Plan for Detroit schools: Ambitious transformation
http://www.freep.com/article/20100310/NEWS01/303100003/Plan-for-Detroit-schools-Ambitious-transformation
Detroit could be 1st major city to have 90% graduate
BY CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY and PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
Releasing details of an ambitious plan to remake schools in the city of Detroit, a coalition of nonprofit organizations said Wednesday that it plans to push for mayoral control of Detroit Public Schools, set up an independent commission to grade every school in the city, including charters, and establish a goal of graduating 90% of kids from high school by 2020.
The group, calling itself Excellent Schools Detroit, announced last week that it planned to replace failing Detroit schools with 70 new ones and make a $200-million initial investment -- a plan unprecedented in scope anywhere in the country. The group has commitments from the Gates Foundation and other national groups willing to come to Detroit, said Carol Goss, CEO and president of the Skillman Foundation, a key leader in the effort.
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The move comes after Detroit kids posted the worst scores in the nation last fall on a national test measuring student achievement in math.
In an unlikely alliance, DPS emergency financial manager Robert Bobb and Doug Ross, an influential charter school founder, are supporting the efforts of the coalition, which planned to hold a news conference this morning.
"For us as a community, we can't afford to tinker, to be slow or to maintain the status quo," Goss said Wednesday. "We have to change educational outcomes for kids in Detroit."
Goss said achievement hasn't improved, despite a state takeover and elected school boards. The ambitious plan calls for eliminating the Detroit school board, recruiting stronger teachers and administrators, allowing the mayor to name a superintendent or CEO to run DPS and working with the district, charter school founders and others to close the worst-performing schools.
Commission to monitor every school
The group wants to form a Standards and Accountability Commission to monitor every school in the city, establish uniform standards and recommend schools that should close.
As those schools close, they would be replaced by new schools paid for from $200 million in grants provided by four foundations, led by the Skillman Foundation. The education plan, "Taking Ownership: Our Pledge to Educate All of Detroit's Children," is to be released to the public today. It is full of strategies to boost student performance. These are among the key components:
• Turning over control of Detroit Public Schools to the mayor.
• Abolishing the elected school board.
• Generating public pressure on DPS and charter school operators to close failing schools or programs.
• Using community resources to boost parental involvement and educate parents about the best options -- and best schools -- for their kids.
The group hopes to accomplish all of this by 2020 and to have opened 70 new quality schools along the way.
"I think we came to this agreement as a group, that we need to resolve this in Detroit, that the solution to education has to come out of Detroit," said Goss.
Role models
The plan uses as its models successful efforts locally and in cities such as New Orleans and New York. New York City's four-year high school graduation rate rose to an all-time high of 63% in 2009 after it launched a high school reform plan, according to the New York State Education Department, which released the data March 9. It rose from 50.8% in 2002.
For the plan to work, it will take more than money from the influential nonprofits: Skillman, W.K. Kellogg, McGregor Fund, and Kresge -- but also support from the community. Engaging parents, said Sharlonda Buckman, executive executive director of the Detroit Parent Network, is crucial. She said parents must be educated about the power they have to demand more of their schools.
Accountability
What makes this effort different than others is a push to create an independent watchdog organization called the Standards and Accountability Commission, or an advocacy group to educate parents and "embarrass and shame," leaders into doing what's right, Goss said.
In order to make sure parents are "smart shoppers" when it comes to education, the commission will publish report cards on all schools in the city -- those in Detroit Public Schools, charter schools and private schools.
Those report cards could be used by parents in deciding where to send their children to school. The commission will also help develop a single test to be used to measure all Detroit students, and keep an eye on how schools are handling their finances.
Also, under a school reform law passed in December, a state appointee will be placed in charge of the worst-performing schools in the state. And, the coalition wants to work with the state superintendent to create a plan specifically for a Detroit School Reform District for the worst schools in Detroit conduct a national search for a leader.
Excellent schools
The most concrete change the group will push is to support the opening of 70 city schools accessible to Detroit students -- in the city or nearby suburbs -- to replace poor performing ones. About 58% of students graduate from DPS and 78% from charter schools while fewer than 25% of those students enroll in college, according to research.
The new schools will be operated by groups or individuals with a proven track record of school success. The coalition will work with communities to identify their needs and help tailor new schools to those needs.
Even though the plan is not specifically focused on DPS, emergency financial manager Robert Bobb continues to make suggestions to improve DPS. They include transitioning DPS to a school system that begins with prekindergarten and ends with an associate's degree. Students in high school would be able to have dual-enrollment in community colleges. He also said he wants to remove students from grades where they are much older than their peers and educate them separately. And, he said, district demographers have projected a smaller district -- one with 56,000 students, compared with the 84,000 currently enrolled. Bobb said he'll release goals for the district next week.
Recruiting
Good leaders will attract the best teachers, according to the plan. To make sure Detroit schools have this type of leadership, the group's plans to find the best leaders already working within the city as well as mount a national recruiting campaign to find others.
A Detroit Leadership Academy will be opened to help train leaders, and work to give these administrators as much building autonomy as possible.
Politics
One of the group's first steps will be to build public support for a controversial issue -- mayoral control of Detroit Public Schools, which would mean the elimination of the school board. "The school board should be disbanded," according to the report.
Many Detroiters are still angry and disappointed after the state removed the elected board in 1999 for a mayor-appointed board. That system ended in 2005 with few academic success and a $200 million deficit.
The leaders of the Excellent Schools Detroit group know it could be tough to get Detroit voters to agree to mayoral control, but concluded that the governor and the state legislature shouldn't' get involved in this issue, Goss said.
The leaders of coalition started to meet and brainstorm after U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan visited last spring and called Detroit Ground Zero for public education.
Columnist Rochelle Riley contributed to this report.
Labels: Educational_Preparedness, ExcellentSchoolsDetroit, InTheNews, s.Detroit
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