The top reported proficiency rate is 13% in English language arts. The lowest is 3% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences
DetroitAcademy of Arts and Sciences sits along East Jefferson Avenue, in a city whose story most readers already know in broad strokes. Detroit is a major urban center built on the American auto industry, with the Big Three automakers still anchoring the regional economy, and a cultural legacy in music, art, and design that earned it a UNESCO City of Design designation. The city has spent recent decades working through disinvestment and population loss, but publicly reported growth figures show Detroit has begun growing again, with immigration and new housing driving a modest reversal of its long decline. Major development projects downtown, along the riverfront, and in neighborhoods like Midtown and Corktown signal continued reinvestment. The school itself is a public charter academy serving pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, operating under its own district designation rather than the city's main public school system.
The academy's enrollment is moderate for an elementary-grade charter, with students spread fairly evenly across kindergarten through fifth grade. The student body is almost entirely Black, with only a handful of students identifying as another race. Nearly every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school among the highest-poverty settings in the region. Data on special education enrollment and English learner status was not available, so those dimensions of student support cannot be characterized here. A parent may want to ask the school directly about how it serves students with disabilities and multilingual learners.
On Michigan's M-STEP assessment, proficiency rates at every tested grade are low across all subjects. In math, roughly one in ten third, fourth, and fifth graders reached proficiency, with rates holding steady but well below the state midpoint. English language arts results are slightly higher in the upper elementary grades, but still only a small fraction of students tested at or above proficiency. Fifth-grade science and social studies results were the weakest, with very few students meeting the proficiency bar. When measured against districts across Wayne County, the school's overall proficiency index lands in the bottom quartile. This is a soft spot a parent should look into directly with the school, asking what instructional supports, interventions, and turnaround strategies are in place, especially in the early grades where foundational gaps can compound.
No multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to say whether these results are improving, holding flat, or declining relative to the school's own past performance. Participation rates for the assessments were also missing from the data provided, so the completeness of testing cannot be confirmed here.
Because the school stops at fifth grade, there is no graduation rate to report, and no high school course access, dual enrollment, or career pathway data to describe. That is expected for an elementary-only charter and not a gap in the school's offerings so much as a reflection of its grade band. What a family would need to understand is where students go after fifth grade, and how well the academy prepares them for the transition to middle school. That information was not in the available data.
The housing market around the school's zip code is affordable relative to both Michigan and national benchmarks. Home values sit well below the state figure, which itself is below the national one, and the area has seen a recent year-over-year decline in values. Rents are also modest, with a slight upward tick recently. For families considering relocation or those already in the neighborhood, this is a relatively low-cost housing market, though the declining values may reflect broader economic pressures in the immediate area rather than citywide trends. Detroit's revitalization has been uneven, with investment concentrated downtown and in select corridors while many residential neighborhoods continue to recover slowly.
No program offerings, staffing data, attendance or chronic absenteeism figures, discipline data, or Title I status were available in the payload, so the narrative cannot speak to class sizes, teacher experience, arts integration despite the school's name, or student behavior patterns. The school's name suggests an arts and sciences focus, but without program data, that identity cannot be confirmed or described in detail. A parent considering this school should ask specifically what the arts and sciences emphasis looks like in daily instruction and whether it distinguishes the experience from a standard elementary curriculum.
Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences is a small, high-poverty elementary charter serving an almost entirely Black student body in a city undergoing uneven but real revitalization. Its state assessment results are low by any measure, and its standing among Wayne County districts reflects that. The data does not tell us why, or what the school is doing about it, and those are the questions a parent would want answered before enrolling.
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