What Newark got, Detroit turned down

Bob Thompson admittedly is not as sexy as Mark Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old Facebook founder who is being lionized for donating $100 million to help reinvent the Newark, N.J., schools.

Zuckerberg is a master of the Internet universe; Thompson is in asphalt. Zuckerberg is young, hip and speaks eloquently the language of the globally connected; Thompson is old, square and talks only when he has to, and then in a Midwestern drawl.

But, still, Thompson must be scratching his head. While Zuckerberg's generosity put him on top of Oprah's Great Guys list, Thompson's attempt to give twice as much money to Detroit's schoolchildren got him a kick in the butt.

And while Zuckerberg's gift amounts to roughly 10 percent of his personal wealth, Thompson was all in; the $200 million he offered Detroit was nearly his entire fortune.

Why Thompson wasn't welcomed as the savior of education in Detroit is just another self-destructive episode in the city's tragic journey.

Thompson, the Plymouth road builder who gave half his wealth to his employees when he retired, wanted to give the other half to Detroit to build a network of 15 high-performing charter high schools.

Teamed with his strategic wizard Doug Ross, Thompson guaranteed schools that would graduate 90 percent of their students and send 90 percent of those graduates on to college.

Instead of grabbing the money and doing a happy dance, Detroiters, as is their custom, wailed about a suburban outsider taking away their schools and stealing their children.

Then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick told Thompson to just drop off the check and let Detroit Public Schools decide how to spend it. Gov. Jennifer Granholm stood in the schoolhouse door, assuring unionized teachers she wouldn't allow Thompson's charters to come in and take their jobs.

That was six years ago. Had Detroit embraced Thompson the way Newark is embracing Zuckerberg, the city would have all 15 of those high schools open by now, and a whole lot more of its children in college. Newark is on the road to better schools; Detroit is still resisting reform.

You don't have to imagine what the education environment might have looked like. Thompson worked the cracks to build or help build three high schools.

The newest Thompson school opened on Detroit's riverfront this fall. It's magnificent. For $16 million, Thompson and other backers turned an ancient warehouse into a beautiful example of how decrepit industrial buildings can be repurposed.

The remake of the Albert Kahn-designed structure will be a catalyst for rebirth in the Warehouse District. The University Prep Math and Science Academy offers students lavishly equipped classrooms and laboratories, as well as a glass-walled penthouse cafeteria with a river view.

It's the only year-round school in Wayne County. Each student gets a laptop, studies abroad and benefits from a partnership with the University of Michigan College of Engineering. Average classroom size is 20.

And Superintendent Margaret Trimer-Hartley didn't have to lure kids for Wednesday's Count Day with Target gift cards, as DPS did.

"Our kids can't wait to get to this building in the morning," she says.

You leave the school thinking, "Every kid should learn in a place like this."

Every Detroit kid might have, if the city had seen in an old asphalt man what Newark sees in a flashy young Internet prince.

Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The News. Reach him at nfinley@detnews.com">nfinley@detnews.com. Read more at detnews.com/finley and watch him at 8:30 p.m. Fridays on "Am I Right?" on Detroit Public TV, Channel 56.