Detroit Public Schools Community District students once posted some of the lowest math scores in the history of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In 2026, the district is no longer governed by the same emergency management structure described in the original article, but test scores, graduation rates, and academic recovery remain central concerns for parents, educators, and policymakers.
To further complicate the issue, Detroit Public Schools historically fought an internal battle with Emergency Finance Manager Robert Bobb. Detroit public school teachers, administrators, parents, and school board members were upset about Bobb’s directive, outlining that all students in the district take an additional standardized test that year.
The issue of whether students should have to take that test, on top of the STARS, MEAP, PSAT, SAT, and ACT tests that they already took, was part of a larger battle for control of academic decisions between the Detroit school board and Bobb. Today, Michigan’s testing system has changed. The MEAP has been replaced by the Michigan Department of Education M-STEP, and Michigan students also participate in other state assessments, including PSAT, SAT, and MI-Access testing.
Parents who want a broader context about the district can also read Public School Review’s Detroit Schools: An Overview.
Why Did Detroit Schoolchildren Need a New Standardized Test?
Steve Wasko, DPS Executive Director of Public Relations, said that the standardized test Bobb ordered, the Quarterly Benchmark Assessment, or QBA, would be used to assess how effective the curriculum was in helping students meet benchmarks and achieve adequate academic progress.
This particular test’s usefulness rested on the fact that its scores would be available to teachers and administrators before the school year was over. This quick turnaround for test scores differed from the usual standardized test score timeline, which did not provide educators with information until the following school year.
Getting the test results during the school year, Bobb reasoned, would allow educators to make changes and address gaps in students’ learning in a timelier manner.
In 2026, the same basic debate continues in many public school systems. Districts still rely on interim and benchmark assessments to track student progress, but parents and educators continue to debate how much testing is useful and how much becomes a burden. Public School Review’s guide to Standardized Tests in 2025 explains how testing has changed in recent years.
Record Low NAEP Scores
In 2009, DPS students’ scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress were the lowest of all large urban districts in the United States. In the most recent 2024 Trial Urban District Assessment, Detroit remained a participating district, and NAEP continues to allow large urban districts to compare performance over time and against other city systems.
While everyone seems to agree that Detroit’s public schoolchildren need help, the question of how to best improve public education in Detroit has often been subsumed by the battle over who should have the final authority over academic decisions.
Legal and Political Battle for Authority of the District
Members of the DPS school board said that Bobb’s motives for administering the test were more about political maneuvering than genuine concern for helping students to learn. The school board and Bobb were engaged in an ongoing court battle over who should have ultimate control over academic and financial decisions in the district.
President of Detroit Board of Education Otis Mathis issued a letter in response to Bobb’s directive that teachers administer the QBA. In his response letter, Mathis demanded that Bobb and his staff “cease and desist from making any further academic decisions effective immediately; specifically, administering this benchmark assessment.”
School board members were concerned that Bobb was acting unilaterally without considering input from the school board. An anonymous Detroit school administrator said that the schools had “no problem with assessment,” but rather were concerned about the way in which Bobb issued his orders. “We’re under a dictatorship, there are no democratic rights, no checks and balances,” the administrator said.
Meanwhile, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm said in news reports that she supported Bobb’s authority to make academic decisions for the district.
That governance dispute belongs to a different era of Detroit education. The district has since been reorganized as Detroit Public Schools Community District, and the city’s school system now operates under a locally elected board. Still, the earlier conflict remains important because it illustrates how academic reform can become tangled with governance, finance, labor relations, and public trust.
School District Officials Defended the Test
Some schools began administering the new test. Other school district officials went on record defending Bobb’s decision to implement the assessment. Tracy Martin, the deputy chief academic and accountability auditor for DPS, said that the test was necessary to determine whether students were making adequate progress towards both state standards and the standards set by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Without the test, Martin told the Detroit Free Press, educators were just “going blindly.” She added, “You absolutely need to have regular formative assessments.”
Public relations director Steve Wasko asserted that giving standardized tests such as the QBA was “standard practice across the country.” Speaking to the Detroit Free Press, he asked rhetorically, “Are the critics, self-focused on their adult needs, not interested in knowing what students are learning and using that information to improve teaching and learning? What are they afraid of?”
Of course, the answer to Wasko’s question may be that critics were afraid that Bobb and his supporters would use the test scores as leverage in their campaign to give Bobb full control over academic decisions. DPS teachers, shaken by layoffs, may also have been concerned that the district would ultimately move towards privatizing its education system by closing traditional public schools and opening charter schools.
Speaking to the Detroit Free Press, an attorney representing some of Detroit’s teachers in their fight against Bobb’s directive said that the test was “a stick for [Bobb] to use against the students and teachers to further degrade and then privatize our public education system.”
Detroit Public Schools in 2026
Detroit Public Schools face an uphill battle, and the need to climb upwards from low test scores and graduation concerns remains critical for the future of their students. The district has made changes since the emergency management years, but the larger questions raised by the original debate have not disappeared.
How should schools measure student progress? How often should students be tested? Who should decide what assessments are necessary? And how can districts use data to improve instruction without reducing education to test preparation?
These questions are not unique to Detroit. Public School Review’s article on Measuring Student Success in Public Schools: Beyond Test Scores explores why families and schools increasingly look at multiple measures of student achievement.
Hopefully, the internal conflict that once plagued Detroit Public Schools will continue giving way to a better, brighter future for the students.
