Coalition lays out plan for Detroit students: 90 percent post-secondary enrollment by 2020

Excellent Schools Detroit is a broad and diverse cross section of Detroit’s education, government, community, parent, and philanthropic leaders who have developed a citywide education plan to help ensure that all Detroit children receive the great education they deserve. Participants include Michael J. Brennan, Michael Tenbusch, and Kelly Major Green, United Way for Southeastern Michigan. To learn more, visit www.excellentschoolsdetroit.org.

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By Ryan Beene
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20100310/FREE/100319972

A coalition of educators, nonprofits, government and community organizations are vying to create a city-wide standard for K-12 education in Detroit, regardless of school governance, with the goal that by 2020, Detroit will be the first major U.S. city where 90 percent of its students graduate high school, go to college and lack remediation.

The group, called Excellent Schools Detroit, seeks to advocate close and replace failing schools with 40 new high-performing schools by 2015 and 70 such schools by 2020, while making public performance evaluations of all schools in Detroit based on a single set of criteria to parents and residents.

The plan, in essence, seeks to create a K-12 marketplace, where parents in the city can be empowered to select the best schools from a growing roster of educational options for their children by using standardized, objective evaluations of school performance.

“This report is not about the Detroit Public Schools and it’s not about charters, it’s about educating children and what it’s going to take for us to get to quality education and access to quality education for every child in the city of Detroit,” said Carol Goss, CEO of the Skillman Foundation.

DPS Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb partipated in the planning sessions for the report and “is fully supportive,” said Steve Wasko, DPS executive director of public relations in an e-mail. "The DPS plan is complementary, although in many cases sets even higher standards for our schools."

A key component of the plan would be a Standards and Accountability Commission to establish performance standards and issue an “annual report card” evaluating every school in the city based on those standards. The reports would be made available to the public. Schools that fail to meet performance criteria would recommend for dissolution and replacement.

“A part of that is educating and making sure that parents become good consumers and are choosing schools based on an objective set of criteria,” Goss said.

The group also points to mayoral control of the DPS, through an appointed chief executive, and disbanding the elected Detroit Board of Education is key reforming education in the city.

“We think that a single point of accountability for DPS will allow them to get to accountability faster and certainly for innovation to take root within their organization,” Goss said.

The marketplace factor is what, Doug Ross, CEO of New Urban Learning, says makes this plan to overhaul education in Detroit different from the many plans developed in the past.

“Those that went before essentially were imploring a monopoly, DPS, to do better. This one proposes substituting monopoly with a vigorous marketplace, and that’s a real change,” Ross said. “Because it’s a marketplace, this plan will succeed even if the DPS doesn’t.”

Achievements to be made by the end of this year include:

• Establish a broad-based organization to advocate for the plan’s changes.
• Create a Standards and Accountability Commission to set goals for every school.
• Secure commitments from national foundations and leadership organizations to come to Detroit.
• Initiate a citywide “community schools effort” to provide more non-academic support to students.

To read the rest of the report, click here.

Members of Excellent Schools Detroit include:

• Detroit Mayor Dave Bing
• Robert Bobb, DPS emergency financial manager
• Carol Goss, CEO of the Skillman Foundation
• Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future Inc.
• Shirley Stancato, CEO of New Detroit Inc.
• Michael Brennan, CEO United Way for Southeastern Michigan
• Sterling Speirn, CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
• Rip Rapson, president of the Kresge Foundation
• Sharlonda Buckman, executive director, Detroit Parent
• Network
• Greg Handel, senior director of workforce Development for the Detroit Regional Chamber
• Clark Durant, founding chair, Cornerstone Schools
• Ralph Bland, CEO, New Paradigm for Education and superintendent, Detroit Edison Public School Academy.
• C. David Campbell, president, McGregor Fund
• Doug Ross, CEO, New Urban Learning
• Dan Varner, CEO, Think Detroit PAL