Education Commission of the States announced today that it is honoring The Kresge Foundation with its 2021 Corporate Award, in recognition of the foundation’s groundbreaking efforts to place comprehensive education at the center of a revitalization of a northwest Detroit neighborhood.

The P-20 Cradle-to-Career Campus at Marygrove sits on the 53-acre site of the former Marygrove College. The campus project will eventually support more than 1,000 children and families with a continuum of education from prenatal through workforce development. Kresge works with several partners on the project — notably Detroit Public Schools Community District, the University of Michigan School of Education, Starfish Family Services, IFF and the Marygrove Conservancy — and has committed to investing $50 million.

This fall, the School at Marygrove will begin its third year of operation with ninth-, 10th- and 11th-graders. It will also open its new early childhood education center, serving 144 children and families with wraparound services provided by Starfish Family Services. Next year, the school will add 12th-graders and its   first elementary classes.

The school, which has a dual emphasis on social justice and design, is operated by Detroit Public Schools Community District in collaboration with the University of Michigan School of Education; the school provides graduates of the university’s teaching program with advanced training modeled after medical residency programs. The superintendent of Detroit Public Schools Community District called Kresge’s support “a sustained and authentic commitment to public education.”

Education Commission of the States announcement expressed gratitude to The Kresge Foundation for its investments in public education,

“We are humbled that the Education Commission of the States has recognized the power of collaboration embodied on the Marygrove P-20 campus,” said Wendy Lewis Jackson, managing director of Kresge’s Detroit Program. “This award recognizes the great things that can be accomplished when we work across areas of expertise with a common goal for community progress.”

The foundation’s full acceptance remarks will be available at the 2021 Virtual Forum on Education Policy, taking place Oct. 20-21. Registration for this event opens in September.

The Corporate Award is one of three awards that Education Commission of the States gives each year to celebrate outstanding commitment to public education. The others are the James Bryant Conant Award, which recognizes individual achievement, and the Frank Newman Award for State Innovation, which recognizes states or territories.