Detroit Launches Marketing Campaign

Hoping to staunch steep enrollment declines, Detroit public school officials have launched a $500,000 marketing campaign to lure back students who have left the city’s public schools for charter schools and neighboring districts. The campaign by the Detroit Public Schools, called “Come Home to DPS,” is using advertisements on TV, radio, billboards, and city buses. The district’s Web site also features the slogan. “We will publicize our good schools and unique programs,” Superintendent William F. Coleman III said in a June interview with Education Week. “We know that when parents learn about our special programs, they line up for them. They take their kids out of charter schools in a heartbeat.” The Detroit district, which enrolled roughly 200,000 students in the late 1990s, dropped to 128,000 students during the 2005-06 school year. School officials project another big decline this fall, with an enrollment of 119,000 students expected. (“Detroit Schools Struggle to Stem Student Loss,” July 12, 2006.)