Innovative approach gives a charter school, Pembroke Academy, far and away the best test scores in Detroit

When you look over the Spring 2023 M-STEP scores for schools in the City of Detroit, one thing jumps out at you: They must be doing something remarkable at Pembroke Academy.

Indeed, they are.

Consider the English Language Arts scores for students in third, fourth and fifth grades. In third grade, 66.7% of students scored proficient or above on the ELA M-STEP. In fourth grade, it was 71.9%. And in fifth grade, it was 76.5%. Those are far and away the highest scores in the city for open-enrollment schools.

By comparison, the ELA proficiency numbers for schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community District were 12.4% for third grade, 14.8% for fourth grade and 11.6% for fifth grade.

Students at Pembroke Academy are scoring 50-60% higher. “Remarkable” seems like too mild a word.

So what’s the secret? What are they doing differently at Pembroke Academy?

According to Principal Salwa Kinsey, it’s a variety of things – starting with where they place a student when they enroll. At Pembroke Academy, students are placed in a class based on their current level of proficiency, not based on their age.

“Our school embraces a grade-level placement model, so we hit the ground running with data right before a student is in their seat,” Kinsey said. “So when a parent applies to Pembroke Academy, they schedule a time to take a placement test, which is the NWEA for both reading and math. When we first started out, we only did reading, and then we added math about a couple of years ago.

“Once we get the scores, we look at them and then we have a pretty serious conversation with the parents. We call it transparency in education. So where the child scored – say a fifth-grader was coming in to apply for fifth grade but scored a fourth-grade level – then we have a conversation with the parents. We say, if you choose Pembroke Academy, your child would be a fourth-grader here, not a fifth-grader. And then we’re going to do our best to catch them up as quickly as possible to fill up any of the gaps that we identify.”

Located on the city’s northwest side, Pembroke Academy opened in the fall of 2018. The charter school is managed by National Heritage Academies (NHA) and is authorized by Central Michigan. The school has used this model since it opened, and six years later, there’s enough data to say their model is working – extremely well.

One of the key components of Pembroke Academy’s model is that they won’t place a student more than two grades lower than their age (so a student who’s old enough for fifth grade wouldn’t be placed lower than third grade). In fact, Kinsey said most students are either at grade level or only one grade lower; the school has only a handful of students who are two grades lower.

“It’s entirely up to the parents if they want to accept that placement and enroll their child,” Kinsey said. “Some of them don’t, and I completely understand. And I just give them some resources and say that at your child's next school, make sure you're asking questions about what types of interventions they're going to put in place and if there's after-school tutoring or any resources they can share with you at home to close those gaps. And parents are usually thankful either way.”

Kinsey pointed out that every school exercises the option of putting a student in a different grade. At Pembroke Academy, though, they flip the script.

“Every school across the United States has children that have either been retained at the end of a year or they wait until the end of the year to make that decision,” she said. “We do it the opposite. We take a look at where they're scoring when they start and we just really have those crucial conversations and we try to catch them up before a whole year has gone by.”

The other secret to Pembroke Academy’s success is that they keep the parents and families apprised every step of the way and make them part of the process.

“We make them part of the process from the beginning. It’s a true partnership. And it places accountability in that positive partnering with parents. We need their child here every day, on time,” Kinsey said.

One of the main reasons that some people oppose placing a student in a class based on their proficiency instead of their age is that it supposedly comes with a negative stigma. Kinsey said she’s never noticed any of that at Pembroke Academy.

“That has actually never been an issue,” she said. “And our goal is to catch them up as soon as possible.”

When you look at the data, there’s no question that Pembroke Academy’s model is working. And Kinsey points with great pride to one additional piece of information: “Last year, we had 100% of our eighth-graders proficient on the PSAT for reading. And math is catching up. Math was our lower subject area, but as soon as we started adding that math for the grade-level placement piece, and also doing that intentional focus with math, the scores started going up.”

The fact that a public school in Detroit – a charter school – is sending 100% of its eighth-graders off to high school proficient in reading is something that should get every decision-maker’s attention.

At Pembroke Academy’s management organization, they’re certainly taking notice. NHA is adopting the Pembroke Academy model at three more of its Michigan charter schools this fall, and more might follow.

“What we’ve found is that if everybody – school staff, parents, and students – if they all have that true partnership and are working and rowing in the same direction and moving with a sense of urgency towards their goal, then everybody should be leaving our school at a true level of proficiency,” Kinsey said.