See how the Detroit district spent $32M in literacy lawsuit funds last year

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Last year, the Detroit school district spent about $32 million from its literacy lawsuit settlement to hire more staff to support students learning to read, reduce class sizes in early grades, and pay for tutoring.

Some of the investments are already paying off, said officials in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, or DPSCD. Students in classrooms with academic interventionists and kids who read with in-school tutors showed more improvement on average on the district’s literacy assessments than their peers, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said during a board finance committee meeting in November.

The district’s spending on those initiatives account for about one-third of a one-time $94.4 million settlement in the 2016 federal “right to read” civil rights lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleged Michigan’s longtime funding inequities led to bleak and unsafe conditions in Detroit schools, including vermin infestation, overcrowding, and leaking sewage. The complaint said the alarming state of schools in the city denied children “access to the most basic building block of education: literacy.”

The state settled the lawsuit in 2020 and allocated the money to DPSCD three years later. Last school year was the first in the district’s three-year plan to use the funding to improve literacy instruction, intervention, and proficiency.

The district’s plan for the money is based on recommendations made by a task force and input from community meetings.

The largest chunk of the district’s settlement spending last year went toward efforts to teach students in K-3 to read.

“The idea was investing there to narrow the achievement gap, because it’s the narrowest at the early grades, and to get kids to where they need to be as soon as possible,” said Vitti.

Results on recent state standardized testing suggest those efforts worked.

The percentage of DPSCD third graders who met or exceeded proficiency in English language arts on the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, or M-STEP, reached an 11-year high in the 2024-25 school year.

The district’s overall proficiency rates, however, still lag far behind the statewide averages.

Last spring, 15.4% of students in grades 3-8 in the district scored proficient or above in English language arts. The statewide average was 38.9%.

Ida Short, a board member, asked Vitti at the committee meeting what the district can do to get students caught up to grade level more quickly.

Vitti said the greatest challenge in closing achievement gaps is chronic absenteeism, defined as a student missing 10% or more of days in a school year.

Last year, more than 60% of students in the district were chronically absent. DPSCD has reduced that rate below pre-pandemic levels, though it remains higher than the statewide average.

Here is a breakdown of how the district has invested the settlement funding so far:

• The school system spent $17.3 million to hire 267 additional literacy academic interventionists to work with students in small groups and in K-2 classrooms. Students in classrooms that had interventionists showed more improvement on district assessments over the last two years than peers with similar previous scores, according to DPSCD.
• In order to reduce K-3 class sizes, the district spent $4.6 million to hire 44 additional teachers. The largest improvements on assessments were not associated with the most dramatic reductions in class sizes, Vitti said.
• Forty-three additional teachers were hired with $4.5 million so that teacher leaders could leave some classroom responsibilities to focus on coaching other educators at their schools. Of the 216 teacher leaders in DPSCD last year, 77 led K-8 English language arts classes while also coaching other educators. According to the district, students taught by teacher leaders were somewhat more likely to meet their goals in learning to read compared to their peers.
• Around $2.5 million was spent to hire more multilingual academic interventionists to work with students who were not fluent English speakers. The district also spent $1.1 million to expand an existing newcomer program at Western International High School and establish one at Harms Elementary School. State proficiency assessment results show more English learners met language acquisition goals last year compared to previous years.
• This school year, the district will spend $1.8 million on merit pay for educators whose schools or classrooms reached ambitious literacy goals.
• The district spent $240,000 for 150 Let’s Read tutors to read with first and second graders. The program previously existed in the district, however, the settlement funds allowed the district to serve about 423 students – up from fewer than 50 in previous years. The funds allowed the district to offer tutors stipends of $2,500, as well as provide more training and curricular tools. Last year, more students who participated in Let’s Read met their goals in learning to read compared to their peers, according to DPSCD, but there was little difference in their proficiency levels at the end of the year.
• DPSCD spent $230,000 to offer free after-school online tutoring to students in all grades for six weeks to prepare for end-of-year testing. According to the district, high schoolers who got the tutoring had better PSAT/SAT scores on average than their peers.
• The district spent $270,000 to create Parent Academy sessions focused on literacy to help parents encourage their kids to read at home. Parents got $25 stipends for attending up to 15 sessions, with nearly 900 parents from 89 schools participating.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.