Detroit test scores offer some hope, remain below other big districts

Detroit school district fourth graders saw improvement in their math scores on a rigorous national exam, but overall performance showed no significant gains in other categories and left the district where it has been since 2009: at the bottom of other large districts.

Scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, which was given to a representative sample of fourth and eighth grade students in each state in reading and math, were released on Wednesday. 

The national picture was not good and showed student achievement “has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, and so the struggle continues,” Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, said during a media call Tuesday. The lowest performing students are struggling, particularly in reading, she said, and are reading at “historically low levels.”

Carr cited chronic absenteeism as a likely reason schools across the nation aren’t seeing significant improvement in reading and math.

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In Detroit, the improvement in fourth grade math was tempered by the large number of students who performed poorly on the exam. Just 7% were considered proficient or above. In eighth grade reading and math and fourth grade reading, only between 4% and 6% of students were proficient or above.

There was a sliver of encouraging news: District students saw more overall improvement on the exam in some areas compared to Michigan, where the overall results showed no significant improvement.

Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in a news release Wednesday that the eighth grade reading and fourth grade math results reflect the improvement the district has seen on all state assessment results over the last two years. But he noted that DPSCD still has work to do when it comes to improving its test scores.

“Clearly, the declines we saw in fourth grade reading were due to online pandemic literacy instruction, but at the same time, the improvement in eighth grade reading speaks to the district’s systemic improvement when considering that those same students overcame the pandemic through the exposure to literacy grade level content since third grade,” Vitti said.

Ray Hart, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, said the Detroit results should be looked at in context of how the state performed overall. He was encouraged by the district’s improvement and said the results show the district in most categories is closer to its pre-pandemic performance levels than the state is. Neither has surpassed performance prior to 2020, when the pandemic disrupted learning in schools nationwide and had a particularly harsher effect on students in urban areas.

Still, Detroit student performance is well below state and national averages. In order for the district to be on par with state performance overall, he said, “they've actually got to grow better or grow faster. He noted that it can do that by continuing the investments it has made..

The district has worked to improve its curriculum, eliminate teacher shortages, hire academic interventionists to provide help to struggling students, and get more students attending summer school, among other things.

“The district has shown that when those investments are made, and they invest so wisely, which they appear to have done,” they will pay off in improved achievement, he said.

Here’s a brief look at how DPSCD students performed on the NAEP:

• The average score for fourth grade math was 200, up from 194 in 2022, an increase that was considered statistically significant. Of the students who took the exam, 7% were considered proficient or above compared to 37% in Michigan, 33% for large city districts, and 39% nationally.
• The average score in eighth grade math was 237, down from 238 in 2022, a change that was not considered statistically significant. Of the students who took the exam, 4% were considered proficient or above, compared to 24% in Michigan, 23% for large city districts, and 27% nationally.
• The average score for fourth grade reading was 174, down from 176 in 2022, a change that was not considered statistically significant. Of the students who took the exam, 5% were proficient or above compared to 25% statewide, 26% for large city districts, and 30% nationally.
• The average score for eighth grade reading was up from 227 to 229, a change that was not considered statistically significant. Of the students who took the exam, 6% were proficient or above compared to 24% statewide, 26% for large city districts, and 29% nationally.

In 2009, the Detroit school district volunteered to become part of NAEP’s Trial Urban District Assessment, which analyzes results for more than 20 of the largest districts in the nation. Since then, the district’s performance has landed at the bottom, though it’s complicated to compare the results among the large districts because the demographics are different.

Vitti acknowledged DPSCD’s rank at the bottom of the TUDA districts in the news release, calling it “the elephant in the room.” But he said the gap between the district and the state narrowed in each tested area, with each district performing slightly above DPSCD in three of the four tested areas. 

“We are undoubtedly improving. We are committed to accelerating and scaling that improvement by overcoming the challenges of chronic absenteeism,” he said. “It’s evident that students missing less than 18 days of school are three to five times more likely to be at and above grade level performers in our district.”

Carr’s mention of chronic absenteeism being a factor is particularly relevant in Detroit, where 66% of district students were chronically absent during the 2023-24 school year. A student is chronically absent if they miss 10% or more of a traditional 180-day school year. The Detroit district’s rate has improved in the last few years but remains high. Chronic absenteeism not only affects students but makes it difficult for schools to improve.

“We should care because the lower performing students are more likely to be absent,” and because students can’t learn if they’re not in school, Carr said of the national results.

Emma Howland-Bolton, a fourth grade teacher at Thirkell Elementary-Middle School, hadn’t seen this year’s results Tuesday, but said she is critical of standardized tests like the NAEP, saying there are other ways to track student performance such as through assignments and projects with their peers. 

“The fact that districts are still reliant on standardized testing to tell us anything meaningful about student growth and learning is disappointing because we have so much research about why those metrics by themselves are not really a useful measure of anything,” she said. “Standardized testing serves people who make standardized tests. It serves people who make curriculums that teach standardized tests and it serves test prep, but it doesn't serve students.” 

Howland-Bolton would rather see DPSCD administrators focus on students’ social and emotional well-being, such as making sure kids have a nutritious lunch, time allocated during the school day for recess, and access to a school library. 

She added that in countries like Canada and Finland where there’s less standardized testing or none at all, students perform better. 

“Amazingly, when you focus on meeting student needs, they perform well on tests,” Howland-Bolton said. “If you focus on test taking as being this end-all, be-all thing and ignore student needs, they actually perform worse on their tests, and we see that in our test scores.” 

Imani Foster of 482 Forward, a local nonprofit focused on educational equity, also said that the district shouldn’t use standardized tests as the only indicator of how students are performing in school. More needs to be done at the state level to improve literacy rates, she said, such as more funding and sharing resources across school districts. 

Another factor that needs to be addressed in both the reading and math NAEP tests is ensuring that students can comprehend the questions and that the questions use vocabulary they understand. 

“It’s not just reading, but being able to comprehend and being able to do deductive reasoning,” Foster said. 

She added that DPSCD can improve test scores by reducing class sizes for students who need more support, having students attend summer school to combat learning loss, and by lowering the chronic absenteeism rate. 

“If we have kids not coming to school for the majority of the year, of course they’re not prepared to pass the test. Of course they feel they’re left behind and anxious and don’t have everything they need.” 

She agrees with Howland-Bolton that childrens’ physical, social and emotional needs have to be met, such as eating breakfast and lunch and making sure schools are a safe environment.

“We have to change the narrative around education and the value of it in our city and in our state,” Foster said. “We don’t make students feel like they are the most important part of our society, and they absolutely are.” 

It’s also important for people to understand the challenges facing districts like Detroit, Hart said.

“Detroit is highest in the nation for families that are not just in poverty based on free and reduced price lunch, but in more abject poverty,” Hart said. 

“They didn't get there overnight as a city, and turning that around is going to take some time, but they're clearly doing it. And so for the community, understanding that it took decades for us to get to this place, and it's going to take time to pull our district and our citizens and our children out of it, but clearly they're making progress.”

DPSCD Board President Corletta Vaughn also noted the district’s progress, especially compared to when it was under emergency management. 

“No one thinks we have arrived, but we are closer than we were before this school board and superintendent assumed the responsibility to rebuild a school district that was devastated by emergency management and ineffective leadership,” she said in the news release. “Our updated strategic plan, coupled with strong leadership focused on continuous improvement and an improved climate and culture for our employees, parents and students will ensure the upward trajectory we continue to see.” 

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at [email protected].

Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at [email protected].