Blog Post

AEIdeas

The table above shows the composite “college readiness rates” for Detroit and Michigan high schools by ethnic group based on the results of ACT tests that were taken by high school juniors during the 2013-2014 school year (data available here from the Michigan Department of Education). In the city of Detroit, 2,623 high school juniors took the four-subject ACT test (reading, science, math and English) last year, and based on their ACT scores in the four subjects, only 93 of those students, or 3.5% of the total, met or exceeded the minimum level of academic achievement to be considered “college ready” in all four subject areas. Of the 2,276 black Detroit high school students who took the ACT test last year, only 66 (and 2.9%) met the benchmark to be considered college ready in all four subjects.

In comparison to Detroit, the overall composite college readiness rate in Michigan was 20% last year – out of 105,777 high school juniors statewide who took the ACT test, 21,146 met or exceeded the benchmark scores to be considered “college ready” for all four subjects. The statewide college readiness rates for both Asians (43.9%) and whites (23.5%) were much higher than the readiness rates for those groups in the city of Detroit (17.5% for Asians and 5.8% for whites). Although Michigan’s statewide college readiness rates don’t seem that impressive, they are certainly significantly better than the results in Detroit, which is “the nation’s lowest-performing urban school area,” according to Michigan governor Rick Snyder.

And it’s not just the academics that are sub-standard and failing in the Detroit Public School (DPS) system — its finances are in complete disarray as well. Again according to Gov. Snyder, “Detroit Public Schools has accrued $483 million in accumulated operating debt that is growing each day, and combined capital and bond debt of $1.54 billion.” Further, DPS is burdened with an estimated $1.2 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, and the district was $53 million behind in pension payments last spring according to the Detroit News last March, “costing the cash-strapped district $7,600 a day in interest penalties — the equivalent of one child’s annual state funding grant. Based on minimal payments, the Detroit school district would be $81 million behind in mandatory pension contributions by July 1. The cost is exacerbated by $78,000 in fees for each month DPS remains delinquent — depriving the city schools of the equivalent of one teacher’s annual salary and benefits.”

So it seems pretty clear that the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) is the poster child for an urban school district that is academically and financially bankrupt, and one that is clearly failing the students, parents, and taxpayers of the city and state. So what kind of ratings do you think the DPS teachers and DPS administrators deserve? Or let me re-state the question: What kind of ratings do you think the DPS teachers and administrators actually received last year? If your answer was “mostly highly effective” you can go to the head of the class.

According to a report today from Tom Gantert at Michigan’s Mackinac Center:

There was just one bad apple among the 171 members of the Detroit public school district’s leadership corps, if the district’s most recent evaluations of its principals, superintendents and administrators are accurate. Despite being called “the nation’s lowest-performing urban school area” by Gov. Rick Snyder earlier this year, just one of its 171 managers was judged to be “ineffective.” The evaluations are for the 2013-14 school year, the most recent year available. There were 96 officials given the highest rating of “highly effective [56% of the total];” 68 were rated “effective” [40%], while six were deemed to be “minimally effective.” Plus the single “ineffective” administrator. The Michigan Department of Education defines “administrators” as superintendents, assistant superintendents, administrators, principals and assistant principals.

And according to their most recent performance evaluations, the DPS teachers are rated as being even more effective than the district’s administrators. Mackinac Center’s Tom Gantert reported back in May that eight of every ten DPS teachers were rated as being “highly effective” teachers — more than twice the 38% state average for teachers in Michigan who were given that rating.



According to data filed with the Michigan Department of Education, 2,542 DPS teachers (79%) were rated “highly effective,” 541 teachers (17%) were rated “effective,” 73 teachers (2%) were rated “minimally effective,” and 52 teachers (2%) were rated “ineffective.” The percentage of teachers rated highly effective by DPS was twice the state average of 38 percent in 2013-14, the latest year statewide data is available.

MP: The Detroit Public School system apparently exists in a bizarre, upside-down and reverse Lake Wobegon world — academically, it’s the nation’s worst-performing urban school district, where only 6% of its high school students are proficient in math, only 4% are proficient in science, and only one-third are proficient in reading. Financially, DPS has to be the worst-performing urban school district in American history. And yet, more than half (56%) of the current DPS administrators are rated “highly effective” and a large majority (79%) of the district’s teachers are rated “highly effective.” In other words, the students in Detroit public schools are way, way below average, but all of the teachers and administrators are way, way above average. How can that be? It could only happen in a government-run public school monopoly, staffed with unionized teachers and administrators – in other words, an unrealistic fantasy world like Lake Wobegon — one that is totally divorced from reality, competition, accountability and common sense.