MacDowell Preparatory Academy in Detroit spends roughly $15,217 per student a year. By the state’s own measure, about 3 percent of its 362 students test proficient in math and 10 to 14 percent test proficient in reading. Michigan ranks the school 1,443rd out of 1,488 elementary schools, the bottom 3 percent statewide. This year, the same operator was authorized to open a second Detroit charter school.
MacDowell’s 2024-25 math proficiency rate is 3 percent and reading proficiency is 10 to 14 percent, against state averages of 35 percent and 45 percent.
Chronic absenteeism fell from 72.5 percent in 2021-22 to 41.7 percent in 2024-25, still 14 points above the state average.
Reported per-pupil spending appears as three different figures across the reviewed records, $15,217, $15,835, and roughly $16,290, none of them reconciled to a single year or enrollment count.
A public 2023-24 check register shows $13,970 in gift-card-labeled payments tied to the school’s operator, Brian Banks, including one $9,945 check.
DPSCD authorized Banks to open a second school, Purpose Charter Academy, this year, citing claimed improvement at MacDowell as part of the record.
MacDowell’s own audited financial statements show a $967,964 operating deficit in fiscal year 2024-25, covered by drawing down the school’s fund balance.
The Numbers Michigan Itself Reports
MacDowell Preparatory Academy is operated by Brian Banks through The Purpose Group Michigan LLC, a Michigan-registered entity listing Banks as sole registered agent. According to Michigan Department of Education and National Center for Education Statistics data compiled by SchoolDigger, PublicSchoolReview, and PlainSchools for the 2024-25 school year, the school’s outcomes look like this.
| Metric | MacDowell | Michigan average |
|---|---|---|
| Math proficiency | 3% | 35% |
| Reading proficiency | 10-14% | 45% |
| Science proficiency | 6-9% | not available in reviewed records |
| Chronic absenteeism (2024-25) | 41.7% | 28% |
| Chronic absenteeism (2021-22) | 72.5% | not available in reviewed records |
| Statewide rank | 1,443 of 1,488 | n/a |
| Per-pupil spending | $15,217 | not available in reviewed records |
A rank of 1,443 out of 1,488 means 45 schools statewide scored lower. Forty-five divided by 1,488 is just over 3 percent, the basis for calling this a bottom-3-percent ranking. This is arithmetic applied to the reported rank, not a separately published percentile, though the underlying figures, and the 3.0 percent state percentile itself, have since been confirmed directly against SchoolDigger’s own historical ranking table for MacDowell’s 2025 result.
What the Percentages Mean in a School of 362 Kids
Percentages describe rates. They can obscure how few children they represent. NCES Common Core of Data lists MacDowell’s 2024-25 enrollment at 362 students, 99.2 percent of them Black, 90.9 percent qualifying for free or reduced lunch, on a 16-to-1 student-teacher ratio.
Applying the reported proficiency rates evenly across that enrollment, roughly 11 of MacDowell’s 362 students test proficient in math. Roughly 36 to 51 test proficient in reading, depending on where the true figure falls in the reported range. These are estimates built from a reported rate and a reported headcount, not a count of individual students pulled from an assessment roster, and the true number could differ if proficiency is unevenly distributed by grade.
A Funding Mix That Does Not Track the Outcomes
MacDowell’s funding, per NCES, runs 75 percent state, 23 percent federal, and 2 percent local. The federal share, tied heavily to Title I and IDEA funding for low-income and disability-related services, is well above what a typical Michigan district draws, which tracks with a high-poverty student population and is not, on its own, evidence of anything gone wrong.
What is harder to square is the spending level against the outcomes. The $15,217 per-pupil figure comes from PlainSchools’ compilation of NCES F-33 finance survey data, without a specified fiscal year, and SchoolDigger’s own 2025 finance table lists the identical $15,217 figure, split as $71 in federal funds and $15,145 in state and local funds per student, a split that looks very different from the 75/23/2 state-federal-local funding mix cited elsewhere in NCES data, since the two measures are counting different things (total revenue by source versus a narrower per-pupil expenditure figure) and have not been reconciled here. A second figure appears elsewhere in the reviewed records: NCES finance data for 2021-22 lists MacDowell revenue at $4,228,000 against 267 students, or $15,835 per student. A third comes from MacDowell’s own audited financial statements, retrieved directly from the school’s website: total governmental expenditures of $5,896,918 for the year ended June 30, 2025. Divided against the school’s actual 2024-25 enrollment of 362 students, confirmed separately through NCES and SchoolDigger, that works out to roughly $16,290 per student by Clutch Justice’s own division, not the $16,848 an earlier draft of this piece calculated using a mistaken enrollment figure; the audit itself only mentions 350 students as a forward-looking budget estimate for the following year, not as the actual count for the audited year.
MacDowell ran an operating deficit in fiscal year 2024-25: $4,928,954 in revenue against $5,896,918 in expenditures, a $967,964 shortfall covered by drawing down the Academy’s fund balance from $3,250,878 to $2,282,914 over the year. The same audit discloses that MacDowell pays DPSCD 3 percent of its state aid as an authorizer administrative fee, approximately $113,000 for fiscal year 2024-25, separate from whatever authorization fee DPSCD may later collect from Purpose Charter Academy.
None of these three figures, $15,217, $15,835, and roughly $16,290, match exactly, and they span three different enrollment counts and fiscal years. Enrollment and spending both move year to year, so a gap alone is not unusual. The $15,217 figure is now independently confirmed as MacDowell’s 2024-25 per-pupil spending directly from SchoolDigger’s own finance table, so it should be read as the most current, verified figure of the three, with the other two understood as earlier-year comparisons rather than competing current numbers.
Pulling NCES filings, audited financials, and public check registers apart line by line takes hours most outlets stopped spending years ago. Clutch Confidential members keep this kind of records-first accountability reporting funded and coming.
$10/month ?Where the Money Is Reported to Go
MacDowell’s audited and NCES-reported expenditure breakdown for 2021-22 shows administration at $686,000, about 18 percent of that year’s $3,780,000 in reported expenditures, instruction at $1,676,000, about 44 percent, student and staff support at $571,000, about 15 percent, and operations, food service, and other categories at $847,000, about 22 percent. The reviewed records show that a comparable Michigan charter school of similar size typically runs an administrative share closer to 10 to 14 percent, which would put MacDowell’s reported overhead several points above that comparison. That specific benchmark and its source have not been independently confirmed.
| Category | Amount (2021-22) | Share of total |
|---|---|---|
| Administration | $686,000 | ~18% |
| Instruction | $1,676,000 | ~44% |
| Student and staff support | $571,000 | ~15% |
| Operations, food, other | $847,000 | ~22% |
A separate check register for MacDowell’s 2023-24 fiscal year, posted on the school’s own website according to the reviewed records, shows the following payments.
| Date | Amount | Memo line as recorded |
|---|---|---|
| 08/08/2023 | $1,890 | Staff gift cards |
| 11/20/2023 | $400 | Gift cards for travel |
| 12/20/2023 | $9,945 | Staff gift cards |
| 01/11/2024 | $265 | Reimbursement |
| 06/24/2024 | $1,470 | Staff gift cards, NCSC24 |
| 01/24/2024 | $1,000 | Payable to Rafeal Camper, “Prayers to you and your fam” |
| undated | $5,000 | Payable to Gregory M. Meihn, “Attorney Retainer Fee” |
That is $13,970 in gift-card-labeled payments alone across five checks, one of them a single $9,945 check issued in December. The register is a first-order document that can be pulled directly from MacDowell’s website rather than relied on secondhand. No public record was found identifying Rafeal Camper or any connection between that name and the school; that payment remains unexplained and is a direct question for MacDowell to answer.
A Longer Paper Trail With One Attorney
The $5,000 “Attorney Retainer Fee” line above is not the full picture. MacDowell’s own check registers, pulled directly from the school’s website, show two additional payments to Gregory M. Meihn in that same fiscal year, $4,000 on January 17, 2024 and $647.20 on June 13, 2024, bringing the FY2023-24 total to $9,647.20. An earlier register, for fiscal year 2018-19, shows a similar cluster: $2,500 to his then-firm, Foley & Mansfield, on August 30, 2018, plus $3,000 directly to Meihn that same day, another $2,000 on January 16, 2019, and $6,000 more on June 24, 2019, for a total of $13,500 that year. Clutch Justice has not yet obtained the registers for the years in between, so the full multi-year total to Meihn is not established.
| Fiscal Year | Date | Amount | Payee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | 08/30/2018 | $2,500 | Foley & Mansfield |
| 2018-19 | 08/30/2018 | $3,000 | Gregory M. Meihn |
| 2018-19 | 01/16/2019 | $2,000 | Gregory M. Meihn |
| 2018-19 | 06/24/2019 | $6,000 | Gregory M. Meihn |
| 2023-24 | 01/17/2024 | $4,000 | Gregory M. Meihn |
| 2023-24 | 06/13/2024 | $647.20 | Gregory M. Meihn |
| 2023-24 | 06/26/2024 | $5,000 | Gregory M. Meihn, “Attorney Retainer Fee” |
Meihn is a real, currently practicing Michigan attorney, a partner at Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani’s Detroit office whose practice includes employment and education law and who has represented municipalities, cities, and schools; he was previously affiliated with Foley & Mansfield, consistent with the 2018 payment to that firm. In July 2025, MacDowell issued a formal request for proposals seeking a new “School Board Attorney/Legal Services” provider, with a scope covering review of all school contracts and vendor agreements, board and superintendent counsel, and compliance with the authorizer and state and federal regulators. The RFP does not name an outgoing attorney, and no engagement letter or board resolution has been obtained establishing that Meihn held that role before the 2025 rebid, but the multi-year payment history makes that a reasonable question for MacDowell to answer rather than an idle one.
Nothing in the reviewed records shows a governing board review, an authorizer inquiry, or a state finding on these gift-card payments. Whatever the explanation turns out to be, no record surfaced in this reporting shows anyone with oversight authority has required MacDowell to account for them on the record.
Leadership, Expansion, and Who Is Minding It
Banks operates both schools through The Purpose Group Michigan LLC. He identifies himself on the school’s website and social media as holding both a J.D. and a Ph.D. Neither credential has been independently verified for this piece. In a March 2025 post, Banks wrote that “Black Kids Can Learn!”
Chalkbeat Detroit reported on September 8, 2025 that DPSCD authorized Purpose Charter Academy to serve students experiencing homelessness, chronic absenteeism, and juvenile justice involvement, describing a mission to “reengage disconnected youth” with staffing built around trauma-informed care and coordination with courts, shelters, and mental health providers. DPSCD board minutes from July 2025 show the district receives a 3 percent authorization fee, projected in the reviewed records at roughly $81,000 in the new school’s first year, and Purpose Charter Academy leases the former Detroit Lions Academy building from DPSCD with an option to purchase through August 2028.
The reviewed records show that the case for expansion rested partly on claimed improvement at MacDowell. An August 2024 LinkedIn post by Nicole Wells Stallworth credited Banks with “20% attendance increase and 30% proficiency gains post-independence.” Stallworth is not an outside admirer: MacDowell’s own board of directors page currently lists her as the school’s Board Chair, alongside Judge Yancey, who is also listed there as Board Chair. Whether that reflects a title in transition, a co-chair arrangement, or something else is not established, but it means the “30 percent” claim came from someone in MacDowell’s own governance structure, not a third party.
If that claimed 30 percent proficiency gain refers to the same math measure behind MacDowell’s current 3 percent rate, working backward implies a prior rate near 2.3 percent, which on an enrollment of 362 students is a move from roughly 8 proficient students to roughly 11, a gain of about 3 children. It isn’t clear whether the LinkedIn post’s claim refers to the same metric, subject, time period, or population as the state’s current 3 percent figure. This calculation exists to show how small a “30 percent gain” can look in raw numbers against a very low base rate, not to accuse anyone of misstating anything.
MacDowell’s own board of directors page, retrieved directly, lists Yancey as board chair while she sits on Michigan’s 36th District Court. A second sitting judge chairs Purpose Charter Academy’s board, and the reviewed records describe the combined governance across both schools as including three sitting judges, one assistant attorney general, and one city council member. MacDowell’s board also includes two other practicing attorneys among its directors, so legal expertise on the board itself is not scarce, which sharpens the question of why an outside “School Board Attorney” contract was separately maintained and rebid.
Whether that composition raises a legal incompatibility question under Michigan’s public-office rules is not something this piece resolves. It is a question for MDE, DPSCD, and the schools’ own counsel to answer on the record.
What Taxpayers Are Buying
Strip away everything else and the plain-English version of this story is straightforward. Michigan and federal taxpayers put roughly $15,000 a year behind each of MacDowell’s 362 students, and by the state’s own measurement, somewhere around 11 of them will test proficient in math and somewhere between 36 and 51 will test proficient in reading. Chronic absenteeism, even after an improvement from 72.5 percent in 2021-22 to 41.7 percent in 2024-25, remains 14 points above the state average. On that record, the school’s operator was authorized this year to run a second school, and the same operator’s school issued him and others gift-card-labeled payments approaching five figures. None of that, standing alone, proves wrongdoing. It is, at minimum, a record that a school board and a state authorizer are obligated to explain.
What’s Left to Uncover
Several threads here are still open, and this is where the reporting goes next. What actually drove chronic absenteeism down from 72.5 percent in 2021-22 to 41.7 percent in 2024-25, real improvement, a change in how absences get counted, a shift in who’s enrolled, is worth running down directly with MacDowell. The same goes for what specific instructional interventions the school has put in place since becoming independent, and whether anyone outside the school has evaluated them. The gift-card payments in the 2023-24 register deserve a direct, on-the-record answer about what they were for and how they were reported, not just a line item in a check register. DPSCD’s own due-diligence process before authorizing a second school under the same operator is worth requesting outright, and so is whether Judge Yancey’s and Board Chair Stallworth’s roles have gone through any state or authorizer ethics review. The nearly $1 million operating deficit MacDowell ran in fiscal year 2024-25 is worth asking about directly: what specific cuts or revenue changes the board is planning to close that gap, and whether it is a one-year event or part of a trend the audit doesn’t show on its own.
What Parents Can Do
Michigan law gives parents specific levers here, not just a general right to complain. MacDowell’s and Purpose Charter Academy’s boards are public bodies under Michigan’s Open Meetings Act, which means parents have a legal right to attend board meetings and speak during public comment, and the Revised School Code requires public school academy boards to conduct their business at properly noticed, open meetings. Parents can also request board minutes, the check register, and other financial records directly from the school, and can file a request under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act for anything the school has not already posted publicly.
Complaints about a charter school typically move up a specific chain: the school’s own leadership, then its governing board, then its authorizer, which for both MacDowell and Purpose Charter Academy is DPSCD. Parents who aren’t satisfied with how a complaint is handled at the school level can take it directly to DPSCD’s charter schools office and ask, in writing, what DPSCD’s ongoing oversight of MacDowell has actually consisted of.
Michigan law requires a charter school ranked in the bottom 5 percent of schools statewide for three consecutive years to close (MCL 380.507). MacDowell’s 2024-25 ranking places it in that bottom tier, but nothing in the reviewed records establishes whether the school has held that ranking for three years running or whether MDE has ever evaluated it against this threshold. That is a direct question parents and advocates can put to MDE and DPSCD: has this provision been triggered, and if not, why not.
There is a second lever aimed at the authorizer rather than the school. Michigan law allows the state superintendent of public instruction to suspend an authorizer’s power to issue new charter contracts if that authorizer is not providing appropriate continuing oversight of schools it already authorizes (MCL 380.502). If DPSCD authorized a second school under the same operator without addressing MacDowell’s outcomes, that is a legitimate basis for parents or advocacy organizations to formally raise the oversight question with the Michigan Department of Education. And for families weighing whether to keep a child enrolled right now, it’s worth remembering that charter enrollment is voluntary, no student is assigned to a charter school, so families are free to enroll elsewhere, whether at their resident public school district or another charter, and can use independent tools like the Michigan Alliance for Families’ charter school transparency dashboard to compare a school’s record before deciding.
What Would Actually Change This
None of the individual fixes here are novel. Authorizers could verify a claim like a “30 percent proficiency gain” against actual state assessment data before citing it to justify approving a new school under the same operator, rather than taking a LinkedIn post at face value. A school issuing five figures in gift-card-labeled payments in a single year could trigger an automatic, independent financial review rather than surfacing only because someone went looking. Check registers and audited financials could be posted on a predictable public schedule instead of whenever a school gets around to it. And the incompatible-offices question raised earlier in this piece, sitting judges chairing the boards of schools with ties to the courts, is the kind of thing a conflict-of-interest policy is supposed to catch before a news outlet has to ask about it.
How many MacDowell students test proficient in math and reading?
Applying the state’s reported rates to MacDowell’s 362-student enrollment, roughly 11 students test proficient in math and roughly 36 to 51 test proficient in reading. These are estimates, not an official count of individual students.
Why do MacDowell’s per-pupil spending figures differ across reports?
MacDowell’s per-pupil spending is confirmed at $15,217 for 2024-25 directly from SchoolDigger’s finance data. Two older figures, $15,835 (2021-22) and roughly $16,290 (calculated from the FY2024-25 audit), reflect different years and are not directly comparable to the current figure.
Who runs and governs MacDowell Preparatory Academy?
Brian Banks operates MacDowell through The Purpose Group Michigan LLC. The school’s board chair is listed as Tenisha R. Yancey, a sitting judge on Michigan’s 36th District Court.
Was Purpose Charter Academy authorized despite MacDowell’s outcomes?
Yes. DPSCD authorized Purpose Charter Academy in 2025, with the reviewed records citing claimed improvement at MacDowell as part of the case for expansion.
What can parents do to push for accountability at MacDowell?
Michigan law gives parents specific options: attending and speaking at board meetings under the Open Meetings Act, requesting records under Michigan’s FOIA, escalating complaints to DPSCD as authorizer, and asking MDE directly whether MacDowell’s ranking has triggered the state’s bottom-5-percent, three-year closure provision under MCL 380.507.
How much has MacDowell paid attorney Gregory M. Meihn?
MacDowell’s own check registers show at least $9,647.20 to Meihn in fiscal year 2023-24 across three payments, and $13,500 to Meihn and his then-firm in fiscal year 2018-19. The years in between have not yet been reviewed, so the full multi-year total is not established.
National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data, 2024-25. NCES School District Finance Survey (F-33). SchoolDigger.com’s MacDowell Preparatory Academy profile and historical ranking table, retrieved directly, confirming the 2025 statewide rank of 1,443 of 1,488 (3.0 percent), $15,217 per-pupil spending, 362 enrollment, and chronic absenteeism of 72.5 percent (2021-22) and 41.7 percent (2024-25). PublicSchoolReview.com and PlainSchools.com proficiency and spending compilations.
School Financial RecordsMacDowell Preparatory Academy Audited Financial Statements for the year ended June 30, 2025, retrieved directly from the school’s website. MacDowell Preparatory Academy Check Detail, fiscal year 2023-24, and Check Register, fiscal year 2018-19, both retrieved directly. MacDowell Preparatory Academy Request for Proposal, School Board Attorney/Legal Services, July 2025, retrieved directly.
News ReportingChalkbeat Detroit and BridgeDetroit, September 8, 2025, on DPSCD’s authorization of Purpose Charter Academy, retrieved directly.
Public RecordsMacDowell Preparatory Academy Board of Directors page, retrieved directly, listing Nicole Wells Stallworth and Judge Tenisha Yancey as Board Chair and identifying two additional practicing attorneys among the board’s directors. LinkedIn posts by Nicole Wells Stallworth (August 2024) and Brian Banks (March 2025). Public court rosters for Michigan’s 36th District Court and 3rd Circuit Court. Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani attorney bio for Gregory M. Meihn, retrieved directly. DPSCD Board of Education minutes, July 2025, and Michigan LARA corporate entity filing for The Purpose Group Michigan LLC, both cited in the reviewed records but not independently pulled for this piece.
Michigan Law & Parent ResourcesMichigan Revised School Code, MCL 380.507 (charter closure for bottom-5-percent ranking) and MCL 380.502 (authorizer oversight and suspension), Michigan Legislature. Michigan Open Meetings Act, MCL 15.261-15.275, and MCL 380.1201 (public school academy board meetings). Michigan Alliance for Families, Charter School Transparency Dashboard.
Bluebook: Williams, Rita. MacDowell Preparatory Academy Spends $15,217 a Student. Three Percent Can Do Grade-Level Math., Clutch Justice (Sept. 12, 2026), https://clutchjustice.com/2026/09/12/macdowell-preparatory-academy-academic-financial-record/.
APA 7: Williams, R. (2026, September 12). MacDowell Preparatory Academy spends $15,217 a student. Three percent can do grade-level math. Clutch Justice. https://clutchjustice.com/2026/09/12/macdowell-preparatory-academy-academic-financial-record/
MLA 9: Williams, Rita. “MacDowell Preparatory Academy Spends $15,217 a Student. Three Percent Can Do Grade-Level Math.” Clutch Justice, 12 Sept. 2026, clutchjustice.com/2026/09/12/macdowell-preparatory-academy-academic-financial-record/.
Chicago: Williams, Rita. “MacDowell Preparatory Academy Spends $15,217 a Student. Three Percent Can Do Grade-Level Math.” Clutch Justice, September 12, 2026. https://clutchjustice.com/2026/09/12/macdowell-preparatory-academy-academic-financial-record/.
