Academic Goals

The Office of Charter Schools mission is to support, develop and hold accountable high-performing charter schools that prepare Detroit children for college and careers. In accordance with this mission, we have established academic targets for Detroit Public Schools Community District-authorized academies.

Office of Charter Schools academic targets call for each general-admission academy to outperform Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) and to close the achievement gap by 70 percent at each grade level, based on growth on the NWEA MAP and/or Scantron Performance Series test from Fall to Spring each year. Schools are required to test all children in grades 2-8 in the Fall, Winter, and Spring (see Testing Windows.) DPSCD provides NWEA MAP testing licenses for every student.

In holding schools accountable, we are measuring student learning against the national ACT college readiness standard. We have done this, in part, because the adoption of the national Common Core Standards is raising the bar, and we must prepare our students for the new playing field on which they must compete.

2020-2021 Testing Windows

The following are the windows during which the NWEA Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessments should be administered.