DETROIT, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – The Detroit Public Schools Community District is planning on spending $8.2 million over the next two years as bonuses for top-performing teachers.

The Literacy Lawsuit.

The money for the bonuses comes from the $94.4 million the district received in the Literacy Lawsuit. In 2016, a group of students filed a lawsuit against the state of Michigan claiming they were denied an effective education while attending public schools in Detroit.

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Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti has made compensating teachers a major goal. In October 2020, Vitti said, “We will continue to work at this until our teachers are the highest paid in the country.”

District average salaries.

The average salary of a Detroit public school teacher has increased from $57,997 in 2017-18 to $76,902 in 2023-24, according to the state o Michigan.

The increases in compensation have not improved the students’ academic performance.

For example, 84% of Detroit’s students in grades 3rd through 8th were rated as non proficient in English Language Arts in 2024. Detroit has repeatedly been the worst performing school district in the country in the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ The Nation’s Report Card since Detroit joined in 2009.

Monetary incentives.

The district has spent millions trying to turn around its academic performance. That includes paying parents up to $500 to attend a “literacy academy” and paying students $50-an-hour to complete a tutoring program. The district also sends academic interventionists into the homes of parents whose children have a history of absenteeism.

Despite bad student academic performance, the district has historically given its teachers good evaluations. In 2023-24, the district rated 44% of its teachers as “highly effective,” the highest of four ratings. The district rated 50% of its teachers as “effective” – the second highest rating. Just 6% of the teachers evaluated were found to be minimally effective. The district stated that just five individual teachers in the district were “ineffective,” which is the worst of the four ratings and registered as 0% of the teaching force.

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