DPS Announces Schools To Convert To Charters
DETROIT (WWJ) - We now know which Detroit Public Schools will be changed over to charter schools. Emergency Financial Manager Roy Roberts announced this week that five schools will be run by three charter school operators starting this Fall.
"We looked at about 30 local and national people who wanted to apply. We narrowed it down to 13, 18... and we selected the very best. There's no doubt in our mind. We're not taking risk with kids, our kids in our system, with anybody touching them that can't do the best job possible," Roberts said.
Roberts says the five schools include Hamilton, Glazer, Loving, Edmonson and White Elementary Schools, each selected because they are the lowest performing schools with a math and science passing rate below 50 percent.
"Math was 44.5 in those schools. Well, why don't we just not have any school? Maybe we'd be better off and maybe the kids would learn better. Well, that's an unacceptable situation. And they were talking about bringing people in who's operating at the 80 and 90 percent level. That's a significant difference," Roberts said.
Roberts said they expect each school to show some improvement in a year. The three charter operators are New Paradigm for Education - which operates Edison Public Academy, Global Education Excellence, and Educational and Management Networks.
DPS plans to approve a school board for each of the five schools by the end of the month.
