Detroit Schools’ New Adviser: Schools ‘Product Of Interconnected History Of Racism And Bias’

In 2016, the Skillman Foundation gave $125,000 to an organization called The Achievement Network to help the Detroit Public Schools Community District “learn from best practices across diverse schools.”

Based in Boston, the nonprofit states on its website, “Our educational system is the product of a complex and interconnected history of racism and bias with generations of students having their first experiences with racial trauma in school. The institutional racism present in schools is both structural — including school and district policies, procedures and practices — and relational — including adult and student mindsets, beliefs, and attitudes.”

The Skillman Foundation described the grant on a government document as: "THIS GRANT WILL CONTINUE TO PROVIDE UP TO 40 DETROIT SCHOOLS, INCLUDING FIVE ADDITIONAL HIGH SCHOOLS, WITH ACCESS TO ASSESSMENT TOOLS AND INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES, AND CONNECTION TO A NETWORK OF PEERS TO LEARN FROM BEST PRACTICES ACROSS DIVERSE SCHOOLS."