By early June, more than 50,000 Detroit students will have new tablet-style laptop computers with free internet access to facilitate online learning.

A $23 million fundraising effort begun three weeks ago will pay for the devices and connections, which became sorely needed as the coronavirus crisis forced schools to close their doors for the year.

DTE Energy, Quicken Loans, General Motors and the Skillman and Kellogg foundations have joined with Detroit Public Schools Community District to provide students the kind of online learning experience that many wealthier districts are already offering. Many of those districts have provided devices and connections to low income families as well, but the Detroit project is unprecedented in size and it targets a city where about 47% of children live in poverty, according to U.S. Census data.

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"I can't say how proud I am of the business community for stepping up to fill this gap," said Detroit schools superintendent Nikolai Vitti. "I've worked in a lot of different cities throughout the country in different positions and spaces and I have never seen this kind of sense of urgency and rapid response, and this amount of investment in this short of time before."

Vitti said the project, dubbed the Connected Futures Initiative, serves an acute need. Detroit students who can access the internet at home often do so through cellphones. But those aren't conducive to online learning, which requires kids to read lengthy pieces, download and submit work online and attend teleconferences with teachers and other students.

The new devices will allow them to do all those things.

"There's no question that this certainly changes the trajectory of our school-aged children in a city in terms of their ability to learn and advance," said DTE's Chief Executive Officer Jerry Norcia, who assembled the team to raise the money.

48 hours

Norcia said the idea came from a conversation with the Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit NAACP. The two were chatting on a Friday evening about the company's efforts to assist low-income residents with their utility bills during the crisis.

"He said, 'Jerry, when are you corporate leaders in Detroit going to fill your big shoes and address a fundamental issue for children in Detroit?' " Norcia said.

Anthony went on to explain that Detroit students lacked internet access and were losing ground academically because of the schools being closed. Most suburban students were moving to online instruction, but that wasn't possible for most Detroiters, Anthony said.

Norcia agreed the issue needed to be addressed. His first call was to Tonya Allen, president of the Skillman Foundation, who quickly embraced the idea. The pair then enlisted Bill Emerson, vice chairman of Quicken Loans and Rock Holdings and Vitti, who was eager to see the project take off.

"This happened in like 48 hours," Norcia said. "We were having daily calls, you know, on the evenings through the weekends. We gave our technical teams this impossible challenge which is, in 45 days, we want 50,000 devices in the hands of children and we want this broadband issue resolved."

The four then reached out to others in the business and philanthropic community and commitments for money began to pile up.

"As a community advocate and a person of faith, I do believe in miracles," Anthony said Thursday. "The ability to raise $23 million in such a short time to have an impact for such a long time, is indeed miraculous coming out of this mayhem. This is one sure way of defeating COVID-19. The disease may have taken our bodies, but it can never take the spirit out of the city of Detroit."

Mayor Mike Duggan learned of the idea from Anthony and immediately embraced it, though he worried about trying to raise money in the middle of a recession.

"The thing I said to Jerry Norcia that day was, if you could pull this off, you are doing more than helping the children," Duggan said. "These children have parents and older siblings who are looking for jobs and need access to training and openings."

Duggan said currently many of those job seekers must go to the Detroit work centers to apply.

"But if these households had laptops, they could access those jobs and the job training right on-site," Duggan said. "We can help break the cycle of intergenerational poverty, not just by improving the education of the children, but creating opportunities for their parents."

Allen said the speed and the focus of the donors reminded her of the so-called Grand Bargain, the 2014 bailout that raised more than $800 million to save the Detroit Institute of Arts collection and the city's pensions when the city went through bankruptcy.

"There is an old truism that there is opportunity in crisis," she said "We have experienced great crises in the city and we deserve an amazing opportunity like this for our kids. I just think that the people who made commitments to this knew and understood that this was a game changer."

Windows machines

The devices, iView computers, are 10.1-inch touchscreen tablets with detachable keyboards and built-in modems that connect to LTE cellular service. They run Windows 10 software with a suite of programs including Microsoft Teams, which allows teleconferencing and online collaboration.

"This is a huge deal," said Cyrus Peñarroyo, an architecture professor at the University of Michigan, who has mapped what's known as digital redlining, a process that leaves many poor neighborhoods without broadband internet access. "It certainly does help, especially because a lot of these students just don't have the means to access this technology on their own."

Peñarroyo cautioned that the plan is not a complete cure for the digital divide and said that maintaining a quality internet connection is imperative for online learning.

The wireless service will be provided free for six months then the district will work to transition families onto monthly plans that should cost $12-$15 a month. For families that can't afford that, the district will pick up the tab, Vitti said.

But there are caveats. The student must remain enrolled in the district and must be using the device for online learning. The family also must demonstrate financial need.

Vitti said some Detroit students live in homeless shelters and foster care homes. Those kids are the most likely candidates for district-provided internet service once the initial six months runs out.

Vitti said only students who were enrolled in the district before March 12 are eligible to receive a device. The district is still working out distribution plans, but students will likely pick them up at the school they attend, Vitti said.

The project will permanently change the school district, Vitti said. Teachers are already using some of this technology and students will soon follow.

"We will see fewer textbooks, we will see fewer workbooks, lighter backpacks," Vitti said. "I envision students having a laptop or tablet that they use throughout the day. Instead of writing in a notebook. I see them using that laptop throughout the day. I see them bringing it home. I see more assignments and homework linked to online learning."

The project budget includes money for software upgrades and device maintenance.

Backers of the project say that equipping students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District is the first step. Once that is up and running, the project plan is to reach out to charter schools and other schools in the city, where students may experience the same lack of access.

"Our thought was, 'let's get it right with DPSCD and make that happen,' " Norcia said. "Then, in parallel, we've also started to do fundraising for the balance of the schoolchildren in Detroit."

Norcia said the project will help not only Detroit students, but parents as well.

They'll also give parents who currently may lack access the chance to apply for jobs or unemployment benefits, schedule virtual doctor visits and take parent engagement classes through the school district.

Staff writer Nancy Kaffer contributed to this report.

Contact John Wisely: 313-222-6825 or jwisely@freepress.com. On Twitter @jwisely