Advanced Technology Academy, Dearborn MI

Original Research by School Decision on Advanced Technology Academy

Advanced Technology Academy is a single-school charter serving students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade on Oakman Boulevard in Dearborn. It sits in Wayne County, in a dense inner-ring suburb of Detroit defined by Ford Motor Company's world headquarters, the River Rouge Complex, and a deeply Arab American commercial and civic life along Warren Avenue. The school's enrollment is sizable for a charter spanning all grades, with fairly even distribution across grade levels. A very large share of its students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The student body is predominantly Black, with a substantial Hispanic presence and only a small fraction of white or other-race students. The school itself reports its designations as a regular public charter, and publicly reported information describes it as using a Ford PAS project-based learning curriculum, an approach tied to the automaker's education foundation.

On state assessments, the school's results are weak across most grades and subjects. Math proficiency on the M-STEP runs from the low teens in third grade down to single digits in several other elementary and middle grades, with a slight uptick in seventh grade before falling again on the eighth-grade PSAT. English language arts follows a similar pattern through the M-STEP grades, with most scores in the single digits or low teens, before a sharp jump on the eighth-grade PSAT. Science and social studies results are mixed, with fifth-grade science low, eighth-grade science somewhat higher, and eighth-grade social studies the strongest result in the building. The overall proficiency index places the school below the midpoint among Wayne County districts. There is no multi-year trend data available, so it is not possible to tell whether these results are improving or declining over time. Participation rates were not reported, and IEP and English learner counts were missing from the data provided. A parent may want to look into these assessment results further with the school, particularly to understand how the project-based learning model connects to the tested standards and what supports are in place.

The school serves grades that include both tested and untested bands, so the absence of certain measures like a graduation rate in the comparison set appears to reflect a missing value rather than a structural gap. The school does serve twelfth grade, so graduation data may exist elsewhere but was not available here. Chronic absenteeism was also missing from the comparison set. No data on AP courses, career pathways, dual enrollment, discipline, staffing ratios, or attendance was provided, so those dimensions of school life cannot be assessed from what is available. The district brief noted no recent parent-relevant changes, and the Ford PAS curriculum appears long-established rather than new.

Dearborn as a community offers a distinctive setting. The city became the first Arab-majority municipality in the United States, with Middle Eastern and North African ancestry shaping restaurants, markets, halal butchers, and mosques along Warren Avenue. Ford remains the dominant employer, with Carhartt, Corewell Health, the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and Henry Ford College also anchored there. The city has an extensive park system, a major public library, and the Henry Ford museum complex. Housing in the school's zip code is modest relative to both state and national benchmarks, with home values well below the Michigan statewide figure and rents that have risen sharply year over year. For a family considering this school, the housing market is relatively accessible, and the surrounding community is rich in cultural and institutional resources, even though the academic results from state testing leave real questions worth raising directly with the school.

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Academic performance

State test results and graduation outcomes.

Graduation rate (ACGR)

80-84%Cohort of 92 students · Class of 2021

The federal source publishes a banded range instead of an exact rate when the graduating cohort is small enough that an exact number could risk identifying individual students.

How this school compares to all schools in this state

Each dot is one school’s SY 2020-21 graduation rate, binned by integer rate. Taller columns mean more schools at that rate. This school is highlighted.

1,027 schools plotted. 80 additional schools' rates are federally suppressed and not shown. Data: EDFacts SY 2020-21.

Math

Grade 314%

School 14% · District 14%

▼ 27 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 45%

School 5% · District 5%

▼ 33 pts below state median · ▼ 23 pts below county median

Grade 67%

School 7% · District 7%

▼ 22 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Grade 718%

School 18% · District 18%

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Grade 88%

School 8% · District 8%

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 38%

School 8% · District 8%

▼ 30 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

Grade 47%

School 7% · District 7%

▼ 34 pts below state median · ▼ 22 pts below county median

Grade 511%

School 11% · District 11%

▼ 31 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

Grade 617%

School 17% · District 17%

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 719%

School 19% · District 19%

▼ 15 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Grade 864%

School 64% · District 64%

▲ 1 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above county median

Science

Grade 510%

School 10% · District 10%

▼ 30 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 824%

School 24% · District 24%

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 835%

School 35% · District 35%

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

This schoolAdvanced Technology Academy, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 6Lower-income17%Higher-income21%5 pp gap