DETROIT (WXYZ) — As the second week of school closes for Detroit Public Schools Community District, there's at least some good news to report now that the pandemic is fully behind us.
Students performed better than expected when they took Michigan's standardized test (M-STEP) this spring compared to a year ago.
I got a chance to chat with DPSCD Superintendent Dr. Nikolai Vitti about the scores.
We have highlighted the push by Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Nikolai Vitti to deliver a better education for students in Detroit especially after the pandemic left many worried kids were so far behind, they would never catch up.
“This pandemic has been a lot, but we were one of the few districts to show improvement,” said Dr. Nikolai Vitti, Superintendent of DPSCD.
Dr. Vitti says they stopped using the pandemic as an excuse for academic problems and got to work and the results of M-STEP the Michigan student test of educational progress show it's working.
WXYZ’s Carolyn Clifford asked, “How are they looking overall this year?
“Very positive. We're excited to announce that in literacy we've exceeded pre-pandemic levels. In mathematics, we showed significant improvement versus last year. still not at pre-pandemic levels,” said Vitti.
Dr. Vitti admits results in math and reading still need work considering they are below the statewide average.. but there is hope from the numbers.
“In math, we're talking about a slight gap that we still have to fill about less than 1 percentage point and in college readiness at that high school level we're beyond where we were before the pandemic,” said Vitti.
After the pandemic nightmare, Dr. Vitti is pleased there was not a huge drop-off.
“Our goal in 2022-23 was to show improvement from the previous year which was 21-22. 21-22 was a baseline year after the pandemic and not only did we show improvement we exceeded pre-pandemic levels,” said Vitti.
Dr. Vitti says more than a billion in COVID relief funding helped tremendously and academic progress is visible and measurable.
“Just excited for our central office leaders. our principals and mainly our teachers, obviously our students and our families,” said Vitti.
Here's a breakdown of some of the M-STEP numbers released...
More than 12 % of third graders scored proficient in reading or better for 2022-2023. It was just 9% a year ago.
Fifth-grade reading scores were still below pre-pandemic levels, but at least got a small bump up from last year.
In math, DPSCD students did better than last year and even bounced ahead of pre-pandemic results in fourth and sixth grades.
Dr. Vitti knows DPSCD students are still not in line with the rest of Michigan. Nearly 44 %(43.9%) of students are proficient or higher in reading and 35 % in math scores.
However, there is a silver lining,
“Our improvement exceeds the improvement that the entire state of Michigan from about 12 % to about 15 % in math 6 % to 9 % and college readiness about 30 % of our students,” said Vitti.
There is also a new $150 million state program to fund tutoring and other initiatives. It's based on how many students are considered not proficient on statewide assessments.
