It Failed

An operation called Excellent Schools Detroit, founded in 2009 and bankrolled by several large national foundations, has closed its doors.

According to Bridge Magazine, “Former officials with Excellent Schools Detroit won’t call its closure a failure because other nonprofits will continue many of its major projects..."

For the Record Says: It failed. In 2016, Michigan Capitol Confidential reported on Excellent Schools Detroit:

“In 2010, ESD stated that within five years, it would open ‘40 new high-quality school options.’ It would close or replace at least half the school programs in the city and attract and develop enough high-quality school leaders to transform Detroit district schools. The vision described transformed ‘new schools,’ many in existing Detroit Public School buildings, some possibly in new buildings. It would also turn around failing schools so that by 2020, the operation would have ‘ensured that every student in Detroit is in a quality school.’”

But little of that ever came close to happening. In the months leading up to a 2016 state bailout of the Detroit school district, Excellent Schools Detroit worked closely with local interests, groups and politicians who unsuccessfully sought to include a charter school rationing scheme in the bailout provisions.