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Nikolai Vitti: I see myself in Detroit's struggling students

Lori Higgins
Detroit Free Press

Nikolai Vitti, the school superintendent, is used to facing pressure. But Nikolai Vitti, the child struggling with reading? Among the worst moments of elementary school came when his teachers would pick a child, one by one, to read a passage from a book.

“I remember sweating and thinking, ‘Oh, my God, please do not pick me.’ And then having to read and kids laughing.” 

Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti and his wife Rachel Vitti are surrounded by their children in a recent family photo. The children are, from left: Cecilia, 12; Lorenzo, 14; Giancarlo, 8 and Marcello, 10.

They would laugh because Vitti, now the Harvard-educated superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools Community District,  has dyslexia — a condition he didn't know he had until much later, when he was in college. It caused him to struggle with basic reading, math and writing — and made certain words difficult to read or pronounce.

It's an experience Vitti, 40, is becoming more and more comfortable sharing — because he wants to ensure that children with similar struggles get the help they need to be successful. And he wants to make sure teachers have the training and resources to meet the needs of kids who struggle.

But it's even more personal for Vitti and his wife, Rachel Vitti, who themselves have had to fight to ensure their own children — two of whom also have dyslexia — receive the right special education services. All four Vitti children, ranging in age from 8 to 14, are enrolled in a DPSCD school for the upcoming school year.

The two are featured speakers for an Aug. 21 town hall meeting on special education in the district. Vitti said it’s an opportunity for Detroit parents of children with special education needs to share their concerns about how the district is serving their kids, and for him to talk about his vision “for how we’re going to do things differently as a district.”

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He will talk about what he has done in other districts, including the Duval County Public Schools in Jacksonville, Fla., where he and Rachel Vitti were instrumental in creating a school that was designed to meet the needs of students with signs of dyslexia or the related dysgraphia or dyscalculia. The two envision creating a similar program in Detroit.

Meanwhile, Rachel Vitti will speak from the perspective of a parent who has spent years advocating for her children on a wider spectrum.

Schools overall spend too much time focused on compliance with special education rules, and not enough on innovation, Nikolai Vitti said. In Detroit, "we have a lot of work to do," he said of the programs in the district.

The district isn't doing an adequate job of compliance with the rules, Vitti said.

"So, this is a good opportunity to rebuild the district from a compliance point of view, but ... also move into innovation."

Vitti is passionate — and emotional at times — about this issue because he sees himself in the faces of the Detroit children for whom he’s now responsible.

“I just see 48,000 kids that ... all they need is that connection,” Vitti said. “They need that inspiration, that support system to allow them to recognize what their academic and civic potential is, and then it can happen.” 

New Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti speaks to the media during the DPSCD Teacher Recruitment Fair in May 2017 at Martin Luther King High School in Detroit. Vitti attended the Fair as part of his first day as Superintendent.

Self-esteem 'hit the floor'

Rachel Vitti — who, like her husband, is a former teacher — began her advocacy as she watched her oldest son, Lorenzo, struggle in school. It was particularly profound, she said, during his third-grade year.

"I saw Lorenzo's self-esteem just completely hit the floor," Rachel Vitti said. "You had a bright, curious, engaged, friendly, fun little boy go from enjoying school to someone coming home crying, saying that he's stupid."

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"As a mother, that fuels your passion to say, 'you know what, we need more help than what's being provided.' And as a teacher, as an educator, I knew that we weren't headed in the right direction."

About one in five children in the nation has learning and attention issues, including dyslexia, according to Understood, a partnership of 15 nonprofit organizations that provides resources for parents and teachers. Rachel Vitti is on the organization's parent advisory council.

Despite the numbers, teachers often aren't given the training they need to help bring out the best in students with learning disabilities. And, the Vittis say, they often don't have access to the latest in best practices and research, particularly brain research.

  During talks with the couple over lunch at a downtown Detroit restaurant, the memories of Nikolai Vitti's own struggles came "crashing back" for him. He recalled not really believing he was smart until a high school teacher told him so.

"I almost looked at him like, 'really?' And he said, 'you don’t know how smart you are.' And I said, 'well, what do you mean?' He said, 'when we’re in class, discussing issues, you can talk about them at a higher level, you synthesize information. You make connections. And I can’t teach you that, but you do that naturally.' "

Vitti said his earlier struggles were easy to ignore because he was for the most part considered "a nice, respectful kid. I got in trouble here and there, but not to the extreme." 

Schools need to identify kids like that, Vitti said, but also the kid with behavior problems who might be more likely to be mislabeled as having an emotional impairment.

Dyslexia is a neurological condition that can't be cured, but can be overcome with the right instruction and use of coping strategies, according to the International Dyslexia Association.

For people like Vitti and his sons, "the brain is inefficient in processing language, meaning the smallest piece of language, which are called phonemes, are very hard to manipulate for a dyslexic person," Rachel Vitti said.

No two kids with dyslexia present the same difficulties. But there are things teachers can do to help — methods that can even help other children.

An example: When learning to read, dyslexic children benefit from an intensive multisensory approach that engages all of the senses, not just sight and sound.

That could mean having a student use their hands when breaking down the phonetic spelling of a word — using their fingers to form the shape of the word while sounding it out.

She says it took six years to get the kind of services for Lorenzo, now 14, "to get him on grade level to where he was successful." With Marcello, who is 10, she was more prepared to intervene earlier and ensure he had the proper support.

Unfortunately, she says, her experience with Lorenzo is typical for parents. In June, she took part in a national panel discussion on the subject and also chronicled her journey for an online publication.  

"Children go longer than that without getting a diagnosis, without getting appropriate services, without getting the support they need," she said.

"That's what drives me to continue to want to help other parents."

The Vittis recognize that, because they're educators with advanced degrees, they have more resources than the average parent. They also know that other parents with means have the resources to pay for additional services for their children, such as tutoring.

"But what are we doing for children who are growing up in poverty whose parents are trying to survive day to day and don't know what the research is?" Nikolai Vitti asked.

Rachel Vitti said she was inspired to push for the creation of the Jacksonville school that's geared toward students with signs of dyslexia in part after visiting private schools that catered to such students and charged upwards of $50,000 a year.

"And when I visited, I said, they are not using any magic pill to get these kids to learn," she said. "What they're doing is they're sticking to a methodology. They're allowing the kids more time to develop, and the kids are in a safe, supportive learning environment. There's absolutely no reason a public school can't do the same thing."

The school that was created in Jacksonville is called the GRASP (Guiding, Remediating and Accelerating Student Performance) Academy.

Nikolai Vitti said GRASP is an example of "what I would like to eventually do here," though he said it wouldn't be a one-size-fits-all approach for all dyslexic children.

"It's creating another option for parents based on the individual need of the child. And it's also an opportunity to create a lab model-type school so those practices can start to be replicated."

Vitti wants all parents to advocate for their children. And he said the district can't be afraid to address parents who express dissatisfaction with the services their children receive, or their children's school.

Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti announces that Detroit teachers and other school employees will get a 50% discount in buying homes from the city, part of a program that encourages them to live in the same community in which they serve.peaks during a news conference on July 21, 2017.

College opened his eyes

Vitti became his own advocate in college. He bought Hooked on Phonics.

"And just to become a better reader, I became obsessed with words," he said.

So obsessed, in fact, that he still has stored away a dictionary he created with a notebook. He would write down words he didn't know after reading them, then write down the phonetic spelling.

It was in college where he got a real sense of his strengths as a student.

"I understood things other people didn't understand, and I could make connections. I'd have a vision for things. It started to come together, and I slowly built my self-esteem and confidence level."

He hopes for the same for other children who struggle.

"If I tell my story, it can inspire students who are dealing with their own challenges and also inspire teachers and parents to recognize that we can identify children with disabilities but not put assumptions on their capabilities and expectations at young ages because they will go through an evolution process, a blossoming, that could come about at just the right time and the right place," Vitti said. "And you just have to continue to support children until that is actualized."

Vitti said that for years he lived with the stigma of not feeling smart. That's why earning a doctorate in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education was so important. 

Appropriately, his doctoral dissertation was on the topic of empowering parents.

He became more comfortable talking about his struggles after earning that degree.

"One thing I used to say to Rachel was I always wanted to go to Harvard, because I knew if I went to Harvard, no one could ever tell me I was stupid again."


Town hall details

The town hall meeting on special education will be held from 6-8 p.m. Aug. 21 at Hartford Memorial Baptist Church, 18700 James Couzens, Detroit.

There is limited seating, so registration by Monday is required. You may register by calling 313-685-3233 or e-mailing