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.
The city's education leaders -- both public and charter -- have come together on a revolutionary plan that could rid Detroit of failing schools and assure that 90 percent of school children graduate and go on to college. We hope it will win overwhelming community support.
Today the city's major players in education, from Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb to the Skillman Foundation to charter pioneer Doug Ross, will announce the details of the plan to close failing schools, replace them with high-quality schools and engage parents on the need for rapid and radical education improvement. The plan breaks down the barriers that have existed between traditional public schools and charters, and presents both with an ultimatum: Improve or lose support.
Bobb said as much in an interview with The Detroit News on Wednesday, noting that if the Detroit Public Schools doesn't fully buy into the reforms, the district could lose most of its students.
The plan is designed in part to attract long-sought-after national foundation funding to improve some of the worst schools in America. The coalition's leaders are setting the first citywide standards for both charter and traditional public schools.
Their new bar is a 90 percent graduation rate, with 90 percent of the graduates going on to college or trade school, and 90 percent of them not needing remedial training when they get there. It's ambitious, considering that more than 45 percent of current Detroit students don't graduate now.
It will take a huge commitment from a lot of people to make this plan work, and everything must go right. Here's what must
happen:
• The keystone is turning over responsibility for Detroit's schools to the mayor. Supporters say they will try to get a proposal on the ballot this fall that would dissolve the elected school board. If voters don't pass it, the plan will fail. Skillman Foundation President and CEO Carol Goss says she will not work with the school board. That is telling for a foundation president who has tried to help the school district for more than two decades. The state Legislature and Detroiters themselves must take responsibility for settling the governance question.
• Success also depends on recruiting good teachers to Detroit. Goss and others are recruiting Teach for America to bring its highly trained and motivated young teachers to Detroit, but faces opposition from the Detroit Federation of Teachers. The union must understand that if it doesn't climb aboard the reform train, its jobs will disappear. Bobb said Wednesday that schools where teachers block reforms will be replaced with charters or private academies.
• About $200 million is being planned to fund new charter and new Detroit Public Schools that meet the coalition's high standards. The habitual opponents to school closings must step aside. "We're saying, anyone doing business in Detroit needs to meet a high education standard," Ross said Wednesday. "Any charter operator that is not outperforming the Detroit Public Schools has no justification to remain open." A new group is in the works to pressure Detroit Public Schools, charter authorizers and the state to finally make good on closing chronically failing schools.
• Nothing works unless parents and the community support the movement. Parents must decide they will no longer tolerate schools that deny their children the education they need to succeed.
National foundations such as Soros and the Obama administration are expressing first-time interest in rebuilding Detroit education. This plan should help convince them the city is ready to change, that it is willing to shut down failing schools, and that it is able to sustain a commitment to reform.
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.
Radical new plan should address the city's 'education catastrophe.' Now feds, community, should make sure it happens.
Today Detroit's most powerful education players are outlining a dramatic new plan to transform the city's educational landscape -- and convince long-weary national foundations that the Motor City is, for the first time, worthy of significant investment in education.
Just reading that may have made you say, "Sure, I've heard this before, another plan big on promises -- and short on results."
However, this plan may just be the one that finally produces change.
For the first time ever, leaders from foundations to charter school operators have millions already dedicated to the new plan being released this morning by the Excellent Schools Detroit coalition.
They not only promise to drive the closing of chronically failing schools and open new high-quality schools. They also have thoughtful strategies already underway to build the infrastructure that has been long and desperately needed in Michigan cities to support radical improvements in student achievement.
And here's another thing that is unusual: they have committed funding -- and much more coming -- IF local leaders produce a compelling, united strategy and the beginnings of real change.
National foundations such as Soros and President Barack Obama's administration are expressing first-time interest in rebuilding Detroit education.
Today's plan is part of Reimagining Detroit, a larger effort spearheaded by the Kresge Foundation, the Skillman Foundation, and others to convince Obama and other national players that yes, Detroit can thrive again with proper leadership, a lot of time and new strategies.
New accountability
What makes this plan worthwhile are its ambitious strategies for greater accountability for both public and charter schools; and a focus on developing the infrastructure and talent that the Motor City has long lacked. The standards that the coalition is setting: a 90 percent graduation rate and college attendance rate.
"We are getting a lot of pushback," Skillman Foundation President Carol Goss said Wednesday. "But we have to push ourselves and our community. This is not about DPS; this is not about charters. This focuses on students."
The plan calls for mayoral control of Detroit's schools. The district's elected school board is one of the greatest governance failures in the U.S. Once a backer of the board, now Goss says she simply will not work with the board any longer. The state legislature needs to develop a backbone, quit trying to appease the school board's complaining cronies, and pass legislation to make that change happen.
Goss and others are also rapidly developing a pipeline to develop and support great teachers and principals -- both existing and external candidates -- as they are the drivers of all academic improvement. For example, they're furiously fundraising to develop a Principal Leadership Academy and bring the nonprofit Teach for America to Detroit as soon as this fall.
The plan intends to close failing schools and open new ones, regardless of their governance structure.
About $200 million is being planned to fund new charter and new Detroit Public Schools that meet the coalition's high standards.Backers of the plan are working to create new mechanisms for accountability and parental support.
A new group is in the works to pressure Detroit Public Schools, charter authorizers and the state to finally make good on closing chronically failing schools. The group will also work on parental engagement and responsibility.
Naysayers be gone
Sure, there are plenty of perennial naysayers. The Detroit Federation of Teachers, for one, refused to sign off on the plan. The union hates that it will fund the creation of more charters.
Their opposition seems hopelessly unrealistic. Charters have been gobbling up the public schools' market share for more than a decade. Clearly, protectionism isn't going to save the district nor does it improve its schools.
A smarter strategy: improve both charter schools' performance -- along with the traditional public schools -- and do what's best for children.
Another challenge: prodding the so-far-hesitant new Detroit Mayor Dave Bing to not just say he'll accept responsibility for the Detroit Public Schools if the community wants it, but to make the case himself for such a necessity. Children need it.
He has good political reasons to do so, too. Polling obtained on Wednesday showed 75 percent of Detroiters reported they disapproved of the school board when asked, "Do you approve or disapprove of the overall performance of the Detroit Board of Education?"
The poll was conducted last year by the Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group, a Washington, D.C., polling firm that interviewed 402 what were called "likely Detroit voters" by phone.
The new Excellent Schools Detroit plan should help convince both Detroiters -- and potential national funders -- the city's education sector is committed to real change now.
The community and funders should support this plan -- while also holding these education players accountable for their still yet to-be-seen full implementation and promised results.
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.
Detroit -- A coalition of education leaders and foundations will unveil today a sweeping academic reform agenda that targets failing schools, calls for 70 new programs and launches a national effort to recruit principals.
The $200 million plan also aims to build community support this year to eliminate the Detroit Board of Education and make the mayor accountable for Detroit Public Schools.
Called Excellent Schools Detroit, the initiative will be introduced at the Detroit-based Skillman Foundation, which built the coalition of 15 organizations. Leaders of the groups said since Detroit's schoolchildren are so far behind academically, the city must improve the school offerings for children faster than any other city has done.
One significant aspect is the support the plan has from Detroit Public Schools officials and those running charter schools in the city. Both have been traditional competitors for students and funding, but Wednesday said they're working together for healthy competition and to offer choices to parents.
"What we like about the plan is that it's child-focused, it's not focused on whether or not the child is in a DPS school or a charter school," DPS Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb said. He added that he's open to chartering DPS schools, selling buildings to charter school operators and turning schools over to charter operators. "It has a very strong market-driven component to it."
The initiative's goal is to become by 2020 the first major city in the nation in which 90 percent of its students graduate from high school, 90 percent enroll in post-secondary education and 90 percent succeed in college without remediation.
"This is a historical moment in the city of Detroit," said Carol Goss, president and CEO of the Skillman Foundation.
It also calls for 70 new schools within the decade, from new school buildings to new operators in existing schools, that could be governed by charters, DPS and independent schools. Half the schools would be opened though Michigan Future Schools, a program of the Ann Arbor think tank Michigan Future Inc. to bring 35 college prep schools to the area. The effort, dubbed the High School Accelerator, already has netted $13 million in support to open the first seven schools within three years.
Detroit Edison Public School Academy, a K-8 charter school near Eastern Market, earned the first $850,000 grant and will expand to a high school this fall, said Michigan Future Inc. president Lou Glazer.
DPS also received a $50,000 planning grant to explore opening a science and medicine high school. One hurdle for DPS: to qualify the union must agree to outside hiring, to toss out seniority and to eliminate work rules at the school, Glazer said.
"The accelerator is the most important initiative in the city since the charter and public school of choice laws were passed 15 years ago," Glazer said. "This allows us to use those laws to a scale that will make a huge difference."
Other initiatives include the effort from the Detroit Federation of Teachers, which did not sign off on the plan but was engaged in the talks to develop it, to open its own school, as well as Doug Ross' movement called More Good Schools to bring nationally recognized charter school operators to Detroit. Also cited was the United Way's partnership with DPS that turned Cody and Osborn High Schools into nine new small schools on the same campus.
"This is a plan that hopes DPS succeeds but it can succeed even if DPS doesn't," said Ross, who founded University Preparatory Academy and who will open another charter school under the plan in the fall, called University Yes Academy.
Accountability is focus
Tantamount to the plan will be a new independent standards and accountability commission that will establish academic standards for schools throughout the city. The citywide commission will issue report cards on all schools to give parents clear information on what schools are making their marks.
While the commission won't have the authority to close schools that fail, it will pressure DPS, charters and private school operators to shut them down immediately rather than wait years for reform efforts to take shape.
Bobb is expected to announce 40 school closures next week as part of his long-term plan to reshape the district. "There will always be a place for a DPS ... though it may be a smaller system," Bobb said.
Other backers of the plan include Cornerstone Schools, Detroit Edison Public School Academy, Detroit Parent Network, Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, Kresge Foundation, McGregor Fund, Michigan Future Inc., New Detroit, Think Detroit PAL, United Way for Southeastern Michigan and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
They've been meeting since 2009, spurred by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test schools that showed a sample of Detroit Public School students had posted the worst scores ever in the history of the national test and remarks by Education Secretary Arne Duncan that education in Detroit is a "national disgrace."
"We have to move quickly and more boldly than any other place in the county because we are so far behind," said Tonya Allen, vice president of the Skillman Foundation.
Effort to push recruiting
The coalition also will launch a recruiting effort to encourage the best educators to come here as well as develop a Detroit Leadership Academy to help educators launch schools.
"Parents have said many times they are fed up with the status quo," said Sharlonda Buckman, executive director of the Detroit Parent Network. "They want to see good schools for all kids and that hasn't happened yet. There's a lot of frustration out there on that and there's more mobilization."
Goss said for this plan to succeed the district needs one single point of accountability from the mayor's office.
"The mayor has indicated he would assume a role of sole accountability for the school system, with input from the citizens," said Edward Cardenas, spokesman for Mayor Dave Bing, who signed off on the plan. "He does, however, support a quality education for all students of all schools."
School board president Otis Mathis said data show the district was more successful before and after the last takeover from 1999 to 2005.
"No mayoral control has been successful anywhere," Mathis said. "Why would they want to take a failing concept and put it in Detroit Public Schools?"
Chris White, a DPS parent and co-chair of the Coalition to Restore Hope to DPS, said it's inappropriate to ask the mayor to take control over schools when the city is grappling with its own financial crisis.
"We're asking a surgeon to fix a car," said White. "The mayor can't run the city now and this has been a problem for quite some time."
Reform details This citywide education plan calls for giving Detroit students education options by:
Closing down failing schools immediately.
Opening 70 school programs by 2020, 40 of which will be open within five years.
Promoting strict accountability standards for all city schools and issuing report cards to publicize results.
Pushing for mayoral control of Detroit Public Schools.
Mounting a national recruiting campaign to encourage best educators stay or come here.
Pushing for 90 percent of students to graduate high school, 90 percent to enroll in college or postsecondary training and 90 percent to succeed without remedial education in college by 2020. Source: "Taking Ownership: Our Pledge to Educate All of Detroit's Children" report
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.
MyFoxDetroit.com RONNIE DAHL
DETROIT - Spend $200-million, eliminate the Detroit public school board and put the mayor in charge. That's the proposal under consideration for the future of Detroit schools.
15 different organizations are involved, including DPS, charter schools, as well as private schools. The focus of all of this is accountability. If schools don't perform, they risk being shut down.
As Detroit Public School students tinker with their robots for an upcoming competition, school leaders are working on reconstructing a whole new way to educate Detroit's children.
"We need to create centers of excellence for every child at every school in every neighborhood every day," said DPS Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb.
"Instead of the old, tired call for more reform... to make failing schools better. This plan calls for a replacement strategy," said Doug Ross with University Preparatory Academy.
The coalition is called Excellent Schools Detroit. The program would establish an independent watch dog commission to set city-wide standards for all Detroit schools. That includes not just DPS, but also charter and private schools. School that don't perform would be pressured to shut their doors.
"We can single out and force closure of poor performing schools. The city-wide group will also highlight and help duplicate the best programs and schools to create strong, educational options throughout the city of Detroit," Bobb said.
"For too long, much of the focus in Detroit has been on adults on issues like who has power, who doesn't, who gets to hand out jobs and contracts, who doesn't. Enough of that. It's time for children's interests to take center stage," said Carol Goss, president and CEO of The Skillman Foundation.
The goals are big. By 2020, the coalition wants to achieve a 90-percent high school graduation rate, have 90-percent of the students enroll in college or post-secondary training and open 70 new schools.
However, the plan is not without controversy. A major sticking point could be making Detroit's mayor accountable and doing away with the school board, a proposal that's not sitting well with current board members.
"What have we done so egregious as the Detroit Board of Education to be taken over? I would rather us sit down together and work together with the organizations, work together with the mayor," said Detroit School Board Member Tyrone Winfrey. "The voters in the city of Detroit elected us to this office, and I take this very serious from what I do."
Coalition members say they need to act fast. They hope to implement this program by the end of the year, but you can expect the school board to put up a fight.
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.
ANN ARBOR, MI(Michigan Radio) - A coalition of Detroit-based organizations wants to make a fresh start with the city's failing school district.
The 200 million dollar reform plan includes closing and replacing at least 70 of its 172 schools and taking control of the district away from the elected school board.
Excellent Schools Detroit says it wants to transform everything about the city's schools -- public, charter and private.
The coalition is made up of 15 groups whose mission is to boost the city's high school graduation rate from 58 percent to 90 percent by the year 20-20. It also aims to improve students' record-low test scores.
But first, it wants to persuade the public to essentially fire the Detroit Public Schools board and give control to the city's mayor, Dave Bing, by putting the issue on the ballot.
Mayoral control has been tried before -- from 1999 to 2006. It wasn't successful - the district was 200 million dollars in debt.
Otis Mathis is the president of the school board.
"That's an experiment that's been tried, and why would they want to use a failing concept, pretty much, and experiment with an old experiment on city of Detroit School kids," Mathis says.
Robert Bobb has been the district's state-appointed emergency financial manager for more than a year.
He says accountability is the key to a successful school district.
"The significant difference is that someone will be watching, so that in Detroit, where public education is the only out for literally thousands of our students, we'll have an organization that will determine whether a Good Housekeeping Seal will be placed on schools," Bobb says.
Excellent Schools in Detroit says only 58 percent of Detroit's public school students graduate from high school in four years. That number rises to 78 percent of public charter school students.
But the group says fewer than one in four of those students enrolls in college. It also says many of the students who do go to college need remedial help to catch up with other students.
And while charter school performances vary widely from state to state, according to Stanford University, on average -- charter schools are NOT performing as well as their traditional public-school peers.
Carol Goss is president and CEO of Excellent Schools Detroit.
She says the city's students should not be allowed to attend inferior schools any longer.
"We intend to move quickly and boldly, because the city's children are so far behind, Detroit must improve its schools faster than any other city has done. The ground is shifting beneath us, whether we like it or not," Goss says.
The coalition will have to present its case to voters in order to get a referendum to take control away from the school board and give it to the mayor.
The plan also calls for bringing in new leaders and teachers, whether they're from Detroit or not.
Mark O'Keefe is with the Detroit Federation of Teachers.
"So while there's things in this plan that we do back, we don't support it 100%," O'Keefe says. "We don't necessarily view charter schools specifically as the be all, end all. We need better schools and I think that does underlie this plan. The idea that whether it's public, private or charter, students deserve good schools."
Doug Ross is with New Urban Learning Foundation. He says closing underperforming schools and replacing them is the only way to go. But the most important element is parental involvement.
"You have to take the initiative to go find the best school for your child. Big difference, new day," he says.
Before anything can happen, the coalition has to bring the public on board. And that may be its biggest challenge.
DETROIT (WXYZ) - Detroit's dismal high school graduation rate is the focus of a new community effort.
The Skillman Foundation is leading the charge for educational change in the city through a 200 million dollar initiative called Excellent Schools Detroit.
"The citywide education plan is designed to help all children, whether they happen to attend a traditional public school, public charter school, or independent school," according to Carol Goss, President & CEO of the Skillman Foundation. "The status quo is unacceptable and indefensible," she said.
The sweeping plan establishes a goal of a 90 percent graduation rate for high school students by 2020.
The plans also calls for at least 40 new quality schools by 2015 and 70 by 2020.
The group also intends to build public support to make the mayor accountable for Detroit Public Schools.
Excellent Schools Detroit, a group of philanthropic organizations, politicians, educators and community leaders, is raising $200 million from foundations nationwide to replace failing Detroit charter and public schools.
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.
Excerpts from "Taking Ownership: Our Pledge to Educate All of Detroit's Children"
On what makes an
excellent school:
"Excellent schools have several core attributes, including strong leaders, excellent teachers, high-quality curriculum and instruction, and safe and supportive learning conditions that create a culture of trust, respect and academic achievement among students, teachers and parents."
On the status quo:
"Part of being bold means ending what does not work. Closing schools, even when they are not succeeding, is an emotional process. We understand that. But we also believe that the status quo is indefensible. Without dramatic changes, we won't be doing students any favors. And this citywide plan is about them -- and their futures."
On citywide standards:
"Students in Detroit attend more than 250 schools, which are governed by many different masters with differing expectations and results. The divided authority makes it too easy to fingerpoint and too hard to make the tough decisions that are needed to ensure every child is in a high-quality school. ...
"Each of these school governing bodies has different standards of success. They also have weak or no definitions for failure -- allowing chronically failing programs to stay open for years. This mishmash makes it impossible for parents to get credible, easy-to-understand information about which schools are helping students and which are not. They need that information to make good choices for their children."
On the new schools:
"When we say we want to open 70 new schools, we are not talking about needing to build 70 new buildings. We believe new schools can operate in old buildings. Our emphasis is not on facilities, but on what happens with the school program. For us, a 'new school' is defined as a new school program, which consists of effective teaching and learning, a culture of high expectations, a strong and new leadership team, a new rigorous academic program and a laser-like approach on student academic success."
On measuring
performance:
"Measuring the effectiveness of principals and other school leaders is difficult; years of service and levels of certification don't tell much. What matters most is the performance of their schools; great leaders do what it takes so that their schools perform at high levels. They drive change and innovation and build a culture of quality that helps attract and support excellent teachers. The current student achievement data alone underscore that not nearly enough Detroit public schools currently have effective leadership; or, if schools do have great leaders, they're hamstrung by bureaucratic rules that limit their effectiveness."
On mayoral control:
"DPS will not be able to make and sustain the necessary reforms without a single source of credible leadership and accountability. Specifically, we will help build public support for making the mayor accountable for Detroit Public Schools. He or she would appoint the superintendent/CEO, who would be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the schools, including budgets, staffing, and programs. The school board should be disbanded."
On an independent accountability commission:
"All city schools will be monitored by the citywide Standards and Accountability Commission, which will report on school performance and fiscal management. An outside watchdog organization such as this also will help monitor and limit any potential financial abuses of single-source accountability."
On developing a community schools initiative:
"There's no reason schools should close at 3 p.m. weekdays and on the weekend, and there are multiple reasons to keep them open. Using the school as the neighborhood hub to provide a range of services (such as arts, music, after-school programs, health clinics, mental health services, mentoring and counseling services) will provide students with the nonacademic supports they need to succeed in school. Plus, using these facilities to offer additional services that help parents, such as adult literacy and job training, also will pay off. Colocating city, school, and community services is an especially cost-effective strategy to combat city and school deficits."
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.
It's a mighty ambitious goal -- but also a huge opportunity for a community that has for far too long been content to merely acknowledge that schools in Detroit are a problem that's dragging down our entire region.
So why not go from aimless to aiming high -- to a 10-year plan to create a culture of learning in the city that's about standards and accountability for every student, regardless of where they happen to go to school.
For me, that's the meat of the message behind the ambitious school reform plans announced Wednesday by Excellent Schools Detroit, a consortium of very broad interests whose goal is to ensure that, by 2020, the city is graduating 90% of its kids and enrolling them in colleges or other post-secondary training programs where they can succeed without remedial help.
This group isn't singling out Detroit's public schools for failure. Or dwelling on the many charter schools that were launched as high-quality alternatives to DPS but have simply joined the ranks of the middling or deficient. This group isn't going to waste time faulting parents or teachers or unions or inept leadership.
Instead, Excellent Schools is saying the problem with education in Detroit is culturally systemic, a near-universal absence of high standards and the mechanisms to enforce them. It is rallying everyone around the goal of reversing that at every level, and building a network of schools -- public, charter, whatever -- that do much, much better by the city's kids.
Anyone want to say no to that?
Think, for a minute, about the mind-blowing cultural change this would be.
In a city where school reform has been bogged down in arguments over public versus charter or union versus non-union or management versus workers, Excellent Schools is focusing the conversation exclusively on academic rigor -- and distinction.
How it's identified. How it can be replicated. How standards can be devised around it and used to encourage schools that hit the mark while shutting down those that don't.
Yes, the group supports the idea of singular authority over public schools, concentrated in the mayor's office. And it has given up on the school board. But they're not waiting for the mayor to take control or the board to be dissolved. They're moving ahead with the nuts and bolts of actual school reform.
Their whole idea here is to get historically disparate educational interests to coalesce around a set of goals and principles that, from now on, will dictate policy and action. These are the rules. Everyone agrees to play by them, and be evaluated by their adherence to them. Those who thrive will be rewarded. Those who fail will be shuttered.
Carol Goss, CEO of the Skillman Foundation, deserves a heap of credit for putting this effort together, for pulling DPS emergency financial manager Robert Bobb together with charter and independent school operators like Doug Ross and Clark Durant, parent advocates such as Sharlonda Buckman and members of the non-profit community.
Goss works tirelessly behind the scenes on myriad issues, but she will need to step forward as the face that will drive this effort. In particular, Goss has to seize on the task of creating the standards and accountability commission that will do the goal setting for city schools.
This is also a challenge to Mayor Dave Bing, who until now has punted a bit on the governance question, saying he'd take control of schools if Detroiters want him to. Excellent Schools offers him a chance to jump more actively into the debate about both standards and governance.
The problem in Detroit education, for years, has been all of us.
Thanks to the plan laid out by Excellent Schools, there's a real chance that all of us can get involved in fixing it.
Stephen Henderson is editorial page editor for the Free Press and host of "American Black Journal," which airs at 2 p.m. on Sundays on WTVS-channel 56, in Detroit.
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.
That movement Wednesday was the earth shaking under Detroit.
The reverberations were from the release of a document years in the making and decades in the needing that calls for a major change in the way Detroit children are educated.
Hallelujah.
The report, "Taking Ownership: Our Pledge to Educate All of Detroit's Children," reads like a Declaration of Independence for this city's greatest treasures. It was signed by 24 people with money and influence, from Mayor Dave Bing to Think Detroit PAL CEO Daniel Varner. It included the heads of foundations ranging from Skillman to Kellogg.
What is most important about the 20-page outline of goals and standards and initiatives for Detroit children is what's missing.
There is no business as usual. There is no excuse for poor graduation and achievement rates. There is no school board. I could have cried with joy. Wholesale change needed
The pledge, which focuses on children instead of workers and policy instead of politicians, outlines the possibility of creating -- in its own words -- the fastest-improving school district in the country.
The declaration calls for higher, consistent standards for all schools, whether public charter or public city. It calls for the creation of a Standards and Accountability Commission that not only will publish an annual report card on all schools, but publicly embarrass any school that is not doing its job.
The coalition that created the pledge has already lined up commitments from organizations across the country to come and help Detroit children -- who have gone so long without advocacy that people forgot that the district exists for them.
The declaration points out good schools in Detroit, such as Garvey Academy, where 100% of third-graders meet or exceed state math and reading standards, and University Prep, where 100% of seniors graduated in June 2008.
The pledge cites the academic catastrophe and how only 3% of the city's fourth-graders and 4% of its eighth-graders meet national standards and how only 2% of Detroit's high school students are prepared for college math.
Stop shaking your head. You know it's true.
We can no longer point at pockets of excellence, at bright and shining exceptions to what has become a rule in Detroit. We can celebrate the best, but we need more of the best.
And that can only happen with wholesale change. Stay strong
What is happening here is no less important than Thomas Jefferson taking pen to paper and forging a charge for a new country that once was only an idea.
It is no less important than President Abraham Lincoln signing a document to change the way a country operated.
This declaration can ignite a movement that will be the greatest thing to happen to public education in Detroit since the invention of public education.
And it will take everyone stepping up in a way they haven't before -- including Mayor Dave Bing.
"Will there be pushback? Of course," said movement leader Carol Goss, who is CEO and president of the Skillman Foundation. "There are people who want to maintain the status quo. We are going to have to be strong enough not to let that happen."
She may have a potential ally in one of the biggest critics of any state effort to disband the school board: former board member and current state Rep. Jimmy Womack, D-Detroit.
"If the process to get there is legal and equitable, I can get behind it," he said. "I support giving the citizens of Detroit the right to vote for a viable option. If the citizens of Detroit opt to disband the school board, then I can support that."
Goss pledged to take the declaration to the churches, to the neighborhoods, to the streets. And she's urging parents to join her. The coalition already has held six community meetings where more than 1,000 people have gathered to hear the plan.
"Parents want this," she said. "At some point, it's going to be a street fight, so we need all the warriors."
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.
Imagine a world in which Detroit parents select from a menu of public, private and charter schools that promise to prepare 90% of their children for college, community college or professional certification -- a world in which trusted educators have established high academic standards and publish a yearly report card to let parents know which schools are meeting them.
That's the audacious vision that parents, educators, political and philanthropic leaders who founded Excellent Schools Detroit hope to realize by 2020 -- and to which five private foundations led by the Skillman Foundation have pledged $200 million over the next 10 years to replace up to 70 failing schools by 2020.
If the group has its way, both Detroit Public Schools and its rival charter school operators will soon face overwhelming public pressure to shutter schools whose students fail to master required courses and graduate. As such failing schools fall by the wayside, the group stands ready to replace them with new ones -- 40 within the next five years -- managed by "school leaders and/or school management organizations with a proven track record of success." Several such schools, including one launched jointly by charter school leader Doug Ross and the founders of Houston's highly acclaimed Yes Prep academies, are scheduled to enroll their first Detroit students this September.
The new group's plans include a public campaign to transfer authority over Detroit Public Schools from the current 11-member school board to the mayor's office -- the same governance scheme residents of New York and Washington, D.C. already have adopted to accelerate educational reforms in their cities.
Mayor Dave Bing has expressed a willingness to assume responsibility for DPS if Detroiters express a preference for mayoral control. The campaign undertaken by Excellent Schools Detroit is about as explicit an invitation as Bing is likely to receive, and it's critical that he becomes a more proactive champion of mayoral control at once.
But the real appeal of Excellent Schools Detroit lies in its founders' conviction that Detroit's schoolchildren can improve their lot even if Michigan's largest public school system falters on the road to reform. As Ross bluntly expressed it Wednesday, with Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb looking on: "This plan can succeed even if DPS does not."
Ultimately, the new group's success will turn on its ability to rally the community around loftier academic standards, to attract school operators capable of upholding those standards, and to persuade Detroiters to reject any school -- public, private, or charter -- that fails to meet them.
It's a tall order, but one that places the primary responsibility for transforming Detroit schools squarely where it belongs -- on the choices of Detroit parents and the leadership of the mayor in whom they've placed their trust.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In less than a decade, public schooling as we know it in Detroit could be transformed. In what one think tank calls the biggest educational movement since the state adopted a charter-school law, a group of local foundations has teamed up on a $200-million plan to start 70 new schools for Detroit kids.
Led by the Skillman Foundation, the group expects to announce details of its education plan on Thursday.
One organization, Michigan Future Schools, already was given enough money to start up seven new high schools through 2012, with a goal of opening 35 new high schools in all by 2018. The first school is to open in the fall.
The plan to replace low-performing schools with high-performing ones apparently has the support of Robert Bobb, the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools. The district got a $50,000 planning grant from Michigan Future Schools to study the feasibility of a new science and medical high school.
"If we can do this, it's a game-changer," said Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future Inc., a nonpartisan think tank that started Michigan Future Schools. "Most of the schools Detroit kids go to -- whether it's charter, DPS or a suburban school -- are not quality schools. We want to change the whole system."
The plan, reaction
The group is planning to offer start-up funds to attract organizations and educators capable of opening high-quality public, charter or private schools in Detroit or neighboring suburbs accessible to Detroit students.
What's driving the initiative is low achievement in many of Detroit's public and charter schools. About half of the high schools on the state's draft list of the lowest-performing schools in Michigan are in Detroit Public Schools, in addition to some charter schools.
"This is definitely not about trying to replace the Detroit Public Schools," said Tonya Allen, vice president of program for the Skillman Foundation, a nonprofit that has invested millions in Detroit-area schools. "It's about figuring out how we scale up as many good schools as possible. It's about trying to replicate what we know works."
The group expects to release details of its education plan on Thursday.
It sounds good to parents
But already parents say the idea sounds worthwhile.
David Smith, a short-haul truck driver, said his 11-year-old son, Kyle, has struggled in the three schools he has attended, one a DPS school, the other two charter schools.
Since his sixth-grader did his best work at a DPS school, Smith said that any new school should be part of the existing district.
Still, the idea of new schools is exciting because it would re-energize students, teachers and parents.
"It's like getting a new car. You take care of it. You wash it," he said. "It would attract new students and parents."
DPS is on board with the part of the plan that calls for 35 new high schools. It was granted $50,000 to study opening a new science and medical high school.
"To dream, plan and actualize a quality high school where students thrive academically and graduate prepared for success in college can serve as a model for new school development throughout the city and beyond," said Barbara Byrd-Bennett, chief academic and accountability auditor for DPS.
$13 million committed
Four of the foundations that have joined the partnership -- Skillman, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Kresge Foundation and the McGregor Fund -- have already committed $13 million to Michigan Future Inc., an Ann Arbor-based think tank that plans to start up 35 of the 70 new schools as college preparatory high schools.
That initiative, called Michigan Future Schools, plans to ultimately raise $38 million more to help open the schools by 2018. The $13 million will be given to educators who apply for and get the grants to open the first seven high schools by 2012.
The first grant -- $850,000 -- was given to the Detroit Edison Public School Academy to open a high school this fall.
Michigan Future wants to fund schools that follow a similar model to that of the University Preparatory Academy. To win a Michigan Future grant, applicants must be able to prove their school will graduate at least 85% of students, send at least 85% to college and provide a counselor to help at least 85% of graduates get a college degree.
The organization was involved in starting University High in Ferndale and wanted to do more, an official said. The new high schools will be small -- 500 students at the most -- and located south of 12 Mile Road and east of Telegraph Road so that Detroit students can easily attend them.
"We don't care if they're public, charter or private," said Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future Inc. "As long as they can convince us it's going to be quality."
A look at the future
Doug Ross, founder of the University Preparatory Academy charter school and a new charter school that opened a campus in the Detroit Science Center last fall, said the plan represents the future of city schools.
"Making the old ones better doesn't work," Ross said. "They need to be closed and new schools created by people with track records."
The Skillman Foundation has been leading the Excellent Schools Detroit effort, which convened six community meetings since the fall and surveyed about 600 residents on problems and solutions to the city's educational crisis. The group includes such organizations as United Way for Southeastern Michigan, Think Detroit PAL, New Detroit Inc., Detroit Regional Chamber and the Detroit Parent Network.
Talks about the education plan -- prompted by Skillman -- were under way in December when the sobering test results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress were released, said David Campbell, president of the Detroit-based McGregor Fund, one of the initiative's major supporters.
Detroit's students had tested the lowest of any district in the U.S.
Though they were "devastating news," the scores also added to the urgency, Campbell said.
"We recognize the educational outcomes for Detroit kids need to be improved if we're going to make progress in economic development and in reducing the need for human services," he said.
A focus on the educational foundation for metro Detroit children, in addition to the collaboration from so many different sources, will mean sweeping and lasting change under the new plan, said W.K. Kellogg Foundation spokeswoman Joanne Krell.
"This is a measured, intelligent approach to transforming education in Detroit. I think there's a lot of good reason to look forward," Krell said.
Waiting on specifics
Both Campbell and Krell declined to discuss money or specifics of the plan.
Otis Mathis, president of the DPS board, said he had not heard about the plan until contacted by the Free Press late Friday, but said he was not surprised.
The attention to DPS's woes has drawn plenty of plans and ideas. But as in too many of those plans, the DPS board once again had been left out of those discussions, he said.
More than 250 community leaders, government officials, educators, parents and students discussed turning around the Detroit area's lowest-achieving schools with Director of Community Outreach Alberto Retana at two local summits Feb. 24, hosted by United Way of Southeastern Michigan's Greater Detroit Education Venture Fund.
The visits were part of Retana's community engagement tour throughout the U.S. to strengthen grassroots support for transforming America's lowest-performing schools, and to inform communities about Title I School Improvement grant funding available for those efforts.
This spring, ED will award states a total of $3.5 billion in Title I School Improvement grants to turn around their lowest-performing schools. The funds will be awarded by formula to states, which will then make competitive grants to local education agencies (LEAs). Michigan is eligible to receive $135.9 million to turn around its lowest-performing schools.
Retana said that strong community support is required to ensure success of school transformation efforts.
"It's not enough to have funding, it's not enough to have charismatic leaders, and this is not just about opening another charter school," Retana said to the morning session's crowd at Detroit's Cody Academies. "It's also about community mobilization. We need a movement of people to stand up and say, 'we will no longer accept low expectations for our children.'"
Retana also brought a similar message to Melvindale High School in suburban Detroit. Both Cody Academies and Melvindale High School are undergoing turnaround efforts supported by funding through the Greater Detroit Education Venture Fund. Both sessions also included panel discussions with educators and students that generated dialogue about what is and isn't working with their respective transformations.
From Annemarie Harris, Director of Early Childhood Initiatives
My son, Tommy, is 5 and in kindergarten at Monteith School in the Grosse Pointe School District. This week, I learned that the School Board approved all day kindergarten for all students, beginning in 2010-2011. That's a good thing - studies show that all day kindergarten improves academic outcomes for students beyond kindergarten. Grosse Pointe Schools isn't perfect, but it does provide a quality learning experience for children. Tommy is in a class with 22 other children. His teacher, Mrs. DiVirgil has an aide, Mrs. Farnsworth, who supports the classroom throughout most of the day. The children follow high curriculum standards (Tommy can count to 100 by 2!), time for play, specials (library, art, gym, music) and access to high quality learning materials.
An Eagle Eye Interview With Mike Brennan of United Way for Southeast Michigan
All HR professionals know why they need to care about social issues in their communities. There is a widely accepted business case for good corporate citizenship, particularly when the social issues are extreme, as they are today in Southeastern Michigan. Persistent and high levels of unemployment in a region, and the fallout from that unemployment-widespread poverty, failed school systems, failed local governance-eventually bounce back on local businesses, especially in the long term. Clearly, social awareness and good corporate citizenship are sound long-term business strategies.
Yet we all sense, down deep, that the business case isn't really enough; there needs to be more to it than that. Thankfully, there is. In the end, the best business people care about social issues not just because it is good business but also because they are human. When they are surrounded by human suffering and they have the wherewithal to do something about it, the simple human impulse to act, or at least support those who act, kicks in.
We are seeing that impulse deployed on a massive scale today in Haiti. But the earthquake in Haiti was a traumatic event that made the travails of that destitute country unimaginably worse all at once. Here in Southeastern Michigan, the troubles have had more of a creeping character, going from sad to grim to desperate incrementally, over the course of a full generation or longer. No earthquake here; instead a corrosive, metastatic disease that over time has claimed the lives, both literally and figuratively, of people and institutions as well.
That is why we have organizations like United Way for Southeastern Michigan. About 3½ years ago the Eagle Eye interviewed Mike Brennan, United Way's CEO. At that point in time, United Way had just made a strategic decision to become more than simply a collector and dispenser of funds, and head cheerleader, to various human service agencies in the area. The social problems were becoming too acute. United Way decided it needed to identify the most acute problems in the area and put its hands more directly on them by more aggressively "aligning resources with needs," as Mike put it. They decided it was time to lead from the front, rather than merely supply financial wherewithal and encouragement from behind.
Last month the Eagle Eye sat down again with Mike and invited him to update us on how things have gone since then, when, as he told us, United Way "bet the farm" on adopting a new leadership role and making it work.
Brennan: Four years ago we bet the farm on the direction of the organization. We took two 100-year-old organizations, dissolved them, had 150 Board members resign, formed a new one and seated a new 30-member Board in a mission that said we are going to define success not by how much money we raise but by how much progress we make on key social issues.
We had always been in a kind of a call-and-response mode, where you simply aggregate financial resources and distribute them to a set group of non-profits. But what was happening was, first, the value proposition of that was not enough in terms of attracting financial resources, and second, we weren't seeing measurable progress on key social issues in our community. We were finding that simply taking financial resources and forwarding them to non-profit organizations that did good work is not a very efficient way to effect social change. You have to take a more holistic approach.
I have long viewed United Way not as a charity and not as a recipient organization, which is how it has been most defined. I view United Way as a leadership organization. And when we put money into something, it should be something that gives us the ability to get things done.
Now, are we interested in growing the private contributions that are given to the community through the United Way? Absolutely. We work every day on that. It is a piece of the puzzle. But what we are betting the farm on is more actively aligning those resources with what we know to be the community's most urgent social needs, and measuring our success by whether or not we see changes in those conditions.
Where has this new approach taken you?
Brennan: Once we decided on that strategy, we went about the task of finding out what was most important in the community. We did a large survey of residents in the tri-country area, basically asking, of all the things that we could put energy into, what would be most important to you? Where do you think we could make the greatest progress? And out of that, along with looking at best practices across the country and interviewing other stakeholders, we formed our Agenda for Change. That agenda centered around three issues: education, financial stability (i.e., building financial assets in families), and third, basically a safety net.
On the education front, we really landed on two areas. One is early childhood development, meaning having kids ready for school by age five. Do you know that 80% of your mind was developed by age three? There is no more powerful place where you can put your dollars than early childhood development. For every dollar you put there, you see $17.00 on the other end of the line in reduced incarceration rates, better health metrics, etc. But we found that early childhood development is the least organized area of the community and of the state. We felt we could go about that in a better way, and today we have five Early Learning Centers established around the area, designed to give caregivers in the home access to early childhood training materials, early childhood tools, ageappropriate reading materials, and so on. The idea is to better prepare childcare-givers to change the quality of childcare that is taking place in the home.
The other area is high school graduation rates. Do you know that in just the tri-county area, there are 30 high schools that have dropout rates of 40% or more? Now, map that in your mind... Where did you map it? The fact is that one-third of those schools-ten of them-are outside the city of Detroit. There is a 20/10 split going on there. We've got a really important initiative that we've put in place to help address that issue.
Regarding family financial stability, as you have families going from the old economy to the new economy with the huge workforce displacement that we have had, there are fundamental capabilities that are simply missing in households and individuals and in communities. We can bring those to bear for families if we organize and work better together. For us, financial stability is families going from negative net worth to positive net worth. Our work in this area is about finding the best ways to help individuals and families navigate their financial framework in a better, more meaningful way and a more productive way.
Let me just give you an example-in the state of Michigan we have $900,000,000 that gets left on the table every year. This is public benefit money that is available to individuals who qualify for it but fail, for various reasons, to access it.
And then there is the safety net. The last time we talked, we had relatively recently put in the 211 help line. I think the most important development with the 211 of late is that it has documented a very clear shift in the need priorities of our callers. In an earlier study we had identified that there were about 600,000 people in the tri-county area who are "food insecure," meaning they know where one meal is coming from, but they don't know where the second or third meals are going to come from. We projected that number to grow to 900,000 by the time we get to 2011 and 2012. For 3½ years running, the number one reason people were calling into the 211 was for utility assistance. But then, two quarters ago, 211 data confirmed for us that a shift had happened. The number one reason people are now calling in is for food.
If someone asked me eight months ago to describe the local food system, the carrying system of food that comes into a community, I-and I would consider myself fairly knowledgeable on the topic-I would describe probably first and foremost the Gleaners, Forgotten Harvest, pantry systems, Focus Hope, Salvation Army, etc. One of our critical learnings was that of all the food that gets distributed to those who need it in the region, the food distribution system that I just described represents about 7% of the total; 50% of it comes through public benefit, federal benefit mostly, things like Food Stamps, women and their children (WIC), free and reduced lunch, breakfast programs. Another 20% is just the informal network of friends and family and neighbors that just help one another. So 7%, 50%, 20%, and then you had this gap. We estimate about a 120,000,000 pound gap of food on an annual basis.
You can improve the 7% part. We are working with great partners like Gleaners and Forgotten Harvest and others. We learned from the 211 data that instead of bricks and mortar, we needed to run a more mobile strategy. So we partnered with Ford Motor Company, which has given us five transit vehicles that can run 24 hours a day and move an extra 2,000,000 pounds throughout the region. But if you are going to make a really significant impact, you have to improve this uptake of the state and federal benefit, this 50%. And so as I said, you have $900,000,000 of untapped resources every year in that public benefit; the same thing was true on food access. We had pretty good penetration of individuals using things like food stamps but, for example, breakfast programs that are available to children at schools, in some cases only have an 8-10% take up rate. So you can impact a lot of families, a lot of kids, by just improving that.
When the new economy hits its stride, Michigan employers will need to draw their workers from Michigan's own citizenry. You can only import so much talent, and you cannot survive in the long run without a well-supplied pipeline of top-notch local talent. It means that Michigan's educational system has to prepare Michigan's students for employment in the new economy. It is not news that, on the whole, the state's K-12 schools are not meeting that challenge right now. United Way has targeted a particularly devastating aspect of the problem, drop-out rates, and begun a concentrated, cooperative initiative to do something about those rates, starting with three of the most troubled high schools in Southeast Michigan.
Brennan: Over two years ago we invited the 30 high schools that had that low performance to a Turnaround Summit. These were basically 30 drop-out factories. We brought in the very best turnaround agents in the country. These are intermediaries that specialize in working with large high schools to improve their performance from graduation rates of 20%, 30%, 40% to 60%, 70% and 80% and above. The Gates Foundation has put a lot of money into a whole range of intermediaries. We invited in the highest performing group, a group called the Institute for Student Achievement (ISA). ISA is a consulting group that works specifically with large high schools, typically in urban areas where there is high density of poverty, to change the performance rate.
These are people with a proven track record and a proven methodology. We introduced them to these 30 non-performing high schools. We also went out and raised $5,000,000 and created a Detroit Venture Fund, which is private money raised to be invested in the intermediaries to work with the high schools.
We invited the 30 schools to apply for a grant out of the Venture Fund that could be used to purchase the services of the intermediary. In essence, we would take Venture Fund money and give it to the intermediary, not to the school, to work and partner with the school. About a dozen schools applied and out of that, five got selected and three are on the clock right now. So, we have Cody and Osborn in the city of Detroit and Melvindale High in Melvindale. These are schools that spent a year getting ready-you can't just flick a switch at a school like Cody, with 2,000 kids, and all of a sudden be in a ready state.
In each of these schools we moved from one school to four academies, each one targeted to specific interest areas like technology, health, etc., and instead of one principal over 2,000 kids, you now have four principals, each over a class of 100. So, the incoming (current) class is just 9th grade, next year it will be 9th and 10th grade, the third year it would be 9th, 10th and 11th grade, the fourth year it would be 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th. At that point Cody as a single entity of 2,000 students will be gone and there will be four academies standing there, all inside the physical plant that was Cody High School.
Currently there is still a principal over the upper school, but over time that is just going to phase out.
Each academy principal had the right to choose the teachers for his or her school, working with the union.
That is part of the deal. They had to have the buy-in from the union, to allow the principals to select their teachers, in order to sign on with the intermediaries. Yes, there was a lot of turnover among teachers, but that was part of the arrangement. Today, all the teachers at Cody and Osborn are all members of DFT (Detroit Federation of Teachers, the teachers' union in the district).
One really important aspect of this is that Robert Bobb is a close partner in this project. When Mr. Bobb spoke to United Way Board 60 days ago, he said that what he saw going on at Cody and Osborn is what he wants going on in every high school in the city of Detroit. So, he is very supportive of the work. From the get-go we have had the administration, we have had the principals, we have had the union involved with it, and we have had parent networks involved, because that is the only way you get to a changed result.
That is the proof of concept here-that Robert Bobb wants to accelerate this concept into the other Detroit schools.
Now, these are not charter schools, this is not a charter strategy, it is not just a turnaround strategy of the DPS, it is the collective. It is not just having a Robert Bobb, who is probably a once-in-a-generation leader to arrive in that role, but you have to also have community organizations like United Way, and champions like Skillman Foundation (which has been on our Board for 20 years) and the Detroit Parent Network. Changing the education of our children requires a full community response. And that is complicated work. But it does us no good for us to say "Boy, this is really complicated, it is really hard." So what. That is our job.
We wanted to know if the national United Way organization has adopted the same approach that the Southeast Michigan organization has.
Brennan: Yes, we have adopted this strategy at the national level as well. Remember that I spent several years with the national-that is where I came from. We have been very intentional nationally on a transformation effort, aligning resources against set targets. You could go to a lot of United Ways and you would see the same kind of realignment taking place. I think, though, most United Ways would agree that our work here in Southeast Michigan has been bolder, and there is a rigor in how deep we are going. It is not just like a rewrap of the old organization; I mean we dissolved the old organization, so it has been a robust change here.
In all of this, what has happened to the annual campaign that we are all so familiar with?
Brennan: Of course we continue to run our annual campaign. And we are eager to widen it and expand it. We have about 100 non-profits that are funded partners for us. But the difference today is that those partners are aligned against the change result. So, one of the shifts that happened four years ago is that instead of asking what the agencies need, the question that now comes down into the center of the table for our Board is "What does the community need?... Let's get clear about that, and let's get clear about the strategies that we think can accomplish it, and then let's find the very best partners that can help us accomplish it." So the partners, the 100 non-profits that we work with today, help us get to this change condition. In the old days we used to refer to the process as "suck and blow'" where you "suck" in the resources as through a straw and then aim the straw at someone else and "blow" those resources to them. No more of that; today the agencies we work with are aligned in terms of impact on the issues that are most critical to the area.
You know, when someone is entrusting us with a discretionary dollar, my job is to make sure that it is the most impactful gift they can ever give. If we can't say that, then they should give the dollar somewhere else. But I say it now, and you have heard me say it publicly, I really don't think there is a more powerful gift someone can give right now than to the United Way, and if you do know of where there is, then I would say give the money there and the only thing I ask is tell me where that is, because then I want to go learn from that. But if I were to walk you through a 211 center, if I were to walk you through the work that is being done to put more food on the streets for individuals, if I were to walk you through a Center for Working Families, or a turnaround at a high school, or one of our Early Learning Centers, you would be able to see that your investment helped drive that. I don't believe there is another place where you could give your discretionary dollar that could come close to that.
