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The Detroit school district made small year-over-year gains in reading, writing, and math in nearly every grade on state standardized tests last spring, results released Friday show.
The district reached a 12-year high in the percentage of third graders scoring proficient or above in reading and writing, and it bucked a statewide trend of little to no improvement in early literacy.
Students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District still lag far behind statewide averages on the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, or M-STEP, however. For example, 14.1% of DPSCD third graders scored proficient or better on the 2025-26 exam compared to 38.2% of Michigan public school students.
Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in a statement Friday that the results, many of which represented all-time highs for the district, reflect a broader trend of improvement.
“While students across the state (and country) continue to regress academically, our students are improving,” Vitti said.
The superintendent added the district needs to continue to “refine and scale” its success, particularly in literacy.
LaTrice McClendon, chair of the district’s board, said the results showed encouraging growth in math, adding “literacy still needs stronger gains.”
“We are not finished,” she said. “Detroit’s children deserve nothing less, and we will not rest until they get it.”
Researchers said long-term improvements in DPSCD on the exams, coupled with data showing fast student growth, indicate the district is making big strides to get students closer to where they should be academically.
Tara Kilbride, associate director of the independent research center Education Policy Innovation Collaborative at Michigan State University, said progress across all areas of the M-STEP over time suggests a systemic turnaround.
“That tells me that the improvements are likely not just an anomaly,” Kilbride added.
When evaluating test scores, an important factor to consider is that students in Detroit start out much further behind their peers in wealthier communities due an array of issues tied to poverty and systemic racism, said Jeremy Singer, assistant professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Michigan-Flint.
“If a student is making a lot of progress every year and they are learning at an accelerated rate, they may still not cross proficiency,” said Singer, also a research affiliate at Wayne State University’s Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research.
Kilbride added, “That doesn’t mean the lower levels of proficiency aren’t something we should be concerned about.”
DPSCD’s results show continued growth
Each spring, Michigan public school students in grades 3-7 take the M-STEP in English language arts and math. Fifth graders also take science and social studies M-STEP exams. Eighth graders take the PSAT in English and math. Eleventh graders take the SAT in the same subjects.
Exams were not given in the 2019-20 school year due to school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020-21, the tests were optional.
Compared to spring 2019 – the last year of testing before the pandemic upended learning – the improvements in DPSCD were noticeable in every subject and grade. For example, there was a 7.6 percentage point increase in eighth graders scoring proficient or better in English and a 6.8 percentage point increase in seventh grade math.
The year-over-year growth was smaller for the district in early literacy. A small dip in proficiency rates for sixth graders is attributed in part to unfinished learning when they were in kindergarten in 2019-20, Vitti said.
The district’s seventh grade cohort “continues to demonstrate large strides in their achievement,” and has consistently outperformed their peers, said Vitti.
On SAT results, also released Friday, 35.1% of students were at or above English benchmarks, as were 15.7% of students in math. Compared to spring 2019, those numbers increased by 6.6 and 4.3 percentage points respectively.
With smaller class sizes and more intervention for this year’s ninth graders as part of the DPSCD’s high school redesign, Vitti said the district anticipates more growth on the SAT.
Singer said the progress students make from the beginning to the end of the school year gives a clearer picture of district performance than the M-STEP, which is a snapshot of students’ performance on a single day.
A recent research analysis called The Education Scorecard suggests DPSCD is one of the best among similar districts across the country when it comes to the speed at which students are learning per school year.
DPSCD attributes progress to better attendance, specialized support
Vitti told Chalkbeat in an email Friday that the district’s investments in recruiting and retaining certified teachers, using evidence-based curriculum, student interventions, as well as wraparound services for children and families, contributed to DPSCD’s academic improvements.
“We also have clear targets and stretch targets at the district and school level to hold one another accountable but to also problem solve and support when achievement is not improving,” he said.
Vitti said that might be what setDetroit apart from some statewide trends.
“I don’t see evidence of all of this with great consistency throughout Michigan and I believe nationally school districts have not completely shifted from the legitimate challenges of the pandemic.”
DPSCD has used a large portion of its $94.4 million “right to read” literacy lawsuit settlement to support students who are below grade level. The district has hired hundreds of additional academic interventionists and contracted more tutoring services.
As the district must spend the last of the settlement this school year, Vitti said it will likely have to make difficult budget decisions in order to keep the interventionists.
Imani Foster of 482Forward, a nonprofit focused on educational equity, said she believes the targeted support has helped students. She added more time is needed to see the full effect of the literacy funds.
“I think in five years we can look and see if the incremental change marked sustainable change,” she said.
In math, Vitti said teachers and students are becoming more familiar with curriculum based on the “why” behind math instead of only procedural skills.
“We have also been more targeted in our interventions to make sure that we are filling the gaps in pre-requisite skills at each grade level,” he said. “Younger students who were exposed to the math curriculum at earlier ages are higher performing than their older peers.”
Venessa Keesler, president and CEO of Launch Michigan, said DPSCD is “proof of concept” of what happens “if you get good curriculum, you train your educators, you stay the course, and you really are honest about what’s working and what’s not.”
Maria Montoya, a Detroit parent and education consultant, said consistency is key for the district to continue improvements.
Since pandemic-era school closures, DPSCD has significantly improved its rates of chronic absenteeism, defined as a student missing around 18 or more days in a typical 180-day school year. Missing too much school can make students fall behind and struggle to catch up for years.
While performance on the M-STEP has significantly improved for DPSCD since 2018-19, chronic absenteeism has only fallen back to a slightly lower rate, at 60.9%.
Singer said those data points could suggest DPSCD’s academic achievement is due to more than just better success in getting kids to school.
Both Singer and Kilbride said the data can’t definitively say which efforts have led to better performance on the M-STEP.
“My best hypothesis would be that it was a combination of coordinated support and strategies rather than one particular thing,” said Kilbride.
Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.
Micah Walker is a reporter covering arts and culture and education for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.
