DETROIT -

Calling it one of the largest donations in the company’s 34-year history, Mark Reuss announced that General Motors is handing out almost $30 million to ensure more Detroit-area students obtain a high school diploma.

The foundation plans to give $27.1 million to the United Way for Southeastern Michigan to create Networks of Excellence at five existing area high schools. The goal is to dramatically increase graduation rates and ultimately rebuild the area’s skilled work force.

The current dropout rate is nearly 50 percent in parts of Metro Detroit where the most manufacturing jobs have been lost in recent years, GM officials highlighted.

“The students we are trying to reach are the future,” declared Reuss, GM North America president and GM Foundation board member. He announced the donation at Cody High School in Detroit.

“The GM Foundation can make a difference and helping create Networks of Excellence is a proven way to do it,” Reuss added.

The network, which will be the second administered by the United Way in Detroit and its suburbs, is scheduled to choose five high schools from which to create up to 20 academies, along with establishing five Early Learning Communities, to help get young children ready for kindergarten.

The foundation explained the breakdown of the donation includes $5 million a year for the next five years, plus $425,000 a year for the five Early Childhood Learning Communities.

Officials recalled the first Network of Excellence began with five schools in 2008. After the first year, they said 83 percent of the students at the turnaround schools are on track to graduate, up from a low of 65 percent, according to the United Way.

“The goal is audacious,” pointed out Michael Brennan, president and chief executive officer of United Way for Southeastern Michigan. ”We want to transform Southeast Michigan into the home of one the top five most skilled and educated work forces in the nation. Our measurement is 80 percent or greater readiness for kindergarten and high school graduation where the norm in at least five key communities is 50 percent.”

“We talk a lot these days about doing the right thing,” offered Reuss. “It has to be more than talk. It has to be tangible, and it has to be done with the right partners to get results."

Reuss was also a part of another recent foundation donation of $2 million to help upgrade two community centers near GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant.