By: Jasmine West
Detroit Public Schools Community District students are learning at a faster rate than students in most districts across the country, according to the updated 2026 Education Recovery Scorecard, a national report from Stanford University’s Educational Opportunity Project and Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research.
The report found that DPSCD students are gaining an average of 1.21 grade levels of learning per year. That places Detroit above the national average of 1.0, similar Michigan districts at 1.03, and the state of Michigan at 0.97. DPSCD ranked 695th out of 8,147 districts nationwide, placing the district in the 91st percentile for learning growth.
The finding gives Detroit a different place in the national education conversation. DPSCD, once defined publicly by emergency management, enrollment loss, facility struggles, and pandemic disruption, is now being studied for growth. The district was also named one of six school systems nationally profiled as a “District on the Rise” for sustained post-pandemic progress.
Superintendent Dr. Nikolai Vitti said the recovery began during the pandemic, when DPSCD made the decision to keep live instruction and a full school day in place while students learned online.
“We kept the cameras on and kept direct instruction going on,” Vitti said. “We knew that our students just needed that direct instruction by the teacher.”
That choice mattered when families were already navigating housing instability, health concerns, job loss, food insecurity, and gaps in technology access. Vitti said the district could not assume parents and guardians would be able to replace the role of trained educators during a crisis.
After schools reopened, he said DPSCD treated the pandemic as a new baseline, not an excuse.
“We have been very intentional and unapologetic to say, our kids have to rebound from the pandemic,” Vitti said. “We know the pandemic was hard, especially on the city and our families and our students, but our children deserve to rebound from the pandemic.”
The scorecard shows Detroit moving in a stronger direction than the state. DPSCD’s recovery trend is +0.13 grade levels per year. Similar Michigan districts are at +0.01. The state average is -0.02, meaning Michigan overall continues to decline in academic recovery while Detroit has improved each year since 2022.
Reading gains are among the strongest points in the report. DPSCD’s reading recovery trend ranks in the 88th percentile nationally. Black students in the district rank in the 95th percentile nationally for reading improvement. Hispanic students, low-income students, female students, and male students all posted recovery trends in the top quartile nationwide.
DPSCD Board President Latrice McClendon said the numbers reflect intentional work, not luck.
“Look, the improvement didn’t happen by accident, and I want to be very clear about that,” McClendon said. “The strategy has always been rooted in intentionality. We set goals, we measure them, and we hold ourselves accountable.”
McClendon said the board has focused on setting the vision, funding priorities, and asking hard questions, while Vitti and district teams execute. She pointed to increased enrollment, stronger attendance, higher student achievement, teacher recruitment and retention, expanded arts and academic programming, stable school leadership, and restored financial health as part of the broader progress.
The district’s academic interventionists have also played a role. The college-degreed staff members work one-on-one and in small groups with students, mainly in literacy and math. Vitti said the model helps classroom teachers keep grade-level instruction moving while students receive targeted support for specific skill gaps.
“That has helped teachers lessen the burden and the heavy weight on their shoulders alone in moving students that are below grade level,” Vitti said.
Attendance remains the hardest part of the story. DPSCD says it is the only large district in Michigan to reduce chronic absenteeism below pre-pandemic levels. Other large districts in the state have seen chronic absenteeism rise since 2019, with most increasing between 5 and 22 percentage points.
Still, the district’s rate remains high. Last school year, 60.9% of DPSCD students were chronically absent, an improvement of nearly five percentage points from the year before.
“I won’t sugarcoat it,” McClendon said. “Chronic absenteeism remains our most urgent challenge.”
Vitti said DPSCD has reduced chronic absenteeism by about 10 percentage points overall, dropping from roughly 70% to about 60%. The district has used attendance agents in large schools, the Parent Teacher Home Visit Project, attendance incentives, student recognition, school surveys, transportation support, and more than 78,000 homes through summer 2025 canvassing and outreach tied to attendance and enrollment efforts.
“We’ve dropped it below where we were before the pandemic, which is uncharacteristic of school districts throughout the country,” Vitti said. “Still high, obviously, but obviously, we’re showing great improvement.”
For DPSCD leaders, attendance is tied directly to academics. Vitti said students who miss 18 or fewer days of school are three to four times more likely to be at or above grade level and college-ready on assessments.
“At the high school level, where a lot of the attendance is on the shoulders of students to get to and from school, we’ve moved to an incentive where students receive $100 after New Year’s when we come back after break if they’re present five days in a row,” Vitti said. “They get $100 for that week.”
The district has also expanded wraparound services to address barriers that keep students from school. DPSCD now operates 12 health hubs across Detroit, providing free medical care to students and families. The hubs also connect families to mental health support, vision screenings, eyeglasses, dental care, food resources, eviction support, immigration assistance, and other services. Nurses are now in every school.
McClendon said those supports are not separate from academics.
“You cannot teach a child who is hungry, traumatized, or housing insecure and then walk away expecting test scores to climb,” McClendon said. “These are not soft initiatives. These are academic strategies.”
For McClendon, the report carries personal weight. She is a DPSCD graduate, a district parent, and now board president.
“My children are in DPSCD not because I have to. I could afford private school,” she said. “They’re in DPSCD because I know we have excellent schools, excellent teachers, and excellent administrators.”
She said the district’s gains challenge assumptions that have followed Detroit students for too long.
“The narrative that Detroit kids can’t perform has always been a lie, and the data is proving it now,” McClendon said. “Black children in Detroit are outpacing suburban peers in growth. Let that sink in.”
The district’s graduation rate also points to progress. The class of 2025 marked the fourth consecutive year of improvement since the pandemic low of 64.5% in 2020-21. DPSCD has recovered 18.7 percentage points, narrowing the gap with the state average from 16 points to less than one point.
“We were written off,” McClendon said. “Detroit schools were a punchline for too long. And now we are within a fraction of a point of the state average in graduation. That is a movement.”
DPSCD’s next phase includes multiple diploma pathways beginning in 2026-27, including honors, dual degree, career-ready, and arts diplomas. The district also expects Davis Aerospace Technical High School to return to Coleman A. Young International Airport by fall 2026, while the vacant Cooley High School is slated to become a district and community-based sports facility.
“It’s definitely gratifying, humbling,” said Vitti. “It makes me emotional to think about. But, you know, people told me that I would ruin my career by taking this job. And to me, that was just defining the challenge as to why I would take the job.”
The scorecard does not mean DPSCD’s work is finished. Chronic absenteeism, overall proficiency, transportation, funding equity, and family stability remain serious challenges. But the new data does make one point clear: Detroit students are growing, and the country is now being asked to pay attention.
Vitti said the recognition gives the district more leverage to fight for the resources students deserve.
“We’re only scratching the surface of their potential,” he said.
