal – 12 percent can’t read and 33 percent don’t read. Only 11 percent are elite readers....