This morning there's a press event at Burton International School in Detroit that's worth a mention.
Wayne State University is planning on investing in the middle schoolers at Burton in what seem like significant ways.
Wayne State will be "adopting" the middle school wing at Burton. It looks like this particular adoption will entail mentoring from the admissions office at Wayne State, lots of college and career information for parents and students, field trips, classrooms visits and access to academics for the middle schoolers.
Burton is a K-8 school with plenty of challenges. Concerns about performance got it on the list of state Priority Schools this year.
But according to some traditional indicators the school had some important things going for it prior to this partnership with Wayne State.
Burton consistently outperforms the rest of the district on standardized tests. Students who speak English as a second language at Burton have average test scores leaps and bounds above similarly situated kids across the state.
We've reported before how important the middle school years are for decision making about college and educational attainment. Students start making plans for themselves after high school while they're in middle school-and what they decide tends to stick.
As the project unfolds we'll be following any impacts it may have. For now, file this under interventions that make sense.
