The Michigan Business Leaders for Education Excellence (MBLEE) will recognize two high performing schools that are a part of the Flint Community School District. Education leaders, teachers and students from Coolidge Elementary and the Pierce Creative Arts Community School will be honored at ceremonies scheduled for Thursday, September 20. The two schools joined three others in Michigan that were identified by the National Center for Educational Accountability and Just for the Kids as schools that consistently perform well academically while overcoming barriers often identified as a cause for failure.

"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 Jim Sandy, Executive Director for MBLEE. "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. Coolidge and Pierce 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 both schools 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 their schools can be adopted by Michigan's high priority schools. Over 125,000 students currently attend high priority schools in Michigan. Representatives from MBLEE and the NCEA will be conducting on-site visits throughout the school year to learn more about operations at these high performing schools.

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

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SOURCE: Michigan Chamber of Commerce

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

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