Education Trust–Midwest

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.

  • Read more
  • Share this

Michigan NCLB Waiver Proposes Dramatic Changes to State School Accountability, Other Systems

Posted May 3, 2012 - 1:05pm by djacobs

ROYAL OAK, MICH. (May 3, 2012) – As the Michigan Department of Education prepares to submit its revised proposal to the Obama administration to waive the No Child Left Behind Act, The Education Trust-Midwest is releasing an analysis of the proposal to provide non-partisan information to Michigan families, policymakers and other stakeholders about its potential impact on our state’s schools and students.

The U.S. Department of Education has offered Michigan a rare opportunity to devise new educational systems that could better serve our state.  In return, the Obama administration is offering to waive some NCLB provisions.

Michigan Council making progress in building reliable evaluation system for Michigan educators

Posted April 30, 2012 - 2:08pm by djacobs

ROYAL OAK, MICH. (April 27, 2012) –Today the Michigan Council for Educator Effectiveness released its initial report on the development of the first statewide educator evaluation system, a pioneering and overdue effort to improve Michigan public schools and student achievement.   The Council offers a sound, meticulous plan for its work – and rightly calls for legislative funding to pilot the proposed new system and full-time staff.

For years, too many Michigan teachers have received cursory support and monitoring of their classroom performance, if they received any attention and training at all. The Council’s detailed report aims to reverse this trend.  It recommends a pilot of three respected teacher observation models – expected to be fully developed later this year – to ensure that teacher evaluation tools are fair, reliable and consistent, from school to school and across the state. The Council also announced it would issue recommendations on other components of its evaluation model – including how to best measure student growth – later this year. The Education Trust-Midwest is gratified by the urgency the Council is bringing to its mission.

Many Michigan Students Not Meeting Higher MEAP Standards

Posted February 15, 2012 - 6:15pm by djacobs

ROYAL OAK, MICH. (February 15, 2012) – The Michigan Department of Education released the 2011 Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) results today, which revealed that many Michigan students are not achieving at high levels.  While Michigan students showed slight gains in reading and math from 2010, declines in writing, social studies, and science underscore the state’s lagging academic performance. And the results in some districts for African-American, Latino, and low-income students were nothing short of miserable.

In 2011, 67.7 percent of Michigan’s fourth-graders were proficient in reading. A mere 29.4 percent of eighth-graders were proficient in math. These numbers actually represent improvements from 2010. In other subjects, 2011 marked a decline for Michigan students, with lower scores in fifth-grade science and sixth- and ninth-grade social studies.

New Report: White and Higher-Income Student Achievement in Michigan Losing Ground to Other States

Posted February 9, 2012 - 7:20am by djacobs

ROYAL OAK, MICH. (February 9, 2012) – A new report by The Education Trust-Midwest shows Michigan’s higher-income and white students’ achievement has declined significantly compared with other states.  While the poor performance of low-income and minority students has been the subject of intense debate in the past year, national data show Michigan students – from all socioeconomic backgrounds – have lost ground to their peers across the nation since 2003.

In fourth-grade math, for instance, Michigan’s white students have fallen from 13th in the nation in 2003 to 45th in 2011 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). White students now rank behind 34 states and the District of Columbia in fourth-grade reading – an important predictor of future achievement.