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Education Coalition Unveils Detroit Schools Reform Plan

Here is a call for mayoral control of schools, massive school closings, and high standards that will mean 90% of high schoolers will go to college.

From the Skillman Foundation website:



Coalition pledges sweeping change in city's schools
A broad and diverse cross-section of Detroit’s education, government, civic and community, parent, and philanthropic leaders released a citywide education plan Thursday that calls for sweeping changes to improve the city’s schools. Its goals: By 2020 Detroit will be the first major U.S. city where 90% of students graduate from high school, 90% enroll in college or a quality postsecondary training program, and 90% of enrollees are prepared to succeed without needing remediation.






by Rina Miller

ANN ARBOR, MI (Michigan Radio) - A coalition of Detroit-based organizations wants to make a fresh start with the city's failing school district.

The 200 million dollar reform plan includes closing and replacing at least 70 of its 172 schools and taking control of the district away from the elected school board.

Excellent Schools Detroit says it wants to transform everything about the city's schools -- public, charter and private.

The coalition is made up of 15 groups whose mission is to boost the city's high school graduation rate from 58 percent to 90 percent by the year 20-20.

It also aims to improve students' record-low test scores.

But first, it wants to persuade the public to essentially fire the Detroit Public Schools board and give control to the city's mayor, Dave Bing, by putting the issue on the ballot.

Mayoral control has been tried before -- from 1999 to 2006. It wasn't successful - the district was 200 million dollars in debt.

Otis Mathis is the president of the school board.

"That's an experiment that's been tried, and why would they want to use a failing concept, pretty much, and experiment with an old experiment on city of Detroit School kids," Mathis says.

Robert Bobb has been the district's state-appointed emergency financial manager for more than a year.

He says accountability is the key to a successful school district.

"The significant difference is that someone will be watching, so that in Detroit, where public education is the only out for literally thousands of our students, we'll have an organization that will determine whether a Good Housekeeping Seal will be placed on schools," Bobb says.

Excellent Schools in Detroit says only 58 percent of Detroit's public school students graduate from high school in four years. That number rises to 78 percent of public charter school students.

But the group says fewer than one in four of those students enrolls in college.
It also says many of the students who do go to college need remedial help to catch up with other students.

And while charter school performances vary widely from state to state, according to Stanford University, on average -- charter schools are NOT performing as well as their traditional public-school peers.


Carol Goss is president and CEO of Excellent Schools Detroit.

She says the city's students should not be allowed to attend inferior schools any longer.

"We intend to move quickly and boldly, because the city's children are so far behind, Detroit must improve its schools faster than any other city has done. The ground is shifting beneath us, whether we like it or not," Goss says.

The coalition will have to present its case to voters in order to get a referendum to take control away from the school board and give it to the mayor.

The plan also calls for bringing in new leaders and teachers, whether they're from Detroit or not.

Mark O'Keefe is with the Detroit Federation of Teachers.

"So while there's things in this plan that we do back, we don't support it 100%," O'Keefe says. "We don't necessarily view charter schools specifically as the be all, end all. We need better schools and I think that does underlie this plan. The idea that whether it's public, private or charter, students deserve good schools."

Doug Ross is with New Urban Learning Foundation. He says closing underperforming schools and replacing them is the only way to go. But the most important element is parental involvement.

"You have to take the initiative to go find the best school for your child. Big difference, new day," he says.

Before anything can happen, the coalition has to bring the public on board. And that may be its biggest challenge.

Excellent Schools plan a chance for all to step up

By Stephen Henderson, Detroit Free Press

From Motor City to Education Mecca?

It's a mighty ambitious goal -- but also a huge opportunity for a community that has for far too long been content to merely acknowledge that schools in Detroit are a problem that's dragging down our entire region.

So why not go from aimless to aiming high -- to a 10-year plan to create a culture of learning in the city that's about standards and accountability for every student, regardless of where they happen to go to school.

For me, that's the meat of the message behind the ambitious school reform plans announced Wednesday by Excellent Schools Detroit, a consortium of very broad interests whose goal is to ensure that, by 2020, the city is graduating 90% of its kids and enrolling them in colleges or other post-secondary training programs where they can succeed without remedial help.

This group isn't singling out Detroit's public schools for failure. Or dwelling on the many charter schools that were launched as high-quality alternatives to DPS but have simply joined the ranks of the middling or deficient. This group isn't going to waste time faulting parents or teachers or unions or inept leadership.

Instead, Excellent Schools is saying the problem with education in Detroit is culturally systemic, a near-universal absence of high standards and the mechanisms to enforce them. It is rallying everyone around the goal of reversing that at every level, and building a network of schools -- public, charter, whatever -- that do much, much better by the city's kids.

Anyone want to say no to that?

Think, for a minute, about the mind-blowing cultural change this would be.

In a city where school reform has been bogged down in arguments over public versus charter or union versus non-union or management versus workers, Excellent Schools is focusing the conversation exclusively on academic rigor -- and distinction.

How it's identified. How it can be replicated. How standards can be devised around it and used to encourage schools that hit the mark while shutting down those that don't.

Yes, the group supports the idea of singular authority over public schools, concentrated in the mayor's office. And it has given up on the school board. But they're not waiting for the mayor to take control or the board to be dissolved. They're moving ahead with the nuts and bolts of actual school reform.

Their whole idea here is to get historically disparate educational interests to coalesce around a set of goals and principles that, from now on, will dictate policy and action. These are the rules. Everyone agrees to play by them, and be evaluated by their adherence to them. Those who thrive will be rewarded. Those who fail will be shuttered.

Carol Goss, CEO of the Skillman Foundation, deserves a heap of credit for putting this effort together, for pulling DPS emergency financial manager Robert Bobb together with charter and independent school operators like Doug Ross and Clark Durant, parent advocates such as Sharlonda Buckman and members of the non-profit community.

Goss works tirelessly behind the scenes on myriad issues, but she will need to step forward as the face that will drive this effort. In particular, Goss has to seize on the task of creating the standards and accountability commission that will do the goal setting for city schools.

This is also a challenge to Mayor Dave Bing, who until now has punted a bit on the governance question, saying he'd take control of schools if Detroiters want him to. Excellent Schools offers him a chance to jump more actively into the debate about both standards and governance.

The problem in Detroit education, for years, has been all of us.

Thanks to the plan laid out by Excellent Schools, there's a real chance that all of us can get involved in fixing it.



— Rina Miller and Stephen Henderson
WFUM Public Radio and Detroit Free Press
2010-03-11
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/michigan/news.newsmain/article/7/0/1622739/Education/Coalition.Unveils.Detroit.Schools.Reform.Plan

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