Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co. Tuesday held a day of service to symbolically launch 'Destination: Detroit,' a multi-year partnership with Detroit Public Schools to provide a unique integrated education solution that combines advanced technology, customized lesson plans and educator training and development that will improve student learning. 

The one-day mass volunteer effort kicked off with an assembly at Douglass Academy for Young Men to rally 200 of HMH’s top executives, who heard remarks from Barbara Byrd-Bennett, chief academic and accountability officer of Detroit Public Schools; Rita Schaefer, executive vice president of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; and Keith Johnson, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers. Following the rally, HMH volunteers fanned out to work in 23 DPS schools across the city chosen based on need. 

The volunteers will provide education expertise and assistance in critical areas, including professional development, reading and math tutoring, technology support, grant writing, adult literacy, library organization and building maintenance, among others. Additionally, HMH is donating more than 1,000 books to the district to supplement school library collections.

'Destination: Detroit' represents the umbrella name of HMH’s district-wide, integrated program that will reshape how the DPS approaches its curriculum, lesson planning and instruction of students to drive performance improvement.

This program combines the entire portfolio of educational resources HMH has to offer, including instructional materials adapted for performance level, instructor professional development training and tools, a Web-based data system and a content management portal.
This is the first time HMH has provided such an integrated, thorough offering of resources, including embedding 10 full-time support staff in the district to manage the system.

The DPS program is creating the new model for how school districts will educate in the future by looking at education as a process, not just a set of tools.

The Web-based data system gives instructors real-time assessments of student performance, allowing instructors to more efficiently target lesson plans to skill level.

The content management portal, called Learning Village, is the heart of the program where teachers, administrators, parents and students can access instructional content that is customized for student proficiency by HMH. It also provides learning resources as well as best practices and professional development materials. The benefits of Learning Village are already being realized across the country in other large school districts, but never before has HMH used it in such a complete integrated solutions package like the DPS program, who use it to help teachers evaluate students’ needs and teaching opportunities, track progress throughout the curriculum, and identify students at risk.

“With the power of technology, new integrated offerings and tools can unite teacher training and assessment, and online curriculum content for educators, parents and administrators to support and enrich today’s generation of learners, said Barry O’Callaghan, CEO and chairman of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. “Our day of service is a critical first step toward this larger goal that will set in motion improvements across DPS.”

HMH is committing to Detroit as a long-term customer by putting down roots in the city with a 10-person team to provide technical support, training and outreach. Additionally, the company relocated its executive internal strategy conference, originally scheduled for Austin, Texas, to Detroit on Feb. 10 to show employees firsthand the needs of its largest customer, Detroit Public Schools. The company booked 200+ hotel rooms for an average of 3 consecutive nights.  At an employee dinner Tuesday night at the Marriott Renaissance Center, HMH through the DPS Foundation awarded four $2,500 scholarships to deserving DPS high school graduates to apply towards college.

“Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is committed to working shoulder to shoulder with Detroit Public Schools to foster a true community of learning for the betterment of Detroit’s children,” said O’Callaghan.  “Public-private partnerships such as this are a powerful way to accelerate progress in our country’s education system, as we hope to do for Detroit Public Schools.”

More at www.hmhpub.com.