The Michigan Business Leaders for Education Excellence (MBLEE) today announced that Gompers Elementary School has been selected as one of Michigan's top performing elementary schools. Working with the National Center for Educational Accountability and Just for the Kids, MBLEE identified a total of five elementary schools that consistently perform well academically while overcoming barriers associated with above average levels of poverty.

"These schools, and the educators that lead them, have refused to accept excuses and have worked hard to provide their students with a quality education," said Garret Geer, of the Dow Chemical Company and Co-Chair 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. Each school 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.

MBLEE, Just for the Kids and the National Center for Educational Accountability will honor Gompers and conduct a best practices study at the Great Wolf Resort in Traverse City on June 22 & 23. Superintendents, principals and a fourth grade teacher from each school that was selected will work with researchers and analysts 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.

"We look forward to celebrating the success of Gompers and these schools and to learning how they were able to beat the odds in order to reach higher levels of academic achievement," said Jim Sandy, Executive Director of MBLEE.

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, Exec. Director of Michigan Business Leaders for
Education Excellence, +1-517-371-7640