ETMidwest Publications

As any parent knows, teachers matter.  A teacher’s effectiveness has more impact on student learning than any other factor controlled by school systems, including class size, school size, and the quality of after-school programs—or even which school a student is attending. In Michigan, our teachers often do not get the support or professional development they need and deserve. Research shows our brightest teachers are not evenly distributed across different schools and districts.  Low-income and minority students—the very students who could benefit most from our very best teachers—are typically taught by a disproportionate share of our least able teachers. This teacher quality gap contributes mightily to our student achievement gap.

Despite Michigan’s rich history of entrepreneurship and innovation, the state now trails most others both economically and educationally. This inaugural report from The Education Trust–Midwest documents the shockingly low performance of schools statewide. Although Detroit has the weakest scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) among the country’s big cities, other Michigan districts rank even lower on the state-based Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP)—especially when it comes to serving African-American and Latino students.

Some Colleges and Universities Do Better Than Others in Graduating African-American Students

We’ve been digging beneath the averages and looking at data from individual institutions in our College Results Online database. We’ve found that some institutions have horrendous graduation-rate gaps between white and black students—well above the national average. And it turns out that other institutions have no gaps at all. Our analysis strongly suggests that what colleges do with and for the students they admit matters a great deal.