Education Trust–Midwest

Commentary: Detroiters deserve the best from their schools - even if they're charters

Posted August 3, 2012 - 2:33pm by djacobs

It's midsummer but school bells will ring again across the city in a few short weeks.

Families are busy choosing schools for the fall, and there are good things happening in Detroit, which is quickly becoming one of the epicenters of innovative education reform.

Education reform in Detroit has been difficult to sustain for a variety of reasons: a revolving door of school leaders, dysfunctional school boards, poor management of resources, and too many adults more interested in partisanship and winning political arguments than in educating kids. But encouraging signs that reform is taking root abound.

Achievement gaps lurk within some elite Michigan schools, state report shows

Posted August 2, 2012 - 2:32pm by djacobs

ROYAL OAK, MICH. (August 2, 2012) – As Michigan begins to implement its new statewide school accountability system, the Michigan Department of Education today released its annual Report Card on Michigan schools. And schools that have been lauded for years as models of high achievement received some unpleasant – but ultimately necessary – news.

The state lists 358 schools as “Focus Schools” – not among the worst schools in the state, but a troubling signal that many of their students are being left behind. Some Focus schools actually rank high in overall student achievement. But they are on this newly created list because they have the largest performance gaps between the bottom and top 30 percent of students in their school.

Michigan Wins Federal Waiver from NCLB

Posted July 19, 2012 - 9:06am by djacobs

ROYAL OAK, MICH. (July 19, 2012) – The Obama administration has announced Michigan is one of the states that has won a waiver to the federal No Child Left Behind Act. This news means Michigan is now approved to implement a new statewide school accountability system that will have a profound impact on schools across the state.

However, it is still unclear what the full impact will be on our state’s students. Michigan has not released the final agreement approved by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. In the first round of waiver winners -- which were announced earlier this year by Duncan -- many states’ approved final waiver agreements were dramatically different from the proposals the states had submitted originally to the federal government.

MME Test Results Show Achievement Gaps Growing Among Michigan High School Students

Posted June 28, 2012 - 12:23pm by djacobs

ROYAL OAK, MICH. (June 28, 2012) - Michigan has among the worst student achievement gaps in the nation and, as state high school test results released today show, these gaps are growing wider.

Results from the Michigan Merit Exam -- the test taken this spring by Michigan 11th graders -- show that African-American and low-income students are falling even further behind the state’s white students. While white achievement has risen slightly over five years, scores for black, Latino and poor high school students remain grim.

Achievement gaps in 8th-grade science show need for meaningful accountability in Michigan schools

Posted May 10, 2012 - 3:15pm by djacobs

ROYAL OAK, MICH. (May 10, 2012) – As Michigan education leaders prepare to dramatically overhaul our state's school accountability and support system, new test results show our state's African American and low-income students remain woefully behind their white and more affluent peers in science.

"The new national assessment data, released today, is yet another confirmation that we need new approaches to supports and interventions for struggling schools that teach many of our minority and low-income children," said Amber Arellano, executive director of Education Trust-Midwest, Michigan’s only statewide education policy, research and advocacy organization focused on what’s best for students.