The Detroit News

Monday, November 19, 2007

Imagine an education army, marching on hundreds of students’ homes, to make sure teachers and parents are working together to successfully graduate every teenager in their city.

On a brisk Saturday in Cleveland last month, that is exactly what happened. Cleveland Metropolitan Public Schools educators — from the district superintendent down to cub teachers — knocked on 1,400 doors to talk with the parents of every senior who is failing to meet requirements to graduate. It’s just one of the extraordinary measures the district is taking to radically improve its student achievement.

Extraordinary, that is, to Michiganians. This state has grown so accustomed to education stagnation particularly in urban districts that it acts as if failure is a pre-destined outcome for poor and urban students.

Across the country, cities are proving that is absolutely not the case. Policy — not poverty, race or ethnicity — dictate school success. Michigan must learn that lesson.

Cleveland, Boston and Los Angeles are improving their student achievement levels so much, new research released on Friday showed, they are outpacing progress made statewide in subjects such as middle school math.

Cities such as New York City are going even further, outperforming their peers nationwide, according to the 2007 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) results for urban school districts in reading and math.

By comparison, Michigan’s urban districts have fallen so low in NAEP scores, the state’s African-American students have the tragic distinction of being among the worst performers in math and reading for all black children nationwide.

Detroit, for one, often argues comparisons are unfair because of its unique characteristics. However, Cleveland public schools have a high poverty rate, steeply declining enrollment, smaller budgets and the same middle-class flight.

Cleveland’s bold response could hardly be more different, though. Its teachers’ union and administration have guaranteed — in writing — they will close their district’s achievement gap by 2010. That means their students will have to test at the same level as their peers state-wide.

“We said, ‘We are going to do whatever it takes,’ ” Eric Gordon, the district’s chief academic officer, told The Detroit News.

District leaders and the teacher’s union, an American Federation of Teachers affiliate (the same as Detroit’s), are working closely together to pinpoint instructional weaknesses, coach teachers and open pre-kindergarten programs to catch up young students’ learning by third grade.

They’re also collaborating with state leaders who provide guidance on strategy.

They’re even knocking on every sophomore’s door in the spring and every troubled senior’s door in the fall to make sure parents know how to support their child’s high school graduation success.

Last week, Detroit Public School leaders learned the district has lost 7,462 students since last fall, resulting in a cut of $71 million in state funds. The district has 104,975 students now.

Despite its continued losses, district leaders seem more focused on excuse-making than turning around its academic achievement, which is what is spurring students’ families to leave.

Detroit and other urban districts can and should learn from Cleveland and other cities that are proving state, district and school level policies truly matter — and can turn around failing urban schools.

“When report after report tell us that there are dramatic differences in achievement between schools and districts that serve very similar students, at what point do we as a country stop blaming a child’s skin color or ZIP code and start asking more tough questions about what’s happening in these schools?” Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust, asked last week.

When, indeed.

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