The Michigan Business Leaders for Education Excellence (MBLEE) will honor education leaders and teachers at Randels Elementary at a ceremony to be held on Wednesday, February 15 at 9:00 a.m. at the school. Randels Elementary, a part of the Carman-Ainsworth Community School District, was one of five schools identified by the National Center for Educational Accountability and Just for the Kids as a school that consistently performs well academically while overcoming barriers often identified as a cause for failure.

"This school, and the educators that lead it, have refused to accept excuses and have worked hard to provide their students with a quality education," said Jay Van Den Berg, Chairman of the MBLEE Working Group. "We believe that there are valuable lessons to be learned and shared with Michigan's high priority schools and we want to work together to discover the best practices that can help all schools succeed."

Criteria used in the selection process included: academic performance data in mathematics, language arts, listening, writing, science, social studies and reading over the past three years. Randels Elementary also had higher than average rates of students on the free and reduced lunch program and a diverse student population that was above average or unique by geographical location.

Education leaders from Randels Elementary worked with researchers and analysts from MBLEE, Just for the Kids and the National Center for Educational Accountability to determine how the practices used in these schools can be adopted by Michigan's high priority schools. Over 300,000 students currently attend high priority schools in Michigan.

MBLEE is a statewide organization whose corporate members include: Whirlpool, DaimlerChrysler, State Farm Insurance, ArvinMeritor, Steelcase, Ford, Dow, General Motors and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce. The Office of the Governor and the Michigan Department of Education are also partners with MBLEE.

SOURCE: Michigan Business Leaders for Education Excellence

CONTACT: Jim Sandy, Executive Director of Michigan Business Leaders for
Education Excellence, +1-517-371-7640

Web site: http://www.michamber.com/