PRESS RELEASE
May 13, 2026
Contact: Sam Stockwell
samuel_stockwell@gse.harvard.edu
617.495.0342
Michigan Ranks 25th in Math and 32nd in Reading Recovery Among States, with Detroit and Other Districts Emerging as Bright Spots
Reading scores have continued to fall since 2022 and remain nearly .75 grade equivalents below 2019 levels.
Chronic absenteeism remains almost 10 percentage points above pre-pandemic levels despite significant improvement.
Detroit, Allen Park, Warren Woods, and Byron Center are outperforming their peers in both math and reading.
(May 13, 2026) In its fourth year, the Education Scorecard (a collaboration between the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, The Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, and faculty at Dartmouth College) is issuing its annual report on district-level student growth in math and reading.
The latest report provides a high-resolution picture of where Michigan students’ academic recovery stands, combining state test results for roughly 35 million grade 3–8 students nationwide with national assessment data to describe changes in local communities. Here’s what we found:
Michigan:
- Michigan ranked 25th out of 38 states in academic growth in math and 32nd out of 35 states in reading between 2022 and 2025.
- In math, the average student is performing about .11 grade equivalents above their 2022 level, but around .39 grade equivalents below 2019 levels. Still, some districts like Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Lansing Public, and Chippewa Valley continue to lag significantly behind 2019 levels.
- In reading, the average student is performing about .29 grade equivalents below their 2022 level, and about .75 grade equivalents below 2019 levels. A number of districts like Grand Rapids, Troy, and Kentwood continue to remain significantly behind their 2019 levels.
- Several Michigan districts are emerging as Districts on the Rise. These districts have shown unusual progress relative to similar districts in their own state. A core group of districts is excelling in both math and reading, with districts like Detroit, Allen Park, Warren Woods, and Byron Center outperforming their peers.
- Several other districts are rising relative to their peers in one subject—either math or reading. Districts like Crestwood, Melvindale-Northern Allen Park, and Southfield are leading the way in math performance, while districts like Lansing, Avondale, and Hamtramck are leading the way in reading.
- Statewide, there is some good news on chronic absenteeism (students missing more than 10% of a school year), which has fallen from over 38% in 2022 to around 29% in 2025. However, chronic absence rates still remain almost 10 percentage points above pre-pandemic levels.
- Michigan received about $5.77 billion in federal pandemic relief for K–12 schools—roughly $4,100 per student. Our analysis finds that the gains in many high-poverty districts were driven by this federal support. Unfortunately, many middle-poverty districts (those with 30 to 70 percent of students receiving federal lunch subsidies) received little federal aid. Now that the federal relief is gone, Michigan should focus school improvement dollars on the middle and higher poverty districts that remain behind their pre-pandemic levels.
“The pandemic was the mudslide that followed seven years of erosion in student achievement,” said Professor Tom Kane, faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University. “The ‘learning recession’ started a decade ago, after policymakers switched off the early warning system of test-based accountability and social media took over children’s lives. In this report, we highlight the work of a small group of state leaders who have started digging out by changing how students learn to read, and 108 local school districts that are finding ways to get students learning again. The recovery of U.S. education has begun. But it’s up to the rest of us to spread it.”
District on the Rise: Detroit Public Schools Community District
Among Michigan’s Districts on the Rise excelling in both math and reading, Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) stands out for the ambition and scale of its instructional transformation under Superintendent Dr. Nikolai Vitti. The district built a comprehensive real-time data dashboard (DataCom) tracking academic metrics, attendance, and staff vacancies across all schools, with every school leadership team creating an annual Tactical Improvement Plan and principals delivering five-minute data presentations to cabinet and peers three times per year—a structure designed to foster transparency and collective problem-solving rather than compliance. Teacher accountability is reinforced by a performance-based bonus structure, and by raising starting teacher salaries from $38,000 to $55,000, the district reduced vacancies from roughly 400 in 2017 to 30 today. On literacy, the district facilitated a teacher-led curriculum selection process that landed on Expeditionary Learning for ELA in 2018–19, maintaining its rigor throughout the pandemic without watering down content. A $94.4 million lawsuit settlement won in 2024—stemming from a 2016 case brought by Detroit students alleging decades of funding inequities—funded 267 academic interventionists working one-on-one and in small groups with K–2 students, building on a cadre originally hired through a $20 million MacKenzie Scott grant. A 120-minute daily literacy block moves from core instruction into intensive small-group work with interventionists for students two or more grade levels behind, while 43 additional teachers were hired so that teacher leaders could spend time coaching peers. On attendance, the district’s Perfect Attendance Pays program offers high school students up to $1,000 annually—funded by interest earned on ESSER infrastructure investments—and has yielded a roughly 3-percentage-point increase in average daily attendance and a 10% year-over-year decrease in chronic absenteeism. The district embedded dedicated Attendance Agents at larger school sites, canvassed more than 78,000 homes in summer 2025, and launched Parent Academy, which paid nearly 900 parents $25 stipends per session to learn how to support their child’s literacy at home. Summer Discovery, launched in 2024 for grades K–8, served nearly 6,000 students in 2025 with full-day programming including free breakfast, lunch, and transportation. For the full case study, click here.
“I walked into a district that had been under two decades of emergency management and was using curriculum two to three grade levels below where students actually were,” said Dr. Nikolai Vitti, Superintendent of Detroit Public Schools Community District. “We had to establish a new baseline and be unapologetic about improvement—moving away from excuse-making and toward a system where everyone owns the data. We provide a degree of support for every degree of accountability, ensuring our central office is actively solving problems alongside our principals rather than just checking for compliance.”
