With Detroit student proficiency in single digits, the district continues its tradition as the worst performer among more than 20 of the largest school districts in the nation.
While recent results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show students in Michigan continue to lag behind their peers in other states five years after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s pandemic edicts shuttered schools to in-person instruction for nearly a year, the data in Detroit is on a whole different level of disappointment.
“To address the elephant in the room, we still rank last among (urban) districts in each tested area,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in a statement cited by The Detroit News. “However, we narrowed the gap between the District and the State in each tested area and with each district performing slightly above us in three of the four tested areas.”
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The Detroit Public Schools Community District came in dead last among 26 large urban school districts that participated in NEAP’s Trial Urban District Assessment, a distinction it has maintained since volunteering to participate in 2009, Chalkbeat Detroit reports.
The results for 2024 show a mere 7% of Detroit fourth-graders are proficient in math, while it was just 4% for eighth-graders. In reading, only 5% of fourth graders tested proficient, and 6% of eighth-graders.
In Michigan more broadly, 37% of fourth graders were proficient in math, and 25% in reading. About 24% of Michigan eight-graders tested proficient in reading and math.
For fourth-grade reading, the 2024 results for Detroit students are essentially the same as 2009, and two percentage points lower than when Whitmer took office in 2019, according to a NEAP district profile.
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It’s a similar situation with eight-grade math, and eighth-grade reading, while fourth-grade math has improved slightly.
Vitti cited both the fourth-grade math improvement, and relative flat eight-grade reading scores compared to declines nationally, as evidence district officials are doing something right.
“Our 8th grade reading and 4th grade math 2024 NAEP results reflect the improvement that we are seeing on all state assessment results over the last two years since the pandemic,” Vitti said in a statement. “We are now in the conversation as an improving large urban school district, but we still have plenty of work to do. Clearly, the declines we saw in 4th grade reading were due to online pandemic literacy instruction.”
Detroit schools received about $1.3 billion in COVID relief funding to combat learning loss, which was spent largely on capital improvements, employees, school upgrades, and to back fill lost student revenues, The Center Square reports.
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While Michigan Democrats have been largely silent on the educational failures in Detroit and statewide, Republicans are highlighting policies adopted by a Democratic trifecta in recent years that are complicating efforts to improve.
“I’m deeply disappointed by the latest Nation’s Report Card, which shows 75% of Michigan’s fourth graders and 76% of eighth graders are not reading at grade level,” Sen. Lana Theis, R-Brighton, recently posted to X. “This is a crisis, and yet instead of raising the bar, Democrats have repealed key literacy policies, weakened teacher standards, and eliminated the A-F school grading scale – all while celebrating these decisions.”
“To make matters worse, @GovWhitmer vetoed $155 million in reading scholarships that could have provided families with much-needed support. And now, instead of addressing the crisis, she’s traveling the country promoting a children’s book,” the post read.
Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, R-Lawton, who is running to replace Whitmer in 2026, told One America News “I think it’s time we have a governor that cares more about whether or not students are reading at grade level and being able to excel than trying to sell books in Martha’s Island or San Francisco,” he said, referring to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s book tours to support her True Gretch and the recent release of its Young Adult edition.
Nesbitt described the test results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress released last week as “unbelievable.”
Michigan schools Superintendent Michael Rice acknowledged last week a lack of in-person instruction time is a major reason why fourth grade reading scores on the NEAP dropped from 21st nationally in 2022 to 32nd in 2024. Michigan eighth-graders slid from 10th to 18th.
Rice told The Detroit News changes in state law allowed schools to close for an increasing number of reasons, while allowing educator professional development days without students to count as student instructional time. Those changes, he said, means some students now receive less than 150 days of instruction per school year.
“The Legislature has chipped away at in-person classroom time with teachers, despite the lessons learned during the pandemic about reduced student learning through virtual instruction,” Rice said in a statement.
In Detroit, Vitti said “students, parents, teachers, and principals are ready to embrace change for improvement” and vowed the district is focused on “using the same strategies that led to some of the highest performance among large urban school districts in Duval, Miami-Dade, and Florida in general.”
“This includes a focus on training teachers and leaders on the Common Core standards, implementing data systems to monitor student performance and provide intervention, and curriculum that is aligned to the standards,” he wrote.
Vitti was named 2022 Urban Superintendent of the Year by the Council of the Great City Schools’ 66th Annual Fall Conference, according to a DPSCD press release.
Nationally, the NEAP scores, more commonly known as the The Nation’s Report Card, showed average student scores in math and reading remain below pre-pandemic levels, with average reading scores five points behind 2019, and math scores three points behind for fourth-graders and eight points behind for eighth-graders, according to The News.
“Student academic achievement is the cornerstone of national success and security. This makes a lack of academic progress today a direct and urgent threat to our collective future,” NEAP governing board member Patrick Kelly said in a statement. “The continued declines in reading scores are particularly troubling. Reading is foundational to all subjects, and failure to read well keeps students from accessing information and building knowledge across content areas.”