Detroit Edison Public School Academy

For the past several years, Detroit has served as a punchline for nearly all of present-day America’s problems.

The resignation of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in 2008, the images of abandoned, foreclosed properties in suburban neighborhoods, and the 75 percent school dropout rate have provided softball pitches to media outlets looking for metaphorical examples of political corruption, the housing crisis, and struggling public school systems. This negative media coverage of Detroit reached its lowest point on April 18, when Dateline NBC devoted an entire segment to the city that portrayed rampant poverty, hopelessness, and desperation in almost apocalyptic proportions.

Lost in all the negative mainstream media coverage, however, is the positive work being done by citizens who haven’t given up on Detroit’s future. Detroit Edison Public School Academy (DEPSA) serves as a prime example of such work, where the administrators, teachers, and students have come together with the Success for All Foundation (SFAF) to make DEPSA the first charter school in Detroit to receive the prestigious Blue Ribbon Award from the Department of Education.This award is given to schools that show dramatic gains in student achievement. DEPSA, with 54 percent of students living below the poverty level, continually outperforms other public schools across the state.

“To get an idea of the kind of schools philanthropic leaders want to create in Detroit, look no further than Detroit Edison Public School Academy,” wrote the Detroit Free Press in a March 12 profile of the school.

The vision of DEPSA starts at the top, with Superintendent and Principal Ralph Bland’s drive to create a school environment where the entire community takes responsibility for success. At the classroom level, the exemplary gains in student achievement have come as a result of a highly effective collaboration between the SFA reading program and the DEPSA staff, most notably the school SFAF facilitator, Gail Withers.

Withers joined DEPSA in December 2005 following a five-year stint teaching grades 1−5 in the Detroit public school system. At the time Withers joined DEPSA, the school had been in existence for seven years. Fifty-eight percent of students were reading at or above grade level - slightly above the state average, but not satisfactory according to the high expectations of the school. Although the SFA program was already being utilized through a partnership with Edison Learning, Withers, along with the school administration and teachers, committed themselves to a more a thorough application of SFA to reach the high expectations of the school:

“We branched out from Edison on our own and saw how the foundation of the Success for All program helped the students grow in their reading ability and stayed with the SFA program. In addition, it was a proven research-based program,” Withers said. 

Soft-spoken and modest, Withers became one of the SFAF’s most effective facilitators, demonstrating continued ability to absorb knowledge from SFA coaches, use data to drive instruction, and assist teachers with implementation of the program. For Withers, one of the main advantages was the Success for All Foundation (SFAF) Member Center, which allowed staff to input data to track the progress of students.

“The data tools help us to see the weak areas in DEPSA that we need to focus on and set goals to improve. In the classroom, data helps to determine if a weak area is with an individual student, a group of students, or with the teacher implementing the program; we can use the data to help us target this and then move forward with a plan to offer the teacher support and professional development to improve the implementation,” she said.

After three years of heightened SFA implementation under Withers, DEPSA achieved massive gains: 87 percent of students read at or above grade level, a 30 percent increase. In addition, the students continually beat the state average on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP). DEPSA has been such a success that it plans to open a high school campus this fall, funded by a grant from Excellent Schools Detroit, a non-profit coalition.

Much of DEPSA’s success is a result of teacher dedication to the SFA reading program, according to Withers. SFA is a rigorous model with a breadth of methods and techniques to improve student achievement. This can sometimes prove daunting to teachers new to the program.

“Initially I struggled with the SFA program and its hands-on approach to reading instruction,” said Ms. Cheryl Andrade, a first-grade teacher. “Traditional programs did not utilize the power of teamwork (cooperative learning) among the students in class, extensive data collection and analysis, or a technologically advanced system for generating and presenting data.”

Andrade’s initial struggles faded away as she devoted time and study to the SFA program and all its components. She also had many opportunities to collaborate with other teachers in SFA’s professional learning community meetings to discuss different strategies and skills in the classroom. In addition, Andrade also credits Withers with being a great mentor:

“Her (Withers) encouragement, close monitoring, and friendly reminders caused the greatest transformation,” she said.

Now, Andrade has mastered the program and is a true believer in SFA:

“Each component of SFA, from Word Power to class discussion, is a researched based strategy that works. Children become better readers with the implementation of each interlocking piece of the program.”

The dedication of the teachers like Ms. Andrade, the work of Ms. Withers, and the support of the administration have made the SFA-DEPSA collaboration the success it is today. In addition, Withers credits SFAF Area Manager Amanda Nappier for continuous support, and Withers still finds value in SFAF’s professional development support despite all the gains made over the years.

“The (SFAF) conferences that are given every year, I learn something new and different that I can take back and implement immediately to improve student achievement in reading.”

Withers says that the school staff won’t be satisfied until 100 percent of students at DEPSA are reading at or above grade level. In a city that the mainstream media frequently portrays as doomed to failure, the Detroit Edison Public School Academy shows that there are many people left that will not only fight for success, but will continue fighting until everyone has achieved it.