Chalkbeat

Seven decades after Brown v. Board, inequities challenge Michigan’s most vulnerable students

2024-05-15T13:51:35+00:00

Read more of Chalkbeat's coverage of the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

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Seven decades after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled racial segregation unconstitutional, students of color in Michigan continue to attend schools rife with inequities.

The Education Trust-Midwest released a new report Wednesday that draws attention to these “devastating inequities” and renewed calls for a more equitable school funding system in Michigan to address them. It launched a new data tool that lets viewers see how much their schools would be funded if inequities were addressed.

The group also launched a new campaign involving a coalition of leaders across the state to call attention to “decades of neglect to Black, Latino/a students, and students from low-income backgrounds,” the resources and support their public schools need, and also the “urgent need to address profound pandemic learning losses” that hit underserved students especially hard.

“The urgency is to save another generation of students, so they can compete in a global economy and achieve the American dream of a good quality of life,” said Alice Thompson, chair of the education committee of the Detroit NAACP and one of the chairpersons of the statewide coalition.

Among the dire findings highlighted in the report:

Nearly half of Michigan students of color and two-thirds of all Black students attended schools in districts with high concentrations of poverty, where 73% or more of the students come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. That compares with 13% of white students.
Michigan students in districts with the highest concentrations of poverty are much less likely to have highly experienced teachers who are, on average, more likely to be effective.
School-age children across the state have lost roughly half of a grade or more of learning in math and reading since the pandemic started. In school districts that serve predominantly Black and Latino students and students from low-income backgrounds, such as Kalamazoo and Lansing, learning losses were dramatically worse.
At the current pace of educational recovery, most students would need an additional five years to catch up in math. In reading, most Michigan students would need decades — well beyond their time in school — to be able to read at their grade level, according to research from the Education Recovery Scorecard.
School funding disparities between wealthy and less-resourced schools make it harder for high-poverty districts to support their students’ educational recovery from the pandemic.

“Segregation in education is not only happening based on race, but also based on socioeconomic status, and very frequently at the intersection of both of those factors,” said Jen DeNeal, director of policy and research at the Education Trust-Midwest. “And we know that concentrated poverty in particular is a real challenge in Michigan.”

Schools with high concentrations of poverty, she said, tend to have fewer resources, less experienced teachers, higher teacher turnover, and increased exposure to environmental hazards and safety concerns.

Last year, the organization and others urged state lawmakers to adopt what they called an “opportunity index” that would provide additional money to districts serving communities with higher concentrations of poverty. The budget for this current year adopted that proposal, which has provided an additional $1 billion in funding to districts to serve at-risk students. But the opportunity index that went into effect doesn’t go as far as advocates wanted.

The Education Trust-Midwest’s new data tool will give families information that hasn’t been readily available. It shows them how much their districts are receiving now in per-pupil funding, including the additional amount they are receiving for at-risk students. A second column shows how much they would receive if the opportunity index was fully funded. And a third column shows how much districts would receive per student if they adopted a funding system similar to what Massachusetts adopted many years ago that has made it a leader in addressing funding inequities.

Here’s what the data tool shows for Detroit Public Schools Community District, the state’s largest district: DPSCD currently receives $10,862, including its basic per-pupil amount and its funding for at-risk students. If the opportunity index was fully funded, the district would receive $13,448 for each student. And if the Massachusetts funding model was used, the district would receive $17,881.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan needs more youth mental health professionals. New program aims to help.

2024-05-16T21:20:24+00:00

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More mental health resources for youth are coming to Michigan this fall as part of a national effort that will also create pathways for young adults to enter behavioral health careers.

A new Youth Mental Health Corps that will help middle and high schoolers access mental health resources is launching in Michigan and three other states in September. It will eventually expand to seven more states next year.

The program also aims to tackle the state’s and the nation’s shortage of mental health professionals by giving corps members working experience. Additionally, it will provide stipends, scholarships, and in some cases, the opportunity for corps members to qualify for student loan forgiveness.

Corps members will be trained to help teens navigate resources available in their schools and community organizations. They will also share digital and media literacy resources with kids to help them navigate online harassment, bullying, and bias.

The new program, part of the federal volunteerism and service agency AmeriCorps, comes to Michigan at a time when advocates and educators say schools are far too understaffed to fully meet students’ growing needs for mental health services.

“AmeriCorps members are a tremendous resource for Michigan in helping solve the state’s pressing issues and youth mental health is one of those critical needs,” said Ginna Holmes, executive director of the Michigan Community Service Commission, in a statement. Michigan districts have added more than 1,300 mental health staff members in schools since 2018, however advocates say much more funding is needed to attract and retain counselors, psychologists, and social workers to the field.

The state had one counselor for every 615 students – the third highest ratio in the country – in the 2021-22 school year, according to the most recently available report from the American School Counselor Association. ASCA’s recommendation is once counselor for every 250 students.

For school psychologists, the ratio was one for every 1,445 students in Michigan during the same school year, and one school social worker for every 1,051 students, the most recently available data shows. The recommended ratios are one psychologist for every 500 students and one social worker for every 250 students.

Michigan is not alone in its shortage of school behavioral health staff. School mental health professional organizations say it would take more than 100,000 additional staff to reach recommended ratios in all of the public schools in the U.S.

“We are at a critical moment where we must act with urgency to address the mental health crisis that is impacting millions of our children,” said Michael D. Smith, CEO of AmeriCorps, in a statement.

The private-public partnership is funded by AmeriCorp, the Schultz Family Foundation, and social media company Pinterest.

Anyone with a high school diploma ages 18 to 24 is eligible to apply to become a corps member.

Hundreds of corps members will initially be deployed in Michigan, Colorado, Minnesota, and Texas this fall, with plans to expand to California, Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, and Utah in the fall of 2025.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Report: Michigan teacher salaries aren’t keeping pace with other states

2024-05-15T13:47:41+00:00

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Average starting salaries for Michigan teachers lag behind most other states at a time when many school districts in the state are struggling with teacher shortages and the profession is becoming increasingly unappealing to those seeking careers.

That is one of the key findings in a new report from Michigan State University researchers that also finds that the average overall salary for Michigan teachers is now below the national average, after many years of being among the highest in the U.S.

The report, “Teacher Compensation in Michigan: Recent Trends and Public Opinion,” was released last month by the Education Policy Innovative Collaborative. It includes results of a public opinion poll of Michigan residents that shows wide support for increasing pay for new teachers.

Teacher pay is a critical issue in Michigan, as it is elsewhere in the country. There are wide disparities in pay between districts, with wealthier districts able to pay their teachers more. Shortages affecting many districts — especially in science, math, special education, and career and technical education — make it more attractive for teachers to move around in search of higher pay, creating instability. Often, that instability affects the most vulnerable students.

Jason Burns, one of the authors of the report and a research specialist at EPIC, said he hopes the findings will spur “a more informed debate on the topic.”

Here are some of the key findings in the report:

The average starting salary in Michigan was $38,963 during the 2021-22 school year, ranking 39th in the nation.
The average teacher salary in Michigan in 2021-22 was $64,884, 16th in the nation and below the national average of $66,745. During the 2012-13 school year, Michigan’s average was $61,560, 11th in the nation and above the national average of $56,065. That’s a 5% increase for Michigan over that time, compared with a 19% increase nationally.
Adjusted for inflation, Michigan teacher salaries have been on a steady decline. The report says that “if salaries had kept pace with inflation since 1999, the average Michigan teacher would have earned $81,703 in the 2021-2022 school year.”
In a recent survey of Michigan residents, 76% said they believe starting teacher salaries should increase, while 43% felt the same for average teacher salaries.

The teacher salary data is based on 2021-22 data, the most recent available for the report.

Michigan’s average teacher salary ranking has declined in part because many other states have moved to increase teacher salaries. Burns said Maryland, Delaware, Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Idaho, and Utah are among those that have moved to increase teacher salaries, mostly by boosting the minimum amount teachers can earn but in some cases raising salaries for all teachers. A Michigan bill last year that would have set a minimum salary of $50,000 for starting Michigan teachers failed.

The fact that this movement to increase teacher pay is happening in both blue and red states is interesting, Burns said.

“In education, a lot of things wind up being partisan these days,” he said. “But looking at what’s happening across the country, it’s been a very bipartisan kind of effort in terms of who is actually taking action on the issue of teacher salaries.”

Chandra Madafferi, president of the Michigan Education Association, heard a presentation on the EPIC report recently. Her reaction? “Coming from the classroom, I knew it was bad. I didn’t know it was this bad.”

She said there is inconsistency in teacher salaries across Michigan, with often a $20,000 difference at the top of the pay scale between those districts that “pay really, really well and those who don’t. So the inequity is still very apparent.”

Madafferi said she appreciates that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has made historic investments in public education, “because in many places, things are better than they have been.

“In many places, pay is going up. Things are getting better but there’s still so much that has to be done,” she said.

For instance, Madafferi said many districts are dealing with infrastructure and facility issues that require expensive fixes. If they can’t get that covered through a bond proposal, the money to fix the issues comes out of general funds, leaving less money to cover teacher pay increases.

“I have had multiple superintendents say to me, ‘I want to pay my educators more,’ or ‘I want to pay teachers more, however, we just can’t.’”

The report also highlights research from the Economic Policy Institute that finds that nationally, teachers earn 26.4% less than similarly educated college graduates. In Michigan, teachers earn 21% less. The gap is referred to as the teacher penalty.

Burns said research from the Federal Reserve Bank found a similar gap — 18% to 20% lower pay for teachers.

That kind of data is concerning to people like Armen Hratchian, executive director of Teach For America Detroit. TeachMichigan, a program of TFA Detroit, seeks to recruit and retain educators.

A 21% pay gap “is a real penalty,” Hratchian said.

“We have financially made this uncompetitive, and then we aren’t supporting folks in the way we should be,” Hratchian said. “What we’ve shown is when you do that, well, it strengthens the profession.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

State budget proposals aim to tackle literacy crisis and make school funding more equitable

2024-05-14T11:00:00+00:00

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Michigan lawmakers are poised to approve a state education budget that would build on last year’s historic investment in the state’s most vulnerable students, while also increasing funding to improve student mental health, education for English language learners, and literacy.

But some students, parents, educators, and advocates are worried that the state won’t be able to fully fund “dire” needs at a time when Michigan faces several budgetary challenges.

Roughly $5.6 billion in federal COVID relief funds will expire this year, and state revenue growth is expected to slow in coming years. Declining enrollment also has created funding shortfalls in some districts.

Some fear districts will face painful cuts.

“The state of education right now is – truly, we’re desperate,” said Kathi Martin, a speech language pathologist and union president in Dearborn Public Schools.

“The amount of resources we have never seems to be enough,” she added.

Last week, the House passed a proposed budget that would increase school funding by $900 million compared to last year’s. That’s just slightly higher than what Whitmer proposed in her executive budget.

The Senate appropriations committee has also proposed an increase in school aid, of $1.1 billion. The Senate has not yet voted on the committee’s recommended budget, however, and is expected to take a vote in the coming days.

The legislature has a deadline of July 1 to pass a state budget. When both houses pass a budget, it will go to the governor to sign. It will take effect Oct. 1.

Last year, lawmakers passed a $21.5 billion school budget that included historic increases to benefit the state’s neediest students. But advocates say legislators must keep up the momentum to continue to work toward more equitably funding Michigan schools.

Here’s what lawmakers have proposed:

Increases to the “opportunity index”

For years, Michigan has been ranked among the worst states in the nation for the inequities in funding between schools in wealthy and poor communities.

Last year, the budget gave an additional $1 billion in funding to districts to serve at-risk students through the “opportunity index,” which provides money to districts serving communities with higher concentrations of poverty.

“Michigan must continue to take bold steps for an equitable education for its students,” said Elnora Gavin, a Benton Harbor School Board member, in a statement.

Here are some of the highlights:

The Senate committee’s proposal includes a $122.6 million increase to at-risk funds. It would allow districts to use up to 60% of the money to recruit and retain instructional staff as well as staff who help improve students’ social, emotional, or physical health.
The House proposes a $70.1 million increase. That proposal also includes language that would allow the Detroit Public Schools Community District to use up to 40% of the money to hire more instructional staff or increase teacher salaries.
The executive proposal would increase at-risk funding by $23.8 million. It would allow some districts to use up to 30% of the money for teacher recruitment and retention.

Advocates have asked lawmakers to increase the opportunity index funds by 20% over the next five years until it eventually equates to around $2.9 billion in additional funding for at-risk students each year.

What legislators are currently recommending for 2024-25 ranges from a 2.5% to around 12.8% increase over last year’s at-risk funding.

More money for mental health

Since 2021, Michigan has invested more than $715 million in student mental health programs and hiring more school counselors. However, advocates and educators say more school counselors, psychologists, and social workers are needed to adequately address students’ needs during an ongoing youth mental health crisis. The state had the third highest ratio of counselors to students in the country, according to the most recently available data.

“A lot of students’ grades are low because they are facing mental health problems and are not being heard by our teachers,” said Christina Yarn, a 17-year-old attending Saginaw Community Schools’ Heritage High School.

The governor’s office and the House both propose $300 million in per-pupil funding – $3.3 million more than last year– to improve student mental health and school safety, which is in line with what advocates have asked for. Both proposals have restrictions on the funds to be used for school resource officers. The Senate committee proposes a lower amount, $150 million for the funds, with no restrictions on districts for paying school police.

Small increase for English language learners

The state increased funding for English language learners last year, but still ranked among the worst in the nation for its funding of such programs compared to other states in 2023, according to Ed Trust Midwest.

“We have many immigrant and migrant students attending our schools,” said Martin. “Lots of children come to school and they don’t know English. In order to adequately teach these children, we need more resources than just one teacher in a room with 27 kids.”

The Senate committee’s proposal would double funding for English learners with an increase of $39.7 million.The governor and the House propose much smaller increases – $3 million and $5 million respectively.

One-time funds for literacy

Michigan has long struggled with student literacy rates. It ranks 43rd in the country for fourth grade reading. While more money was allocated to literacy efforts such as reading coaches and early literacy training for teachers last year, some administrators say they are unable to fill open positions.

The governor proposed $155 million in one-time funding to create a Committee for Literacy Development; offer a ranked list of curricula and professional development for teachers; and fund early literacy teacher coaching positions. The House and the Senate committee’s proposals include similar budget items.

Cuts to the teacher retirement fund

In order to pay for proposed increases to big items on the proposed budgets, legislators are considering making cuts to contributions to the state’s retirement funds for public school employees.

The governor wants to fund $758.9 million less than the $2.5 billion the state put into the Michigan Public School Employees’ Retirement System in 2023-24. The House proposes reducing payments to the funds by $562.4 million. The Senate committee recommends $41.3 million in cuts.

Republican lawmakers have voiced concerns that these cuts would add to an existing pension debt in the system.

Democrats, including Whitmer, say that health care is fully funded under the plan and that it is feasible for the state to scale back its investments in helping districts make payments into the plan.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Rochester educator named Michigan Teacher of the Year

2024-05-07T21:42:29+00:00

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Kelley Cusmano, an English language arts teacher at Rochester High School, has been named Michigan Teacher of the Year for the 2024-25 school year.

Cusmano was surprised with the announcement during a visit to her Oakland County school by state Superintendent Michael Rice and other officials. According to a news release from the Michigan Department of Education, blue confetti was released into the air. About 1,600 students, coworkers, and family cheered, the release said.

Cusmano was selected from among 700 teachers who were nominated. Ten finalists were named last month. Tuesday’s announcement marked the end of a months-long process that seeks to identify outstanding teachers who can provide a voice for educators in the state. She succeeds Candice Jackson, a math teacher in the Detroit Public Schools Community District who was named last year.

“I’m not the best teacher in Michigan. But I have a really loud voice,” Cusmano told the audience, according to the release. “I love this job. I love what I do and who I do it with.”

Cusmano will now be in the running for National Teacher of the Year.

“Kelley is passionate, nurturing, and relentless in her efforts to support our students,” Rochester High Principal Joshua Wrinkle said in a letter nominating Cusmano. “Some of the most inspiring work that I’ve witnessed in education includes Kelley’s ability to encourage and support students who may be struggling, have disabilities, or are not excited about the course work. She is always looking for ways to motivate her students to achieve more than they ever thought they could.”

As Michigan Teacher of the Year, Cusmano will have a non-voting seat at the table at State Board of Education meetings. She will be expected to present a report to the board on issues that are important to teachers. She is also expected to do outreach on behalf of teachers throughout the state.

Here are the other Michigan regional finalists for the Teacher of the Year recognition:

Michael Powers, a social studies teacher at Manistique Middle/High School in Manistique Area Schools
Molly Dunham, a third grade teacher at Kingsley Elementary School in Kingsley Area School
Kristen Ritter, a mathematics teacher at Greenville High School in Greenville Public Schools
Laura Baker, an English teacher at Shepherd High School in Shepherd Public Schools
Sasha Wakefield, a mathematics teacher at Clio High School in Clio Area Schools
Cassandra Eberhardt, a social studies teacher at Williamston Middle School in Williamston Community Schools
Melissa Frost, a science teacher at Buchanan High School in Buchanan Community Schools
Kristina Dennis, a third grade teacher at Onsted Elementary School in Onsted Community Schools
Calvin Nellum, a science teacher at Detroit Academy of Arts & Sciences

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

AP African American Studies connects Michigan students to their own history while they make it

2024-04-29T15:43:36+00:00

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As a crackling recording of Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech resonated in the background, eight students took their seats in a classroom at East Kentwood High School. They carried themselves with purpose.

The seniors were not only there to learn history. They showed up to make it.

The course they are taking during fifth period at the west Michigan Kentwood Public Schools campus – Advanced Placement African American Studies – has become a lightning rod among some conservatives who think it teaches so-called “critical race theory” and should be banned. Their school is one of only 17 in the state and 700 across the country to offer it this school year.

For the students, all of whom are Black, it is a chance to delve deeply into diverse perspectives of their own history – which, they emphasize, is American history.

The topic that day: “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” which the slain civil rights leader wrote with Alex Haley.

In the small classroom, made colorful by Black Lives Matter posters, previous students’ artwork, and flags from around the world displayed on its white brick walls, the kids talked in small groups about the latest chapters of the autobiography they had read. They talked about the man Malcolm X was at different points in his life and how his experiences changed his views.

What critics of the course get wrong, said Da’kyiah Sanders outside the East Kentwood classroom, is that the much-debated AP African American Studies course doesn’t teach just one viewpoint.

“It’s everyone’s history,” she said, “every point of view, every perspective.”

From left, Da’kiyah Sanders, 18, and Adeola Ojo, 17, students in Matt Vriesman’s AP African American Studies class at East Kentwood High School, say the class allows them to study more perspectives of U.S. history.

Why has the class garnered so much attention?

“Mr. Vriesman, you said there would only be two people on Friday,” one girl said, addressing the observers in the April 15 class, who came close to outnumbering the students in attendance that day. “That’s five people.”

A few of the students were absent that day as they traveled to Washington D.C. The same group spoke about what they’re learning in the pilot program at a State Board of Education meeting earlier this month.

Matt Vriesman, the instructor, is white but focused his final master’s degree research on Black political history in the 20th century. Through that experience, the educator said he noticed the gap between what historians write about Black history and what is included in basic high school texts. He created a website that offers resources and lesson plans that cover race, slavery, and injustice in U.S. history available to all teachers.

Vriesman told the students he wanted to take the time to allow them to be interviewed by reporters so they could share what the experience has meant to them.

“Because, you know, not everyone thinks this class should exist,” he told the class. “And I think your guys’ voices are really important.”

History teacher Matt Vriesman teaches an AP African American history class at East Kentwood High School near Grand Rapids on April 12. Five students from the school recently spoke in front of the State Board of Education about why the class is important.

The AP African American Studies course came under fire when it was first piloted in 2022-23, as conservative groups and politicians began to decry so-called “critical race theory” and lessons that teach students about race and racism in America. Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis went as far as banning the class from his state, saying it lacked educational value.

While the College Board, a not-for-profit membership organization that develops syllabi for its Advanced Placement Program, pushed back on such claims, it eliminated mentions of many Black writers and the Black Lives Matter movement from its formal curriculum. The revised framework for the class made those subjects and others “optional.”

Vriesman, who was named the 2023 National History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute, said the conservative argument incorrectly and “ridiculously” concedes there is only one Black perspective.

“There are so many different ideas and strategies and perspectives within the Black community and Black history,” he told Chalkbeat, adding a great deal of the class is about conflicting perspectives.

It covers debates among Black people in the Antebellum period over whether churches should be African churches and whether America is for Black Americans.

“You have David Walker saying, of course it is,” said the teacher. “Others argue after Antebellum that African Americans should leave and move to the Caribbean. There are so many debates within Black history about what’s the best liberation strategy.”

History teacher Matt Vriesman leads a discussion on Malcolm X's autobiography in the AP African American Studies class at East Kentwood High School.

There are plans for the new AP course to officially launch and be available to all high schools in the country in 2024-25.

The overall goal of the college-level course is to use multiple disciplines to examine diverse African American experiences through primary historical sources. Students must engage with sources in a variety of disciplines, such as data, imagery, visual arts, music, news publications, and historical records.

It covers everything from African culture, connections between contemporary Black culture and the African diaspora, political movements, intersections of identity, and multifaceted contexts of social movements. There is room in the curricula to also focus on local Black history.

The class allows the time and space for teachers and students to go more extensively into subjects that might otherwise be left out of U.S. history courses, said East Kentwood senior Adeola Ojo.

“I think they don’t really focus on how African Americans felt,” she said of her previous American history classes. “It’s more about how white Americans may have reacted.”

Seeing history beyond a narrow white perspective can help all students to “understand everyone’s narratives,” said Da’kyiah. Learning different cultural perspectives can also break cycles of oppression and allow for change, she added.

“I wish more people knew about this so that they didn’t stay so ignorant on these topics,” she said, “and so that they could just create a different world, a new world, and not continue to stay along the same path with it.”

Kanyla Tyler, 17, and Murjoni McIntosh, 17, work together preparing for a graded discussion in AP African American Studies class.

The lessons hit home for students

In class on the mid-April day, Da’kyiah and her peers talked about how Malcolm X’s transition from prison to life in Detroit shed light on challenges for formerly incarcerated people reintegrating into society.

As an image of Malcolm X at the Nation of Islam’s Temple No. 1 in Detroit was projected on a white board, the students discussed the significance of the moment for the activist.

Students work together during AP African American Studies class.

“He had never seen Black Americans dressed like that,” said Vriesman of the photo. “All the Black Americans he knew were Christian. They never wore suits and ties.”

A boy in the class said it was the first time Malcolm X describes seeing “pride in being Black.”

“That was perfect AP-level analysis,” said Vriesman of the discussion.

When Malcolm X’s niece, Deborah Jones, visited the class earlier in the semester, she told the students about a school board decision in 1968 to close the predominantly Black Grand Rapids South High School in an effort to racially integrate schools.

The board didn’t listen to the Black community, who wanted it to stay open because it was considered a place of Black excellence, Jones told the class. Instead, it was closed and there were reports Black students were sent to overcrowded, underresourced schools.

Kanyla Tyler, 17, poses during AP African American Studies class.

Kanyla Tyler, 17, said the lesson on South High hit close to home.

“I ended up asking my family about it, and my granny ended up being part of that last class,” she said.

The lesson opened up a chance for Kanyla to talk with her grandmother about her experience at the school and what it was like to see it shutter.

Lessons on West African culture connected to East Kentwood senior Adeola Ojo’s personal history as well. For the first time in school, she learned about her father’s Nigerian heritage.

“Our first unit taught us about the kingdoms in West Africa and how slaves were taken from there,” she said.

Just before fifth period ended, Kanyla and her classmate, Murjoni McIntosh, 17, stood outside the classroom and smiled when asked what they would say to people who think the course shouldn’t exist.

“I really say skip the haters because Mr. Vriesman makes it a fun experience to actually want to learn more about your culture,” said Murjoni.

“This is like a class where we get to learn more about ourselves and we discover ourselves more,” added Kanyla. “So I would say the same: Skip the haters.”

Then, as the sixth period bell rang and the hallway began to flood with students, the two teens high-fived each other.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Three state Board of Education safety proposals fail to move forward

2024-04-09T18:27:26+00:00

After the State Board of Education dismissed her three school safety proposals, member Nikki Snyder stormed out of the meeting Tuesday morning.

It was the second time in five months one of Snyder’s proposals on safety measures in response to the Oxford school shooting was rejected by the board.

“The cowardice of this board is disgusting,” she said as she left.

Snyder, a Republican, introduced three resolutions to urge lawmakers to create a statewide emergency response plan, remove protections shielding public school officials from legal liability, hold staff accountable for lapses in safety, require annual school safety inspections, and create a database of student deaths and injuries, among other measures.

“The board shouldn’t exist if it’s not impacting the safety of our students,” Snyder said in a phone interview after she left the meeting.

Only Snyder and Tom McMillin, the other Republican on the eight-member board, voted in favor of discussing all three resolutions.

The members of the majority-Democratic board who voted against adding the proposals to the agenda said they care about school safety, but they either needed to do more research on the issues or wanted to wait to support related legislation to be proposed. Some members said they had already passed resolutions on safety issues. The board is an elected body that does not have the power to pass laws, but is expected to provide recommendations to legislators.

“Shame on you for saying that we don’t have urgency when we’ve continuously promoted resolutions and been out advocating for safe schools,” said Board President Pamela Pugh, a Democrat, to Snyder at one point in the meeting.

Three parents whose children attended Oxford High School in November 2021 when a 15-year-old killed four students and injured seven others decried the Michigan Department of Education and the board for not taking up the resolutions.

“You put Oxford High School students, staff, and families in your rearview mirror and you continue to refuse to see us,” said Renee Upham, whose son survived the mass shooting. “You are dishonoring them and the institution that you represent.”

An independent report on the shooting released in October found multiple failures by school officials to take steps to prevent the killings.

On Tuesday, the parents of the Oxford shooter were both sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for their failure to take steps to prevent their son from carrying out the shootings.

Civil suits were filed against Oxford Community Schools and several Oxford staff members. Last year, a circuit court dismissed a claim against the district and its employees due to government immunity. Litigation is still ongoing in some of the cases.

One of Snyder’s resolutions said the Oxford shootings could have been prevented if best practices in prevention were followed, echoing the findings of the independent report. The resolution would have encouraged the implementation of a statewide emergency operations plan, making independent third-party investigations of student injuries or deaths mandatory, and making schools and staff liable for negligence that leads to lapses in school safety. It also would urge the legislature to amend the state’s Freedom of Information Act to remove blanket exemptions that prevent the public from reviewing emergency plans, among other measures.

Another of Snyder’s resolutions says that Michigan students are put at risk of violence, injury, and discrimination because existing rules on how schools can use seclusion and restraint are not enforced in schools. It would urge the legislature to mandate state reporting on instances of seclusion and restraint, create state compliance oversight, create consequences for noncompliance, and change laws to make schools and employees liable for violating the laws.

Snyder also introduced a resolution to urge legislators to pass Liliana’s Law, a bill that has been introduced four times after a 3-year-old died from being crushed by a recalled folding table in 2017 at a Dearborn Heights Head Start program. The bill would require annual safety inspections of all schools. The resolution also encourages the lawmakers to pass a bill that would create a database of student deaths and injuries in public schools.

Board Member Tiffany Tilley, a Democrat, said that she believes resolutions are more effective in informing the legislature when the board has time to discuss issues at length and have an “informed position.”

“I think that we all need to understand that we are not legislators,” said Tilley. “We operate in a different capacity.”

Marshall Bullock, another board member and a Democrat, agreed and said the board and its legislative committee had not yet discussed some of the issues.

“While all of these have merit, I think they are put together in a haphazard way and they are definitely not thoughtful, vetted, clear, or concise,” he said.

On Monday, Snyder held a press conference with the mother of the girl who died in Dearborn Heights, parents of two Oxford shooting victims, and the father of a boy injured while being restrained in his school. She said their input was given on all of her proposals.

“All of these parents are saying the same things – that schools aren’t safe,” said Snyder.

In November, Snyder introduced a resolution calling for more training requirements for public school staff to prevent violence and more accountability for school employees and administrators for safety lapses. The board voted against taking up the proposal, saying they would consider it later after more research.

Pugh noted Tuesday that she voted in support of Snyder’s previous resolution related to an emergency operation plan. The board president said she expected that issue to come up in the legislative committee by now and that she will push it forward to the committee again.

After the public comments, Tilley said that as a survivor of a brother lost to gun violence, she deeply cares about safety issues.

“The resolutions are us coming together in our voice saying to the legislature that we want to see laws passed,” she said. “We just need time to do that. Nobody is saying that we’re not gonna do anything.”

Snyder expressed frustration during the meeting when state Superintendent Michael Rice reminded her that presenters, including a group of students set to talk about a pilot AP African American Studies course, were waiting to address the board.

“You’re trying to have more presentations about things that are not keeping kids safe and not educating them,” she said. “I’m fully aware of what we have done since the seven years I have sat on this board. Yes, let’s get to those presentations that aren’t keeping our kids safe and educating them. That’s important.”

A presentation on school safety and student mental health initiatives from the MDE and public safety officials took place after Snyder left.

The presenters discussed their vision for a comprehensive school mental health system as well as existing safeguards like tip lines, regularly updating emergency plans, and partnerships with law enforcement.

Snyder told Chalkbeat she didn’t regret any of the comments she made to the board.

“I think the cowardice of the way the board is handling these things is disgusting, and I feel no shame in saying that out loud,” she said.

Snyder did not return to the meeting. She said she was willing to discuss her proposals at the meeting next month.

“These resolutions are blueprints on how to move forward,” she said.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Plans to put libraries in most Michigan schools get support from educators and parents

2024-04-17T16:17:11+00:00

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Six years after they were first introduced, a package of bills that would put a library in almost every Michigan public school got a hearing for the first time in the Senate on Tuesday.

The three bills would make school libraries as well as certified librarians accessible to all students. The bills are finally getting consideration at a time when the number of school librarians in the state is dwindling and gaps in student literacy achievement are widening. Supporters say the legislation would help tackle the state’s literacy crisis.

Michigan is ranked 47th in the nation for its ratio of students per certified librarian, according to the most recent analysis by the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, with 2,988 students for every librarian.

Kathy Lester, former president of the American Association of School Librarians, told lawmakers the ratio “correlates very closely” with the state’s low literacy achievement scores. “This is a matter of equal access for our students in Michigan,” she said.

Making the legislation a reality would be costly. Local districts could have to pay as much as $403.7 million a year collectively to fulfill the bills’ mandates, in addition to initial costs to meet the new requirements, according to a fiscal analysis of the three bills.

But if they pass the bills, Michigan lawmakers would be giving school libraries a big vote of confidence. Many libraries across the nation are facing backlash from conservative community members and lawmakers who don’t want children to have access to books that cover topics such as racism, sexuality, gender, and in general topics deemed harmful or obscene.

Sen. Darrin Camilleri, a Democrat from Trenton who has introduced legislation to bolster school libraries for years, said he first saw the need for the legislation when he worked as a teacher at a charter high school in southwest Detroit and was shocked to find that it had no library.

School libraries are “increasingly being seen as an afterthought,” Camilleri said, even though they are crucial to improving literacy skills.

“We need to help all students have the resources they need to succeed, including grade-level aligned texts and knowledgeable, accessible school librarians no matter which school you go to or where you live,” he said.

The three bills, introduced in March, must pass a Senate Education Committee vote before they are considered by the rest of the Senate. The House has not yet considered the bills.

School library supporters say they play many roles

It’s not clear how many school libraries the state has. But state data shows less than 10% of schools that have libraries actually staff them with full-time certified librarians. That worries observers as well.

School librarians are essential, Lester said, because they lead the schoolwide culture of reading, connect students with the resources they need to learn, and provide crucial instruction they may otherwise miss out on.

She cited studies in Michigan and nationwide showing that schools with certified librarians produce better student outcomes on a range of measures, from higher graduation rates to higher scores on college entry exams.

Volunteers can fill the gap to a certain extent. Amy O’Brien, a parent who substituted as a librarian in Van Buren Public Schools for two days a week to keep the library open, said during Tuesday’s hearing that while she helped students check out books and supervised them, she wasn’t able to do everything a certified librarian is trained to do.

“What I couldn’t do was give them expertise in selection resources, teach lessons on information literacy, or teach lessons on information technology,” she said during the hearing.

O’Brien said she believes that to give students a “complete and equitable academic base for their studies” that all parents want, every school should have a fully staffed library with a fully certified librarian.

“The teaching and support that certified librarians provide should not be abandoned,” she said.

The lack of librarians and libraries can also increase burdens on other school staff, especially during staffing shortages.

Joy Lyman, a teacher and lead instructional coach at Flextech High school in Brighton, said none of the schools she’s taught in throughout her career had fully staffed school libraries.

When an alternative school she worked at got hundreds of books through a grant, they had to be stored in a closet since there was no library, and she had to track and organize them “on top of our normal teaching duties,” Lyman told lawmakers.

The bill would have different requirements for small rural schoolsSchools with fewer than 51 students would automatically get waivers from the Michigan Department of Education, although larger schools could also apply for waivers. Small schools would still be able to open school libraries or higher librarians if they chose to.

What would Michigan’s library bills do?

Here are some more details about the three bills discussed by senators on Tuesday.

One bill introduced by Camilleri would require every public school to have a library by the 2025-26 school year.
Under this bill, the libraries would have to be housed in a central location outside of classrooms and serve as hubs for community resources.
Every library would have collections that support students in reading independently as well as enriching their classroom curriculum.
The other bill from Camilleri would require every district to have certified school librarians in every school library it currently operates by the 2024-25 school year.
The librarians would work with other educators to provide literacy instruction and to ensure every student could read at grade level. They would also teach information, technology, and research skills.
Requirements for staffing librarians would be based on the size of districts. For example, schools with fewer than 300 students that don’t receive a waiver would have to employ at least one part-time certified school librarian. Schools with 300 to 1,499 students would need at least one full time librarian, and schools with 1,500 or more students would have to have at least two full-time librarians.
A third bill introduced by Sen. Rosemary Bayer, a Democrat from West Bloomfield, would require schools to designate staff to supervise students in school libraries when a certified librarian is not present.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Legislation that would require children who are 5 years old on Sept. 1 to attend kindergarten advances to the Michigan House.

2024-04-16T19:01:29+00:00

The Michigan Senate has approved legislation that mandates kindergarten attendance in Michigan.

The bill, which supporters say will improve early education, passed with a vote of 21-15, with Republicans in the Democratic-controlled Senate largely opposed. It must now go to the Michigan House for consideration.

Beginning with the 2025-26 school year, a child who is five years old on Sept. 1 would be required to enroll in kindergarten, whether in a traditional public school, charter school, private school, or if their parents are homeschooling them.

Michigan is one of more than a dozen states that do not require kindergarten. Despite this, the state estimates that about most students enroll in the grade.

“If we’re serious about setting kids up for a lifetime of success, early education is where it’s at,” Sen. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat from Livonia, said on the Senate floor Tuesday.

Polehanki, the bill sponsor, said as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Democratic lawmakers push to provide Michigan’s preschool program free for all, regardless of income, that “it doesn’t make sense that kindergarten continue to be optional.”

She said the goal of the legislation “is to create a culture in which early education is valued and viewed as the indispensable building blocks that it is.”

Parents who believe their children aren’t ready for kindergarten would be able to opt out.

But Sen. Thomas Albert, a Republican from Lowell, raised concerns about the process. In order to opt out, a parent would need to notify their local school in writing that they intend to delay enrollment in kindergarten for a year.

“The process itself raises potential concerns about unwarranted monitoring of a family’s personal education decisions,” Albert said. “Why collect information from families who are choosing to wait a year before enrolling their kids in kindergarten? What is the good that is going to be accomplished by making homeschooling and private school parents report to their local public schools?”

Albert also questioned what local school districts are supposed to do with the information.

“Is this a step toward the tracking of some families who might homeschool or send their kids to private school? That’s none of the state’s business.”

Some homeschooling families have opposed the kindergarten legislation because they believe it will pave the way for a required registry.

Albert said the change in the law is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist and he suggested the legislature’s time would be better spent addressing key issues such as chronic absenteeism.

In Michigan, 30% of students were chronically absent at the end of the 2023-24 school year, a big increase from nearly 20% just before the pandemic. Chronic absenteeism rates are particularly high in some of the state’s highest poverty districts, not surprising given poverty is one of the biggest causes of students not attending school on a regular basis. In the Detroit Public Schools Community District, the chronic absenteeism rate was 66% last school year and is trending toward 63% this school year.

Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told senators during a committee meeting last month that he believes requiring kindergarten would help lower chronic absenteeism in the early grades.

Vitti said then that more than 70% of the kindergarten students in the district last year were chronically absent, meaning they missed 18 or more days in the school year. The rates, he said, were lower for first, second, and third grades.

“We want to start as early as possible, creating a culture and an expectation that school is important every day,” Vitti said.

Albert, during his comments on the Senate floor, said the state’s “attendance problem is far and away more pressing” than requiring kindergarten.

“Forcing someone to enroll in school does not mean they’re going to actually show up and learn anything,” Albert said. “Schools being shut down by the government for extended periods of time has changed behavior. And I do not believe the provisions of this bill are strong enough to change that.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan State Board of Education calls for more charter school oversight and transparency

2024-04-12T22:12:03+00:00

The State Board of Education this week made a statement calling for more transparency and oversight for Michigan’s charter schools.

The resolution, introduced by Democratic Board Member Mitchell Robinson during Tuesday’s meeting, asks the legislature to pass bills that would make the Michigan Department of Education oversee approval of new and expanding charters, only allow nonprofit organizations to manage charters, and mandate that charters comply with the same transparency laws that traditional public schools do.

“While the original notion of charter schools as laboratories of innovation came from teachers unions, that purpose has now largely been lost to predatory for-profit charter organizations … and politically motivated special interest groups,” said Robinson during the meeting.

The board voted along party lines 6-1 in favor of the resolution. Tom McMillin, a Republican, was the only vote against it. Nikki Snyder, the only other Republican on the board, left the meeting earlier in the day after her resolutions on public safety failed.

McMillan said those who want to impose more restrictions on charter schools “don’t want parents to have choices.”

“What this will do is simply force charter schools to not open,” he said.

What does the resolution recommend?

The board’s resolution asks lawmakers to enact bills that would do the following:

Make the MDE the entity that approves or denies applications of new and expanding charters in consultation with local districts.
Only allow nonprofit charter management organizations in the state.
Make charter management firms have complete financial transparency and publish expenditure reports online for the public.
Mandate that charters and their management organizations comply with open meetings laws and the Freedom of Information Act.
Require the entities adhere to the same contract bidding laws and regulations that community districts schools do.
Prevent charters from excluding students based on behavior, academic performance, disability, proficiency in speaking English, family status, or living situation.
Prohibit charters from refusing transfer students during the school year if there is available space.
Strongly encouraged charter teachers to have certification instead of short-term permits, or work to become fully certified.

What is Michigan’s history with charter schools?

Charter schools, also known in the state as public school academies, were created about 30 years ago. Those in favor of the new alternative to traditional public schools said at the time the schools could offer families more choices, with better academic achievement for students. Other supporters said the competition would force long struggling districts to improve academic outcomes.

Since then, the topic of school choice has become a political flashpoint in Michigan and across the U.S.

There are currently 285 charter districts with 363 schools in the state, accounting for about a third of all of Michigan’s local education agencies. Those schools served around 149,000 students in the 2023-24 school year, or about 10.7% of Michigan students.

Most of the state’s charters operate in cities. Nearly half of Detroit students attend charters.

Charters are publicly funded but usually rely on management companies to oversee day-to-day operations. Those companies are not held to the same transparency laws as school districts.

More than 80% of charters in the state are managed by for-profit companies that either handle all of the functions of the school or perform individual functions such as payroll and hiring, or budgeting.

Charter schools collected around $1.5 billion in funding from the state this school year.

In Michigan, community colleges, intermediate school districts, universities, and local traditional districts can authorize charter schools. Authorizers can collect up to 3% of state funding given to their charter schools.

Other states have stricter criteria for charter authorization. For example, in Nevada, authorizers are required to submit applications to the state department of education. In Indiana, authorizers are accountable for student academic achievement and must submit annual reports to the state.

Ellen Lipton, a Democratic board member, said that because of its system, Michigan is among the states with the least amount of oversight of charters.

“The governing structure for charter schools in Michigan created really perverse incentives,” she said. “It was really designed to look like there was going to be oversight, but I think intentionally to not have oversight.”

There are still questions about whether charters produce better academic results in students, and how they affect the greater school system. Some studies have indicated that charter school students show more growth than students in traditional public schools in reading and math assessments. One prominently cited report says charters added 16 days of learning in reading and six days in math. But, the “days of learning” metric used in that report is controversial among researchers who say looking at the same results by performance percentile shows not much difference between charter and traditional public school students.

Detroit charters tend to perform better academically than traditional public schools in the city, but the gains are minimal and still well below state averages.

One 2023 study found DPSCD enrolls a higher percentage of students from families living in poverty than charters in the city do. Those enrollment differences can complicate comparisons between traditional districts and charters.

In December 2022, the board passed another resolution calling for laws that would require financial transparency for charters in the state.

The move came after the board learned that only 12 of 166 charter schools responded to Freedom of Information Act requests sent by the MDE. The same request was sent to 112 traditional public school districts, all of which responded.

The board had voted in June 2021 to ask the MDE to send the requests to determine whether charters are held to the same transparency standards as other public school districts.

A package of charter reform bills was introduced by Sen. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat from Livonia, in March 2022, but failed to move forward in the legislature.

In October, a bill was introduced by Rep. Matt Koleszar, a Democrat from Plymouth, that would require the entities that run charters to make public the average salaries of new and veteran teachers as well as support staff. The bill was referred to the House Education Committee in October.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan schools may lose more than 5,000 teachers due to funding shortfalls, report says

2024-04-04T17:07:52+00:00

Michigan schools could lose up to 5,100 teaching positions in the next two years due to the end of federal COVID relief funding and a potential stagnation of state revenue growth, according to an analysis released Wednesday.

School districts with enrollment declines will likely be the ones most affected.

“When we look at which individual districts have felt the brunt of enrollment declines, many are the same districts that got large federal allocations,” said Craig Thiel, research director of the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, the nonpartisan not-for-profit public affairs research organization that released the analysis.

As the 2024-25 budget cycle begins, the state has begun to see some of the effects of the funding cliff, the end of billions of dollars in federal funding schools received during the pandemic. Districts are facing difficult decisions. Ann Arbor Public Schools has warned of a $25 million shortfall. The Flint Community Schools Board this year rejected a deal that would have restored annual salary increases for teachers, saying a $14 million operational deficit left no room in the budget.

Last year, the Detroit Public Schools Community District announced layoffs, cutting around $300 million from its 2023-24 budget. Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said the district deliberately earmarked more than half of the federal funds it received for one-time expenses to avoid widespread layoffs. It spent around $700 million on long-needed school building renovations.

Additionally, the increase in the money the state has allocated to schools from one-time revenue surpluses is projected to slow down in the coming years, according to the CRC analysis.

School districts used the $5.6 billion in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funding, or ESSER, to pay for programs and hire staff to meet students’ needs in recovering from learning loss. Those dollars – which in many cases were used to hire additional teachers, social workers, counselors, nurses, tutors, and other staff – will run out in September.

“Where we sit today, not only do schools see the importance of having those positions, but so do parents,” said Bob McCann, executive director of the policy group K-12 Alliance of Michigan, which advocates for school funding priorities in the state legislature.

Combined revenue for Michigan K-12 public education increased from $15.1 billion in the 2018-19 school year to $19.8 billion in the 2022-23 school year, a 31% jump in funding, according to the report. But those temporary extra dollars can’t continue to pay for ongoing programs and services.

The analysis calculated that up to 5,100 teachers may need to be cut to get back to the same staffing levels that existed before the federal relief funding. That would be a 10% decrease compared to current ratios.

The extra money ESSER gave to schools was a “band-aid” on Michigan’s long “broken” school funding system, said McCann.

“We knew we couldn’t count on ESSER forever,” McCann said. “That doesn’t mean those services aren’t still desperately needed by students.”

Though students have made some year-over-year gains in state assessment scores, proficiency rates in core subjects remain below pre-pandemic levels.

Based on last year’s state test scores, Michigan students in grades 3-7 were still behind in math and English language arts compared to pre-pandemic levels. And the gaps between the lowest and highest performing K-8 students were wider than they were before COVID on benchmark tests given each spring from 2020 through 2023.

Research suggested a mental health crisis among youth before the pandemic, but the trauma, loss, and isolation brought on by COVID compounded it. Educators and advocates in Michigan say there currently aren’t enough staff to address students’ social and emotional needs, despite schools hiring more than 1,300 additional mental health professionals since 2018.

Thiel said districts may have to decide between letting go of teachers in the classroom or the support staff who aren’t in classrooms but either work directly with kids or help teachers improve instruction. There isn’t much room to cut administrative roles, he said.

“The administrative group is a small piece of the pie,” said Thiel. “The ranks of those people didn’t grow that much and may have shrunk over this period in a number of districts.”

Long-term investments from the state are needed to fully address students’ needs, said Robert Dwan, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Michigan School Business Officials, in an email.

McCann agreed.

“Our hope is that state officials find ways to make investments in public education, not just one time, but thinking long term,” he said.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan home-schooling families push back against talk of a required registry

2024-04-02T15:08:44+00:00

As a House Education Committee meeting ended last month, a group of home-schooling parents and community members began shouting at the lawmakers who wouldn’t allow them to speak.

“Coward,” they yelled out repeatedly at members of the committee.

They weren’t there to talk about shortages of mental health staff in schools, the topic of the meeting. Instead, they wanted to speak out against the possibility that Michigan might one day require home-school parents to register with the state.

Rep. Matt Koleszar, a Democrat from Plymouth and chairman of the House committee, has rankled home-schooling advocates by saying Michigan should require a registry. State Superintendent Michael Rice, who oversees the Michigan Department of Education and is the state’s lead educator, has said the same and is urging lawmakers to act.

Their comments have inflamed fears among home-schooling parents that their freedom to educate their kids at home might be taken away, and that a registry might be just the first step to do that. That’s despite Koleszar saying he has no plans to introduce legislation, and so far no other lawmakers have done so. Parents have vowed to resist calls for reforms and are showing up at meetings like the hearing this month and during the public comment period of State Board of Education meetings.

Kendele Sluka, a mother who home-schools her three sons in Sterling Heights, said she went to the meeting to show the representatives that a large community will fight for its right to educate their kids at home.

“It’s important to show your face and be ready to stand for the home-school community,” she said after the meeting. “I’m just ready to do what I need to do to keep it available in Michigan.”

No one knows exactly how many children are home-schooled in Michigan because home-school families are not required to notify the state or their local school district that they’re educating their kids at home. Not knowing who or where these children are is a concern, some state officials and legislators say.

“I fully respect and appreciate the ability and the right of parents to home-school their children,” Koleszar told Chalkbeat. “I have no objection. We just want to know they’re being home-schooled.”

Rice and some legislators have proposed requiring families to provide notification that they are home-schooling. In a letter earlier this year to Michigan lawmakers on legislative priorities, Rice said parents should be able to choose from among public (including charter), private, parochial, and home schools. But having a record of where children are would make it easier to know which children aren’t being educated anywhere, he said. He said, “the issue of ‘missing children’ is a national problem with potential negative consequences for too many children.”

Rice called the issue one of “student safety.”

“After the pandemic, we lost a lot of students. We don’t know where they ended up. Did they go to private school, parochial school? Did they begin home-schooling? It’s important for us to know that children are in fact being educated,” Koleszar said. “Simply registering or enrolling, even just to check a box to say, ‘I am home-schooling my child,’ at least lets us know where that kid is.”

Many home-school advocates have opposed a mandatory registration or notification system, in part because they say such a system will lead to increased government regulation of home schooling.

Michigan already has a voluntary home schooling registration system. The only home-schoolers who must register are those who need services from public schools or participate in their programs. For everyone else, it’s optional.

According to the Michigan Department of Education, 555 home schools had registered for the 2023-24 school year, including 821 students, as of Feb. 22. But that number is likely a small fraction of the actual number of Michigan’s home-school students, which is around 50,000 by some estimates.

At the committee meeting at Sterling Heights High School, Koleszar and the other representatives quickly left the room as security personnel and law enforcement officers watched as the group continued to yell.

“You said you want to hear from the community, but you didn’t give us an opportunity to speak at all,” Leanne Fisk, a mother who home-schools her daughter, said as she stood up and approached the committee.

The landscape of homeschooling in Michigan

Before 1993, if parents in Michigan wanted to home-school their children, they had to be teachers. But the law changed that year to allow parents to educate their children without a teaching certificate.

Since then, and especially during the COVID pandemic, the number of families home-schooling their children has increased dramatically. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of households home-schooling in the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn metro area increased from 3.2% in April-May 2020 to 15.2% in September-October 2020.

Michigan is generally considered friendly to home-schooling because it doesn’t regulate the practice the way many other states do — by having testing and curriculum requirements.

In New York, which has strict rules, parents must notify their local school district of their plans to home-school and submit reports outlining the materials and curricula they plan to use or their plan of instruction. They must comply with attendance requirements and keep attendance records. Their children must take a standardized exam or an alternative evaluation method. Meanwhile, in Oregon, where the laws aren’t as strict, parents must notify their local district that they are home-schooling, and their students must take academic tests at the end of grades 3, 5, 8, and 10.

“For 30 years, Michigan has been one of the best states in the whole United States for encouraging the home-school community and promoting home-school culture,” said Israel Wayne, vice president of the Michigan Christian Homeschool Network, or MiCHN.

“Thousands of families have actually moved to Michigan for the purpose of home schooling, and we’re seeing many of those families now say that if laws are passed to provide needless regulations to their families, that they will move to other states that do not have those requirements.”

MiCHN represents about 11,000 families in Michigan, and Wayne estimates that over 30,000 home-schooled students are part of their network.

Under Michigan law, children must be educated in mathematics, reading, English, science, and social studies. For grades 10, 11, and 12, instruction also must include the U.S. and Michigan Constitutions and civil government, and Michigan’s political subdivisions and municipalities.

The impetus to require notification

A few high-profile cases of home-schooled children who were abused or killed by their parents, and whose parents were not educating them even though they claimed to be, have spurred conversations about mandatory notification.

In December, Koleszar posted on X (formerly Twitter) that Michigan is one of only 11 states that doesn’t count or register home-schooled children. He also noted that “abusive parents are taking advantage of that to avoid being found out ... Michigan cannot allow this loophole to continue.”

A bill to require home schools to register was introduced in 2015, after two Detroit children were abused and killed by their mother, who claimed to be home-schooling them. That bill also would have required children to meet regularly with a mandated reporter of child abuse, such as a physician, social worker, or school counselor. The bill did not get a hearing.

“While I do recognize that a vast majority of home-school parents do everything they can to provide a good education for their children, there have been those rare circumstances where a child has been abused or has lost their life,” Koleszar said. “And when people ask me, ‘Well, it’s so rare — why have a law?’ I would argue that one child losing their life in this scenario is one child too many.”

Home-school advocates have argued that a notification system won’t improve safety. “Having a child’s name on a government database protects exactly no one,” Wayne said. “We already have a law in Michigan that says you’re not allowed to abuse your child, we have a law that says you can’t kill your child …. And yet, people who are law breakers, by definition, don’t obey laws,” so a registration won’t prevent such abuse.

“If it’s only putting your name on a list, then what was the point of it?” said Detroit parent Glenn Woodard, who home-schools his children, ages 9 and 13, with his wife, Jennifer Russell. “It’s kind of hard for me to believe that it is only going to be — you’re just going to go on a list. What does that do? That doesn’t do anything.”

Woodard pointed to one of the high-profile cases, which involved two couples who had adopted dozens of children and were charged with child abuse. “The impetus for this legislation belongs with the failings of the Michigan state Health and Human Services Department,” Woodard said. “The home schooling was not the issue.”

Wayne, of the Michigan Christian Homeschool Network, said, “We don’t believe that this is merely a registration.” It’s about “trying to get the students back into the public schools for revenue, but also very likely, an attempt on their part to try to create difficult regulations” that will make home schooling more cumbersome, he said.

Rice said the proposal is limited to a notification system. “We’re simply concerned that every child who has the right to an education receives an education in one form or another — is accounted for in one place or another,” he said.

Implications of a registry debated

Some home-schoolers have asked what happens after a child is registered.

“Who’s deputized, then, to follow up?” Russell asked. “Who’s deputized to go knock on doors saying, ‘Do you have children in your home? And are they home-schooled, or do they go to public school?’”

During the pandemic, Detroit mom Bernita Bradley started the home school co-op Engaged Detroit, which provides coaching for parents. She opposes requiring parents to register. But, in her work with Engaged Detroit, she advises parents to let their local schools know they’re home-schooling.

One reason she does this is that when kids don’t show up at school, schools will report the parent for truancy. “And truancy in cities like Detroit, in Wayne County — truancy means a court case for a family,” she explained. Parents who notify the school may avoid that.

Bradley said she also understands parents who think, “I really don’t want to let you know where I’m going, because you didn’t care enough to care about my child when my child was in your building.”

Bradley said she thinks there’s more scrutiny now that more people of color and people who are less affluent started home-schooling. And the rapid growth in home-schoolers in Detroit includes many Black families, she said. “I, quite frankly, look at it as this attack now that more Black families and more urban families, people of color, are choosing home school,” she said.

Also, the effects of a registration system in Detroit would differ from the effects in wealthier suburbs, Bradley said. “I think they will have a lot of people who would not report, and so there will be some type of pushback. And that’s scary, because then what type of legal ramifications are they gonna be seeing if people don’t report?” she said. “Historic accountability for brown and Black families has not looked the same.”

If a bill is introduced, it may answer some of these questions.

Both Rice and Koleszar emphasize that they want to mandate notification or registration to help clarify who’s being home-schooled, not to create obstacles for home schooling.

Noting that Michigan doesn’t regulate home-schooling the way many states do, Koleszar said, “I think simply adding a registry is the bare minimum standard. But it’s also a standard that I’m comfortable with.”

Whitmer signs bills that give Michigan’s foster care youth hope for a quality education

2024-03-28T17:50:20+00:00

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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has signed legislation to ensure that students placed in foster care receive a quality education, a guarantee that has been missing in Michigan and has led to gaps in education for many youth.

The legislation was inspired by the stories of young people who told state education officials and lawmakers that their education was disrupted or inadequate.

The legislation Whitmer signed Thursday was part of a three-bill package that will now require residential facilities to enroll students in school within five days of placement and to provide an education that meets the state’s graduation requirements.

The bill was designed to address complaints from foster youth that they missed weeks of school and in some cases learned that the education they received didn’t meet state standards. The state has an estimated 10,000 kids in foster care, but the total number is unknown because many go uncounted in the current system, advocates say.

“When I heard the heartbreaking stories of foster youth who were working hard at their studies, only to discover their caretakers had given them busy work that wouldn’t count toward graduation, I knew I had to act,” Rep. Stephanie Young, a Democrat from Detroit who introduced the legislation, said in a statement.

Young told Chalkbeat earlier this year that many foster youth have experienced trauma and that “the very minimum we can do is ensure they get the best education they can.”

Whitmer previously signed two other pieces of legislation that were part of the package. One requires the Michigan Department of Education to oversee residential foster care facilities’ educational programs and enforce compliance. The other requires the education department, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and the state Center for Educational Performance and Information to track the number of children in foster care, where they are, and how they’re progressing in their education. That information must be reported to the legislature.

Christian Randle, a high school senior who was in foster care for several years, said this to Chalkbeat earlier this year about the legislation:

“It’s the bare minimum that they can do, because they haven’t been doing anything for years,” said Randle. “It shouldn’t even have taken this long to pass the bills. Just the fact that it’s had to take this long shows a lot about how kids in foster care are treated.”

Randle entered a foster care residential facility at age 11 and worked diligently on his schoolwork to fulfill a promise he made to himself to graduate high school. But when he tried to enroll in a traditional high school two years ago, he found no record of him attending nearly three years of high school.

“Through all that stress and trauma going on inside of that foster care facility, the one thing I was happy about coming out of it was my schooling,” Randle, who now lives on his own, told Chalkbeat. “And that was taken away from me.”

“Michigan’s foster kids deal with so many challenges in their lives, but being denied graduation because their curriculum is inadequate should never be one of them,” Thomas Hickson, Jr., vice president of public policy and advocacy for the Michigan Catholic Conference, said in a statement. “All Michigan’s children deserve a quality education to be able to succeed later in life.”

Chalkbeat reporter Hannah Dellinger contributed to this report.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Advocates say Michigan lawmakers must do more to fund schools fairly

2024-03-21T19:48:42+00:00

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Michigan passed a historic school budget last year that gave an additional $200 million in funding to schools in impoverished communities. But advocates say more is needed to fund schools equitably.

During the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on PreK-12 hearing on Wednesday, advocates asked legislators to set aside $500 million more in funding for programs to support students considered at-risk this year, saying the need is “urgent.” They also asked the state to give more per-pupil dollars to English language learners and to reexamine what they called a “broken” funding system for students with disabilities.

The additional money would be allocated to the state’s “opportunity index,” a funding formula created last year that gave more dollars to districts serving communities with higher concentrations of poverty. While the advocates applauded legislators for the gains made last year, they urged the committee to allocate more money to students with high needs and continue to narrow long-existing inequities in school funding.

“It is a formula that will enable us to improve the state of education for all children,” said Jametta Lilly, CEO of the Detroit Parent Network, a group that trains and advocates for parents.

Historically, Michigan has been ranked among the worst states in the nation for its gaps in school funding between wealthy and impoverished communities. Previously, the same amount of per-pupil dollars were given to all students considered to be at-risk. Students are determined to be at risk by the Michigan Department of Education if they meet any of 10 criteria, including being from an economically disadvantaged family, being an English language learner, being chronically absent, and experiencing homelessness.

For years, advocates lobbied for the state to change its funding formula to a more equitable system. Ed Trust Midwest, a nonprofit that does nonpartisan policy research work, asked legislators to adopt the opportunity index funding formula as a step toward that goal.

“You listened, and thanks to your leadership, we are in a much different position this year,” said Jeff Cobb, director of government affairs at Ed Trust Midwest, during the hearing.

Last year, Michigan passed a historic $21.5 billion school aid budget with funding gains that benefited the students with the most needs in the state. For the first time, the budget gave more money to districts with higher concentrations of families living in poverty.

The new system created six “bands,” or levels of funding based on the percentage of students from economically disadvantaged families in a district. Within each band, districts received various percentages of additional funding from the state. For example, a district whose student body is made up of 73% of kids from economically disadvantaged households currently receives an additional 13.7% of base per-pupil funding.

While many advocates applauded the new funding system last year, the dollar amounts fell short of what they recommended. Advocacy groups are again asking for the same dollar amount they initially proposed.

Cobb asked the committee to commit to allocating enough money over the next five years so that the opportunity index would eventually give districts $2.9 billion in additional funding for at-risk students each year. In the 2023-24 budget, nearly $1 billion in extra funding was allocated to school systems.

The state still lags behind other states that lead the charge on equitable funding, as well as the best practices research recommends, said Cobb.

Though Michigan increased funding for programs for English language learners last year, the state still ranked among the worst in the nation compared to the percentage of funding other states allocate to such initiatives in 2023, according to Ed Trust Midwest.

“Unfortunately, Michigan has long underfunded English language learners leaving these students at a large disadvantage compared to their peers,” said Cobb.

Jose Orozco, executive director of nonprofit Voces in Battle Creek, said he’s experienced difficulty accessing resources for English language learners in Michigan schools first-hand.

“I know many families who face challenges ensuring that their child receives a high-quality

public education,” he said. “This is often not the school district’s fault, but rather the continuation of a school funding model that dramatically underinvests in English learners.”

Orozco asked the committee to give an additional $80 million for English language learners in this year’s budget.

“This is still far off from where we need to be,” he said. “The weights in law are still below what research recommends and leading states practice, but this investment would set us on a path towards fully funding these students.”

Another funding area the advocates said desperately requires change is how the state funds education for students with disabilities.

Currently, the state partially reimburses districts for costs related to educating students with disabilities, making it one of seven states that use this model. School systems are reimbursed for 28% of education costs for each student in special education in addition to 100% of the base per-pupil funding amount. The amount the state allocates per student has increased in recent years.

“Michigan districts shoulder much of the funding responsibility for students with disabilities but have varying capacities to cover these costs,” said Cobb. “As a result, students with disabilities are being shortchanged.”

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Lawmakers consider Michigan school safety bills prompted by Oxford shooting

2024-03-19T23:52:22+00:00

School mental health professionals, safety experts, and education leaders on Tuesday voiced support for five proposed bills that aim to prevent violence in Michigan schools, saying the measures could save lives.

The bills, which come a year after the deadly mass shooting at Michigan State University and more than two years after the killings of four students at Oxford High School, would put in place more mental health support for struggling students, including creating specific service plans to meet their needs, and more stringent protocols for responding to emergencies.

The proposals also would increase oversight of threat assessment, or the process of determining whether a student poses a risk of physically harming themselves or others.

Melissa Kree, who has been a psychologist at Oxford Community Schools for 12 years, said during a hearing of the House Education Committee that the bills “have the potential to save lives” and would give districts the guidance they “desperately” seek on assessing potential threats.

“This work cannot be ignored,” she said. “The bills before you today have the potential to equip schools with the best practices and policies so that our students, staff, and families can be confident in their districts’ ability to conduct threat assessments and follow school safety protocols in a way that prioritizes both their physical and psychological safety.”

Karen Dunholter, a social worker at Southgate Community Schools, said educators want more training and guidance to make kids safer.

“People want to be trained,” she said. “We want policies and procedures so we are not doing something that we don’t know might be harmful.”

Tuesday’s hearing comes more than two years after most of the proposed legislation was introduced. Republicans have criticized Democrats for allowing the bills to languish in the Michigan Legislature since they were first introduced in 2022. Many Democrats, however, had previously said that gun reform could not be left out of conversations about school safety, and the bills do not change gun laws.

The proposed laws have support from both Democrat and Republican lawmakers.

One of the bills, co-sponsored by Rep. Kelly Breen, a Democrat from Novi, would require every public school to have a behavior threat assessment and management team that would monitor students for concerning behavior. Students who were identified as struggling would be provided with a plan for support.

The bill was based on the findings of a third-party report on the response to the Oxford shooting, which was released in October. That report concluded that the killings could have been prevented if proper threat assessment and suicide prevention were carried out by school staff and law enforcement.

Legislation introduced by Rep. Ranjeev Puri, a Democrat from Canton, would require the Michigan State Police to create standardized terminology for use during school emergencies. A related bill co-sponsored by Rep. Stephanie Young, a Democrat from Detroit, would require all schools and districts in the state to adopt that terminology, which supporters say would create less confusion during crises.

A bill authored by Rep. Nancy DeBoer, a Republican from Holland, would mandate that the Michigan Office of School Safety notify district emergency and safety managers of any tips regarding potential threats to schools in their system as soon as possible or within 24 hours. Local law enforcement would also have to be notified within that time frame.

Another bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Luke Meerman, a Republican from Coopersville, would create a permanent School Safety and Mental Health Commission in the Michigan Department of Education. The existing commission, which was created in 2022, focuses mostly on student mental health and preventing youth suicide. The bill would add more members to the commission, and those members would be experts in threat assessments.

Jason Russell, current member of the School Safety and Mental Health Commission and a former U.S. Secret Service agent, said creating universal language for schools and law enforcement to communicate during emergencies would streamline responses.

For example, school staff and law enforcement may mean different things when using phrases like “room clear.” To law enforcement, that means students are cleared from the room. Law enforcement could also give specific instructions to rapidly move from an outdoor space to inside a building with the command “reverse evacuation.”

To become law, the bills will need to move through several more steps of the legislative process. The committee has not yet voted to advance the bills. If the bills move out of committee, the House would hold a vote. Then, the bills would go to the Senate Education Committee before a vote in the Senate.

“I think we can agree, all of us, no matter what side of the aisle you sit on, that our kids have a fundamental right to a safe and respectful learning environment,” said Breen during the hearing. “And we know that if our kids are not physically or mentally safe, they cannot learn academically.”

Lawmakers avoid discussion of guns

To get bipartisan support for some of the school safety measures, lawmakers involved in writing the bills had to agree not to discuss gun reform, Breen said.

“It was clear that we could not leave politics out of any discussion involving firearms,” she said.

One Republican accused Democrats of “political grandstanding” on the issue. Rep. Angela Rigas, a Republican from Caledonia, said Tuesday in a prepared statement that such grandstanding by Democrats had caused the bills to be stuck in “purgatory.”

“Shootings have and continue to happen at Michigan schools,” she said. “It breaks my heart to see politics take the place of humanity right now.”

Since both mass shootings, Michigan has addressed school safety in different ways, both at the K-12 and postsecondary levels. The state has allocated more than $500 million toward school safety and mental health initiatives since 2022, including $328 million for school safety grants last year.

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also signed into law several gun safety measures last year, including universal background checks and safe storage requirements. Some Republican lawmakers opposed the changes.

Breen, who has taken the lead on legislative school safety efforts, said during Tuesday’s hearing that work on the bills has been time-consuming because lawmakers have spent months meeting with experts and others to gain insight into best practices and needed improvements. The Oxford report also made lawmakers update the bills, said Breen.

Two other bills that were part of the original package on school safety legislation were not discussed in the hearing.

A bill introduced by Kathy Schmaltz, a Republican from Jackson, would make districts implement emergency plans for each school building in their system. Districts would have to update the plans every three years.

The other bill, which was introduced by Rep. Donni Steele, a Republican from Orion Township, would mandate that student identification cards list contact information for the OK2Say safety tipline.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Nonprofits are collaborating with the state to meet Michigan’s universal pre-K goal

2024-03-18T21:11:17+00:00

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s goal to make preschool free and available to all families is a big task.

The biggest hurdles for the state to overcome are shortages of qualified staff and too few affordable, quality child care spots for 4-year-olds.

To create a universal prekindergarten program, the governor plans to improve pay for early childhood educators, create affordable pathways for future teachers to get credentials, and expand or open new child care centers.

Now, the state also plans to collaborate with nonprofit organizations, school districts, and colleges to address the issue.

“Any problem that’s this big requires all hands on deck,” said Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist Friday after a visit to a pre-K class in northwest Detroit. “We need a diversity of options to be made available to families. In order to provide that, we’re going to need a diversity of partners.”

Gilchrist visited Angels of Essence Day Care to have a roundtable discussion about expanding pre-K and child care with parents and early childhood educators. While there, he also read to a preschool class and helped the kids recite the colors of the rainbow.

Courtney Adams, whose son, Elijah, was in the class, said during the roundtable that she and her husband have to pay out-of-pocket for child care. She chose Angels of Essence because she felt it was a safe and affordable option.

“He comes home every day with something new,” she said of her son’s education. “He’s going into kindergarten in the fall, and I know he’s going to do great.”

About 40% of Michigan’s 4-year-olds currently do not attend preschool, according to the governor’s office.

Last year, Whitmer announced plans to make the state’s Great Start Readiness Program, or GSRP, available to all Michigan 4-year-olds. The program currently offers free pre-K to students from mostly low-income families.

Originally, Whitmer said she planned to expand GSRP to be offered universally by 2026. But in her State of the State address, the governor announced that she would accelerate those plans by two years.

During the 2021-22 school year, the program enrolled more than 35,000 4-year-olds, an increase of more than 9,000 students compared to the previous year, according to the most recently available data.

Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, right, reads to a preschool classroom on Friday at Angels of Essence Day Care in Detroit.

Gilchrist noted that Michigan’s early childhood educators are often underpaid. A 2022 report by the Michigan League For Public Policy, found that early childhood educators often live in poverty. The low wages force many workers to leave the profession, making it difficult for centers to retain full staffing.

“We have this challenge broadly with educators that for so long the profession has been utterly disrespected,” said Gilchrist. “One of the manifestations of that disrespect is that it’s woefully underpaid.”

Salaries for GSRP teachers have improved slightly in recent years, but were still 31% lower than salaries for K-12 teachers, according to the program’s 2021-22 report. GSRP teachers made a median annual salary of $43,094 that year, while associate teachers earned a median annual salary of $22,077.

Michigan gave $30 million in 2021 to support bonus pay for early childhood care and education staff to help stabilize centers during the upset of the pandemic. But those funds ran out in 2023.

“Certainly, we want to try to continue to make those gains more permanent,” said Gilchrist of the additional funds for salaries.

Nonprofits have already had success widening the K-12 teacher pipeline in the state. Talent Together, an initiative made up of nonprofits, regional superintendents, and other education leaders, has helped bring new educators to the field. The program has created grow-your-own programs for school support staff to become teachers, as well as apprenticeships, and other avenues of removing financial barriers for future teachers to become certified.

The Michigan Educator Workforce Initiative, a nonprofit that is already part of the Talent Together program, recently announced it is applying for a grant from the state’s Office of Labor and Economic Opportunity to expand registered apprenticeships for early childhood center leaders and teachers.

“The registered apprenticeship model helps create an environment where there are processes, a clear training regime, and all the right partners at the table to inform what early childhood learning looks like,” said Jack Elsey, founder of the MEWI.

Wayne Regional Educational Service Agency, Montcalm Area Intermediate School District, Marquette-Alger Regional Educational Service Agency, the Early Childhood Investment Corporation, and the Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation are collaborating with the nonprofit on the effort.

“We recognize as a whole in the state, there is a gap,” said Sophia Lafayette-Lause, executive director of early childhood at Wayne RESA, about collaboration to recruit and retain more pre-K teachers. “Supporting those efforts is critical.”

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Bill would make kindergarten mandatory for Michigan children

2024-03-12T22:22:12+00:00

Lawmakers want to make kindergarten attendance mandatory in Michigan to improve academic achievement — and the head of the state’s largest district says such a requirement could also help address chronic absenteeism.

Sen. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat from Livonia who introduced a bill to make kindergarten mandatory, said it’s necessary “if we’re serious about improving academics.”

Students in the state currently don’t have to attend school until first grade, though many do attend kindergarten and most districts offer it.

Detroit school Superintendent Nikolai Vitti, who supports the legislation, said Tuesday during a legislative hearing that requiring kindergarten will improve attendance and student academic outcomes.

Vitti said more than 70% of the kindergarten students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District last year were chronically absent, meaning they missed 18 or more days in the school year. The rates, he said, were lower for first, second, and third grades.

“We want to start as early as possible, creating a culture and an expectation that school is important every day,” Vitti said.

The district has long struggled with chronic absenteeism. During the 2021-22 school year, 77% of the students were chronically absent, in part because of quarantining rules during the pandemic. That rate improved to 66% during the 2022-23 school year.

Vitti pointed out that at the beginning of the school year, about 6% of kindergarten students typically perform at or above grade level on district tests. That number soars to 58% by the end of the year.

“We actually believe that the 58% number would be higher if kindergarten was mandatory. It just sets the stage and the expectations the right way.”

Polehanki, who chairs the education committee, said the impetus of her bill had been to create a continuum from preschool through postsecondary education. She said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s push to provide free preschool for all, regardless of income, is an important initiative. But she said in order to do that, kindergarten must not be optional.

After hearing from Vitti, she said the bill would address academic achievement, but also “do quite a bit to remedy” chronic absenteeism in kindergarten. She said she wants lawmakers to have a broader discussion about addressing chronic absenteeism. Nearly a third of the students in the state were considered chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year.

Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet, a Democrat from Bay City, said the kindergarten chronic absenteeism rate in Detroit “is the most compelling case to say this is the right thing to do.”

Sheryl Kennedy, legislative liaison for the Michigan Department of Education, said the MDE supports making kindergarten mandatory. But she said the department would like to see some changes, such as funding to help districts that might see increased costs from the requirement. She said 17 states and the District of Columbia already have mandatory kindergarten laws.

There was also a back-and-forth between Kennedy and Sen. John Damoose, a Republican from Harbor Springs over language in a slide that accompanied her presentation that said “Demonstrated enrollment in private, parochial, charter, or home school meets the requirements of this bill.”

Damoose questioned the home school language, asking “Can you describe what demonstrated enrollment looks like especially if we’re talking about home schools?”

In Michigan, home-schooled children aren’t required to register with the state, so officials have no idea how many kids are being educated at home. There has been considerable debate recently because State Superintendent Michael Rice and some lawmakers have called on changing the law to require parents who home-school their children to register with the state.

Polehanki said the intent of the legislation is not to demonstrate enrollment among home-schoolers.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Educators ask Michigan to invest in attracting and retaining school mental health workers

2024-03-12T14:07:13+00:00

Though Michigan schools have hired more counselors, psychologists, and social workers in recent years, educators say there still aren’t enough staff to address the state’s student mental health crisis.

School administrators and mental health professionals asked legislators to invest in programs to attract and retain staff in hard-to-fill positions to address students’ social and emotional needs Monday night at a House Education Committee hearing at Sterling Heights High School. They say that by hiring more staff to focus on student mental health, schools will be safer and academic outcomes will improve. They also asked legislators to extend funding for existing programs such as the student mental health apprenticeship program for training and retention and add more funding for training programs with distance learning options.

Since 2018, legislators have allocated funds to hire more school mental health workers with targeted funding. The state’s schools added 1,300 mental health professionals to its schools in the last five years.

The 2021 school aid budget included a onetime investment of $240 million to add more school staff to address student mental health. In 2023, the state allocated $150 million to improve student mental health, and $328 million has been allocated for 2024.

“It’s a great start,” said Diana Wheatley, a school social worker at New Haven Community Schools in Macomb County, at the hearing. “Let’s keep it going so we can meet the needs of all students.”

Michigan had the third highest ratio of counselors to students in the U.S. at one counselor for every 615 students during the 2021-22 school year, according to the American School Counselor Association, falling short of the ASCA’s recommendation of 250 students per counselor.

Rep. Matt Koleszar, right, a Democrat representing Northville, Plymouth, and parts of Livonia, asks educators questions during the House Education Committee hearing on March 11, 2024 in Sterling Heights.

“That’s startling,” said Rep. Matt Koleszar, a Democrat representing Northville, Plymouth, and parts of Livonia, of the ratios during the hearing.

The ratios of school psychologists and social workers for every student in Michigan for 2021-22 were also higher than are recommended by professional associations, according to the most recently available data.

The state had a ratio of one school psychologist to every 1,445 students. The recommended ratio is one psychologist to 500 students. The ratio of school social workers to students was one to 1,051. The recommended ratio is one social worker for every 250 students.

Michigan is not the only state facing an ongoing shortage of mental health professionals who serve youth.

Since the pandemic, students’ needs have grown, said Lauren Mangus, president of the Michigan Association of School Psychologists, during the hearing.

“Before the pandemic, there was already a mental health crisis,” said Mangus. “During the pandemic, youth depression and anxiety doubled.”

In 2021, an estimated 15% of U.S. youth ages 12 to 17 had experienced a period of at least two weeks of symptoms of major depression, such as thoughts of suicide or feelings of hopelessness, according to the most recently compiled data by the National Institutes of Mental Health.

A 2021 report from the Centers for Disease Control found more than 20% of teens have had suicidal ideation, or serious thoughts of suicide.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Advocates ask Michigan legislators to invest in retaining teachers of color

2024-03-06T19:12:54+00:00

With an ongoing educator shortage, Michigan has invested nearly $1 billion in the last two years in recruiting more teachers.

Now, advocates and parents say lawmakers must do more to retain and support teachers of color who work in communities experiencing high rates of poverty.

Among the suggestions made by those who spoke Tuesday during a meeting of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on PreK-12 were higher pay, culturally responsive support, and stipends for teachers in districts that have difficulty retaining staff.

Overall, Michigan had a teacher retention rate of 73% during the 2021-22 school year, according to the most recently available data compiled by the state. For Black teachers, the retention rate that year was 59%.

Renee Morse, director of government affairs and strategic operations for the nonprofit advocacy organization Launch Michigan, said during the hearing that the state has largely invested in educating and recruiting future teachers. A small percentage of funding has gone toward efforts to retain educators.

“Of the $1 billion investments in the teacher workforce the past two fiscal years, approximately 9.8% has been focused on teacher retention,” she said.

Among those investments were $25 million in scholarships for teachers in training who commit to working in Michigan, $175 million for Grow Your Own programs that allow support staff a free pathway to becoming a teacher in the district they work in, and $50 million for stipends for future teachers getting on-the-job training.

Other speakers told the committee that programs designed to support Black teachers and keep them in the profession would help reduce the achievement gaps in the state.

Data shows Black students in Michigan have lower rates of reading and math proficiency in all grade levels as well as high school graduation compared to their white peers. They are also more likely to be suspended and placed in special education.

“These facts are not indicative of Black students’ abilities or potential,” said Autumn Butler, co-executive director of nonprofit community group Oakland Forward. “But, it is evidence of a system that does not work for the majority of Black students here in Michigan.”

Years of research suggests that all students perform better in schools with a racially diverse teaching staff. Students of color, in particular, have improved attendance, behavioral outcomes, academic achievement, high school graduation rates, and likelihood of enrolling in college when taught by diverse educators.

“Having teachers immersed in the culture of their students means that it is more likely that the teachers have greater sense of cultural competency through their own lived experiences and may have greater sense of connection because often they come from the same communities in which their students live,” said Butler.

Elnora Gavin, a mother and member of the Benton Harbor Area Schools Board, asked legislators during the hearing for equity in funding teacher shortage initiatives.

“Many funding initiatives have produced inconsistent results because they do not account for the structural barriers that Black and brown students and teachers face before they even step foot into the classroom,” she said.

Angela Wilson-Turnbull of the Michigan Education Justice Coalition asked the committee for $600,000 in funding for a research study on teacher retention and recruitment for Black and brown educators in districts with high concentrations of poverty. The MEJC also asked for $15 million to fund a “culturally responsive education toolkit” to address the racial disparities of Black students’ outcomes.

Armen Hratchian, executive director of Teach For America Detroit, which oversees Teach Michigan, a nonprofit that has received state funding to recruit and retain educators, proposed the state create and invest $100 million in programs to support 2,000 teachers and school leaders who are already in high-poverty Michigan schools.

“As you’ve made a nearly $1 billion bet on all those those pipelines and aspiring educators – that’s a good bet – this is the time to make sure these novice teachers have the mentors, the leaders, so that they stay and develop and that they don’t walk that $1 billion out of this profession in five years,” he said.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

March 7, 2024: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated Armen Hratchian’s title. His title is executive director of Teach For America Detroit, which oversees Teach Michigan.

March 7, 2024: A previous version of this story incorrectly said Teach Michigan asked legislators for an additional $100 million. Armen Hratchian proposed the state create and invest $100 million in programs that would support teachers and school leaders already in high-poverty Michigan schools.

Dyslexia bills advance in Michigan legislature with some changes

2024-02-29T13:00:00+00:00

Legislation that would require Michigan schools to use a reading curriculum and interventions for students with dyslexia that are backed by science has taken a different shape to satisfy school administrators who questioned the timeline in the bills.

The Senate Education Committee voted Feb. 20 to update two proposed bills to push back key compliance deadlines, clarify the types of classroom instruction that would be allowed, and adjust requirements for teacher preparation programs.

The amended bills are slated to go to the Senate floor for a vote. If passed, the bills would then go to the House.

The legislation, which is geared toward helping students with dyslexia, would also benefit all students learning to read, supporters say. The bills would make school systems and colleges use the “science of reading,” or early literacy instruction that emphasizes phonics along with building vocabulary and background knowledge.

Some critics of the bills agree that Michigan needs to do more to improve its falling reading scores and support struggling readers. However, they argue the state’s current efforts to improve literacy, including offering LETRS training, a professional learning course for teachers, is making a positive impact.

“Michigan has been building our literacy efforts focusing on research-supported instruction for all students,” said John Severson, executive director of the Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators, during a separate committee meeting earlier this month. “This bill shifts the focus to interventions, significantly impacting those who need instructional support but do not have dyslexia.”

Dyslexia, a hereditary reading disability, affects around 5% to 20% of people. Those who are diagnosed early and receive high-quality instruction go on to become average readers, studies show.

One bill introduced by Sen. Jeff Irwin, a Democrat from Ann Arbor, would require school districts to screen all students for characteristics of dyslexia and difficulty decoding language. It would also require interventions for struggling students to be based on the science of reading. The interventions, which would be tailored to students’ individual needs, could include strategies, such as breaking out into small groups, specialized phonics instruction, or using technology.

The other bill introduced by Sen. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat who represents parts of Canton and Livonia, would set stricter standards for teacher preparation programs. Teachers in the programs would have to learn the science of reading along with best practices for helping students with dyslexia.

Originally, Irwin’s bill would have given school systems until the beginning of the 2025-26 school year to add screeners for dyslexia to existing assessments. After hearing feedback from school officials, the committee voted to extend that deadline to the 2027-28 school year.

Ruth Johnson, a Republican representing parts of Oakland, Macomb, Genesee, and Lapeer counties, was the only committee member who voted against changing that part of the bill.

“I do not think delaying implementation a full two years serves students well, especially given that our state’s fourth grade reading scores have fallen 11 places since 2019 to 43rd in the country,” she said during the hearing.

The proposed legislation also was amended to move the deadline for the Michigan Department of Education to update its list of approved diagnostic reading assessments back by a year to December 2025. That will give the department and the companies that create assessments more time to comply.

Some school administrators had expressed concerns that the bill included overly prescriptive language, saying they worried instruction and interventions that do not emphasize phonics would be banned entirely.

The amended bill says that those strategies can be used outside of instruction on word recognition and decoding, and that they may also be part of a student’s individualized education program in special education.

School officials said during testimony on the bills that there are not enough literacy coaches, who help train teachers, currently employed in the state to overhaul early reading instruction in a short span of time.

“At what point are we going to have enough capacity?” said Polehanki in response to those concerns during the hearing. “We certainly have the funding. I know it takes time, but that’s not a reason to not test kids for dyslexia, in my opinion.”

Though more money has been allocated in the current state education budget and the governor’s 2024-25 proposed budget for more coaches, administrators said there still aren’t enough people applying for open positions.

Susan Schmidt, a former educator and current member of the Ann Arbor School Board, said she was worried that the bill would only allow literacy coaches to provide training or professional development on dyslexia to teachers.

“What we don’t need are more literacy coaches,” she said during the committee hearing. “What we do need are more highly trained teachers that sit across the table from that child in their classroom every single day.”

Schmidt said the professional training she received from the Michigan Dyslexia Institute was instrumental in her understanding of how she could help students with reading difficulties excel.

“A literacy coach may talk to you and say, ‘I want you to try this in your classroom,’” she said. “But I, the teacher, need that knowledge to empower me.”

The bill was updated after the hearing to say that districts may allow anyone who meets requirements for providing that training to do so.

A requirement for schools to report individual reading plans to their districts was removed from Irwin’s bill because of concerns that it would be burdensome to administrators and might violate personal student information.

Pholehanki’s bill was updated to make it clearer that there will be some basic requirements for all teacher education programs. More extensive parameters would be set for programs focused on reading instruction and special education.

The bill was also amended to allow the MDE to issue two-year waivers to certain teacher preparation programs that do not meet the requirements in the legislation.

Irwin and Polehanki’s bills are also tied to legislation proposed by Rep. Carol Glanville, a Democrat serving Walker, Grandville, the west side and parts of Northeast Grand Rapids, that would mandate the state superintendent establish a 10-member advisory committee on dyslexia within the MDE.

A separate House bill introduced by Rep. Kathy Schmaltz, a Republican who represents parts of Jackson and Washtenaw counties, would make districts employ at least one educator trained in Orton-Gillingham, a multi-sensory teaching methodology that research suggests helps students with dyslexia.

Both House bills were referred to the House Education Committee in October.

What would the revised bills require?

Irwin’s bill would require schools to screen for characteristics of dyslexia and difficulty decoding language by the 2027-28 school year. Students in K-3 would be screened at least three times a year. Every student who shows signs of having the learning disability or trouble decoding would get intervention.
The MDE would have to update its list of approved assessments schools can use to screen students between Aug. 1 and Dec. 31, 2025. Districts would have to select the screeners they would use by Aug. 1, 2027.
By the 2027-28 school year, districts would have to ensure literacy coaches, consultants, and other staff providing K-12 reading instruction or intervention have received professional learning about dyslexia and interventions.
Polehanki’s bill would only allow the MDE to approve teacher preparation programs, or alternative teaching programs that include instruction on dyslexia. Programs that do not grant certificates specific to reading instruction or special education may be able to get a two-year waiver from the MDE.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan’s high school graduation rate increases for the second year in a row

2024-02-23T23:19:03+00:00

Michigan’s high school graduation rate was 81.77% in 2023, the second year in a row the rates have increased and a promising sign that students are continuing to recover from the disruptive pandemic.

Last year’s graduation rate was 81.01%.

The dropout rate declined slightly to 8.13%, from 8.19% in 2022.

The four-year graduation rate represents the portion of students who entered high school in 2019 and graduated in 2023. The state released the data Friday.

The state also calculates five- and six-year rates, recognizing that some students are enrolled in early middle college programs in which they earn a high school diploma and an associate degree or other advanced certificate. Those rates also reflect students who need more time to graduate from traditional programs.

Students are counted as dropouts if they leave school permanently at any time in high school.

The state noted in a news release that graduation rates rose in all 17 categories, including for Black and Hispanic students, students from low-income homes, youth experiencing homelessness, and those in foster care.

The rising rates “are a welcome sign that student achievement is rebounding and a tribute to the hard work of Michigan students, educators, support staff, and communities,” State Superintendent Michael Rice said in a statement.

Despite the increases, stubborn and wide gaps continue to exist. The graduation rate for white students was 85%, and for Asian American students, it was 93.5%. For Black students, though, the rate was 71.3% and for Hispanic students, it was 76.8%.

The rates were dramatically lower for some of the most vulnerable students in the state. The rate was 59.6% for students with disabilities, 44% for students in foster care, and 58.3% for students experiencing homelessness.

Rice acknowledged that more work must be done to address the gaps.

Lansing district ‘overwhelmingly impressed’

Improving graduation rates has been a key goal in the Lansing School District, and the work to increase the numbers appears to be paying off. The graduation rate for 2023 was 76.37%, a 14 percentage point increase from 2021, when the rate was 62.10%. The 2023 rate is the highest the district has ever seen, Superintendent Ben Shuldiner said.

“We are overwhelmingly impressed by the hard work and dedication of our educators, our students, and our families,” Shuldiner said.

Among the initiatives that have led to the improvement, he said, is the hiring of graduation specialists at the high school and district levels. Their goal is to ensure that every student graduates.

“They’re checking in with students every day, making sure they’re coming to school and passing classes. They’re doing everything they can to make sure students are getting the support they need,” Shuldiner said.

That could mean ensuring they have tutoring, after-school help, a math class required for graduation, or a roof over their head.

Many other districts also saw gains. At Ypsilanti Community Schools, the four-year rate was 78.33% compared to 73.79% in 2022. In 2019, the rate was 68.53%.

Superintendent Alena Zachery-Ross said the district has improved its rate because of gains at the districts’ alternative high schools.

Students at these high schools were typically behind in course credits.

“That team really focused last year on academic tutoring, after-school and acceleration during the Grizzly Learning Camp,” Zachery-Ross said. “And we really saw that those two differences and what’s happening in the classroom really made a difference.”

The district’s summer camp includes college visits, connecting students to community resources, and project-based learning.

Here’s what the rates looked like in several other Michigan districts:

Detroit Public Schools Community District’s four-year graduation rate was 74.26% compared to 71.06% in 2022. The district had a 75.84% rate in 2019.
Ann Arbor Public Schools’ four-year rate was 90.57%, which is up slightly from 89.23% in 2022 and 89.46% in 2019.
Grand Rapids Public Schools’ four-year rate was 82.39% in 2023, up from 80.53% in 2022 and 76.2% in 2019.

Traverse City Area Public Schools’ 2023 rate was lower than the previous year. The four-year graduation rate was 84.04% in 2023, down from 86.47% in 2022 and 84.97% in 2019. The district had a 90.51% rate in 2020.

Superintendent John VanWagoner said the four-year rate is misleading because the district has two high schools where some students are enrolled in early middle college, and they graduate in five years with both a diploma and associate degree or technical certificate.

Plus, the district has a large alternative high school, where many students take an extra year or two to complete their high school diploma.

For example, the five-year graduation rate at one of the high schools with an early middle college program, Traverse City Central High School, was 96.36%.

Still, VanWagoner said he wants to see graduation rates improve.

“Having one kid not graduate is too many; we want to make sure that every kid that is in our schools, that we set them up for the future, and a high school diploma is a must these days.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org

Isabel Lohman is a reporter for Bridge Michigan. You can reach her at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

What Michigan parents need to know about the ‘science of reading’

2024-02-05T21:17:20+00:00

When Michele Maleszyk’s daughter came home from kindergarten last year, Maleszyk noticed she brought home reading material with letter patterns she hadn’t been taught yet.

“I thought it was odd she was expected to read books with patterns she didn’t know,” Maleszyk said. “I thought, ‘How can a kid sound out what they don’t know?’ The only way would be by looking at the pictures.”

The mother and former elementary school teacher said she found out her daughter’s Troy School District class was using the Lucy Calkins approach to literacy, which includes short lessons and aims to have students practice reading skills on their own by getting them excited about literature. The once widely popular learning model has been criticized by many parents and educators in recent years as ineffective.

Since then, Maleszyk has learned about and become an advocate for the science of reading, a term generally used to describe early literacy learning instruction that emphasizes phonics along with helping students build vocabulary and background knowledge. The approach applies findings from a body of neuroscience research and the study of cognitive psychology.

With more states switching to these curricula — in the last five years, at least 30 states have passed laws requiring reading instruction to be based on the science of reading — here’s an overview of the reading curricula in use in Michigan and what parents can do to advocate for their child’s literacy learning.

How is literacy instruction evolving?

Early literacy skills are important for students’ future success.

“If we think about reading, writing, speaking, and listening, we do those in all subject matters of school,” said Tanya Wright, an associate professor of Language and Literacy in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. “It is really critical to develop those skills in the early childhood years.”

Science on the best ways to teach kids to read is constantly evolving. Current research suggests effective reading instruction should include five core pillars: phonemic awareness, phonics and word recognition, fluency, oral vocabulary, and text comprehension.

Literacy interventions that emphasize phonics have won out over other approaches in the so-called “Reading Wars” over the years.

The whole language approach, which typically doesn’t include much phonics instruction and was based on the belief that learning to read is an innate process, came first. It included the three-cueing method, which means students are given three cues to decode text: semantic cues that give meaning from context, syntactic cues that give meaning through letters, and grapho-phonic cues that give meaning through spelling patterns.

Then came balanced literacy, which combined the whole language approach with some phonics instruction.

Curricula that are well-regarded by science of reading advocates include Core Knowledge Language Arts (sometimes called CKLA), EL Education, Wit and Wisdom, and Superkids Reading Program.

Curricula that have been evaluated by some education experts as not meeting expectations include Fountas & Pinnell Classroom and Units of Study for Teaching Reading, also known as Lucy Calkins, named for the literacy expert who created the curriculum.

But even for widely respected and popular programs that claim to use methods derived from the science of reading research, there is not much available peer-reviewed research on how effective specific curriculum materials are. And available efficacy studies have yielded mixed results.

Tara Kilbride, the interim associate director of the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative at Michigan State University, said it’s important to remember the science of reading is still changing.

“It will continue to evolve as more research happens and we learn more,” she said.

Which literacy curricula does Michigan use?

Michigan, which ranks 43rd in the country for reading, is one of the 26 states that lay out clear standards for reading instruction in teacher preparation programs that include the five core pillars, according to a report released by the National Council on Teacher Quality last month. The state also has standards for how educators should learn to support English learners.

Michigan maintains full authority over approval of teacher preparation programs, reviews syllabi for reading standards and the science of reading, and requires all future elementary teachers to pass a reading licensure test. But it does not require reading specialists or experts in the review of reading instruction for elementary education programs in the program renewal process and it does not use an “acceptable” elementary reading licensure test for teacher candidates, according to the report.

Though the state does provide guidance on using reading programs that align with research-based best practices, there is no one set reading curriculum for Michigan students. The state’s schools operate under local control, and districts decide their own curricula, making it impossible to discern how many districts use outdated or poorly rated core curricula.

Reading instruction materials can vary widely within districts and sometimes even within the same elementary schools, according to a 2022 policy brief by EPIC.

“What that really tells us is that across Michigan classrooms, kids are getting inconsistent instruction,” said Wright.

In a survey of more than 9,000 Michigan K-5 teachers and 192 superintendents, educators reported using more than 450 different English language arts curricula. Many teachers said they used multiple curricula and supplemental materials in their lessons.

The researchers found all participating districts provided guidance on curriculum selection. Despite guidance, teachers within the same district did not all use the same curriculum, and many were using curricula that were poorly rated or unrated.

For example, 31% of teachers in the survey said they used Fountas & Pinell, which did not meet expectations according to EdReports, a website that reviews instructional material.

Kristine Griffor, assistant superintendent for elementary instruction in the Troy School District, said Lucy Calkins has been used by all of the school system’s elementary school teachers for around 15 years, with an updated curriculum adopted nine years ago. A phonics component was to the reading and writing units of study five years ago, she said. A literacy leadership team that included teachers selected the curriculum, said Griffor.

Parents can check whether their school’s curriculum is considered high quality on the EdReports website.

While curricula is a key component that influences instruction, Wright said it’s not the only component. Teachers can use additional materials and their own knowledge to guide lessons.

What about students with dyslexia?

As has been the case nationally, Michigan dyslexia advocates have helped lead the push to adopt science of reading strategies. Though more research is needed, there is evidence the interventions used to identify and help struggling readers in curricula that claim to use the science of reading may hold promise for students with dyslexia, according to a 2021 study.

Some say aspects of a set of Michigan dyslexia bills proposed in October would benefit the overall student population.

One bill would tighten state standards for literacy screeners schools use to identify kids having trouble reading. Another would require school districts to have at least one teacher trained in the Orton-Gillingham method, a highly structured multisensory approach to reading instruction.

On Tuesday, the Senate Education Committee is set to discuss the dyslexia bill that would tighten screeners and another that would set standards for teacher preparation programs to ensure future educators have the tools they need to support students with dyslexia.

What can parents do to set their kids up for success in learning to read?

Wright suggests parents who want to better understand the best practices for teaching kids to read review the Literacy Essentials resource guide she helped compile with other researchers. The guide includes essential practices for kids in all grade levels, professional learning resources for educators, coaching modules, and more.

“We want kids to learn to look at the symbols and be able to figure out how they translate into words and sentences,” said Wright. “We also want kids, at the same time, to be building knowledge and vocabulary and comprehension skills, so that once they are independent decoders, they have the knowledge they need to comprehend the text.”

For example, Wright said that if her child was not receiving science or social studies instruction in the early grades, she would be concerned.

Parents may also want to get an understanding of how their child is learning literacy by asking teachers about how they approach carving out time for reading and writing during the school day.

They may also ask how teachers screen students for reading difficulties and what interventions are used, said Maleszyk, the parent in Troy.

“Ask them, ‘If my child is falling behind, what steps are you taking to support them?’” she said.

Parents might also ask teachers if they’ve received training in the Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (or LETRS), which has been recommended by the state.

Experts and educators suggest taking a collaborative approach to talking with teachers and administrators about concerns with your child’s reading instruction. Everyone’s goal should be achieving student literacy, regardless of the approach.

Maleszyk said if a teacher is not able to answer your questions or address your concerns, you may want to talk with the school’s principal and then the district’s director of curriculum. She has also spoken about her concerns with her daughter’s curriculum at school board meetings.

“We are always learning different ways and practices and we feel the curriculum we selected centers on children,” said Griffor, the Troy School District administrator.

Inequities in Michigan’s literacy proficiency

Maleszyk said she knows her daughter will learn to read – she’s able to pay up to $80 an hour for tutoring. But she worries about students whose families can’t afford the extra support.

Michigan students have long struggled with literacy competency, and experts say inequitable school funding is among the many reasons students from low-income families and students of color have suffered the most from inadequate reading instruction.

A 2016 lawsuit alleged that the state denied students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District a basic education by failing to teach them to read. It was settled for $94.4 million.

In 2022, Michigan ranked 43rd compared to the rest of the nation for 4th grade reading, according to a report by Education Trust-Midwest that used data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The scores from that assessment were seven points lower than they were 20 years prior.

While the rest of the country’s reading scores dropped during the pandemic, Michigan’s plummeted at a faster rate than the national average due to a longtime underinvestment in public education, according to the 2023 State of Michigan Education report.

In an effort to improve early literacy, Michigan’s Republican-led Legislature and then-Gov. Rick Snyder approved the 2016 third-grade reading law, which included a retention rule.

The retention rule took effect in 2021 and other aspects of the law went into effect much earlier. Before the retention rule was repealed in March, Black students and kids from low-income families were more than twice as likely to have to repeat the third grade compared to their white peers and students from wealthier families.

Most districts pushed back against retaining more students, especially during the early stages of the pandemic, when learning loss was widespread and when the rule took effect.

The other aspects of the reading law remain, including the requirement that schools identify struggling readers and provide extra help.

Feb. 13, 2024: A previous version of this story said that Michigan does not maintain full authority to review teacher preparation programs and does not audit them. The state does maintain full authority of the programs and audits their compliance.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s what it would cost in Michigan for free preschool, community college, and school meals

2024-02-07T21:14:32+00:00

At a time when academic recovery from the pandemic has been slow, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced a plan Wednesday to increase spending on Michigan’s most vulnerable students.

In her budget proposal, Whitmer also said she wants to invest more in preschool, provide child care workers with payments to enroll their own children in the kinds of programs in which they work, and expands the state’s scholarship program to ensure all high school graduates can enroll in community college, for free, if they choose.

The new investments in the $80.7 billion state budget amount to hundreds of millions of dollars of additional funding for education initiatives at a time when research shows Michigan students overall are still far behind where they were academically before the pandemic. It also comes as school districts across the state face the loss later this year of the federal COVID relief money that has helped boost tutoring and mental health services students have sorely needed.

And it’s possible, Whitmer said, because the state paid off billions in debt in the Michigan Public School Employees’ Retirement System. Those debt payments, she said, freed up $670 million.

“We have the resources to invest in our people,” said Whitmer, who first outlined her proposals during her State of the State address last month.

Negotiations will now begin. Democrats hold the majority in the Senate, but until elections can be held in April for two open seats, the House is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. Those two seats are in heavily Democratic districts.

Republican leaders were critical of the governor’s budget proposal.

“Last year, Democrats blew through a $9.2 billion surplus and fought for a $700 million income tax hike,” Sen. Jon Bumstead, a Republican from North Muskegon, said in a statement. Bumstead is the minority vice chair of the Senate Appropriations committee. “Now they are presenting an unsustainable budget that spends more money, bloats the size of government, and offers crumbs for average Michigan families still coping with higher costs on virtually everything.”

Here’s what Whitmer is proposing for schools, students, and families:

Increase in per-pupil aid for schools, including for the neediest students

The minimum amount school districts would receive per pupil would be $9,849, an 2.5% increase of $241 per student over this year’s level.

Meanwhile, Whitmer proposed continuing a practice she started several years ago of weighting funding for districts based on the needs of some students. That means schools receive additional money for students who are “academically at risk,” English language learners, career and technical education students, and rural students.

The budget calls for increasing funding by $125 million for those groups of students, which amounts to a 5% increase over the $118 million spent this year.

Community college guarantee for high school graduates

Whitmer’s budget calls for a $30 million increase in funding for the Michigan Achievement Scholarship, which would allow the program to expand to ensure every high school graduate in the state could receive an associate degree or skilled certificate at a community college for free.

With the community college proposal, more than 18,000 students would each save up to $4,820 on tuition each year, according to the budget proposal.

In her remarks to lawmakers Wednesday, Whitmer said the community college proposal would also help the state move closer to a goal to have 60% of the state’s working-age residents have a postsecondary certificate or college degree by 2030. When Whitmer took office in 2018, just 45% had achieved a certificate or college degree. That percentage is now at 51%.

“This would be a transformational opportunity for our students,” she said.

“Investments in community college are key to Michigan’s overall prosperity, as these degrees and certifications bolster the workforce across the state and help meet emerging talent needs of employers,” Brandy Johnson, president of the Michigan Community College Association, said in a statement.

Expanding free preschool for all

Whitmer’s budget includes making the state’s free preschool available to all 4-year-olds regardless of family income – two years ahead of schedule. She had previously proposed phasing in the expansion.

The expansion would cost an additional $159 million, including $63.5 million to allow the Great Start Readiness Program to enroll an additional 6,800 children. The rest of the increased cost would cover increasing the per-student allocation, opening new classrooms in underserved areas, and to help pay for the cost of transportation.

Child care workers would get free care for their children

Whitmer also plans to invest more in the child care sector.

The state would spend $60 million to create a pilot program to provide these workers with benefits to pay for child care for their own children. Budget documents say the median child care worker pay is $13.71 an hour.

“The average cost for child care for one child is $10,600 annually, which means the average child care worker would need to dedicate over 37% of their gross salary to child care costs if they want their child to receive the same care they provide for other children on a daily basis,” the document says.

Expansion of free school meals

Public school students across the state would continue to receive free school meals with $200 million Whitmer proposes including in the budget. Lawmakers included money in the current budget to ensure that each of the state’s 1.4 million children would have access to a free breakfast and lunch.

She said the free meals save families $850 a year on grocery bills and eliminates the struggle of ensuring children get out the door in the mornings with their lunch.

“Knowing that your child will eat no matter what is a huge relief,” Whitmer said.

The free meals have been criticized by Republicans because it is only for public school students, not for children enrolled in private schools or children being home-schooled.

“Why are they left hungry?” Sarah Lightner, a Republican from Springport, asked during the budget presentation.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan Senate hears the case for requiring the “science of reading” in early literacy curriculum

2024-02-06T23:43:57+00:00

The Senate Education Committee Tuesday began hearing testimony in support of two proposed bills that would require schools to weave the “science of reading” into Michigan’s early literacy education.

The bills, which are aimed at better identifying and teaching students with dyslexia, would also likely benefit all early readers, supporters say. The legislation would mandate school districts and colleges use practices from the science of reading, or literacy instruction that emphasizes phonics along with building vocabulary and background knowledge, in assessments, interventions, and teacher education programs.

One bill introduced by Sen. Jeff Irwin, a Democrat from Ann Arbor, would add standards to existing screeners to identify students who have trouble decoding language and whether they are mastering foundational literacy skills. It would also call for interventions to be informed by the science of reading.

“We need to make sure that that pendulum is swung a little bit back toward those foundational skills of phonics in those early grades by making sure that our educators are bringing the science of reading into our classrooms – in the general ed classroom, in small groups, in individualized help, all the way throughout that classroom environment,” said Irwin.

Another bill introduced by Sen. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat who represents parts of Canton and Livonia, would set standards for teacher preparation programs to train future educators on methods based on the science of reading as well as best practices to identify and support children struggling to read and students with dyslexia.

Currently, there is no set reading curriculum in the state and districts decide on their own under local control. The state does provide some guidance on using reading programs backed by research, but the proposed bills would provide more explicit direction on which methodology to use.

Michigan has long struggled to achieve literacy proficiency for its students and currently ranks 43rd in the country for reading for fourth graders.

Dyslexia is a common hereditary reading disability that can cause affected students to struggle in school. Studies show most people with dyslexia who get early high-quality intervention become average readers.

“Middle school is where I started figuring out that my brain was different from my peers,” said Deon Butler, now an adult who attended school in Inkster, during testimony in support of the bill. “I couldn’t read or write like them. When the teacher would call on me to read aloud, I would struggle. When I was struggling, everybody would laugh at me.”

Butler said though he managed to graduate with a 2.5 grade point average and got a football scholarship to attend Central Michigan University, he was still reading at a fourth grade level. The star athlete was signed by the Detroit Lions, but was eventually cut because he struggled to read the team’s playbook.

Butler said though schooling failed him, he learned to read from a tutor trained in Orton-Gillingham, a highly structured multisensory literacy program.

“This is urgent,” he said of the bills. “Changes need to happen. Don’t let anymore kids down, especially the kids in my community who have so much against them.”

Caroline Kaganov, parent of a ninth-grader with dyslexia, said during the hearing that students’ ability to access curriculum starts with their ability to read.

“Access to literacy should not depend on if your parent can pay for outside tutoring or if your parent has the knowledge to fight a school district to ensure the correct intervention,” she said. “We as a state are required to provide a free and appropriate public education for every child. We need to ensure that every child can read at a proficient level.”

Alyssa Henneman, an elementary school teacher in Centreville Public Schools, spoke in favor of the bills Tuesday, saying educators need training grounded in the science of reading.

“This training would improve my instruction as well as other teachers’ instruction to know where to focus our interventions to meet the needs of our individual students,” she said.

Those opposed to the bills have concerns there will not be enough funding to implement the requirements it would impose on school systems that are already struggling to hire teachers and combat learning loss.

Irwin said he would push for funding to back the bills in the upcoming school aid budget.

While best practices for reading instruction have evolved over the years, phonics has won over previously popular methods. Current research suggests effective literacy instruction should include five core pillars: phonemic awareness, phonics and word recognition, fluency, oral vocabulary, and text comprehension.

If the bills pass, Michigan would join at least 30 states that have enacted laws requiring instruction based on the science of reading.

Irwin and Polehanki have previously introduced similar legislation and have advocated for years for more help for students with dyslexia. In 2022, the bills passed the Senate nearly unanimously, but the House Education Committee never moved the bills forward.

Last year, a handful of House representatives took up the issue and co-sponsored two proposed dyslexia bills.

Rep. Carol Glanville, a Democrat from Grand Rapids, introduced legislation that would create a dyslexia resource guide and advisory committee within the Michigan Department of Education.

Rep. Kathy Schmaltz, a Republican from Jackson, co-sponsored a bill that would require schools to have at least one teacher trained in Orton-Gillingham. Both have been referred to the House Education Committee but have not yet had hearings.

Testimony on the Senate bills will continue at the next Senate Education Committee meeting on Feb. 13.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan could be headed for more school closures as COVID relief aid dries up

2024-01-30T20:54:41+00:00

As school boards across Michigan begin developing their district budgets for the 2024-25 school year, they’ll likely be confronted with some tough decisions about how to deal with enrollment losses.

School closures could be on the horizon.

A report this month from the Citizens Research Council of Michigan predicts the state’s population declines (and subsequent school enrollment losses) and the late September deadline for schools to have spent federal COVID relief money will lead to school closures.

That’s because the federal money, which amounted to about $6 billion for Michigan schools, provided a financial cushion that allowed district leaders to put off some tough decisions about enrollment declines. Their budgets, which must be adopted by June 30, must account for the loss of that money.

“When those federal resources go away, districts are going to have to right size their budgets,” said Craig Thiel, research director at the nonpartisan research organization.

Michigan’s population is rapidly aging, while the number of students enrolled in public schools has declined dramatically in the last two decades. The state has lost 16% of the public school population since 2003. Enrollment during the 2022-23 school year was 1.4 million students.

The pandemic brought more significant challenges. Many districts lost students as some families chose to home-school their children and others enrolled their children in private schools. Enrollment in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, the state’s largest, is down 2,000 students, for a total of nearly 49,000 this school year.

Thiel recently talked to Chalkbeat about the report, for a conversation that was recorded for the research organization’s Facts Matter podcast. You can find that podcast, which also discusses another CRC report on debt relief the state provided for some financially troubled school districts, here. The below conversation was edited for length and clarity.

What is happening with Michigan’s population and how is that affecting students?

While the population is stagnant, within that broad population, there are some substantial changes. And what we’re seeing is that we’re becoming an older state. So our aging population is increasing, and it’s projected to continue to increase while our younger age cohorts decline, specifically our school-age population. So as we look forward, what we see is a continuation of the aging of our population. And so when we kind of focus into what that means … public schools are going to continue to deal with this declining enrollment challenge that they’ve been dealing with going back to about 2003. At that time, the state had about 1.7 million public school students enrolled. Today, we have less than 1.4 million. The vast majority of [Michigan’s 800 plus school districts] have dealt with some degree of declining enrollment, some to much greater degree than others.

Which areas of the state are seeing the biggest declines?

We’ve seen some hollowing out of our urban areas with people moving out of urban areas into ring suburbs and suburban areas. I’d also point out in our rural communities as well, population growth has been stagnant and also aging. So the number of school-aged children has been declining in those communities as well. So it’s not a geographic specific area of the state. It’s kind of across the state.

Should school closures be the answer to declining enrollment?

School buildings are physical infrastructures. They’re designed to accommodate a certain size of the student body in terms of the number of classrooms, the square footage. As enrollments decline, the cost of maintaining those facilities becomes much more expensive on a per student level. And, you know, that’s important because we largely fund school districts in the state based on the number of students who enroll. So as declining enrollment happens, there’s fewer resources, and then those resources have to be stretched further across larger physical footprints in the school district.

To what extent has the federal COVID relief {which directed about $6 billion to Michigan schools as part of pandemic recovery efforts}, delayed some of these difficult conversations in districts that have experienced steady enrollment losses.

The federal government has stepped in with this large infusion of resources to help districts manage through the challenges of keeping schools open, and then pivoting to helping students recover from the learning loss when schools were closed. And those dollars, you know, to some degree papered over these long-term trends of depressing state resources coming in. And when those federal resources go away, districts are going to have to right size their budgets. And when they do so they’re going to find out well, the declining enrollment has also reduced our ability to bring in resources. So it’s kind of a confluence of both factors, the long-term declining enrollment trend and the expiration of these federal resources that are going to bring some serious financial decisions to bear for local districts. There’s going to be this funding cliff that districts have to face in fairly short order when these federal dollars expire at the end of 2024 here.

You’re predicting school closures will be a necessity, but do you think schools will actually begin closing buildings?

It’s really difficult [for] decision-makers running schools because the effects are quite wide. Closing schools, especially when students aren’t redistributed to better schools can affect student learning and their progress, their educational attainment. They’re disruptive to families, as well as staff in those schools having to develop new relationships with new teachers, and new school personnel. And the broader community is affected because schools, as we know, serve a larger purpose than just providing educational services. They serve as a civic and social and cultural space for gathering. But the finances are really what are driving the need to look at school closures. And we’ve seen over the period of declining enrollment that districts have been closing buildings. We’ve seen about a 16% decline in the number of K-12 students in the last decade or so. And we’ve seen a similar reduction in the number of buildings of about 12% in the traditional public schools sector. So they are closing schools to meet the financial realities. Our report here suggests that, you know, while the federal resources have kind of put those decisions on the back burner, they’re going to bring them to the fore in the near term when the federal resources expire.

What about a district like the Detroit Public Schools Community District, where school closures historically have resulted in even more enrollment losses. In a city like Detroit, where parents have a number of options, can the district afford to close schools?

Detroit is probably a good example of where … there’s a number of other alternative service providers in the city who are situated nearby the traditional public school buildings. And with the challenges of transportation in the city, families are going to look to what’s nearby for enrolling their students. When the declining enrollment is hitting and school closures hit, there’s no guarantee that those students are going to re-enroll in the same public school district. They’re likely to look at an alternative provider, so then it’s going to likely be a larger net loss to the district in this instance. So there’s going to be some pressure to maintain the operation of that building. But the reality is that it’s going to be more expensive to run that building.

So how does a school board make that trade-off of deciding what’s more costly?

It’s going to take some very strategic thinking and looking at what’s happened in the past. it’s also going to require that district to make its case [about] the competitive effects.

Will the declining enrollment trend, coupled with the loss of the federal dollars, take us back to the days when many districts were in heavy competition with each other for students?

It does strike me as kind of an odd proposition if we were to see an expansion of competition back to what we saw maybe 10-20 years ago. If that happens, there’ll be some real efforts to quote unquote, steal students, because you’re chasing after a shrinking pie. I don’t have my crystal ball. So I’m not entirely sure what’s going to happen in terms of new actors coming in, in competing. I do know that, you know, about 50% of the resident student population in Detroit, is attending something other than the traditional public school district in Detroit. And that’s been about the same, more or less for a number of years. The competition is there right now. And I think it’s going to continue to stay there regardless of the declining enrollment trend here that we’re projecting for the next few decades.

Michigan has a number of small school districts. Can the state continue to sustain that if enrollment continues to decline?

School district consolidations have been very rare relative to school closures. But those discussions are going to have to come to the fore in [suburban communities], but in rural communities as well. The state has encouraged districts to look at this as an option. It hasn’t mandated it. We’re a local control state; I don’t foresee a day when we’re going to mandate that. But the state has been encouraging it and incentivizing districts with some state dollars to at least investigate that. The other option that doesn’t get as much attention is kind of service sharing and service consolidation, where districts will still exist on paper and look like they always have, but really the services that are being provided are being done so jointly by the same personnel. So think of back office services that school districts provide like food and administration, curriculum development, transportation. Those aren’t as visible to the public.

Detroit and Flint school districts have made some tough decisions approaching the deadline. Would you have expected to see more widespread discussions across the state?

To some degree, the federal dollars have given decision-makers an opportunity to put these tougher decisions on the back burner, and haven’t brought them to the fore. Schools are going to be sitting down here and drafting their budgets for the 2024-25 school year in the next month or so. This declining enrollment, loss of federal funds need to be front and center for more school districts in the state, especially in terms of bringing in other voices to the decision-making process in schools.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

From preschool to community college tuition: What Whitmer wants to give away free

2024-01-25T14:57:45+00:00

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer promised Wednesday to make the state’s free preschool available to all 4-year-olds regardless of family income, two years ahead of schedule.

In her annual State of the State address, Whitmer also said she would urge lawmakers to expand an existing program that provides free tuition to community colleges. The current program is for people ages 21 and up; Whitmer wants to make it available to students graduating from high school.

Those were two of the biggest ideas Whitmer pushed during a speech that was heavy on ideas but no specifics on how the proposals would be funded. More details are expected when she presents her budget proposal to lawmakers, likely in February.

Until then, here’s what you need to know about what she proposed Wednesday:

Expanding preschool program to reach more students

It was a year ago that Whitmer announced plans to make the Great Start Readiness Program, a free preschool program that targets students mostly from low-income families, available to all 4-year-olds in the state. The plan then was to phase in the expansion until 2026. But in her address Thursday, she announced a new timeline.

“In our next budget, let’s deliver pre-K for every single 4-year-old in Michigan, two years ahead of schedule,” Whitmer said to applause.

She said the universal free program would save families $10,000 each year. Preschool can be expensive, and a fact sheet that accompanied Whitmer’s speech said 40% of Michigan’s 4-year-olds do not attend a preschool program.

But expanding it to serve all 4-year-olds may prove difficult. Early childhood program providers have said they have difficulty finding teachers, and the funding they receive doesn’t allow them to pay teachers and other staff a livable wage.

Still, Whitmer says the expansion is needed to give students a good start in their education journey. She said it is key to improving academic performance, which has lagged for years.

“Four-year-olds who go to pre-K arrive at kindergarten better prepared to learn,” she said. “They are more likely to graduate, go to college, and earn more over their lifetime. And we know higher education or skills training leads to higher incomes.”

Free community college for all high school graduates

Whitmer, who is pushing to increase the number of Michigan residents who have a postsecondary degree or certificate, proposes providing free tuition for high school graduates to attend one of Michigan’s 28 community colleges.

The proposal has been lauded since it was first reported Tuesday by the Associated Press.

Free community college tuition “has the potential to attract and retain newcomers to the Great Lakes State,” Amber Arellano, executive director of the Education Trust-Midwest, said in a statement. “Though it will take time to fund such a grand vision, it’s important to set strategic goals for the state to work toward over time.

Whitmer said those pursuing an associates degree or skills certificate at a community college “can save an average of $4,000 on tuition.”

“This is a transformational opportunity for graduating seniors and will help us achieve our Sixty by 30 goal of having 60% of adults earn a post-secondary degree or skills training by 2030,” she said.

Michigan already provides free community college for residents who are 21 years old or older and pursuing an associates degree or an eligible skills certificate.

Whitmer to push to extend free school meals

This school year, the state invested millions of dollars to provide access to free school breakfasts and lunches for every student, regardless of income. The Michigan Department of Education said in November that every district in the state is participating in the program, meaning nearly 1.4 million children have access to free meals.

But the funding was available for just one year, and there are efforts to ensure these free meals are available for future school years. Whitmer said Wednesday that she planned to include the meals in her budget proposal.

Whitmer said the initiative allows students to “focus on learning and so their parents save $850 a year on groceries, per student.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach Lori at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

How Michigan schools are creating safe spaces for students to talk about the Israel-Hamas war

2024-01-24T22:18:41+00:00

Daniel Crowley, a middle school teacher in Ann Arbor, had been teaching about refugees this fall when the Oct. 7 attacks on southern Israel catapulted the region into chaos.

In the days and weeks afterward — as Hamas militants’ bloody attack in Israel gave way to devastating death counts in Gaza — Crowley said he felt himself playing it safe in his classroom. When students asked about Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza, he told them they needed to ask their parents, because he didn’t know what the district policies were around the topic.

He regrets that now.

“In order for all my students to feel seen and safe in that community, I can’t just be doing test prep on Emily Dickinson,” Crowley said of his responsibility as an educator. “I have to include their identities, make space for their experiences, and build their voice and agency, and understand their sort of history, their narrative.”

Last week, Ann Arbor Public Schools made national and international headlines when its board passed a resolution calling for a “bilateral ceasefire in Gaza and Israel.” But it was another part of the board’s resolution that is impacting day-to-day learning in classrooms. Rather than steer clear of a difficult subject, the board urged teachers to encourage more classroom discussion.

The resolution calls for more professional development and resources for teachers to help them encourage “respectful, nuanced and age-appropriate dialogue around culturally sensitive real-world conflicts.”

Crowley said the resolution was necessary and liberating for teachers.

“I feel hopeful, after this resolution passing, that teachers themselves will be moved to take more risks. And teachers that I’ve talked to specifically who have played it safe, some of them for decades, are now starting to say … this is too important,” Crowley said. “And it impacts our students and our community too greatly for us to be silent.”

Educators navigate a tense environment in schools and on campuses

In the past week, Bridge Michigan and BridgeDetroit interviewed educators and students across several Michigan districts to learn how schools are, or are not, addressing the Israeli-Hamas war.

The stakes are high. Students, and their parents, are paying attention. Teachers say they are acutely aware that some students have loved ones in the Middle East. Ann Arbor, for instance, has significant Arab and Jewish populations. Dearborn and Dearborn Heights schools have many families from the Middle East. Tensions are immense.

“So I think what is also important is we’ve created a safe space for our students to feel and work and grapple with the things that they are feeling and navigating,” said Mercedes Harvey-Flowers, a social studies teacher and department chair in Dearborn Heights.

“What I don’t want to see happen is, through this, they begin to hate a group of people.”

That is already happening, and students have noticed. In late October, an Illinois man was charged with murder and hate crimes, accused of stabbing a 6-year-old Muslim boy for his religion. And there’s been a staggering rise in reports of antisemitism and Islamophobia since early October, raising tensions at U.S. college campuses in addition to K-12 schools.

Some U.S. students who have spoken publicly on either side of the Hamas-Israeli war have faced death threats, doxxing, or career consequences from keyboard warriors or potential employers. Several people approached for interviews declined to talk, citing concern about having their names publicly attached to the topic.

Crowley said the Ann Arbor resolution provides some insulation for teachers, but acknowledged that talking about the conflict still carries risk and questions about how the resolution will work in practice. For example, he noted that while many Ann Arbor parents felt comfortable signing petitions for or against the cease-fire resolution, only a handful of teachers felt comfortable speaking at last week’s board meeting.

Teachers share strategies for classroom discussion

Into this maelstrom, Michigan teachers are being asked to explain competing narratives about Israeli and Palestinian claims to disputed land and to help students separate fact from fiction in a conflict that’s been uniquely difficult to document.

Jennifer Lewis, a professor of teacher education at Wayne State University, said the success of schools’ efforts will depend in part on how well teachers are prepared to accurately address student questions. In Ann Arbor, for instance, Lewis said the board’s resolution could leave teachers in a tough position.

“To train people to do that takes significant work,” she said. “And we don’t know, from the resolution or from anywhere else, where those funds will come from, how they will be facilitated, who will be tasked with this, whether it will actually happen.”

Teachers across several districts shared classroom discussion strategies that have common themes: They try to share facts from reputable sources. They strive for thoughtful class discussion. And they acknowledge that students may have family or friends in the Middle East directly affected by the violence.

Harvey-Flowers said it’s important to help students find reliable information and analyze the credibility of the people sharing information.

“They can see a very inflammatory video on TikTok, and take that as gospel truth,” she said.

Wading into heated topics is risky for teachers

Teachers’ reluctance to lean into controversial topics is understandable. In recent years, educators in Florida, Missouri and other states have faced pushback, including threats to their jobs, for classroom discussions related to racism, gender identity, or other topics deemed divisive. Closer to home, local school board meetings have sometimes turned volatile over the selection of school library books.

“Doing this work can be very risky because the discussions can get heated, parents can complain,” said Judith Pace, a professor of teacher education at the University of San Francisco who writes about how to teach difficult topics. Sometimes, she said, nervous school administrators “don’t support doing this work. Especially in these times that are so contentious and polarized, I think it’s really important for teachers to be thoughtful and informed.”

Pace said teachers must cultivate a supportive classroom environment, which involves getting to know their students and students getting to know one another. And she stressed the importance of slowly easing into the topic to give students time to feel comfortable.

“Instead of having a debate or even a deliberation where students are deciding on what to do about something, you really need to find out what they know and surface their feelings and their thoughts,” Pace said.

“All of these things have to be taken into consideration.”

In some communities, faraway conflict is ‘real life’

Discussions can depend on the community.

Katelyn Walsh, a high school English language arts teacher in Dearborn Public Schools, where more than half the population is from the Middle East or North Africa, said there is an unspoken understanding that the majority of students and their families support the Palestinian position on the conflict. She said that if she were in a different district with a different student population, she would likely provide more information about the conflict itself. But what may be seen as an abstract discussion on faraway events in some schools, “is real life to some students of ours.”

In Dearborn Heights, Harvey-Flowers said students organized “a peaceful walkout in support of Gaza” on Oct. 20. She said she was pleased to see students share their voices on a subject they feel strongly about. But students “were being called vile things on the internet” after news organizations reported on the walkout. She said the district upped security afterward to ensure their safety. That experience, too, carried lessons.

“So I spent a lot of time in October more specifically talking about the consequences of activism, and how what may feel like a consequence is actually like a good thing, like how ‘you used your voice, and you shook it up and now people are nervous. And that’s a good thing,’” Harvey-Flowers said.

Bayan Founas is a high school English teacher at The School at Marygrove, a public school in Detroit. She conducted several activities with students last fall on the Israeli-Hamas War.

Another teacher, Bayan Founas, took an active role in facilitating activities and pro-Palestinian protests for students.

Founas, a high school English teacher at the School at Marygrove in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, said she helped students plan a walkout. Founas said she and her students wanted to show Palestinians that people around the world are supporting them.

“I obviously don’t know what they’re going through or what’s happening in (Palestinians’) minds, but I think it can go a long way for them to see that the world is not silent, that we are standing up for them and we’re not okay with what’s happening,” she said.

During the fall, Founas also organized school activities for her students, looking for ways to explain the complex relationship between Israel and the Palestinian people in ways teens can understand. One activity involved analyzing political cartoons that addressed segregation in the United States and South African apartheid and compared those to the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.

Students are hungry for information

Ishai Sussman-Yitzchaki, a junior at a high school in Ann Arbor, and Indigo Umlor, a senior at a high school in Byron Center, a small town in Kent County, are not enrolled in history or current affairs classes, but said they are clued in on what’s happening in the war from other sources.

Sussman-Yitzchaki, who is Jewish, said the topic comes up with friends, especially friends he knows from summer camp. He also hears things from his family, including his mom who is a “much more active news consumer than I am” and has studied the conflict for several years.

Umlor checks news organizations, journalists on the ground, and government sources to find information about the conflict, and is particularly interested in examples in which government sources disagree on specific points.

“Without doing some digging, it can be hard to find solid information that shows you the whole picture,” Umlor said.

So Umlor started an Instagram account that provides information on events in support of the Palestinian people and resources about what is happening in the Middle East.

“The Israel-Palestine conflict is one of those issues that’s complicated, but also very simple at the same time,” Umlor said, arguing that the killing of thousands of people in Gaza should prompt “more and more people around the world” to be outraged by the loss of life.

“I feel like that’s something I wish a lot more people would take away from this is that however you feel about Palestine and Israel as a whole, that you can morally oppose killing 30,000 people in the span of just over 100 days… . And I wish I saw my community caring more about this.”

(The Gaza Health Ministry reported this week that more than 25,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the Israeli military offensive began, the majority women and children. Its numbers do not separate civilian and combatant deaths. The Israeli government has reported between 1,100 and 1,200 deaths in the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas militants, mainly involving civilians.)

Teachers see a ‘responsibility’ to tackle tough topics

Sussman-Yitzchaki said the conflict has not come up in his classes, but he’s had a few teachers ask if he has relatives or friends in Israel and make sure he is OK. He said he believes teachers can handle having difficult conversations about Israel and Gaza, in part, because he has already witnessed teachers tackle tough topics like racism.

But he acknowledged the Israel-Hamas conflict brings nuances and debate that can be more difficult to navigate than typical classroom discussions on racism.

Sussman-Yitzchaki’s mother, Mira Sussman, told Bridge she believes it’s “a lot to ask of teachers” to instruct students about the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

But multiple teachers interviewed said they feel up to the task.

Tasneem Madani, a student teacher at Ann Arbor Public Schools, said students want to learn about what is happening in the Middle East. She also believes there has been a rise in anti-Palestinian and antisemitic sentiment because of a lack of education.

“I don’t see this as a burden,” said Tasneem Madani, a student-teacher in the Ann Arbor schools who is currently a student at the University of Michigan. “And I know other teachers don’t see it as a burden.

“We see it as our responsibility, as an opportunity. Because I think we feel like we’re doing the good work, right? Like, it is really difficult. It is hard. But it’s also what we want to be doing.”

Madani called the school board’s resolution encouraging classroom discussion a “first step in affirming our ability to do our jobs,” and there are several organizations and groups willing to share their expertise on these topics.

It’s important, she said, to communicate to students that certain topics aren’t off limits, while seeking to affirm “every single student’s humanity.”

Isabel Lohman is a reporter for Bridge Michigan. You can reach her at ilohman@bridgemi.com. Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

FAFSA form completion could become a Michigan high school graduation requirement

2024-01-23T20:13:14+00:00

Michigan students would be required to complete a federal financial aid form to graduate from high school under a bill that supporters hope will help remove a barrier to the pursuit of higher education.

The proposal would bring Michigan in line with about a dozen other states that have passed laws to make completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid a graduation requirement. A few more states are contemplating a similar rule.

The FAFSA is used to determine a student’s eligibility for federal grants, work-study funds, and loans. It’s also used in some cases to determine whether a student qualifies for state or and private aid, as well as tuition assistance programs offered by the state’s major universities to students from low-income families.

State Sen. Darrin Camilleri, a Democrat from Trenton, said he introduced the bill to help students recognize the post-secondary opportunities available to them.

“In 2023, only about half of graduating high school seniors completed a FAFSA in Michigan, and this year was not an outlier, " he said during a Senate Education Committee hearing in October. “On average, Michigan students are leaving nearly $100 million in federal aid on the table simply because this form is not filled out.”

Skeptics of the bill have been concerned that the FAFSA requirement would force families to disclose sensitive financial or personal information, either to complete the form or to seek a waiver from the requirement. The bill has been modified to address some of their concerns.

Others say it would add a new burden on college counselors to help students comply. The online form can be confusing, and usually requires students and their parents — or anyone else who might help pay for a child’s education — to set up separate accounts and logins and complete their respective parts of the form.

The federal government’s rollout of a new FAFSA form with fewer questions was supposed to make the process easier. But the changes have not gone as smoothly as intended since the soft launch on Dec. 31, with numerous reports of technology issues.

“I’ve spoken to colleagues who have their own kids who are seniors and are filling out FAFSA this year,” said Wendy Zdeb, executive director of the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals. “They thought the form would be easier this year, and they have found that not to be true. It took them a lot more time, and these are people who are already familiar with the process.”

Expect more such challenges for people who are not familiar with the form.

Ninth-graders Omari Pennington and Brayden Lewis said they had never heard about the FAFSA.

They are both interested in going to college but haven’t talked with a counselor at Detroit Public Schools Community District’s Henry Ford High School about the opportunities available to them yet.

Both children of single mothers, Omari and Brayden said it might be difficult for their moms to find the time to fill out the form with them if it were a requirement.

“My mom is busy,” said Brayden. “She goes to work from like 7 to 12 in the morning.”

But both Omari and Brayden said they can see the benefit the bill might have in allowing more kids to see that there is funding available for their education.

States with FAFSA requirements see higher completion rates

Onjila Odeneal, senior director of policy and advocacy in Michigan for the Institute for College Access and Success, said that overall the bill will help a lot of students see college as something they can attain, especially in low-income and minority families.

“A lot of kids are not completing FAFSA because they don’t think post-secondary education is possible for them,” Odeneal said. “It’s important for them to be aware of what’s available for them.”

Filling out the FAFSA unlocks grants and funding from Michigan universities, such as the University of Michigan’s various tuition discount programs and its Go Blue Guarantee, and Michigan State University’s Spartan Tuition Advantage.

The form is also required for students to qualify for money from two key state programs. One of them, the Michigan Achievement Scholarship gives up to $5,500 a year for qualifying students to attend an in-state public university, $4,000 a year to go to an independent nonprofit college, $2,750 for community college, or $2,000 for career training programs. The other, Michigan Reconnect, pays tuition at local community colleges for students age 21 and older.

States that have adopted the requirement have seen big increases in FAFSA completion rates among high school seniors. Texas’ FAFSA completion rate went from about 50% to around 63%. In Louisiana, 2020 research by the Century Foundation found the requirement helped close the gap in FAFSA completion rates between school districts in low- and high-income communities.

However, the research also revealed information gaps and other hurdles for students applying for aid.

For example, the number of applications with incomplete information was higher in districts with higher rates of students of color and students from low-income families. English-learners also had difficulty interpreting the form, and students who didn’t have documented legal immigration status struggled to fill it out because they didn’t have Social Security numbers.

Zdeb, from the principals group, worries that the legislation undermines the efforts of educators to destigmatize the idea of going to trade and technical schools, rather than four-year colleges, after high school. “This is kind of contradicting that message,” she said.

Camilleri noted that the bill would still help many students pursuing those educational options, because FAFSA is also used to determine eligibility for federal Pell grants, which can be used to attend some trade and technical schools.

Bill allows for waivers from FAFSA requirement

Under the most recent iteration of the bill, the law would take effect with this year’s sophomore class — the high school graduating Class of 2026 — and require every public school student to submit a FAFSA form to the U.S. Department of Education, unless they receive a waiver. School districts and the Michigan Department of Education would be required to compile data on how many students complete the form and how many receive waivers.

Parents could sign a waiver to exempt their children from the requirement. Waivers would also be available for students 18 or older, emancipated youth, and youth experiencing homelessness, among other circumstances, such as when parents or guardians are unwilling or unable to submit their part of the form.

The bill would require the newly created Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential to create an information packet on the FAFSA for school districts to distribute to high school students.

School districts would have to come up with funding they need to enforce compliance with the legislation, according to a fiscal impact analysis of the bill.

A big concern for administrators and school groups is whether high schools have enough counselors equipped to take on the new task. Michigan ranks among the lowest in the nation for the ratio of counselors to students, and the problem is especially acute in rural areas.

“There couldn’t be a worse time to put another initiative on our counselors and administrators,” said Zdeb. “Their focus right now is on student mental health and making sure kids can graduate. Putting another thing on them is not good timing.”

Odeneal acknowledged the shortage of counselors but said the bill should provide the impetus and the time — two years before it takes effect — for schools to hire more.

Legislation changed to address privacy concerns

The current version of the bill reflects changes made to address questions about privacy.

Groups including the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center argued that the bill would require parents and students to disclose sensitive information such as immigration status in order to get a waiver from the requirement.

“We were able to work with legislators on some meaningful changes to the bill and we have now shifted our position to neutral,” said Christine Sauvé, the center’s community engagement and policy coordinator, said Monday. “Significantly, the updated version involves community partners in the development of the waiver form and allows vulnerable students to opt out due to privacy concerns.”

The changes were important to protect immigrant and LGBTQ+ students, students who are victims of child abuse and neglect, and other vulnerable populations who may not want or be able to disclose why their parents can’t sign a waiver, Sauvé said.

“The updated bill also adds a requirement for school districts to take reasonable steps to provide language access to students and families with limited English proficiency throughout the FAFSA submission and opt-out process, ensuring that materials will be translated into the language spoken by the family,” Sauvé said.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Advocates for Michigan foster youth hope education reforms will pass this year

2024-01-18T16:30:00+00:00

When Christian Goode transferred from a traditional high school to Lakeside Academy, a state-licensed residential foster care facility near Kalamazoo, some of his academic records never made it over.

As a result, he had to repeat an entire year of classes, and redo school work he had already completed.

“At times, I didn’t want to do it, because I had already done it,” Goode said of the work. “It felt like I was forgotten and no one cared.”

Goode is now 21 — years past high school and living in Van Buren Township. But the holes in Michigan’s foster care system that disrupted his education persist today, and they continue to create turmoil for thousands of students in foster care.

As reported by NBC in 2022, many students describe having to repeat years of school due to lost academic records. Some say they were placed in residential facilities that failed to give them an education that met state graduation requirements. Others said they missed weeks or months of school while waiting to be enrolled after moving to a foster-care facility.

Their experiences are now inspiring efforts in the Michigan Legislature to ensure that students in foster care get more of the education they deserve.

“These are young people who have already been dealt a lot of trauma,” said State Rep. Stephanie Young, a Democrat from Detroit. “The very minimum we can do is ensure they get the best education they can.”

Three bills introduced last year by Young passed the Michigan House in November. Young said she is pushing for the legislation to move quickly through a hearing in the Senate Housing and Human Services Committee and for a vote in the Senate. She says the bills have bipartisan support.

One of the bills would require that residential facilities enroll students in school within five days of placement, and that they provide an education that meets the state’s graduation requirements. Another bill would give the Michigan Department of Education responsibility for overseeing the facilities’ educational programs and enforcing compliance.

The third bill would require the MDE and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to keep better records on the number of children in foster care, where they are, and how they’re progressing in their education.

The state has an estimated 10,000 kids in foster care, but the total number is unknown because many go uncounted in the current system, advocates say. For example, people ages 18 to 23 who are still eligible to receive state services are not included in that count.

Michigan foster youth have a high school graduation rate of about 40% – lagging about 40 percentage points behind the state’s overall graduation rate. That figure doesn’t give a clear picture either, because it doesn’t include youth who drop out or complete high school in residential facilities.

“This problem has existed for years, and we’ve finally decided to come up with a solution,” said Young. “I don’t foresee any major obstacles in moving this thing forward.”

A group of foster youth and advocates spoke at the Dec. 12 Michigan State Board of Education meeting to ask the board to support a package of bills that would reform the way the state oversees education for kids in foster care.

Inadequate record-keeping adds to challenges for youth in foster care

Christian Randle entered the foster care system at age 11, when he said he was abandoned by his mother. He thought he was excelling in his school work for years, and worked hard to fulfill the promise he made to himself that he would graduate high school.

But when he left a residential facility and tried to enroll in a traditional community high school two years ago, he found out there was no record of him attending nearly three years of high school. In fact, Michigan has no centralized electronic system to track foster youth and their educational records.

“Through all that stress and trauma going on inside of that foster care facility, the one thing I was happy about coming out of it was my schooling,” Randle, now an 18-year-old senior at an online school, said in January. “And that was taken away from me.”

“I felt defeated and like I had to restart everything,” he said through tears. “To me, it felt like my life was over.”

The inability to access records also makes it impossible for traditional public schools to identify students who are in foster care, which can deprive those children of resources they need or their rights under federal education law.

For example, schools can’t fulfill the federal Title I requirement to engage with students’ families if they can’t identify who holds a foster youth’s parental rights. Neither can they comply with the federal 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act’s assurance of transportation for foster youth if they can’t identify which students are in foster care.

“They are invisible in schools,” said Saba Gebrai, program director at Park West, a Michigan nonprofit that supports foster youth. “Under the federal law, they have all these protections, but we can’t protect and serve them if we don’t know who they are.”

Because schools can’t see the youths’ case files, administrators can’t identify who has their parental rights. Biological parents, caregivers, and students old enough to hold their own parental rights are routinely denied access to the educational records they are legally entitled to.

Carlos Correa, a former foster youth who spoke about his experience to the Michigan State Board of Education in December, said he regularly struggled to get absences excused when he was in high school.

“They kept insisting that I get permission from my parents to attend my doctors appointments,” he said.

Education for foster youth lacks consistency

Beyond the record-keeping, it’s the quality of education that concerns many advocates for foster youth.

When kids move from one facility to another, often in the middle of a school year, there is no continuity in their curriculum, said Gebrai. The assessments they take to determine what classes or grade levels they should be in vary from facility to facility.

Residential facilities, many operated by private companies, can decide on their own what students are taught.

“Graduation and high school diplomas are not mentioned in the contracts that these facilities have,” said Gebrai. “Each facility is creating its own idea of what school is and what assessments to give, and they are not in communication with each other.”

Many youth who live in the facilities describe being placed in classrooms packed with kids of all ages and grade levels. They say there is often only one instructor or facility staff member overseeing large numbers of students. Some say they are instructed entirely online, and others say they are assigned packets to complete as lessons without instruction from a teacher.

“I was in a place for like one month without receiving education because of constant fights,” said Correa of a residential facility he was placed in.

Existing state laws require parents or facilities only to provide youth with “timely” enrollment in school. That vague language often leads to weeks of missed school for kids moving around in the system, advocates say.

Young said the explicit five-day deadline in the legislation she introduced would clear that up.

Gebrai and other advocates argued for the bill to mandate “immediate” placement, but Young argued for some flexibility. “Kids might be dealing with the trauma of being removed from their house and the only school they knew,” said Young. “Going to a new school the very next day, that’s traumatic. I get that there needs to be some wiggle room.”

According to a fiscal impact analysis of the bills, the laws would cost the state around $600,000 to hire three full-time staff members in the MDE to implement the proposed new requirements.

The residential facilities may contract with public schools to provide curriculum, the analysis says. The school aid budget already allocates $10.5 million to reimburse districts for on-site education for youth.

Foster youth see an opportunity for change

Goode, the former Lakeside Academy student, ultimately got his high school diploma there, and plans to go back to the University of Michigan-Flint in the fall. But he feels he missed out on a “normal” high school experience and childhood.

“I’ve never been to a homecoming dance or prom,” he said. “I’ve never experienced a high school science fair. A lot of things I grew up without and I sat on the outside of it. I can’t change that now.”

But he and Randle see Young’s bills as hope that things can change for other youth in foster care.

Randle, who lives on his own in Southfield and works several jobs to support himself and his cat, hopes to complete high school this year. His dream is to be the first in his family to attend college and to eventually have a career helping foster youth.

He says the changes in the law are long overdue.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

This Detroit teacher became an educator to fight for equity in the classroom

2024-01-12T22:14:52+00:00

Peggy Clark dropped her career as a hair salon owner to become an educator after an interaction with her daughter’s second grade teacher that left her baffled.

“One day, my daughter came home and told me that all the kids that looked like her were in the lower academic groups in her second grade classroom,” said Clark.

Her daughter had been reading before entering kindergarten, and still, she was placed in a lower reading group, composed mostly of Black students, like her.

Clark asked the teacher about her child’s placement at the Ohio magnet school she attended but to no avail. Only after a meeting with the principal was Clark’s daughter moved to another classroom.

Though the student body of the school was diverse, Clark said the mostly white teaching staff did not reflect the student population.

“I think that’s really important,” Clark said. “If kids see someone else who looks like them in different positions modeled for them, they internalize that they, too, can attain those things.”

Clark, now a fourth grade English language arts and social studies teacher at Erma L. Henderson Academy in Detroit Public Schools Community District, has been an educator for nine years. She was recently named a Michigan Collaborative Teacher Leader in a program co-led by the Education Trust-Midwest and Teach Plus, which picks 20 educators across the state to meet with lawmakers, share their classroom experiences, and learn more about statewide education policies.

In the program, Clark is working on a committee focused on equitable school funding. She said her experience as a parent and an educator seeing inequity in schools first-hand informs her work.

“I’ve worked with students in poverty for most of my career,” she said. “Teaching has given me a variety of experiences and I’ve seen the things that students are going through. It made me be more empathetic to those students and realize that instead of just focusing on learning, we need to be wrapping our arms around them and supporting them.”

Peggy Clark

Was there a moment when you decided to become a teacher?

Teaching is a second career for me. When my daughter was a student, before I became a teacher, I got to see the public education system from an adult perspective. As I was going through the ordeal with her teacher, I began to wonder about what happens to children who don’t have parents who advocate on their behalf. From that moment forward, I wanted to do more to ensure equity for all students.

How do you get to know your students?

I get to know my students by providing them with various opportunities to talk about themselves. I spend the first couple weeks of school engaging them in various games and activities focused on building relationships and getting to know each other. I share personal information and stories about myself to make my students feel more comfortable with sharing about themselves.

I use a variety of get-to-know-you activities so I can reach all of the various types of learners in my class. Many of the activities involve movement and provide students with opportunities to interact with each other. Some of my favorite activities include the games 4 Corners, When the Wind Blows, and Teacher Hot Seat. In addition to classroom activities, I also make it a point to join my students for lunch in the cafeteria, so that I can talk to them and, hopefully, learn some of their interests as they interact with their peers.

Tell us about a favorite lesson to teach. Where did the idea come from?

I do not have a specific favorite lesson, but I do have a favorite lesson delivery method. I enjoy escape rooms, which can be used to teach a wide variety of different topics. I like escape rooms not only because my students enjoy them, but also because they provide the opportunity for students to practice a wide variety of skills that include collaboration, critical thinking, and academic standards. I got the idea of escape room activities from the 10-Minute Teacher podcast and subsequently did more research on them.

The most recent escape room that I used had students use context clues to determine the meaning of words and then place them in puzzles or riddles to identify a code. Once students determined the code, they delivered it to me, the Emoji Queen, to receive the next challenge. My students found the activity to be both challenging and fun.

What object would you be helpless without during the school day?

The object that I would be helpless without during the school day is my smartboard. My smartboard has a touch screen, which provides students with opportunities to take turns manipulating and annotating previously loaded activities or materials. I use a smartboard to guide students through lessons and assignments as I model expectations and my thinking for them. I also use it to guide students through the navigation of and use of various apps and software programs. My smartboard displays timers, videos, choice boards, and anything else that can aid students in their learning.

What’s something happening in the community that affects what goes on inside your class?

Something happening in the community that I think is having the greatest impact on what goes on in my classroom is the obsession with technology. I think that technology has many useful benefits and can provide students with many advantages that I did not have when I was in school. For example, it provides immediate access to dictionaries, translation services, calculators, learning videos, and many other things that can be used to advance the attainment of knowledge.

On the other hand, I think that technology is being overused. When I’m out with my family, I often see other families sitting at a table with everyone’s head buried in a phone or another device. I witness the impact of this lack of human interaction and dialogue in my class in the form of limited vocabulary, lack of critical thinking skills, inappropriate conversation etiquette, attention-span deficits, and writing deficiencies.

There must be a balance of tech and human interaction so that students — at home and school — develop skills important to their future. I do use laptops within my classroom because I want my students to have the ability to navigate various programs on their devices and to use the internet to become independent researchers and designers of fabulous print and video materials.

Tell us about a memorable time — good or bad — when contact with a student’s family changed your perspective or approach.

During my first year of teaching, I called the home of a student who was sleeping a lot during class. As I was speaking with the parent, she shared that they were currently homeless and did not have a stable place to stay. This significantly changed my perspective and approach. I had been thinking that the student was either being lazy or staying up late to play the latest video game. Upon learning about the student’s situation, I realized that I needed to extend more grace to students and spend additional time trying to make them comfortable to share the why behind their actions. Now, I try to listen more and talk to students when they are exhibiting undesired behaviors.

What part of your job is most difficult?

The most challenging, and also exciting part of my job is meeting the needs of every student. I teach a district-mandated curriculum and spend a great deal of time with my students on that content. I also intentionally work with students who are reading below grade level to teach them the necessary foundational skills they might have missed so that they can persevere through a complex text or math problem independently. I believe we must strongly focus in the elementary grades on the development of these foundational skills so students can achieve and thrive in the latter years of school. I also hone in on each student’s needs by meeting with small groups of about six to eight students daily to focus on a particular skill or standard that they may be struggling to master.

What was the biggest misconception that you initially brought to teaching?

The biggest misconception that I initially brought to teaching was that teachers can only impact education from within the walls of their classroom. I now know differently. Through communication with other teachers, I have realized that we share many commonalities when working with diverse students, including building opportunities and policy levers to support our student’s emotional well-being, physical health, nutrition, and learning challenges, to name a few.

My desire to support as many students as possible has led me to Teach Plus, which helps teacher leaders like me advocate for student needs by empowering us to elevate our voices. This year, I’m looking forward to working with a cohort of Michigan teachers to push for changes in the areas of equitable school funding, early literacy, teacher retention and recruitment, transition to post-secondary education, and social-emotional and academic development. As a group, we will advocate for students by making policymakers and other stakeholders aware of the issues important to teachers, students, and communities.

Recommend a book that has helped you be a better teacher, and why.

The book that helped me be a better teacher is “Teach Like a Champion, 2.0″ by Doug Lemov. The author provides classroom management techniques for teachers to use and details specific actionable steps to help them to implement high expectations for students. It includes well-scripted routines accompanied by videos demonstrating how to implement them with students. It remains a resource that I sometimes refer to, and most of the strategies have become ingrained into my daily practice.

For example, one of the techniques from the book is called “Threshold,” which involves greeting students at the door as they enter the classroom so that I can assess how they are feeling to attempt to curtail any future problems or concerns. Another technique is establishing a routine of having students complete a brief 3- to 5-minute task that Lemov refers to as a “Do Now,” allowing me time to take attendance and/or speak with students as needed.

What’s the best advice you’ve received about teaching?

The best advice I’ve received about teaching is to remember to take time for myself. When I first started teaching, I would arrive early and often stay late after the school day ended. I wanted to make sure I was providing my students with the best education that I could. I found myself tired and missing out on something important to me: family time. Since receiving the advice, I still arrive to work early, but I get up even earlier to ensure I’m putting myself first. I go to bed early and try to get a good night’s sleep so I can make it to the gym at about 5 a.m. Sleep and exercise help me to be in the best physical and mental shape possible for both my students and me. Additionally, I meditate, eat healthy foods, and set time limits when I take work home to ensure that I have time to engage in activities with my family and friends.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Eight key Michigan education stories we’ll be watching in 2024

2024-01-05T19:41:50+00:00

With elections that could alter the state’s political balance, a new agency getting involved in education issues, debates over funding and budgets, and numerous policy changes taking effect, 2024 will be an eventful year for education in Michigan.

Educators and advocates who recorded big victories for their reform agenda in 2023 will look to keep their momentum in 2024 and tackle what they see as some unfinished business — specifically, dealing with staffing needs and locking in more equitable and sustainable funding for public schools.

But they face a number of obstacles and uncertainties, including the potential for economic and political shifts.

“I think a lot of us will be looking at the budget in 2024,” said Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, which advocates for public schools. “We put really good building blocks in place in 2023. But can we find a long-term, sustainable solution for funding?”

“When looking at things like social workers, we can’t make the hires we need without knowing there is long-term funding in place,” McCann added. “We need to find ways to make sure these programs will be funded, even in leaner budget years. Those are the critical next steps.”

Wendy Zdeb, executive director of the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals, said it’s essential that reasonable increases in per-pupil funding continue.

“It will depend on state revenue and the economy, so it’s hard to say what it will look like moving forward,” she said. “I’m hopeful about where we’re at now and that it is only going to increase. But history tells us otherwise, and that’s always concerning.”

Here is a preview of some of the top stories Chalkbeat Detroit will be watching in 2024.

School funding: The push for equity continues

The end of federal COVID relief aid for education has increased the pressure on school district finances this year and reignited the conversation about equity in school funding.

Michigan has historically been among the worst states in the nation for big gaps in school funding between wealthy and impoverished communities. Educators and advocates have criticized the state’s current method of funding schools for decades and pushed for an overhaul of the system.

Last year, the state passed a historic $21.5 billion school aid budget that provided gains for the students with the most needs. An “opportunity index” measure in the budget allocates more weighted funding to districts with higher concentrations of poverty. Previously, the state gave the same amount of per-pupil dollars to all students considered to be at risk, regardless of the poverty levels in their districts.

Advocates say this type of funding boost would have to continue for decades in order to correct imbalances for districts that historically were underfunded.

2024 elections: Fate of Whitmer’s agenda at stake

Just over a year ago, Democrats solidified their power in Michigan by retaining the governor’s office and winning control of both chambers of the Legislature by slim margins. As a result, a number of education policy changes and priorities they fought years for became a reality in 2023.

This year’s elections will test the Democrats’ strength. Already, their legislative power is diminished: Two Democratic House members won mayoral races at the end of 2023, and their departure leaves the House with a 54-54 partisan split, at least until new members are chosen in an April 16 special election.

Both seats are in heavily Democratic districts. But given the stakes of the election — potential control of the House and the power to advance or thwart Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s agenda — political analysts are waiting to see if Republicans will make an aggressive push to flip the seats in their favor. A total of 12 candidates have filed to run in a Jan. 30 primary for those seats.

Voters cast ballots at the Robert Bowens Senior Citizens Center in Pontiac during the August 2022 primary. This year's elections will be a test of the political strength Democrats gained in the 2022 election.

Another test will come in the November general election, when the entire House will be up for election.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District will have contests for three school board seats in November, with the potential to alter the dynamic of the seven-seat board.

The Michigan State Board of Education will also have seats up for grabs in 2024, and other potential changes tied to the elections. The only two Republican-held seats on the board are up for election, and Republicans will likely fight hard to keep them.

One of the Republican members, Nikki Snyder, is currently campaigning in the Aug. 5 Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Debbie Stabenbow. And Board President Pamela Pugh, a Democrat whose term expires at the start of 2031, said she plans to run for an open U.S. House seat in 2024.

Candidates for the board are typically announced at party nominating conventions, usually in the summer. The primary elections for the U.S. House and Senate seats will be Aug. 6.

Of course, 2024 is also a presidential election year, and debates over school choice, teacher pay, student mental health, and curriculum have already begun to play out in the campaigns ahead of primary contests beginning this month. Candidates vying for the Republican nomination have also made an issue of learning materials and library books containing mentions of racism as well as sexuality, gender, and LGBTQ+ matters.

Student health: Bills and health centers in the works

Amid the continuing recovery from the pandemic, more legislators from both parties are acknowledging the mental health struggles students are experiencing, and they’re supporting bills to improve access to mental health services. Several more bills were introduced in 2023 and we expect to see movement on them in 2024.

One bill would allow K-12 public school students to take up to five mental-health days a school year as excused absences. State Sen. Sarah Anthony, a Democrat from Lansing who introduced the bill, said she will advocate for it to move quickly through the education committee when the legislative session begins.

Many advocates are still pushing for Michigan to add more counselors to its public schools. The state reported last year it added over 1,300 mental health professionals to schools since 2018, but it’s still short of the average student-to-counselor ratio recommended by the American School Counselor Association.

The 2024 school aid budget includes $33 million for school-based health centers and another $45 million to upgrade existing centers. Watch for the impact of that spending to appear this year.

DPSCD is set to open a total of 12 high school-based health hubs over the next three years with $4.5 million in philanthropic grants. Some of the hubs have already opened, offering medical, dental, and mental health care.

Legislators from both parties are supporting bills to improve access to mental health services. One bill introduced last year would allow K-12 public school students to take up to five mental-health days a school year as excused absences.

Special education: How will the state deal with staffing shortages?

School staffing shortages have been a problem in Michigan schools for years, and they’re particularly pronounced in special education. The state’s list of critical shortage areas for schools includes special education administrators, teachers, and support staff in every disability and role. These shortages can make it difficult to comply with state and federal rules on serving students with disabilities.

Much of the discussion regarding special education shortages has been focused on teachers, and not as much on the support staff whose roles are critical to ensuring that students are evaluated and receive the services they are entitled to. This was highlighted during a meeting of the Detroit school board last month, when a handful of special education support staff urged board members to address the shortages they say have led to increased caseloads.

How schools address shortages in special education and other areas is critical to ensuring that students receive a quality education. Though many efforts are underway to address the problem — including training programs that give aspiring teachers a quicker route to the classroom and programs that aim to get high school students interested in teaching — they won’t provide the solution schools and students need now.

MiLEAP: New agency will take on some education functions

Whitmer in July issued an executive order establishing the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential, which focuses on improving educational outcomes for students in preschool through postsecondary programs. Michelle Richard, who was the governor’s senior education adviser, will lead the department, known as MiLEAP.

With the new agency under a cabinet-level leader, the governor’s office will be more directly accountable for educational performance in the state. That is something critics of the state’s current system have demanded for years. Some education stakeholders hope this will allow the governor to make faster changes in education policy.

The department moves forward in 2024 with work on issues such as child care licensing, before- and after-school programming, and college scholarships. Meanwhile, educators, administrators, and policy makers will be watching whether MiLEAP leads to more efficiency or more bureaucracy.

The department is made up of three offices: early childhood education, higher education, and education partnerships. It takes over several functions previously handled by the Michigan Department of Education, including the Office of Great Start, which serves the educational needs of children up to age 8.

‘Right to literacy’ settlement: How will DPSCD allocate $94.4 million?

DPSCD has a big new pile of state money to help address problems with reading and literacy for students in the district, thanks to a settlement in the 2020 “right to literacy” lawsuit.

The state appropriated $94.4 million under the settlement, and DPSCD has until 2027 to spend the money. But big decisions will come this year on how the money can best be used to improve student achievement.

A task force is working on recommendations to the district on how to spend the money, based on community input. Its recommendations are due by June 30. The district doesn’t have to adopt the recommendations, but Superintendent Nikolai Vitti has said the district will consider them.

District officials have been previewing their own ideas for how the money might be spent, including hiring more academic interventionists, increasing literacy support for high school students, and expanding teacher training on how to help students who are several grades below reading level. At a school board retreat in November, school board members brainstormed solutions that included training high schoolers to teach basic reading to young children, and partnerships with maternal health programs and early childhood centers to help educate families about literacy before their children enter school.

One thing to keep an eye on is whether the solutions meet the terms of the legal settlement requiring that the money be invested in programs that follow evidence-based literacy strategies. The money can also be used to reduce class sizes for K-3 students, upgrade school facilities, and provide students with more reading materials.

School safety: Proposals respond to Oxford killings

Legislation and reform aimed at preventing school shootings will remain a top priority for lawmakers in 2024.

Since the Nov. 30, 2021, shooting at Oxford High School, where a 15-year-old killed four students and injured seven others, Michigan has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into improving school safety.

The 2024 school aid budget allocated $328 million to improving student safety and mental health.

Numerous bills addressing school safety were also introduced last year, including one that would mandate that all school buildings be equipped with panic alarms, one that would create a state office of school safety, and one that would require an emergency safety manager in each district.

In November, Snyder, the State Board of Education member, proposed a resolution calling for stricter safety training requirements for school staff and increased accountability for school employees and administrators for safety lapses. The proposal came after an independent report on the Oxford H.S. shooting found multiple failures by school administrators to take steps to prevent the killings.

The board didn’t adopt the resolution, but many members expressed interest in revisiting it after more input from state officials.

Chronic absenteeism: Will schools succeed in improving attendance?

Last year brought some encouraging news with small declines in chronic absenteeism. But even with those dips, large numbers of students in the Detroit district and across the state are missing far too much school.

A sign at Samuel Gompers Elementary-Middle School in Detroit promotes regular attendance. Chronic absenteeism rates have improved in Detroit and across the state, but they remain high.

We’ll have our eye on this issue, because efforts to improve student achievement won’t work when classrooms are missing students on a regular basis, and teachers are constantly having to reteach material that students missed.

Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 18 or more days in a school year. During the last school year, nearly 31% of Michigan students were chronically absent. In the Detroit Public Schools Community District, the rate was 66%.

Important issues to watch in 2024: Will schools find innovative ways to improve attendance? What happens to students whose frequent absences trigger punitive acti on? And will communities band together to address the causes of chronic absenteeism?

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

These are the 6 storylines that defined Michigan education news in 2023

2023-12-21T16:16:06+00:00

This was a transformative year for education in Michigan. Democrats took control of the state Legislature and rolled back some of the reforms enacted during Republican control.

Gone are the requirements for holding back struggling readers, using test scores to evaluate teachers, and giving letter grades to schools.

A new state education department was launched with an eye on improving outcomes for students. The state education budget invested historic amounts of money in the most vulnerable children.

The news went beyond Lansing, of course. Schools in Detroit dealt with budget cuts precipitated by the loss of federal COVID relief funding, which dried up in the district. They also tried to address high rates of chronic absenteeism.

As we head into the holidays and into a new year, here’s a look back at six big story themes from 2023:

Chronic absenteeism continues to threaten pandemic recovery

All the education reforms in the world won’t make a difference if students aren’t coming to school every day. That poses a particular problem in Michigan, where low achievement levels have driven calls for improving the way students are educated and schools are funded.

Those efforts have bumped up against data showing nearly a third of Michigan students were chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year, meaning they missed 18 or more school days; in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, two-thirds were chronically absent.

Chalkbeat Detroit has made reporting on chronic absenteeism a priority, because it’s important for readers to understand the consequences of frequent absences, the reasons students miss school, and the broader factors that are fueling absenteeism.

During 2023, we wrote about how Detroit’s spotty transportation options for students make it difficult for some to get to school every day. We also wrote about a state law enacted in 2015 that punishes parents of chronically absent students. If those parents receive public assistance, the state has the option of yanking that aid. Family poverty is a leading contributor to student absenteeism, and as Chalkbeat reported, some research has found that punitive approaches to chronic absenteeism don’t work. Critics argued the state shouldn’t take away assistance from the very families who need it the most.

Chalkbeat took readers inside Gompers Elementary-Middle School to capture efforts to improve chronic absenteeism. We introduced you to Effie Harris, an attendance agent whose work is at the center of those efforts, and students such as Jay’Sean who were benefiting from a mentoring program that paired students at risk for chronic absence with an adult in the school. We also reported on community efforts to boost attendance.

Finally, we reported on some positive developments after after the dramatic increases in chronic absenteeism during the pandemic. The state’s 30% rate in 2022-23 was down from 38% in 2021-22, and DPSCD’s 66% rate was down from 80% in the previous year.

Democrats take control of Lansing, roll back GOP school reforms

For the first time in decades, Democrats had control of the Michigan Legislature and the governor’s office. They didn’t waste any time flexing that power, and applied much of it to the state’s schools.

Among the big moves lawmakers made during 2023: They repealed Michigan’s A-F letter grade accountability system for schools. They repealed the portion of the Read by Grade 3 law that requires schools hold back third graders who are a year or more behind in reading. They passed legislation that restores the collective bargaining rights of teachers — rights that were removed under Republican control more than a decade ago. Legislation was also enacted to remove student test scores as a factor in evaluating teachers.

Perhaps the biggest move was in the passage of a state K-12 budget that was lauded by many education experts and advocacy groups as groundbreaking, because it reflected an aggressive approach to addressing learning that was lost during the pandemic, and because it allocated more money to some of the most vulnerable students in the state.

Much of the Democratic-led education legislation passed along party lines, with Republicans largely opposed. Some of the opponents told Chalkbeat for a recent story that they believe accountability and transparency have been removed from classrooms.

New state education department launched

Among the other big political issues that grabbed headlines in Michigan was Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s announcement in July that she was creating a new education department focused on improving outcomes for students in preschool through postsecondary programs.

The new department is the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential, or MiLEAP. It is taking on some functions previously handled by the Michigan Department of Education, such as early childhood education.

Some cheered the announcement, saying it would give the governor more direct control over some important functions. But others worried that a new department would create more layers of bureaucracy. The State Board of Education, which oversees the MDE, asked the state attorney general’s office to rule on the legitimacy of the department.

The department launched this month with Michelle Richard, a Whitmer adviser, as its acting director.

Federal relief aid is on its way out in Michigan schools

As we’ve reported for more than a year, federal COVID relief funding has helped school districts pay for expanded tutoring, mental health services for students, and other resources needed to recover from the pandemic. It has also helped school districts, particularly those that are financially troubled, become more secure.

But that money has already dried up in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, which undertook the difficult task of cutting positions and laying off some staff during the spring. The federal funds don’t run out until September 2024, but because the district allocated more than half of its nearly $1.3 billion allocation toward a massive facility plan, the district hit what experts have described as a fiscal cliff sooner than most other districts in the state.

Early in the year, Chalkbeat reported on whether school districts are ready for the impending loss of the federal aid. And throughout the spring, we provided consistent coverage of the debate over cuts in the Detroit school district, as some in the community worried that the district could return to the days of state control, when financial crises led to routine cutbacks and school closures.

Detroit district finally gets literacy lawsuit money

The 2016 Detroit “right to literacy” lawsuit was finally fully resolved this year when the Michigan Legislature allocated $94.4 million to support literacy efforts in the Detroit school district. As part of the settlement in that suit, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had committed to including the funding in her budget proposals, but it wasn’t until Democrats took control of the Legislature that her proposal became a reality.

Now, the focus turns to how that money will be spent. There is no shortage of opinions on how that money will benefit students most. A task force required by the settlement held meetings this fall to hear from residents and is required to deliver recommendations to the district. Detroit school board members discussed options during a November retreat.

The money comes at a crucial time. Improving reading skills among Detroit schoolchildren has been a large concern for decades. Reading scores for Detroit students have ranked among the lowest in the nation over the past decade and a half.

Mixed news on early childhood education

State officials have made early childhood education a priority for years now, and this year, lawmakers took a step toward ensuring that any child, regardless of family income, is eligible to enroll in the state’s free preschool program. And Whitmer has also pushed to expand access to child care programs. Meanwhile, a report released this summer said Michigan is improving outcomes for early childhood health and education.

But the early childhood education industry in Michigan is still unstable. Staffing shortages will make expansion efforts difficult. Child care providers have demanded more funding so they can pay their workers competitive wages. And federal COVID relief money that was intended to keep child care centers open during the pandemic dried up in September, leaving some predicting the loss of the money will result in programs closing or increasing costs.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Student absences for mental health would be excused under Michigan bill

2023-12-20T21:10:47+00:00

Karalynn Santiago’s father died on Nov. 28. She has struggled to get through each day since.

Karalynn, a 15-year-old 10th-grader at Western International High School in Detroit, took four days off school to grieve her sudden loss.

When she returned, she felt overwhelmed by the amount of material she missed in class and how much she had to catch up on to make passing grades by the end of the quarter.

“Imagine, four days off,” she said, recalling the struggle this week. “I’m still in the grieving process. I don’t want to do the work, but I know I have to … . On top of everything else I’m going through, it’s hard.”

A bill proposed in January in the Michigan Senate recognizes the challenges faced by children like Karalynn. It would allow K-12 public school students to take up to five excused absences each school year for mental or behavioral health issues, without a note from a doctor or therapist, and would require schools to let students make up any school work they miss.

Additionally, educators would be able to refer students who take two or more mental health days to counselors so they can get help.

Karalynn said she feels the bill would benefit her and many other struggling youth.

“There’s a lot of kids here going through a lot of stuff,” Karalynn said. “And I know that’s one of the main reasons kids skip. I feel like that would be a good thing for us.”

Others caution that it’s only a small step that won’t have much effect unless students who are struggling have wider access to help and resources.

Mental-health challenges are a barrier to learning

The legislation is part of a growing national effort to help schoolchildren dealing with mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

Twelve states have enacted similar legislation as of May, according to Verywell Mind, a website that tracks health and wellness bills. Another eight states, including Michigan, have had bills for student mental health days introduced by lawmakers.

“Kids can’t learn if they are struggling or experiencing other issues in their lives,” said state Sen. Sarah Anthony, a Democrat from Lansing who introduced the bill.

Anthony said she was inspired to author the bill after hearing from many constituents who said they wanted their kids to have more flexibility to address their mental health. Her family’s experience also influenced the legislation.

“When I was running for state representative, my older brother passed away and he left behind five kids,” she said. “We needed to have that flexibility when the kids were having a bad day. Whether it’s a death or a loved one being ill, these things can have lasting effects.”

Anthony said that when the Legislature returns for its next session, she will advocate for it to move quickly through the Senate Education Committee and to a vote, and expects it to gain bipartisan support.

“Everyone we’ve talked to — Republican or Democrat — they know that mental health is one of those key pieces that people in their districts care about,” she said.

Support for mental health days is broad

The need for student mental health days has grown in recent years, advocates say, as many adolescents are still dealing with the impact of trauma and isolation brought on by the pandemic. And the idea is becoming more popular.

In a 2022 poll by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 67% of children ages 12 to 17 said they thought schools should offer mental health days. Most also said they wanted their schools to help address their mental health and educate them on where to find resources.

Parents back the idea, too. A 2021 poll conducted for NAMI found 70% of parents supported students taking days off for their mental health. The poll also found 87% of the parents were in favor of mental health education in schools.

“I have done this with my own children when they are in a stressful situation or are feeling down and tired,” said Jennifer Rothman, director of youth and young adult initiatives at the NAMI.

In the decade leading up to the pandemic, the number of teens reporting persistent feelings of sadness and suicidal thoughts increased by around 40%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System.

The potential causes of the increase are complex, and research does not point to any singular reason, said Matthew Diemer, professor at the Marsal Family School of Education at the University of Michigan.

According to the most recently compiled data by the National Institutes of Mental Health, an estimated 15% of youth ages 12 to 17 in 2021 in the U.S. had experienced a major depressive episode, or a period of at least two weeks of experiencing symptoms of major depression, such as thoughts of suicide or feelings of hopelessness.

More than 20% of teens have had suicidal ideation, or serious thoughts of suicide, a 2021 report from the CDC said.

The start of the COVID-19 pandemic, March to October 2020, coincided with a spike in mental-health related emergency-room visits for youth ages 12 to 17: a 31% increase compared with 2019, CDC data shows.

How absences can help students get help

Giving students time to address their mental health would likely help them do better in the classroom, supporters of the bill say, citing years of research showing a link between poor academic performance and mental health problems.

Moreover, if a student takes a mental health day, that attendance record could be used to trigger a response from school officials to target resources to that student, said Anthony.

The data could be used to guide changes at the district and state level, too, Rothman said.

“It could get some conversations happening about more funding to address the need for more counselors and what other resources need to be brought in,” she said. “If we see a lot of students are using this, we will recognize we need more time and effort and funding put into mental health education.”

Rothman said she’d like to see the states that already have student mental health days collect more data on how often kids are using those days.

Some skeptics of the bill argue that kids may abuse excused mental health days as a way to skip school. Michigan is already struggling with high rates of chronic absenteeism.

Some administrators argue that the bill isn’t needed because absences are already considered excused when a parent tells the school their child won’t be there.

“If a parent calls a school and says their child is home sick it’s an excused absence, whether it happens to be mental or physical health,” said Wendy Zdeb, executive director of the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals. “Schools usually ask for a doctor’s note in a longer-term situation.”

Still, Rothman said many parents may not be aware that it’s OK for a child to take a day off solely for their mental health.

“Not every parent thinks that that is a reasonable excuse to keep kids home,” she said. “This gives a needed spotlight to the fact that mental health is just as important as physical health and that we need to allow students time to address it.

By allowing excused absences without doctors’ notes, supporters of the bill say, it would benefit students who can’t easily access mental health services in the state, which has a shortage of adolescent psychiatrists, especially in rural communities.

As for the potential for abuse, Rothman said, “The way we look at it, if it helps even one student, it’s worth it.”

Students need resources when they return to school

Some researchers caution that students need more than days off to deal with mental health challenges: They need support when they return to school.

“I think the policy is a step in the right direction,” said Diemer. “But I don’t think giving days off without any other improvements would lead to desired changes.”

Karalynn, the Detroit student, said her school paired her with a therapist earlier in this school year, but she hasn’t gotten support from any mental health professionals since her dad died.

“Not every student shows the same emotions physically,” said Karalynn. “Some can have a straight face, but you don’t know that they’re going through something. You don’t know what’s going on at home. You don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors.”

Detroit Public Schools Community officials did not respond to a request for comment about Karalynn’s experience.

Michigan has long had a shortage of student mental-health resources. The state lags behind almost every other state in the ratio of students to counselors.

Anthony, the bill sponsor, said the bill is one of several addressing mental health she’s introduced. Both she and Rothman agree that more needs to be done.

“This is not a fix-all,” said Rothman. “It’s a step in the right direction to get some of those conversations happening. We need more funding to address the need for more counselors and to make mental health programs more accessible to those who don’t typically have access.”

Karalynn said she feels the adults around her don’t believe her or her peers when they ask for help.

“If we ask to go to our therapist or a counselor or even to the bathroom to deal with it ourselves, I feel we should be able to go, because you don’t know what we’re going through,” she said. “I feel like these parents, these faculty members don’t understand that. And I know they’re going through stuff, too.

“I know it’s not easy,” she said, “but we’re people. We’re human.”

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

In their words: The students, teachers, and advocates we heard from in 2023

2023-12-19T21:22:56+00:00

At Chalkbeat Detroit, we take seriously our mission to inform readers about efforts to improve public education in Michigan and explain how inequities create barriers to learning.

Crucial to our work is ensuring that the voices of the people who have the most at stake — students, parents, advocates, teachers, and other school staff — are front and center.

That’s part of our regular reporting. But we also elevate these voices with special features, such as first-person essays, How I Teach features, interview Q&As, and other formats.

As we wrap up 2023, we’re looking back at some of the voices we showcased over the last 12 months. Below, you’ll see highlights of those pieces.

And as always, if you have a story you’d like to share, or know of a voice that deserves to be heard, please reach out to us at detroit.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Confronting racial violence with tenderness

I am required to teach Abraham Lincoln and how he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but not about the felony disenfranchisement that keeps many of my students’ families from experiencing true freedom.
N’Kengé Robertson

Detroit teacher N’Kengé Robertson tackled issues of racial violence and identity in this first-person piece. She explains that learning materials often leave out “critical conversations of race, gender, religion, language, and sexuality,” and fail to capture the lived experiences of students they’re supposed to reach. To address that, she said, she worked with her high school students to “improve the situation by compiling new resources, reshaping our lessons, and moving away from Eurocentric narratives in our classroom.”

Detroit students shed light on the need for self-love, inner peace

The pandemic has done a number on me. I don’t and can’t go anywhere, can’t sleep some nights, always see the negative before the positive, and I doubt almost everything and everyone around me.
TaMyra Smith

Detroit teen TaMyra Smith wrote about mental health and depression as part of Local Circles, a nonprofit that works with youth to research issues that are important to them.

In February, we published excerpts of student-written pieces about mental health that shed light on some of the post-pandemic struggles students are facing. The writing was part of a project of an organization called Local Circles. The participants included one student who said she struggled with depression, and another who urged students to seek help when they need it. For the most part, they agreed that self-love and inner peace are important for their healing. There is still widespread concern about the mental health challenges of students who are grappling with the after-effects of the pandemic. Adults trying to address this must listen to what young people are saying they need.

A Detroit man’s passion for getting kids to school every day

It was heartbreaking to me to see these children squandering an opportunity that later in life they’ll have to pay to get.
Larry Simmons

Chronic absenteeism has been a major storyline for Chalkbeat Detroit for more than a year. We’ve given readers a close-up view of one Detroit school’s efforts to get students to school regularly, the role community agencies have played, and barriers to improving attendance, such as spotty transportation and a state policy that punishes the parents of chronically absent students. In this interview Q&A, retired pastor Larry Simmons talked about what drove his years-long effort to help get kids in school regularly, and what it felt like to see children walking around his neighborhood when they should have been in school.

Looking at the world through a similar lens at Michigan camp

Detroit teen Torrance Johnson wrote a first-person essay about attending a Michigan camp for children with muscular dystrophy.

I rejoice in thoughts that my lost friends are running around happy and alive in the afterlife; at the same time, my heart aches, because they are no longer by my side.
Torrance Johnson

Detroit teen Torrance Johnson wrote a first-person piece, a version of which was initially published by the Detroit Writing Room, about how a camp in Lexington, Michigan, for children with muscular dystrophy changed his life. Going to this camp each year gave him an opportunity to be around other children like him who have muscular dystrophy. He wrote of the joys that brought, but also the sadness of losing friends.

Adults failed her when she was a kid. Now she is a watchdog for children.

No adults ever took the time to ask what was behind my surface-level behavioral issues … despite best practices and what research tells us about kids who “act up.”
Hannah Dellinger

Chalkbeat Detroit reporter Hannah Dellinger wrote a first-person essay about overcoming childhood trauma.

Chalkbeat Detroit reporter Hannah Dellinger, who joined our team in June, wrote an intensely personal essay about her experiences overcoming trauma. The sexual abuse she suffered as a young child led to behavior problems in school — signs of the trauma that adults ignored. Hannah’s piece illustrates not only the importance of having school staff trained to meet the needs of students struggling with trauma, but also how important it is for adults to be able to act on telltale signs that a student isn’t just acting out, but perhaps exhibiting the effects of trauma.

This Detroit teacher’s mission: Bring back school libraries

I really need to impress and stress how important going to school is and the work that students do there, not only because they’re young and they’re learning, but also because it has long-term ramifications for their life. The absence of libraries is an atrocity.
Josie Silver

Josie Silver teaches early elementary grades in the Detroit school district, and one thing she’s passionate about is equipping her children with books that will fuel their love of learning. Chalkbeat highlighted Silver as part of its regular How I Teach column, in part because the educator had been named a Michigan Collaborative Teacher Leader. Silver talked about the need for school libraries, and the challenges she has faced teaching students who are still struggling to rebound academically from the pandemic.

Detroit student who fought for ‘right to literacy’ is still in the fight

We obligate children to go to schools, but we don’t obligate schools to teach.
Jamarria Hall

Jamarria Hall was the lead plaintiff in the historic lawsuit that claimed state officials had deprived Detroit students of a right to literacy.

Jamarria Hall was the face of the historic 2016 “right to read” lawsuit that argued state officials failed to provide a basic reading education when they oversaw the Detroit school district between 2009 and 2016 under emergency management. Hall was a high school student when that lawsuit was filed, and became the lead plaintiff. Now 23, he told Chalkbeat in this interview that he sees the $94 million the state allocated this year to the district — part of a 2021 settlement of the case — as a way for young people to have a say in their future.

Michigan’s History Teacher of the Year helps educators combat racist myths

The world is such a fascinating place. Each student has passion and curiosity inside them, and I am so honored whenever I can play a small part in igniting these things.
Matt Vriesman

Teacher Matt Vriesman was named Michigan History Teacher of the Year.

In 2020, as the nation was undergoing a racial reckoning after the murder of George Floyd, an administrator asked social studies teacher Matt Vriesman to share resources with other teachers. Vriesman had already adapted his own classroom lessons after realizing that state standards don’t always provide an accurate view of race, slavery, and injustice. That request turned into something bigger than his East Kentwood High School building. Vriesman, whom Chalkbeat featured in a How I Teach piece after he was named Michigan History Teacher of the Year, created a website that provides antiracism resources for Advanced Placement teachers across the nation. This work is important to Vriesman, who teaches at one of the most diverse schools in the state. “We are always looking for new ways to bring in the knowledge and experience of our students into the classroom,” he said. “It makes world history so much more ‘real’ for students.”

Michigan’s top teacher wants more focus on mental health, learning recovery

Many children are dealing with mental health issues themselves or dealing with the mental health issue of a parent or caregiver. In Michigan, we need to put as much time, resources, and funding into meeting the students’ mental needs as we do their physical and educational needs.
Candice Jackson

Detroit educator Candice Jackson was named Michigan Teacher of the Year.

Soon after being named Michigan’s Teacher of the Year, Candice Jackson used her new platform to push for schools to address the academic and mental health needs that have lingered as schools attempt to help students recover from the pandemic. Williams, the first Detroit district teacher to be recognized as the state’s top teacher since the 2006-07 school year, told Chalkbeat that students need counseling services and social-emotional learning programs to get back on track. That will pay off academically, she said, because stronger mental health “enhances academic performance, supports overall well-being, enables early interventions, and has short-term and long-term positive outcomes for students.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

A look back at key Michigan education legislation in 2023

2023-12-04T16:08:24+00:00

With Democrats in control of the Michigan Legislature for the first time in decades, a number of education policy changes and priorities they have long fought for became a reality in 2023.

They include some reforms that educators and school administrators have pushed for as well, from a historic school aid budget that prioritized funding for students considered to be at risk, to the repeal of a retention provision in the third-grade reading law, to the elimination of the A-to-F school rating system.

“Educators for a lot of years said they agreed with some of the problems identified by the Legislature, but didn’t feel like they were listening to what was needed,” said Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, which advocates for public schools. “On a number of these issues, the end result of this session in large part was that lawmakers were listening to what we were telling them was going to be the most effective way of addressing these issues.”

McCann said that compared with previous years of Republican control, the Legislature sent a clearer signal to educators that it was looking to better understand the needs of schools and how to best support them.

Most notably, this year’s school aid budget set the foundation for changing the way the state funds public education, following some recommendations from the School Finance Research Collaborative, which has developed a roadmap for more equitable school funding.

“It’s impossible to say we liked every piece of every bill, but the fact that there is a lot of input from educators and thoughtful discussion happening, I think is appreciated,” said Wendy Zdeb, executive director of the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals.

Republicans and conservative advocacy groups viewed this year’s Democratic-backed policy changes differently, saying accountability and transparency were removed from classrooms.

“Whether it’s the adding of items to collective bargaining, educator evaluations, changes to the third-grade reading law, or the removal of school report cards, these are anti-student efforts,” said Beth DeShone, executive director of the Great Lakes Education Project, a school-choice advocacy group founded by Trump administration Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Molly Macek, director of education policy at the conservative Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said that in a record school aid budget, “very little was directed toward improving student outcomes and learning.”

Here’s a look at the key education measures that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and lawmakers enacted this year, and one that’s making its way through the Legislature:

School aid budget boosts funding for the most vulnerable students

The $21.5 billion K-12 budget that passed in a mostly party-line vote in June was lauded by many education experts and advocacy groups as historic and groundbreaking, because it reflected an aggressive approach to recovering lost learning after the pandemic, particularly for the state’s most vulnerable students.

The budget allocated more money to special education, English language learners, and students from low-income households. Many supporters said it addressed “past wrongs” and failings by the state.

In addition to increasing overall per-pupil funding, the budget provided a new way to calculate funding for “at risk” students, setting aside $952 million to give schools 11.5% more money per eligible student.

And the budget included the $94.4 million for literacy programs that was promised to the Detroit Public Schools Community District to settle a 2016 lawsuit alleging that the state denied the city’s schoolchildren a basic education by failing to teach them to read.

Also funded in the budget were free school meals for all students.

Smaller ticket budget items also delivered money to benefit community-based advocacy efforts, education nonprofits, rural districts, and teachers. Among the beneficiaries were programs in Detroit that support student transportation and parent engagement.

Retention provision in third grade reading law is gone

In March, the Legislature voted mostly along party lines — with one GOP vote — to repeal part of Michigan’s controversial law that required third-graders who tested more than a grade level behind in reading to repeat the grade.

The law, which provided many ways for students to get exemptions, was criticized for its disparate impact on children from lower-income families and Black students, who were more likely to be held back than their white or wealthier peers who also struggled with reading.

Supporters of the repeal said holding back students didn’t help their learning outcomes and only did harm.

Defenders of the law said the prospect of retention helped boost test scores. But research on the issue is not conclusive, and suggests any improvement in test performance is short term.

Teacher evaluations delinked from student test scores

In November, legislators passed changes to the state’s teacher evaluation system that eliminated student test scores as a factor in teachers’ job performance ratings. Many educators hailed the change as a big win for teacher retention.

Under the previous system, as much as 40% of a teacher’s rating was based on student test scores. But little evidence emerged that the system led to better student outcomes.

Republicans largely opposed the change, saying it would lead to less accountability for individual teachers.

A-to-F school rating system eliminated

Lawmakers in May scrapped a law that required the state to assign A-to-F grades to schools.

Critics of the system, put in place in 2018, said it was redundant, because Michigan schools are already rated on a 1-to-100 scale to comply with a federally mandated accountability system. They also said the A-to-F grades stigmatized lower-performing schools and encouraged teachers to focus their lessons on standardized tests rather than broader learning.

Republicans had argued that a letter-based grade would be simpler for parents to understand than the 1-to-100 scale.

Teachers regain collective-bargaining rights

Under a bill Whitmer signed into law in July, teachers regained collective-bargaining rights that were stripped away by Republicans more than a decade before.

The change allows teachers once again to bargain on issues such as performance evaluations, staff reductions, teacher placements, discipline, and classroom observations.

The bill was a huge win for teachers unions, but some organizations representing school administrators and school boards opposed it.

McCann and Zdeb said their organizations have concerns over a provision that says seniority can be used as a tie-breaker in deciding teacher placement.

“A seniority-based system hurts young teachers and potentially puts teacher longevity over student needs,” said Zdeb.

Student-inspired bill to address sexual assault is now law

A law that requires Michigan schools to help students understand terms like “consent” and “sexual assault” passed with bipartisan support this summer.

The long-pending legislation was born out of an idea from a group of Detroit girls of color based on their own and peer experiences. The girls found that many of the kids they talked to didn’t know where they could find help or resources for sexual assault survivors.

In June, the Legislature passed a bill that amends state discipline law to protect public school students who report being sexually assaulted from being expelled or suspended more than 10 days in a school year.

According to research and testimony in favor of the bill, responses to trauma can often include behaviors that go against school policy.

Charter schools could face new disclosure requirements

A bill introduced in October would require Michigan charter schools to publicly disclose average teacher and support staff salaries.

Currently, those costs aren’t always clear in charter schools’ financial reports, because they can be lumped in with other expenses paid to for-profit management companies that operate most charter schools.

The State Board of Education has sought more clarity on how much public funding charter schools spend on educating their students, and how much goes to the private management companies.

McCann, from the K-12 Alliance, said the proposed bill is a good start to a larger, “long overdue” conversation on ensuring that charters operate by the same rules as traditional public schools. “Tax dollars are being spent and appropriated, and we need some accountability on the back end when these charter schools fail.”

Macek, from the Mackinac Center, agreed that “some level” of transparency for charter schools would be a positive, adding that she believes “it’s important to not be putting added regulations or restrictions” on the entities.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Whitmer announces leader of new education agency that launches Friday

2023-12-01T16:21:48+00:00

A new Michigan education department conceived by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer launches Friday. Supporters say they hope it brings cohesion to a fragmented education system. But some wish the governor had gone further to shake up a system that has struggled for decades.

In announcing the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential in July, Whitmer stressed the need to better support students at both ends of their educational journey: preschoolers headed toward kindergarten and young adults after graduation from high school.

If nothing else, the department, known by its acronym MiLEAP, will do something critics of the current system have demanded for years: make the governor’s office more directly accountable for educational performance in the state.

The department’s director, Michelle Richard, previously the governor’s senior education adviser, steps into a cabinet-level position in the Whitmer administration. That proximity, for better or worse, ties MiLEAP’s success or failure to the state’s top elected official.

When Whitmer unveiled MiLEAP through an executive order last summer, she was careful to note it was meant to complement, not replace, the work of the State Board of Education, which oversees the Michigan Department of Education, which in turn oversees K-12 education in the state.

While members of the state board said they feared MiLEAP represented an incursion on its constitutional independence, Whitmer said in a statement Friday that MiLEAP is more focused on the endgame of education.

“Every Michigander deserves a path to ‘make it in Michigan’ with strong,

lifelong learning support and a path to a good job, but for too long, we have thought of education as just K-12,” Whitmer said. “We know that’s not good enough, which is why MiLEAP will tackle bold goals like expanding access to pre-K for all 4-year-olds, offering more affordable paths after graduation to get a higher education or skills training, and forging strong partnerships with our employers so they can get a good-paying, family-sustaining job.”

More than 300 people are being transferred from existing state departments to MiLEAP, where they will work on issues including child care licensing, before- and after-school programming, and college scholarships.

In Richard, the governor has tapped an ally who was instrumental in the administration’s efforts to make college more affordable for Michigan residents. Richard helped with the rollout of the state’s tuition-free community college program.

Some education experts told Bridge they hope the new department will speed Whitmer’s ability to work on education policy initiatives.

While state board President Pamela Pugh — like Whitmer, a Democrat — told Bridge she will “remain vigilant” to ensure MiLEAP does not step on the board’s authority, other state education leaders said they are hopeful it will allow Whitmer to take action on key issues.

“MiLEAP helps Gov. Whitmer be able to move forward her education priorities in the areas that MiLEAP covers,” said Venessa Keesler, president and CEO of Launch Michigan, a nonprofit aimed at reimagining the state’s education system.

“It gives her some control over pieces in the education system and to move some things faster and with more concerted focus,” Keesler said.

Whitmer has set a goal of ensuring that 60% of working-age adults in Michigan hold a college degree or skills certificate by 2030. (The number is currently about 50.5%.)

“She’s creating a system that’s going to enhance that goal, to accelerate those numbers,” said John Severson, executive director of the Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators.

“When you’re the governor and you’re talking about the future of this state, I really believe she’s leaning in with this department, and it is very transformational with this change,” Severson said.

Whitmer has also set a goal of ensuring access to pre-K education for all 4-year-olds by the end of her second term.

Scott Koenigsknecht, superintendent of Clinton County Regional Educational Service Agency, an intermediate school district, said that Whitmer is “extremely committed to all things early childhood,” and investment in early childhood will help improve student outcomes.

Will MiLEAP lead to more efficiency or bureaucracy?

Tom Haas, president emeritus at Grand Valley State University, where he teaches leadership studies, said he sees the new department as a way to create efficiencies. It also is an acknowledgement that education starts with pre-K and that more college graduates is good for the state’s economy, Haas said.

The state’s current system of an elected state board and a superintendent who does not answer to the governor has been criticized for years, including by then-Gov. Rick Snyder’s 21st Century Education Commission, which Haas was on.

The PreK-12 workgroup of Whitmer’s Growing Michigan Together Council, which is focused on expanding the state’s population, recommends that the state align priorities among MDE, the state board, and the governor’s office. The group also recommends a “reconsideration of how the state superintendent is selected.”

Many education experts told Bridge they hope MiLEAP leads to more collaboration and cohesiveness in Lansing on education policy issues — but not to more bureaucracy.

Launch Michigan, for instance, supports a model where the governor, rather than the State Board of Education, appoints the state superintendent.

“As I’ve stepped into my role as Launch president, I have heard from many sources that collaboration with the Michigan Department of Education is not strong right now and there’s a desire for better collaboration with Dr. Rice and the department,” Keesler said, referring to Michael Rice, the state superintendent.

Keesler said collaboration would be stronger if education groups had more opportunity to share input with MDE and had a better understanding of what is happening at the department.

Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, which represents 123 school districts in Southeast Michigan, agreed.

“Often, our districts would like proactive communication (with MDE on) ‘how could this work better for you?’”

Rice, in a statement Friday morning, said he expected the work of the Office of Great Start (an early childhood education agency), which will transfer from MDE to MiLEAP, to continue.

“Whether or not we agree on the formation of a new department, we’re all going to continue to serve kids,” Rice said.

Brandy Johnson, president of the Michigan Community College Association, said she believes MiLEAP will help the governor exert more influence on education policy than she currently has.

“I think having someone in her cabinet that she can trust, and certainly that’s true of Michelle, that’s a big difference.”

Sheila Alles, former interim state superintendent, told Bridge she wished Whitmer had gone even further. Currently in Michigan, many education decisions are made at the local level.

Alles said she would like to see a system where local school districts are accountable to their regional intermediate school districts and those districts are accountable to MDE. The state superintendent would report to the governor.

“We don’t have time to wait,” Alles said. “Our children deserve better now.”

Mike Flanagan, state superintendent from 2005 to 2015, told Bridge that he, too, has long thought the state superintendent should report to the governor.

“Until the governor gets full control, I don’t think it’s going to drastically change,” he said of the state’s public schools, which typically test in the bottom half of U.S. states on national tests. “And then I think the public can hold the governor accountable for results. The governor can hold the state superintendent (responsible) for results.”

Higher education leaders see opportunity in MiLEAP

Dan Hurley, CEO of the Michigan Association of State Universities, which represents the state’s 15 public universities, told Bridge he believes the new department will increase awareness of the state’s college aid programs, elevate research about the benefits of getting a college degree, and enhance the way student data is used in making decisions.

Richard is a person who “gets things done,” Hurley said, and she “brings the right vibe to the department in terms of synergy, energy, and momentum.”

Johnson, of the community college association, who previously served in Whitmer’s administration, said she hopes MiLEAP will take a leadership role in expanding dual enrollment programs, which allow students to earn college credits while they are still in high school.

While MDE will continue to handle the core functions of K-12, MiLEAP has the potential to improve wraparound supports for students, Johnson said.

“There’s so much going on around a student,” Johnson said. “To me, when I read the executive order in July, the real common thread is student success.”

Isabel Lohman covers education for Bridge Michigan. You can reach her at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

Gaps in Michigan student achievement remain wider than pre-pandemic norm, report finds

2023-11-16T23:00:57+00:00

The gaps between Michigan’s lowest and highest performing K-8 students are wider than would have been expected before the pandemic, and some students are falling further behind, according to an analysis of benchmark testing results released this week.

However, the students and districts that saw the most learning loss also have shown the strongest academic recovery, the research findings suggest.

“Overall, the results show us that progress is being made, but that progress is gradual — especially compared to how large the impact of the pandemic was,” said Tara Kilbride, interim associate director of the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative, the research group that did the analysis. “It’s going to be a long-term, multiyear effort.”

The analysis covers assessments given to Michigan students each fall and spring since 2020, and captures how student growth compared with national trends before the pandemic.

Since spring of 2021, student achievement in the state improved slightly in math and very little in reading, the report found.

In fall 2020, Michigan students were in the 42nd percentile of national norms in math, meaning 58% of students nationwide performed better. Michigan students fell to the 39th percentile in math by spring 2021. In spring 2023, they returned to the 42nd percentile.

It is likely that students are still behind where they were in math prior to the pandemic, since the first benchmark assessments were administered well after in-person learning went on pause in March 2020.

In reading, students in the state fell from the 51st percentile in fall 2020 to the 45th percentile in spring 2021. Results in reading have not moved substantially since then.

“The differences in recovery align with findings from other states across the country — at least what we see in math,” said Kilbride. “But reading results in other states have been varied. Michigan falls somewhere in the middle.”

Districts that were the most affected by the pandemic — many of which are in urban areas serving more diverse populations of students from low-income families — made the strongest recovery, according to the report. The accelerated learning rates out of those districts drove overall growth at the state level.

Overall, Michigan students are making the growth in a school year that would have been expected before COVID, the assessment results in the report show, but some students are still falling behind, because they are not learning at a fast enough pace to catch up.

The same trend is being seen nationally, researchers say.

“We are making only very slow progress,” said Dan Goldhaber, a professor at the University of Washington and director of the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research.

“You really need the pace of learning to be considerably faster” to make up for lost learning, he added, “and we’re not seeing that.”

Goldhaber said the state of recovery nationally is “concerning” because tests are highly predictive of how kids will fare later on in life.

Benchmark assessments offer researchers and policy makers a couple of advantages over yearly M-STEP standardized test results, because they more clearly measure student growth during a school year, from fall to spring. Some of the assessments show how kids are achieving at a level beyond their grade.

In many cases, the assessments can be better than letter grades or report cards at helping parents understand how their children are performing, said Goldhaber.

“Grades are actually higher than they were before the pandemic, and they don’t seem to comport with what we know about test scores,” he said. “The meaning of an ‘A’ in terms of knowledge as assessed by the test is different from what we knew before the pandemic. I am worried that parents can be getting false signals about how their students are doing from grades, and maybe they should be paying some attention to the tests.”

The assessment results do have their limitations. The analysis includes assessments from about 773,000 of the 947,000 K-8 students in the state, at 769 of 852 school districts.

Legislation that passed in 2020 requiring Michigan districts to give the benchmark assessments gave them several options of approved test providers. Because of this, researchers did not include students who moved districts in their analysis.

Additionally, many students missed testing dates.

“Some of the reasons students did not take tests are the same reasons that they may have been impacted even more by the pandemic,” said Kilbride. “That could mean our results are showing a rosier picture than what truly happened.”

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

After Oxford shooting report, a call for stricter safety training requirements falters

2023-11-14T20:42:23+00:00

Michigan’s State Board of Education on Tuesday dismissed a school safety proposal calling for stricter training requirements for public school staff to help prevent gun violence, along with greater accountability for school employees and administrators for safety lapses.

But members who opposed the resolution signaled that they’re still committed to taking steps to improve school safety and are open to taking up the proposal later.

The proposal came from Republican board member Nikki Snyder in response to the release last month of an independent report on the 2021 mass shooting at Oxford High School, where a 15-year-old killed four students and injured seven others. The report found multiple failures by school officials to take steps to prevent the killings.

Snyder’s proposed resolution called for state laws requiring all school administrators and educators to receive behavioral threat assessment and management training, with the Michigan Department of Education enforcing compliance. It also called for MDE to check current student codes of conduct to make sure they align with the federal policies on notifying school resource officers of students who may pose a threat of violence.

Snyder’s proposal also called for removing any liability shield for school personnel and administrators who failed to report potential threats.

“We need to lead now in making sure this is what we expect,” Snyder said during the board meeting.

The board voted 5-3 against adding the resolution to its agenda. Republican member Tom McMillan, and board President Pamela Pugh, a Democrat, voted with Snyder.

Other members of the board agreed with Snyder that school safety is an urgent priority for the board but said they believed the proposal needed more research and input from officials before the board could consider it.

“We definitely are not voting this down and saying we don’t want to do anything with it,” said board member Tiffany Tilley, a Democrat. “We are saying we need more time. We need to make sure there is capacity to get the program, as well as MDE’s capacity to audit.”

Tilley said she would also like to work with MDE to pass additional proactive resolutions on school safety.

“There is no question that school safety is extremely important, and you’re absolutely right that this is the time to lead,” Democratic board member Judy Pritchett told Snyder. “I believe this board has been doing that.”

She cited the board’s October 2022 Resolution on Safer School Environments, which urged lawmakers to adopt Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s request for funding to support school safety and children’s mental health, as well as stronger gun safety laws.

That resolution did not recommend any new requirements in state law.

Snyder and McMillan said they voted against that resolution because it fell short of needed action.

The latest resolution “is about the requirement of that training — not the suggestion that it’s a fancy thought or a good idea,” Synder said.

Snyder added she would support amending the previously passed resolution with what she proposed.

She called the board’s choice to not take up the resolution on Tuesday “disgusting.”

“What we could do today is discuss this resolution, we could come to an agreement, and we could make a statement and lead,” she said. “And then we could work together on building the capacity to make sure students are safe and schools are safe. But you’re choosing not to do that.”

Pugh said she agrees there was room for the board to consider the resolution, but disputed the idea that it has not addressed the gun violence issue urgently enough.

“We’ve acted, and we will continue to provide guidance and support through MDE to our schools,” Pugh said.

“There are those of us who, for a long time, have been acting in urgency,” she said. “So, this resolution falls short of that urgency. We had an opportunity to give that input — and have — a year ago and have continued to work for the safety and healthy environment of children.”

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan lawmakers OK debt relief for some districts, and a change in teacher evaluations

2023-11-03T21:50:57+00:00

Another round of education legislation is headed to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s desk after Michigan lawmakers passed a budget bill that will provide debt relief for some of the most financially troubled districts in the state, as well as a bill that will change how teachers are evaluated.

The bills are further illustration of how Democrats’ rise to power this year in the Michigan Legislature has changed the education landscape in the state. In addition to the bills that passed this week, the Democratic majority has halted key GOP-backed education initiatives of the past decade and a half, such as state laws that required schools hold back some struggling third graders, required the state to assign letter grades to schools, and weakened teacher bargaining rights.

The bills were forwarded to Whitmer during a busy week for education news in Michigan: Lawmakers in the House discussed a new bill that would require charter schools to post teacher salary information on their websites. A new report on the deadly Oxford High School shooting in 2021 left some asking for more information. And state officials released new information about school districts providing free meals for students.

Here is more on the new legislation:

Struggling school districts get debt relief

Advocates for months have pushed lawmakers to provide debt relief for a handful of school districts, several of which had been under emergency management by the state. That paid off Thursday when lawmakers approved a supplemental budget bill that in part will whittle down debt for districts in Benton Harbor, Pontiac, Muskegon Heights, and Ypsilanti.

“Fixing the debt is going to help out everybody,” Seven Green, a fifth grader in Benton Harbor, said in a statement from the Michigan Education Justice Coalition, which had pushed for the debt relief. “It helps the teachers, the staff, the buildings, and the students would get more attention.”

Also benefiting are homeowners in the former Inkster Public Schools district, which was dissolved by the state in 2013 because of its massive debt. Even though the district closed, taxpayers were on the hook for millions of dollars in debt. Sen. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat from Livonia, said in testimony Thursday that without the aid, the debt wouldn’t be paid off until 2032. The supplemental bill erases that $12 million debt.

“My constituents in Inkster need this relief, they deserve this relief, and if they choose to try and resurrect their school district, it can’t happen without remaining debt forgiveness,” Polehanki said.

Here’s how the debt relief will benefit the other districts:

The Pontiac School District will receive up to $18.4 million to pay an outstanding emergency loan balance.
Benton Harbor Area Schools will receive up to $10 million to pay an outstanding emergency loan balance.
The Muskegon Heights School District will receive up to $31.3 million to pay an outstanding emergency loan balance, outstanding school bond loan fund balances, school loan revolving fund balances, associated general obligation unlimited tax debt, or costs associated with the payoff of debt.
Ypsilanti Community Schools will receive up to $5.5 million to pay the outstanding long-term limited tax debt held by the Michigan Finance Authority.
The former Willow Run Community Schools (which consolidated with the Ypsilanti district in 2013) will receive up to $19.36 million to pay outstanding school bond loan fund balances or school loan revolving fund balances.

The bill passed in the House and Senate along party lines, with Republicans opposed to the spending plans.

A statement from the Benton Harbor district described the debt relief as a “vital lifeline.”

“This relief is not just a financial reprieve but a moral support to our entire school community,” Superintendent Kelvin Butts said in the statement. “It stands as a testament to the faith that the State of Michigan and our local representatives have in our future.”

Millions allocated to ensure safe drinking water in schools

Schools and child care centers can get financial help from the state to ensure their drinking water is safe.

The supplemental bill that passed Thursday allocates $50 million for the purchase of drinking water filtration devices for schools and child care centers.

This comes just weeks after Michigan lawmakers passed new laws that Whitmer described in a statement at the time as protecting children. The laws now require schools and child care centers to install filtered faucets, develop a drinking water management plan, and conduct routine sampling and testing to ensure safe and accessible drinking water for children, the statement said.

Teacher evaluation legislation gets final passage

The Legislature this week passed a bill that would eliminate test scores as a factor in how teachers are evaluated. The bill passed along party lines, with Republicans opposed.

Current state law requires that student scores on standardized tests count for 40% of a teacher’s performance rating.

The bill that passed Wednesday eliminates that requirement and allows districts to use their own criteria for evaluating teachers, such as classroom observations, samples of student work, rubrics, and lesson plans.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan bill would require charter schools to disclose teacher, staff salaries

2023-11-01T00:34:49+00:00

Proposed legislation would require Michigan charter schools to tell the public how much they pay their teachers and support staff.

Rep. Matt Koleszar, the chair of the House Education Committee who introduced the legislation, described the bill as a tool to help new teachers make career decisions. “This just helps them be better informed as to what they might make if they choose to teach at a charter school,” said Koleszar, a Democrat from Plymouth, during a committee meeting Tuesday.

But the bill would also fulfill a priority of the State Board of Education, which has sought more clarity on how much public funding charter schools spend on educating their students, and how much goes to the private management companies that operate most charter schools.

Those for-profit management companies are not subject to public disclosure laws, so although Michigan law requires all public schools to post budget and salary information on their websites, charter operators have been able to shield that information from the public, citing the privacy of their employees.

Koleszar’s proposal, House Bill 5269, calls for the average salaries of new and veteran teachers, as well as support staff, such as paraprofessionals, food service workers, bus drivers, and literacy coaches, to be made available on school websites.

The bill was among several bills discussed Tuesday that would push for greater charter school transparency. Others would require charter schools to post the name of their authorizer or management company on any future building signage and promotional materials.

The bill does not specify what consequences charter schools would face for not disclosing employee salary information.

Dan Quisenberry, president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, a charter advocacy group, said that charter schools already report teacher compensation and other fiscal reports to their school boards.

“All the information dealing with budgets, spending, contracts, are all made available to those public boards,” Quisenberry said. “When we say charter schools are public schools, it means we are publicly accountable. We’re publicly transparent. This is a different way to post that information.”

Advocates of greater transparency argue that the agreements and budgets that charter operators share with the public often aggregate all expenditures into a single line item for “purchased services.” That means it’s difficult for taxpayers to know how much teachers are being paid, for example, or to compare spending to traditional public schools.

The Great Lakes Education Project, a school choice advocacy group, said in a statement Tuesday that the new bills “target public charter schools with new costs, regulations, and requirements that are not placed on traditional public schools.”

“The bills are designed to limit the effectiveness of public charter schools by tying them up in red tape and regulations not-at-all related to classroom learning or education,” said executive director Beth DeShone, who called on the House Education Committee to reject the bills.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering the Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

How Michigan teacher evaluations would change under proposed reforms

2023-10-30T10:30:00+00:00

Proposed legislation in Michigan that would eliminate student test scores as a factor in teacher evaluations would represent a victory for teachers if it passes, and a turnabout in an education reform effort that began nearly a decade ago.

Current state law requires that student scores on standardized tests count for 40% of a teacher’s performance rating. Under two proposed bills that passed the Senate last week, that requirement would go away, and the districts would be able to use their own criteria for evaluating teachers, such as classroom observations, samples of student work, rubrics, and lesson plans.

The bills would also de-emphasize evaluations as a factor in districts’ decisions to fire or demote teachers or deny them tenure. But they would require districts to take action against teachers who don’t improve after repeated interventions.

The House Education Committee is expected to take up the bills on Tuesday.

Here’s some background on the current law, and highlights of the new proposals:

Michigan law followed a push for more accountability

Michigan’s law on test scores and evaluations grew out of a push for greater accountability in education that began in the 2000s. Some advocacy groups theorized that more rigorous reviews would generate detailed feedback that could be used to improve teachers’ performance.

In 2009, under the Obama administration, the federal government offered money from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act to states that made policy changes, including revamping teacher evaluations to include test scores.

In response, Michigan passed a law in 2015 requiring that teacher evaluations be 25% based on student growth, as measured by changes in test scores from one year to the next. The requirement went up to 40% at the start of the 2018-19 school year.

Skepticism of test-based evaluations has grown

Teachers have long argued that growth in test scores is an unfair way to measure their job performance, because it compares the performance of two different cohorts of students.

And in recent years, many education experts and policy analysts have become more vocal in questioning the changes that were made in the 2010s.

By 2019, nine states had stopped requiring that test scores be considered in teacher evaluations. Many other states have considered making the same change.

Proponents of returning to the old evaluation method say there is no evidence to suggest the current system benefits students, and that tying ratings to test scores contributes to burnout amid persistent teacher shortages.

Critics are concerned that de-emphasizing student test scores could lower standards for teachers while students are still struggling to recover from pandemic learning loss and need high-quality instruction.

How the proposals would change teacher evaluations

The bills proposed in Michigan would be a return to the system that was used before 2015. Districts would have more power to set their own standards to decide how and when teachers are evaluated.

But the proposals would still require districts to set up a common rating system, and they prescribe some consequences for teachers who don’t measure up.

School districts would have to start using teacher and administrator rating systems by July 1, 2024, that include four possible ratings: “highly effective,” “effective,” “minimally effective,” and “ineffective.” After that, districts would have to add “developing” and “needing support” ratings as well.

Teachers rated “needing support” would get individualized development plans from their districts to improve their performance within 180 days.

Districts would not be allowed to fire, deny tenure to, or withhold full certification from teachers rated “ineffective.” But they would be required to terminate teachers or administrators who are rated “needing support” three years in a row. Those who receive that rating could request reviews of their evaluations.

Staff who conduct evaluations would have to take “rater reliability training” from their districts.

A Senate analysis of the proposals said local districts might face some new costs to update teacher and school administrator evaluations and to incorporate collective bargaining agreements as part of that process.

On the other hand, it says, schools could save money by not having to calculate testing data, and by evaluating consistently effective teachers less often.

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Dyslexia support proposals are back in the Michigan Legislature

2023-10-18T15:17:20+00:00

Four bills introduced in the Michigan Legislature this month would aim to better identify and teach students with dyslexia, and jumpstart reform initiatives that have stalled in the past.

The new legislation comes with bipartisan support and follows years of failed efforts to better address dyslexia in school — most recently last year, when a package of bills calling for better screening of students for dyslexia languished in the Legislature.

Dyslexia is a hereditary reading disability that affects an estimated 5% to 20% of people. Students with dyslexia who go undiagnosed and don’t receive interventions are more likely to struggle in school, and studies show most people with the learning disability who get high-quality instruction early on will become average readers.

“We have to do something about it now,” said Rep. Kathy Schmaltz, a Republican from Jackson who introduced one of the bills. “When we know how to fix something and we’re not doing it, that’s on us, and our children shouldn’t have to suffer because we can’t get it together.”

The legislation includes two bills in the House and two in the Senate. All four were referred to their respective education committees. Here’s what they would do:

A bill introduced by Sen. Jeff Irwin, a Democrat from Ann Arbor, would tighten the state standards for the literacy screeners schools use to ensure that they can identify a student who has dyslexia or has difficulty decoding language. The bill also aims to provide evidence-based support early on for students who are identified as having a reading disability.
Sen. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat who represents parts of Canton and Livonia, introduced a bill that would set standards for teacher education programs to ensure future educators have the tools to help students with dyslexia.
In the House, Rep. Carol Glanville, a Democrat from Grand Rapids, introduced legislation that would create a dyslexia resource guide and advisory committee in the Michigan Department of Education.
Schmaltz’ House bill would require school districts to have at least one teacher trained in Orton-Gillingham, a multisensory teaching methodology that research suggests helps students with dyslexia.

Rep. Mike McFall, co-sponsor of Schmaltz’ bill, said the additional resources will give teachers “more tools to ensure positive student outcomes and educational growth.”

Lawmakers who back the bill say the measures would help students who have difficulty reading and processing language due to dyslexia. But some advocates disagree, citing Michigan’s restrictive parameters for determining whether schoolchildren are eligible for special education.

The percentage of students in the state identified as having a specific learning disability, which includes students who schools identify as having dyslexia, decreased from 35% in 2013-14 to 25.9% in 2022-23, according to data from the Michigan Center for Educational Performance and Information. Nationally, the number went up during the same time period, aside from a dip during COVID.

“It is meaningless if they don’t incorporate changes to the criteria for determining specific learning disabilities,” said Marcie Lipsitt, a special education advocate.

Lipsitt also said requiring schools to have one teacher trained in Orton-Gillingham methodology presents its own challenges.

“To say you’re training Orton-Gillingham, does that mean the teacher does four hours of training and then they are considered the Orton-Gillingham teacher?” she said.

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan schools have added more than 1,300 mental health professionals since 2018 with more funding

2023-10-12T21:39:19+00:00

Michigan added more than 1,300 mental health professionals to its schools in the last five years, according to state records.

During a national shortage of mental health professionals who serve youth and an ongoing child and adolescent mental health crisis exacerbated by the pandemic, Michigan schools hired an additional 1,316 staff to address student’s mental well-being, including counselors, social workers, and psychologists. The hirings occurred from the 2018-19 school year through 2022-23.

“Providing these services during the school day leads to early identification and intervention, better access to care, better academic outcomes, a more positive school climate and safety, better psychosocial outcomes, and better engagement with students, families, and educators,” State Superintendent Michael Rice said in a statement.

Of the additional staff, 772 were social workers, 406 were counselors, 44 were nurses, 43 were school psychologists, and 33 were behavioral analysts and assistants.

The hirings began to address a big shortage of student mental-health resources in Michigan, which lags behind almost every other state in the ratio of students to counselors.

The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 250 students per counselor. Nationally, the average ratio was 408 students per counselor in 2021-22.

Michigan had the second-highest student-to-counselor ratio in the nation in 2019-20: 671-to-1. That improved to 615-to-1 in 2021-22, according to an analysis by ASCA, the third-highest in the U.S.

In 2015-16, 41% of Michigan students did not have access to a school counselor, an analysis by Education Trust Midwest found.

In recent years, legislators have aimed to help more students access counselors and other mental health professionals. The Michigan school aid budget allocated $150 million in 2023 to improve mental health and $328 million for 2024.

The 2021 budget provided a one-time investment of $240 million specifically to add more school staff to address student mental health.

“This work is critical for meeting children where they are,” said Rice. “These helping professionals are essential for contributing to the success of Michigan’s children and their future and support our work to build a comprehensive school-based mental health system statewide.”

Jill Ball, assistant superintendent for instructional services at Tuscola Intermediate School District, said in a statement that state funds for mental health services have allowed the district to hire more providers in the past year.

“Our providers have been focused on helping students handle the mental health issues that are prohibiting them from participating in the school community,” she said. “These include gaining coping skills and strategies, as well as the ability to recognize their needs and advocate for them.”

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

‘Child care disaster’ looms in Michigan after COVID aid expires, advocates say

2023-10-03T19:32:11+00:00

Nina Hodge is willing to forgo some of her salary to make sure she can continue paying her employees at the Above and Beyond Learning Childcare Center in Detroit.

“They deserve a living wage,” said Hodge, the director and owner of the center.

She and other child care providers in Michigan are preparing to take drastic measures now that federal COVID relief funds that helped keep many centers afloat during the pandemic ran out Sept. 24. That relief came in the form of increased reimbursement rates providers received for low-income families who receive child care subsidies from the state.

Those higher rates were considered temporary during the course of the pandemic because they were funded with federal dollars that would eventually expire. Although the new rates are higher than they were before COVID, providers will still see a big reduction from what they became used to during the pandemic.

“Child care reimbursement rates may not fully support the true cost of quality, including offering competitive wages to attract and retain child care workers,” the Michigan Department of Education said in a letter to providers and families about the end of the temporary rates.

Early childhood advocates have been sounding the alarm about the loss of this money and the consequences for providers and the families who rely on their services. Without state intervention, they say, some providers will close, leaving child care workers out of work and the neediest families without child care services. Other providers, they say, will reduce services or increase their rates, or both.

A handful of organizations sent a letter last week to every Michigan lawmaker, urging them to “prevent an approaching child care disaster” by approving a supplemental budget that would maintain the funding levels that recently expired. In the letter, they said rates are declining by 26%. Department officials said they had not calculated such a percentage.

“We need new state investment now more than ever to help stabilize child care operations in Michigan. Without needed new investment, it is certain more child care businesses will close leaving a projected 56,000 young children without stable care outside the home,” the letter said.

The organizations that signed on to the letter were Michigan’s Children, Michigan Association for the Education of Young Children, Think Babies Michigan, and Michigan League for Public Policy.

The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, projected in a report earlier this year that nearly 56,700 children would lose child care services due to the drop in reimbursement rates.” That report predicted the child care funding cliff would cause 1,261 Michigan child care facilities to close. Nationwide, the foundation projected 3.2 million children to lose services and more than 70,000 facilities to close.

Some national early childhood experts, however, have taken a more conservative tone. They told Vox they don’t expect the impact to be as great, in part because some states have invested heavily in child care in recent years.

Michigan’s child care system already struggling

But if the dire predictions become true in Michigan, it would further destabilize an already troubled early childhood system.

A 2022 Muckrock investigation concluded Michigan’s child care system was in crisis, with far more so-called deserts — areas of the state where demand far outweighs available slots — than policymakers had estimated. Meanwhile, staffing challenges have made it difficult to hire staff, and low wages have providers competing with other industries for workers.

In May, more than 100 people picketed and chanted outside Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Detroit office, hoping to raise awareness of challenges in the industry and demanding more funding than lawmakers had already proposed in the state budget.

“This industry is broken to begin with,” said Matt Gillard, president and CEO of Michigan’s Children, a nonprofit advocacy organization. “It’s going to require increased public investment at both the state and federal level to solve the child care problem.”

Gillard said he hopes Michigan lawmakers act on the message in the letter his group and others sent last week. He said Michigan is “the only state that has Democratic control that has not really moved significantly to offset the reduction of the reimbursement rates with increased state resources.

“There’s a real fear out there that we’re going to see a significant number of providers either go out of business or maybe stop taking children that are eligible for a subsidy and focus their efforts on families who are able to pay higher amounts,” he said.

Michigan has done some good things, Gillard said, including a plan to transition the state to provide universal free preschool to 4-year-olds, regardless of income. Michigan has also gone to a system of reimbursing providers based on enrollment, not attendance, which would provide guaranteed funding.

Stacey LaRouche, a spokeswoman for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, cited the recent investments, including the expansion to universal preschool, in a statement to Chalkbeat. But she didn’t say whether Whitmer would push to maintain the pandemic-era rates. LaRouche said Whitmer also set a goal to open 1,000 new child care programs, and the state is 90% of the way to that goal.

“We will continue to closely monitor childcare access and strengthen our economy by helping parents return to work knowing their children are safe and learning,” LaRouche said.

For now, providers such as Hodge are planning for the worst. She had a recent meeting with her accountant in which she discussed plans to reduce the salary she pays herself from $50,000 to $30,000. Reducing the wages of her employees isn’t an option, Hodge said.

“These are the people who keep our economy going, who keep our economy thriving,” she said.

That’s precisely why there was so much effort to keep child care centers afloat during the pandemic, because essential workers needed places to send their children while they worked on the front lines of the health crisis.

Up north in Traverse City, Anna Fryer is the director and co-owner of Teddy Bear Day Care and Preschool, which has three locations in the city. Starting in 2020, the federal relief money helped subsidize salaries for workers during a delicate time when “our bank accounts were dwindling.”

To address the loss of the money and rising costs, the business recently raised its rates by between 5% and 6%. It was not an ideal decision, she said, “because we don’t want to tuition ourselves out of business.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. Reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan bill to tackle teacher shortage would remove barrier for retirees to return to work

2023-09-19T22:14:07+00:00

Michigan lawmakers advanced legislation Tuesday that seeks to address school staffing shortages by allowing retired public school teachers to return to the classroom immediately without forfeiting their pensions.

Under current law, retired teachers must wait at least nine months before taking jobs in the public school system if they want to continue collecting their retirement benefits.

The measure that cleared the Michigan Senate Education Committee unanimously Tuesday would allow those retired from the public school system to come back and earn up to $15,100 within a six-month period, while still receiving their pensions and subsidies for healthcare benefits. After that, teachers would be able to negotiate their salaries with school systems.

The changes would be in effect for five years — by which time school leaders hope that new grow-your-own workforce development programs will produce more educators and ease the teacher shortage.

Under the bill, retired superintendents would not be allowed to return to work in public schools as superintendents.

“It’s not perfect — it’s far from it,” Robert McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, said of the bill. “But it makes the law better, and it will be helpful for us.”

McCann said he has heard from superintendents across Michigan who say they are still having trouble filling open jobs weeks into the new school year.

“Michigan is the only state I know of that has an arbitrary nine-month sit-out,” said McCann. “It puts us at a disadvantage. The reality is we are opening schools this year with dozens of unfilled positions we are desperate to fill.”

The Senate committee votes Tuesday were on substitutions to House Bill 4752. Those changes will now go back to the House for a vote.

An earlier version of the bill, passed by the House in June, retained the nine-month waiting period, but allowed retirees to return to work during that time and make up to $10,000.

The teacher shortage is an issue many districts in the state are facing, said Rep. Matt Koleszar, a Democrat from Plymouth who introduced the legislation in the House.

The retiree bill is “another way where we can attack this shortage,” said Koleszar, chair of the House Education Committee.

The state is investing millions of dollars in teacher development programs that will launch this fall in an effort to attract more talent to the profession amid a shortage of qualified applicants. Graduates of those programs won’t be ready to become full-time educators for several years.

“This is a temporary solution to a problem we wish we didn’t have but believe it’s necessary in the times now so we can staff our classrooms with the best professionals, the most highly trained professional that we can,” Eric Edoff, superintendent of L’Anse Creuse Public Schools, said of the bill during committee testimony.

The nine-month waiting period in the current law was created in 2010 to discourage “double dipping” by high-paid administrators who could retire and immediately return to work to receive both a pension and a salary. The law lets retirees return after nine months, and earn a salary without limits, without giving up their pensions.

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan students gain on M-STEP, but results are still down from pre-pandemic levels

2023-08-31T14:00:14+00:00

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Michigan standardized test results for grades 3 through 7 last year remained below pre-pandemic levels in math and English language arts, but there were also some year-to-year gains.

Results on the spring’s Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, known as the M-STEP, were released Thursday. The data underscore continuing challenges that reverberate beyond Michigan, as U.S. schools attempt to steer students back on track after years of disruption tied to COVID.

The M-STEP is an important marker of academic progress, affecting everything from the amount of aid districts receive for tutoring, to teacher evaluations and, potentially, which low-performing districts are targeted for state intervention.

State and district leaders will examine the results closely as they make decisions about how to most effectively distribute what remains of the $6 billion in federal COVID relief funding that Michigan received, before that money runs out this year.

“If these scores show stalling, then we really essentially have between now and the end of this school year to figure it out for kids. Otherwise their lives will be permanently impacted,” said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab and research professor at Georgetown University. “It’s sort of now or never.”

Key takeaways from the results released Thursday:

Of the 20 assessments given to students across grades, results in 15 areas improved in 2023 from spring 2022 testing. Results fell in four others and remained the same on one test.
Michigan students in grades 3 through 7 showed slight improvements in math during 2022-23 from the previous year.
But students still have far to go to reach pre-pandemic levels. The drop in the proficiency levels when compared with 2018-19 was widespread. That was true for low-income students and for students from more affluent families.
In almost every grade and in both English language arts and mathematics, proficiency rates fell between 2018-19 and 2022-23, with a persistently wide gap between poor children and those from more affluent families.
In third grade, 27.6% of students from low-income families were proficient in English language arts in 2022-23, a drop of 3.7 percentage points from 2018-19. Among the non-poor, 59.2% were proficient, a drop of 3.6 percentage points.
The drops were steeper in sixth and seventh grades for students of different income levels in English language arts and math. For instance, 15.7% of low-income sixth graders were proficient in math in 2022-23, down 4.4 percentage points. More affluent sixth graders saw a bigger drop, from 52.1% in 2018-19 to 46.8% this year.

The M-STEP is given each spring to students in grades 3 through 7 in English language arts and math. Fifth grade students also take the science and social studies M-STEP. (Eighth graders take the PSAT 8/9 test for English language arts and math, and 11th graders take the SAT for English language arts and math.)

In typical years, schools would be able to compare M-STEP results year by year to measure student progress. But the pandemic upended that rhythm — with the annual test being canceled in 2020 as COVID-19 ended the school year early. Disruptions continued through 2020-21, when the test was optional, resulting in fewer than 75% of Michigan students taking the exam.

That has left educators to compare this year’s results with scores dating back to 2018-19, the last year of full testing before the pandemic, to gauge learning loss.

Third graders had big setbacks

Just 36.9% of Michigan seventh graders were deemed proficient in English language arts this year, compared with 42.7% in 2018-19, a 5.8 percentage-point drop.
Among sixth graders, 29.6% were proficient in math this year, down from 35.1% in 2018-19.
Some populations of at-risk students showed even greater learning loss than the overall student populations. In Detroit public schools, for example, English language learners dropped from an 18% pass rate in English language arts during 2018-19 to 14% in 2022-23. In math, the same group dropped from a 16% pass rate to 11%.

Michigan third graders, who were in kindergarten when the pandemic hit, took state standardized tests for the first time this spring as third graders. Just 40.9% of these students were deemed proficient in English language arts, compared with 45.1% during 2018-19. The latest results were also below the 41.6% level for third graders in 2021-22.

“This past year’s third graders were perhaps the most adversely affected of any age cohort, as they had pandemic-influenced school years during grades kindergarten through second grade, a challenge that was particularly noticeable in reading,” State Superintendent Michael Rice said in a statement. “Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade are pivotal in early literacy efforts, which may help explain the slight decline in the third grade ELA proficiency rate.”

Sen. Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, chair of the Senate Education Committee, said the third grade reading scores “reflect the unfinished learning during the COVID and post-COVID years.”

She highlighted several investments contained in the new state school budget, including tutoring expansion, funding for early literacy, expansion of pre-K programming, and increased funding for special education students and at-risk students. But she also said she wants her committee to take a closer look at what research says about reading instruction.

“I would like to see education professionals take a closer look at word recognition or phonics versus the whole language comprehension,” she said.

How test results are being interpreted

Nikki Snyder, Republican member of the State Board of Education and a U.S. Senate candidate, said the M-STEP results underscore the importance of getting funds to parents through education savings accounts to help them pay for literacy services for their children.

“We can’t let the slowness of the implementation or the political argument about not having enough money get in the way,” she said.

“Anything slight right now does not match the huge gaping hole and need that the pandemic created.”

But Pamela Pugh, the Democratic president of the state board who is also running for U.S. Senate, said recovery efforts are paying off.

“Michigan’s students and educators are working hard to emerge from the disruption of the pandemic, and it’s making a difference,” she said. “We need to continue to invest in our schools and educators and provide the supports needed to help our kids continue to grow academically, socially, and personally.”

Niles Community Schools Superintendent Dan Applegate said his district uses M-STEP to assess whether the district curriculum is working. The district is now in its second year of implementing a new elementary English language arts curriculum.

To address learning loss, Applegate said, the district has taken some high-quality teachers out of the classroom to work as academic interventionists and classroom consultants. They lead small group instruction, coordinate academic interventions, and help other teachers ensure they are following the curriculum correctly.

Jasen Witt, superintendent of Redford Union Schools, noted that M-STEP results are only one measure of student achievement, and the district also gives students periodic assessments throughout the school year to make more timely interventions. Witt said it is clear the district still has more work to do to improve literacy and math skills across the board.

“Students are making gains … but we still have a long way to go as a district,” he said. “That period of time they lost during the pandemic, we are still working all the time to overcome those gaps.”

Ypsilanti Community Schools Superintendent Alena Zachery-Ross said the district uses other assessments throughout the year to get real-time feedback and will look to see if M-STEP results align with results from those tests.

At the national level, policy experts are concerned that academic recovery has stalled and is not on pace to get students back on track to pre-pandemic achievement.

“I don’t think there was as much urgency around academic recovery as there could have been, given how far kids were behind,” said Roza, the Georgetown professor.

Because districts across the country did not receive much guidance on how to use federal COVID relief funding, Roza said there were vast differences in the way school leaders chose to use the money.

“We’re seeing a lot of different things at once,” she said. “Some districts are seeing more progress than others, and there really are no uniform patterns.”

In Michigan, M-STEP results have ramifications for students, teachers and school districts. Districts can apply for a new $150 million state program to fund tutoring and other academic support initiatives. Districts will receive funding based on how many students are considered to not be proficient on statewide assessments.

Beth DeShone, executive director of the Great Lakes Education Project, a group focused on school choice, said she has “little faith that (the) bureaucracy is going to find its way to getting the money direct into the kids’ hands or direct into teachers’ classrooms to make an impact on the kids that are struggling.”

Jennifer Mrozowski, senior director of The Education Trust-Midwest, an education and advocacy organization, praised the most recent state education budget but said Michigan must invest in “evidence-based interventions” and have a clear system “to monitor if dollars are indeed reaching the classrooms of the students for whom the funding is intended” and if the interventions are speeding up learning.

Under Michigan law, standardized test results play a major role in teacher evaluations. School districts must base 40% of a teacher’s evaluation on student growth as determined by testing data. For teachers who teach subjects and grades that are assessed by state standardized testing, at least half of that 40% must be based on the state assessment. (Democratic lawmakers are aiming to remove student growth data as a factor in future teacher evaluations.)

Ron Koehler, superintendent at Kent ISD, which services about 20 traditional school districts and 25 charter schools, said one area of focus will be seventh grade English language arts, where his team’s analysis of local students showed 42.8% of students are proficient, compared with 46% before the pandemic. He said member districts showed gains in fifth and eighth grade social studies compared with pre-pandemic levels, but 11th grade social studies is significantly down from spring 2019.

Koehler said districts also will be working with community groups to emphasize the importance of consistently attending school.

“Attendance has a direct relationship to student performance in many ways,” he said.

Isabel Lohman covers K-12 and higher education for Bridge Michigan. You can reach her at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Mike Wilkinson is a data reporter for Bridge Michigan. You can reach him at mwilkinson@bridgemi.com.

Michigan attorney general: It’s too soon to rule on new education agency

2023-08-28T16:17:35+00:00

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said it’s too soon to issue an opinion on the constitutionality of a new education agency created by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer by executive order last month.

In response to a request from the State Board of Education for a ruling, Nessel said in a letter to state Superintendent Michael Rice Monday that the newly formed Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential, or MiLEAP, could overlap with the board’s constitutional authority to oversee public education. But she said she would wait until after the governor’s executive order is implemented in December to see whether such a conflict happens.

Unless and until such a situation arises, she said, “issuing any type of opinion on potentially overlapping authority of the Board and MiLEAP is premature.”

The Democratic-controlled state board voted unanimously on Aug. 8 to seek a ruling from Nessel’s office on the new agency, which would take over some functions of the Michigan Department of Education, including responsibility for early childhood education programs. The elected state board chooses the MDE’s leader.

“Given the response from the attorney general, I believe that the actions and possible encroachment of the new department will be closely monitored,” said Pamela Pugh, president of the board, in a prepared statement Monday. “The State Board will not stand by and watch its authority be threatened or stripped away, at the expense of our children’s future.”

Rice said he “appreciates the attorney general’s review and initial reflections, as well as the letter’s ramifications.”

Pugh said she at the time of the board’s vote she wanted to ensure the new agency would satisfy the intent of the framers of Michigan’s constitution given that they separated public education from the governor’s office.

Nessel noted in the letter that Whitmer’s executive order specifies that nothing in the law should diminish the constitutional authority of the state board. If that intent is honored, Nessel said, the executive order could be deemed constitutional.

Stacey LaRouche, press secretary for the governor, said earlier this month that Whitmer’s office consulted with the attorney general’s team while drafting the law and that they were confident in the order’s legal authority.

Whitmer, a Democrat, has said MiLEAP was created to streamline lifelong education in the state, from pre-K to higher education to workforce development.

Under her order, the Office of Great Start, which serves the educational needs of children up to age 8, would move from the MDE to MiLEAP. The Governor’s Educator Advisory Council and the Michigan PreK-12 Literacy Commission would also shift to the purview of the new agency.

Authority for overseeing operations of K-12 education would remain with the MDE. Both the MDE and the state board will work with the new department, Whitmer said.

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

It’s a new school year in Michigan. What’s the biggest issue at your school?

2023-08-23T12:00:00+00:00

Over the next few weeks, students in school districts and charter schools across Michigan will return to the classroom for the 2023-24 school year. Some have already started.

At Chalkbeat Detroit, our team of reporters and editors began preparing for the new school year weeks ago, with discussions about our reporting and engagement priorities.

Our work isn’t done though. We need input from our readers, because you are often the eyes and ears that help us ensure that our reporting is relevant and captures the voices of those who have the most at stake in decisions made at the district and state levels.

We’ll continue to home in on chronic absenteeism, which is a problem not just in Detroit — where many district and charter schools have high rates of students missing school — but also across Michigan.

Last school year, we reported on how persistent transportation woes have fueled absenteeism. We also took a look at a Michigan law that punishes poor parents for their children’s absenteeism by withholding public assistance. Recently, we shared some promising news: The chronic absenteeism rate in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, which soared to around 77% at the height of the pandemic, declined during the last school year. And soon, we’ll provide an inside look at one school’s quest to reduce its high chronic absenteeism rate.

The Chalkbeat Detroit team is ready to hear what education issues are important to our readers. Our Detroit-based team, clockwise from far left, are Hannah Dellinger, K-12 reporter; Emiliana Sandoval, managing editor for style and standards; Ethan Bakuli, Detroit schools reporter; Elaine Cromie, photo editor; Krishnan Anantharaman, story editor; and Lori Higgins, bureau chief.

We’ll also be keeping an eye on how students are affected as federal COVID relief dries up in school districts across the country. We’ve already covered how that has played out in DPSCD, which made painful budget cuts in the spring. We’ll also be monitoring continued efforts to help students recover from the pandemic.

Please take a few minutes to take the survey below and share your thoughts on what you’re most interested in, what questions you have, and what topics need more coverage. Your feedback is invaluable to us.

This isn’t your only opportunity to reach out. You can contact the bureau anytime at detroit.tips@chalkbeat.org.

If you are having trouble viewing this form, go here.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief at Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan girls pushed for schools to inform students about sexual assault. Now it will be state law.

2023-08-01T14:15:00+00:00

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Lydia Maciel never learned the definitions of consent or sexual violence as a student at Western International High School in southwest Detroit.

Nor did many of the more than 100 students she and a group of her peers surveyed in the Detroit school district during their time as the inaugural fellowship class of Girls Making Change in 2016.

The high school juniors and seniors, all girls and young women of color from Detroit tasked with finding a project to address social issues in their community, found that many of the kids they talked to also didn’t know where they could find help or resources for sexual assault survivors.

So, the group pushed for legislation that would require public schools to provide definitions of sexual violence and consent, as well as resources to help survivors — information that advocates say can be life-saving. It took five years, but their idea, born out of personal and peer experience, will soon become a reality when a new law goes into effect next school year.

Such early conversations about consent that destigmatize shame for survivors may help prevent violence, researchers say.

“We were shocked that a majority of students didn’t know what consent was or what it looked like,” said Maciel, now 25 and a graduate of Wayne State University.

As a survivor of sexual assault herself, Maciel wanted better for students who will go through the Michigan public education system after her.

Senate Bill 66, approved by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on July 11, will require all public school districts and charter schools as well as intermediate school districts to provide age-appropriate material explaining what constitutes sexual assault and harassment to sixth through 12th graders. The material must also include explanations of consent — defined as an agreement to participate in sexual activities — and let students know that sexual violence is not the victim’s fault. The information must also list resources available to survivors and the actions they can take.

The Michigan Department of Education has until June 1, 2024 to develop the material in consultation with experts and advocates, including the Michigan Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention and Treatment Board and the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence.

School systems can decide how to distribute the information. It must include contact information for the district’s Title IX coordinator and its policies on sexual harassment and assault, including the fact that retaliation and harassment against those who disclose abuse is prohibited.

The information must remain accessible to middle and high school students and their parents in student handbooks and district websites.

Beginning in the 2024-25 school year, school systems will be encouraged to train all educators and staff who come into contact with students on how to respond to disclosures of sexual violence. The training, which would take place at least every five years, would be provided as professional development through nonprofits that receive funding from the state’s domestic and sexual violence prevention and treatment board or the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence.

Education can help prevent violence, experts say

Maciel said many students who answered the group’s survey said they had experienced sexual violence or had friends who did and did not know where to find help.

Others described situations that constituted sexual assault and did not have an understanding that the interactions were not consensual, she said.

“These girls didn’t want these things to happen to them, but they didn’t know it was assault,” said Maciel.

Adolescents are at higher risk of sexual assault than any other group, research shows, and about 1 in 9 girls and 1 in 20 boys experience sexual abuse or assault before they turn 18.

Lydia Maciel poses for a portrait at Riverside Park on Friday, July 28, 2023 in Detroit, Mich.

More recently, numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior survey suggest an uptick in cases of abuse of high school girls. In 2019, an estimated 850,000 girls in high school reported being raped. In 2021, that number jumped to more than 1 million.

Research also indicates such estimates are often likely undercounts, especially when based on criminal reports.

Such abuse can have negative mental and physical health impacts on survivors, including causing poor educational outcomes.

While many researchers and advocates say educating kids in K-12 about consent may prevent sexual violence, experts say more research is needed to determine its effectiveness because few public school districts in the nation provide such lessons as part of a comprehensive sex education curriculum.

By 2019, the 74 reported, 24 states had mandated sex education in schools. Of those, nine required curricula include the concept of communicating sexual consent.

Amanda Barratt, senior program director at the Michigan Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, said the impact of conversations around sexual violence that foster an understanding of consent should never be underestimated.

“If we are having these conversations that dismantle the shame of survivors and shifts it to the people causing harm, that absolutely changes how people are going to hold others accountable and that is what helps prevent violence,” she said.

Many advocates say talking to kids as early as possible in age-appropriate language about consent sets the foundation for deeper conversations about sex in middle and high school.

“That actually builds something much more longstanding and can last an entire lifetime,” said Barratt.

‘Consent isn’t really talked about’

Juanita Zuniga, also part of the Girls Making Change group and now a 24-year-old graduate of Detroit Cristo Rey High School and Kalamazoo College, said the sex education she received in private Catholic high school was similar to what she heard Detroit public school students describe learning in class.

“Consent isn’t really talked about,” she said. “It’s more ‘don’t have sex and you won’t have a baby and nothing bad will happen to you.’”

That type of language without the context of assault and rape not being the fault of victims can be harmful, said Zuniga.

“That type of rhetoric does perpetuate guilt, especially when you’re young and so impressionable,” she said. “It contributes to youth not wanting to speak up about abuse and being silenced.”

Barb Flis, founder of Parent Action for Healthy Kids, a Michigan nonprofit that aims to teach youth about sexual health, said the state’s existing laws do not allow for universal comprehensive sex education. Additionally, parents may opt their children out of all sex education.

“The best practice in an ideal world would be teaching early and often in a comprehensive way,” she said. “I think this is a good step in the right direction. But, we have to understand that handing out a brochure or providing information is not going to take care of the whole issue.”

Law took five years to become reality

State Sen. Stephanie Chang, who introduced the legislation, said it was strategically written to reach as many students as possible. Requiring districts to provide the information to all kids enrolled in grades 6 through 12 will mean the information will be received by more middle and high schoolers than if it were only included in sex education curriculum.

“This actually is an opportunity to reach all students, which is very powerful,” said Barratt.

Chang, who created the Girls Making Change program as a newly elected state house representative, first introduced the legislation in 2018 after around 500 women and girls came forward to say they were sexually abused by Michigan State University team physician and Olympic trainer Larry Nassar.

“I think for us, it’s really about how do we effectively make an impact for kids and prevent future sexual assault,” said Chang. “It’s very clear that it has to start with education.”

The new law was introduced as part of a bipartisan package each legislative term beginning in 2018.

Maciel is grateful the bill will now become law, but said it’s hard for her to understand why it took five years to pass.

“I want this to open eyes for politicians here in Michigan to see how long this took,” she said. “It could have been helping students the moment it was introduced. It should have been passed and we shouldn’t have waited this long.”

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

With Democrats in control in Michigan, teachers win back key bargaining rights

2023-07-26T20:43:46+00:00

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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation Wednesday that restores teacher bargaining rights that were legislated away more than a decade ago. It’s a big win for unions that have argued the laws put in place under Republican control limited the voices of school employees.

The governor’s signing comes during a year in which Democrats took control of both the Michigan Legislature and the governor’s office. And it came a week after Whitmer signed legislation that invested heavily in Michigan schools, especially in the state’s most vulnerable students.

The legislation, which received widespread support from teachers unions but was largely opposed by groups representing school administrators and school boards, would allow teachers to once again be able to bargain on issues such as performance evaluations, staff reductions, teacher placements, discipline, and classroom observations.

“We are sending a clear message that we value and respect them,” said Michigan Rep. Regina Weiss, a Democrat from Oak Park. “Teachers in Michigan will now once again have a voice in determining important employment conditions that impact their jobs and their classrooms, which will lead to stronger schools and improved student outcomes.”

Among the groups that advocated against the legislation was the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, which represents school districts in southeast Michigan. In a statement last month, the organization urged Whitmer to veto the legislation, saying it “makes it difficult for school administrators to effectively staff their schools and ultimately hurts students.”

House Republican Leader Matt Hall called the legislation “radical” in a statement after Whitmer endorsed it.

“Democrats are dismantling accountability metrics that help parents and teachers keep kids on track,” said Hall, a Republican from Richland Township. “They’re giving union bosses free rein to lord over the most important decisions at our schools. Teacher placement, performance evaluations, and communication with parents are all vital to creating an effective learning environment and fostering good working relationships with families.”

Whitmer also signed a handful of additional bills that are related to teachers. In a statement, she said that as a whole, all of the bills signed Wednesday will help Michigan recruit and retain skilled educators and counselors.

Here’s a breakdown of what several of those bills will do:

It will be easier for teachers from other states to be eligible to teach in Michigan. They would need to have met certain requirements, such as teaching successfully for three years in the state from which they’re moving. Another bill makes it easier for out-of-state counselors to receive licenses in Michigan.
Language requiring teachers in the Detroit Public Schools Community District to be evaluated solely based on student performance, was struck. Advocates had argued that DPSCD teachers should be held to the same criteria as other teachers in the state whose evaluations are based on several factors, one of which is student performance.
While seniority cannot be used as a sole factor in decisions regarding filling vacancies, it can be used as a tie-breaker if a personnel decision involves two or more employees for the position and “all other factors distinguishing those employees from each other are equal.” The legislation also requires “clear and transparent procedures” for all personnel decisions.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Gov. Whitmer creates new Michigan agency for early childhood through post-secondary education

2023-07-12T20:47:59+00:00

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer established a new state agency Wednesday to focus on improving educational outcomes for students in preschool through postsecondary programs.

The Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential, or MiLEAP, will aim to help families access affordable child care, enroll kids in free pre-K, connect kids with before- and after-school activities, teach students about career options, and create paths for no-cost and affordable higher education in fields that are in demand.

The governor’s executive order creating the new agency transfers the offices and functions of six existing state offices. The new department will work with the Michigan Department of Education and the elected State Board of Education, according to Whitmer’s office.

“For too long, we have thought of education as K-12, but we know that’s not good enough,” Whitmer said in a prepared statement. “I’m establishing MiLEAP today because we need to get every kid started early, in pre-K, so they succeed in kindergarten, have paths after graduation to get higher education tuition-free, and forge strong partnerships with our employers so they can get a good-paying, high-skill, and in-demand job.”

Few specifics are known about how the department would operate, how it would be funded, and whether it would diminish the role of the Michigan Department of Education, whose leader is selected by the state board. One Republican member of the state board says she is exploring whether Whitmer’s move is legal, and two Democratic members expressed concern it would add a layer of bureaucracy.

Key functions move out of Michigan Department of Education

The department will be made up of three offices: early childhood education, higher education, and education partnerships. It will be led by a state-appointed director.

“We will have more on the director selection in the future,” said Robert Leddy, director of communications for the governor’s office.

The executive order transfers the Office of Great Start, which serves the educational needs of children up to age 8, from the Michigan Department of Education to the new agency.

State Superintendent Michael Rice, who heads the MDE, said he was assured the transfer would carry on his department’s commitments, such as the state-funded preschool program.

The order also moves the Governor’s Educator Advisory Council and the Michigan PreK-12 Literacy Commission from the purview of the MDE to MiLEAP.

Functions of the Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, and Labor and Economic Opportunity departments, the student aid office, and the Office of Rural Development will also move to the new agency.

Nikki Snyder, one of two Republicans on the eight-member State Board of Education, said she learned of the new department Wednesday and was not contacted by the governor’s office about it.

“The systems and structures providing these services are already in place and need more accountability,” said Snyder, who is running for U.S. Senate. “We don’t need more centralized government with less accountability.”

Some Democrats on the board also expressed skepticism about the new agency.

“We must ensure that MiLEAP is not just another bureaucratic entity but a truly effective organization that addresses the longstanding issues in our education system,” said a joint statement from board member Mitchell Robinson and board President Pamela Pugh, who is also a U.S. Senate candidate.

“Years of underfunding have had a detrimental impact on our schools, and while MiLEAP presents an opportunity to coordinate resources and create a clear vision, we must ensure that the necessary investments and equitable funding follow. Our children deserve access to quality education, regardless of their zip code or background,” they said.

Mike Flanagan, who served as state superintendent from 2005 to 2015, said Whitmer’s move to create the Office of Higher Education within the new agency will likely lead to more funding for post-secondary initiatives.

“I think the governor did exactly the right thing on the college part,” he said. “If I were governor, I probably would have left early childhood where it was. But I trust her judgment.”

Previous Michigan governors have also tried to reorganize the way state agencies manage educational programs and responsibilities. Republican Gov. John Engler moved school assessments out of the MDE, and his successor, Democrat Jennifer Granholm, reversed that decision. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder moved the school reform office out of the MDE only to reverse the decision two years later.

Flanagan, who served after the changes to the department made by Engler, said the transfers made to Whitmer’s new agency are “very different.”

“This was thoughtfully done,” the former state superintendent said of the new changes to MDE. “The governor left the basic K-12 functions to the department. Engler just blew up the department.”

Rick Snyder also created the 21st Century Education Commission, which considered changing the way state education policymakers are selected.

Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan which represents 123 Southeast Michigan school districts, said superintendents are waiting to see how the department will operate.

“We’re optimistic about this, and I think our superintendents just want to make sure they have a seat at the table as these things are being discussed and that it works as well as it can,” he said in an interview.

How will MiLEAP’s progress be measured?

MiLEAP’s overall goals will be to add capacity to early learning, to have every student in the state eventually earn a skill certificate or degree after high school, and to prioritize strategic state partnerships.

Whitmer has made access to early childhood education and increasing the number of people with postsecondary degrees or certificates two top priorities.

The new department also touches on a years-long effort by advocates to boost after-school programming in the state.

“MiLEAP will get this done by establishing clear metrics for lifelong learning, collaborating with cross-sector leaders at the local, regional, and state level, and developing a shared action plan for everyone to work towards,” Leddy said.

Dan Quisenberry, president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, which represents charter schools, said Whitmer’s decision Wednesday will be considered a success “if people recognize better outcomes” from the state programs being transferred to the new agency.

Matt Gillard, president and CEO of nonprofit Michigan’s Children, said his organization is optimistic about the change.

“I know we’ve struggled under our current system in some of these areas,” he said. “This signals a commitment from the Whitmer administration to rethinking things and becoming innovative and progressive in our approach to some of these issues.”

The cost of the department’s programming is built into the state budget, and the agency will work with the Legislature to fund operational needs, said Leddy.

It will use state and federal funding, including $50 million in next year’s budget to provide before- and after-school programs, Leddy added.

Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future Inc., a nonprofit education think tank, praised Whitmer’s focus on before- and after-school programming and called the creation of the agency a “big step in the right direction.”

Whitmer has set a goal of having 60% of working age adults with a college degree or skills certificate by 2030.

Asked whether the new structure would lead to more partisan education policy decisions, Glazer said “the advantages of having a department which is focused on improving education outcomes for all Michigan kids from birth to college to me outweighs the potential that maybe it gets caught up in the polarization we have everyplace else.”

Lawmakers recently approved budgets that expand eligibility for the state’s free community college program, Michigan Reconnect, and its free pre-K program, Great Start Readiness.

Molly Macek, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said she wants to see the new agency collect more data to measure if these programs are worthwhile and achieving their goals.

Dan Hurley, CEO of the Michigan Association of State Universities, said he hopes creating a new office of higher education within the new department will increase awareness and use of the Michigan Achievement Scholarship.

The scholarship, created in 2022, provides funds for Michigan high school graduates to attend community colleges, independent nonprofit colleges or public four-year universities in Michigan.

Hurley said the new department could lead to increased college affordability, college enrollment and “ultimately boost attainment levels.”

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Isabel Lohman is a reporter for Bridge Michigan covering preK-12 and higher education. Contact Isabel at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

Detroit’s $94 million ‘right to read’ lawsuit settlement is finally coming through for DPSCD

2023-07-07T19:37:10+00:00

It has been more than three years since Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer promised the Detroit school district $94.4 million to settle a 2016 lawsuit alleging that the state denied the city’s schoolchildren a basic education by failing to teach them to read.

Now that money is finally on its way to Detroit.

The funds were included in the $21.5 billion K-12 school aid budget that the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed last month and Whitmer is expected to sign.

Under the settlement terms, negotiated in 2020, the money will go toward increasing reading instruction and support for students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District to address longstanding challenges with literacy. DPSCD officials have already shared proposals to use the money to hire academic interventionists to provide one-on-one support to students struggling with reading.

“Every child in Michigan deserves access to a quality public education regardless of their ZIP code,” Stacey LaRouche, press secretary for Whitmer, said in a statement. “Governor Whitmer has worked to reverse decades of disinvestment in our state’s K-12 schools by securing more funding in every aspect of a child’s education to ensure that they have what they need to be successful.

Here’s a look at how the legal case arose, what the settlement provides, and how the district is preparing to spend the money.

Settlement grew out of ‘right to read’ lawsuit

The federal case settled in 2020 is called Gary B. v. Whitmer, but it dates back to the period when the Detroit school district was under state oversight during Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration, and was originally filed as Gary B. v. Snyder.

The plaintiffs were seven Detroit public school students who alleged that they were denied the opportunity to have a quality education because of poor building conditions, a shortage of textbooks and other learning materials, and poorly qualified teachers.

In the 136-page lawsuit, students describe learning in classes of 50 or more children, inadequate education for English language learners, and rodents and cockroaches in classrooms.

The lawsuit specifically called out Michigan’s deployment of emergency managers to control the city’s public schools between 2009 and 2016. Those managers created conditions so awful, the plaintiffs alleged, that students were denied what they claimed was their constitutional right to a basic reading education.

Reading scores among Detroit students have ranked among the lowest in the nation over the past decade and a half. In fourth- and eighth-grade reading, the Detroit district’s test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress have ranked near the bottom statewide and nationwide.

The lawsuit sought to establish a constitutional right to literacy for all students, but the plaintiffs agreed to a settlement in 2020 and dropped their bid to establish that right. The settlement awarded some money to each of the plaintiffs and to the district, and required the governor to propose legislation to provide more money to the district to support literacy efforts. The legislation failed to clear the Republican-led Legislature in 2021 and 2022, but it passed this year under Democratic leadership.

The legislation requires the district to spend the $94.4 million by Sept. 30, 2027.

The settlement money is small but significant

Community members, school officials, and education experts welcomed the settlement, though some argued that the $94.4 million earmarked for Detroit’s literacy initiatives is a small sum in relation to the needs that the lawsuit cited, which spanned everything from textbooks to school buildings. A 2018 audit estimated that the district’s building repair needs alone would grow to $1.2 billion by 2023.

But the district has been able to tap its share of federal COVID relief aid to address building needs and fund a $700 million facility plan. And the settlement money will help the district free up money in its general fund for other priorities, such as retaining contracted nurses, offering one-time staff bonuses to help reduce teacher turnover, and sustaining summer school and after-school programming that had been funded by COVID relief aid.

“More than $94.4 million is needed to get things back where they belong, but it is a monumental victory for a struggle that certainly did not start with this lawsuit,” said Mark Rosenbaum, the lead attorney for the right-to-read lawsuit.

Molly Sweeney, director of organizing for Detroit education advocacy group 482Forward, applauded the Legislature’s approval of the funding, saying that “this is hard-earned money for the community.”

482Forward was among the community groups that advocated for the settlement agreement.

“This is community money, and this should have community input,” Sweeney said. “We should be able to have a say in how it’s spent.”

Two task forces will address Detroit education challenges

In addition to providing money for the district — an initial $2.7 million and the $94.4 million from the legislation — the settlement requires the Michigan Department of Education to provide guidance to schools on the best practices for K-12 literacy education.

The settlement also promised the creation of two task forces to address literacy and educational challenges in Detroit, the Detroit Literacy Equity Task Force and the Detroit Education Policy Committee.

The literacy equity task force is charged with conducting annual evaluations of Detroit literacy and providing state-level policy recommendations to the governor. It will convene a series of town hall meetings over the next year and provide recommendations to the DPSCD school board on how the funds should be used.

The educational policy committee will make recommendations to the governor about Detroit’s education system. Its work will be overseen by the Community Education Commission, a nonprofit created by Mayor Mike Duggan in 2018 to address barriers to accessing quality schools in Detroit.

The district has early plans for how to use the money

Anticipating lawmakers’ approval of the settlement funding, DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti has already outlined some early strategies on how the district plans to spend the money.

“We are awaiting the recommendations from the Literacy Task Force on how to use the funds,” Vitti said in an email. “We will certainly consider their recommendations but are not required to abide by them.”

Among the district’s top priorities: hiring more academic interventionists, increasing literacy support for high school students, and expanding teacher training on how to help students who are several grades below reading level.

The settlement requires that the district spend its money on programs that follow evidence-based literacy strategies. But it allows for spending on a range of initiatives that could support student learning, such as reducing class sizes for K-3 students, upgrading school facilities, and providing students with more reading materials.

Under Vitti, DPSCD has prioritized staff training on Orton-Gillingham, a multisensory teaching method typically used for students with dyslexia or other reading challenges, as well as hiring academic interventionists to work one-on-one or in small groups with students struggling to read and with English language learners.

Even after the settlement money is spent, Vitti said, the district would continue to find different funding sources to fund academic interventionists, a position he considers “a centerpiece of our literacy support.”

Literacy task force has begun working

The settlement requires 15 members to be assigned to the Detroit Literacy Equity Task Force:

Two DPSCD representatives selected by the superintendent and approved by the board
Two teachers selected by the Detroit Federation of Teachers
One paraprofessional selected by the Detroit Federation of Paraprofessionals
Three DPSCD students
Three DPSCD parents or caregivers
Two Detroit community members
Two literacy experts selected by the task force’s DFT, DFP and DPSCD members

Lakia Wilson-Lumpkins, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers and co-chair of the task force, says the group began meeting privately as early as 2022 for exploratory discussions about what to do with the money.

“In our initial meetings, we discussed possibilities in terms of supplemental resources, technologies, adaptive equipment, books,” Wilson-Lumpkins said. “Ninety-four million dollars seems like a lot of money, but it is not. We definitely want to improve facilities, improve materials, improve training, and once you do all those things for 50,000 students I think $94 million will be well spent.”

The task force is required to host six public meetings before April 30, 2024, to get community input on how the money should be spent. Then by June 30, the group will need to submit recommendations to the DPSCD school board.

The recommendations “are not mandatory, but nobody expects a tug of war on this,” said Rosenbaum. “The school board and Superintendent Vitti have been responsive to the community.”

In approving the settlement, Michigan Senate lawmakers included a clause that requires the district to explain how it intends to use community input to guide its spending.

DPSCD is required to host at least one community meeting to discuss its spending plan, Vitti said, and district officials will introduce the plan to the school board’s academic and finance committees before it comes up for a full board vote.

But he added that the district would like to move fast to allocate the money once it’s released to DPSCD.

“The School Board would likely approve use of the literacy lawsuit funding by the first (2023-24) budget amendment, which takes place after the fall count period” in October, Vitti said.

“We want to start using the funds as soon as possible, so we are eager to consider the recommendations from the Task Force.”

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan education budget contains some smaller-ticket items that could have big impact

2023-07-05T16:53:19+00:00

The most notable winners in Michigan’s $21.5 billion budget for K-12 schools will be the state’s neediest students, English language learners, children in high-poverty schools, and special education students.

But with smaller amounts, the budget also delivers money to benefit teachers, Detroit schools and other local districts, campus infrastructure, community-based advocacy efforts, regional education nonprofits, and rural districts. Those less-noticed budget items could have a significant impact on education across the state.

Here’s a closer look at the smaller-ticket budget items that are expected to have huge payoffs.

Money aimed at tackling the statewide teacher shortage

While a shortage of teaching applicants is a national issue, Greg Nyen, superintendent of the Marquette-Alger Regional Educational Services Agency in the Upper Peninsula, said the scarcity of educators is acute in Michigan.

“About 10 years ago, 23,000 teachers or potential teachers were in educational preparatory programs across the state,” he said. “Last year, there were under 15,000. Only about 20% end up completing their certification.”

As part of an effort to address the shortage, a number of districts will receive a total of $76.4 million to support Talent Together, a partnership among 48 school systems and nine universities that widens pathways for aspiring teachers.

“So often, when new teachers start, they don’t feel successful,” said Jack Elsey, founder of the nonprofit Michigan Educator Workforce Initiative. “Over half quit in the first year.”

The new collaborative aims to tackle barriers for prospective teachers, Elsey said, including paying for their training, offering paid apprenticeships in the classroom, and mentoring them while they are in those programs.

Districts will also be granted a total of $50 million to expand support for new teachers, school counselors, and administrators, including mentor stipends and professional development.

And the budget allocates $63.8 million to districts to increase pay for educators.

“Elevating salaries and making this career an attractive one once again makes the financial burden lighter and makes it feel like it’s worth the effort,” said Elsey.

Financial awards for teachers who have national board certification will be funded with $4 million. Eligible teachers in districts that apply for the funds will receive $4,000 and an additional $6,000 if they work in Title I schools, which have large concentrations of students from low-income households.

Paula Herbart, president of the Michigan Education Association teachers union, called the funding a proactive step in recruiting and retaining quality educators.

“It’s critical that we keep great educators on the job and attract talented people into this noble profession, and this budget agreement provides our schools with much-needed resources to help accomplish these goals,” she said in a statement.

Detroit community initiatives get support

The budget provides $6 million for a local or intermediate district to use on services from Get On And Learn, or GOAL Line, a program that transports students from northwest Detroit schools to free after-school programs. The nonprofit began in 2018 as an effort to get students to school and decrease absenteeism. But after listening to parent feedback, the group ended morning transportation and focused solely on after-school bus rides. In November, the organization’s waitlist was bigger than its enrollment due to financial constraints.
The budget will give $3 million to local districts to distribute to Detroit Parent Network, a nonprofit that works to engage parents in their kids’ education. Those dollars will help cover the cost of training for parents, health resources, support groups, civic engagement programs, and advocacy to families. The nonprofit also offers a literacy program in English and Spanish as well as workforce development.
The Legislature voted to give $2 million to the nonprofit group Brilliant Detroit for neighborhood-based tutoring and noninstructional services for children ages 3 to 12. The group transforms underused housing into neighborhood centers focused on early childhood development and kindergarten readiness.

Novi, Hamtramck and other district initiatives win funding

Novi Community School District will receive $1 million to support a wellness center that will offer onsite mental health support for students outside the regular school day, a medical clinic that will provide basic care to students with and without insurance, and a building wing for staff to destress and exercise. The center will also use the funds to offer onsite, after-school tutoring for students who can’t afford private instruction and will create a hub for families to access other health resources.
The budget allocates $2 million to Hamtramck Public Schools to hire accelerated-learning coaches for all eight of its schools. The coaches will lead targeted tutoring efforts in the district; work with teachers to model lesson plans and co-teach; and identify gaps in instruction. The money will also provide professional development for the coaches on data analysis, among other areas.
The budget provides $100,000 to a district to support the Student Advocacy Center of Michigan’s statewide helpline for families in “educational crisis.”
Dearborn City School District will receive $250,000 to support a cybersecurity certificate program.

Construction projects get a boost

The Detroit Public Schools Community District will get $6.5 million for essential structural improvements and renovations for Coleman A. Young Elementary and another $5 million for needed updates to its Foreign Language Immersion and Cultural Studies School building.
Beecher Community School District near Flint will receive $2.5 million to fund the construction of a new high school to match money already raised through donations.
Waverly Community Schools in Lansing is set to get $3 million to build a new high school auditorium.
The budget provides $500,000 to Eastpointe Community Schools to build a new swimming pool.

Programs for rural and ‘isolated’ districts benefit

The budget provides $11.6 million in special weighted funding for instructional costs in rural and isolated districts.
A new rural-educator credentialing hub pilot program will get $15 million in startup funding. The program will provide free support to educators for credentialing and course fees. According to many administrators and a recent report, rural schools face unique challenges in attracting teachers.
The state created a school transportation fund and will deposit $350 million this fiscal year, $125 million of which will be spent by districts in the 2023-24 school year. The funds will likely benefit rural schools the most, which on average spend $200 more per pupil on transportation than nonrural districts.
Grosse Ile Township Schools will get $500,000 because students must cross a bridge to travel to their campuses, and the school system has not gotten funding under an existing allocation for isolated districts.

Other items

Districts including DPSCD will be awarded a total of $1 million to purchase tampons or menstrual pads to distribute free to students in school bathrooms.
Districts will receive $125 million total in grants to buy less-polluting buses.
More than $6 million in a new one-time pot of money will go to partnership schools which will be used to improve attendance, increase graduation rates, and reduce class sizes, among other targeted initiatives. Partnership schools are low-performing schools that operate under support agreements with the state to improve their operations.
Covenant House Michigan, a religious nonprofit that mostly serves students experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity in Detroit and Grand Rapids, will receive $1 million to support its residential education program. The organization offers shelter, educational and vocational programs, and support for survivors of human trafficking.

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: July 5, 2023: A previous version of this story said a number of districts would receive a total of $10 million to support Talent Together. That number did not include money to support the organization’s Grow Your Own program, which will receive an additional $66.4 million.

Michigan schools will see big funding gains for neediest students under budget deal

2023-06-29T00:07:36+00:00

Michigan lawmakers approved a $21.5 billion K-12 budget Wednesday that includes a significant funding increase for students considered to be at risk of not meeting educational goals.

It’s the first K-12 budget since Democrats took full control of the Legislature this year, and reflects an aggressive approach to addressing significant learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among the state’s most vulnerable students.

Under the budget, districts will receive more money in the upcoming school year for economically disadvantaged students, English language learners, and students who receive special education, according to a House Fiscal Agency analysis of Senate Bill 173.

The budget also funds free school meals for all students, expands eligibility for the state’s pre-K program, and increases per pupil funding for tutoring.

In separate higher education budgets that total $2.8 billion, the state’s public universities and community colleges will receive 5% increases in operating funds.

The House and Senate voted on the budgets along party lines late Wednesday as they worked to beat a July 1 budget deadline.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer expressed satisfaction late in the afternoon, tweeting that the budget deal was “done.” After the Legislature’s vote, her office sent a press release in which State Superintendent Michael Rice said, “This is another outstanding budget, one that again works hard on funding adequacy and equity.”

Republican Sen. Thomas Albert, of Lowell, opposed the state education budget and said in a speech ahead of his no vote that both the school aid and general budget “simply spends too much money and it is not sustainable.”

But Republican Sen. Jon Bumstead, of North Muskegon, who served on the conference committee for the school budget, voted for the Democratic-led package.

He said ahead of his yes vote that “no budget is perfect,” but that the budget deal on schools reflects several Republican priorities.

“And just as Republicans did for many years in the majority, this budget makes a record investment in our schools,” he said.

Supporters say budget addresses ‘past wrongs’

More than half of Michigan students are considered economically disadvantaged. Advocates say the additional funding will help the state better support school districts and their students.

“This year’s school aid budget represents a giant step toward righting past wrongs and ensuring that all Michigan students have access to an excellent public school education,” said Alice Thompson, of the NAACP Detroit branch, who co-chairs a coalition that advocates for school funding reform.

“The unprecedented funding for students with the greatest needs, particularly those living in concentrated poverty, will be tremendously important to address the wide and unfair opportunity gaps that exist for students who are most underserved, especially Michigan’s Black and Latino students,” Thompson said.

The budget includes a 5% increase in the school “foundation allowance,” which is the base amount schools receive per student from the state. School districts will receive $9,608 for each student in the 2023-24 school year, an increase of $458.

The same increase will not be available to online schools, which will continue to receive $9,150 per student. Democrats and teachers unions have long argued that online schools require less money from the state because they don’t pay for buildings, transportation, sports, or other extracurriculars as traditional public schools do.

Dan Quisenberry, president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, a charter industry group, said online students deserve equal funding.

“Students in online schools include many of the most vulnerable students in the state, many of whom are minority students, LGBTQ students, children living in poverty, and students facing medical challenges,” Quisenberry said. “It would make no sense to fund students differently. That’s not who we are as a state. While we’ve made great progress, we’re not there yet. All kids deserve equal funding, and we will continue to advocate for that principle.”

Funding for ‘at risk’ students uses new calculation

The education budget sets aside $952 million in additional payments for districts with students deemed “at risk.” That’s an increase of more than $200 million over what was set aside in this year’s budget, which provided schools with 11.5% more funding for each eligible student.

Under the new budget, schools will receive at-risk student funding using an “opportunity index” that considers a district’s concentration of poverty, based on the number of economically disadvantaged students, which could mean an index boost of up to 15.3% for some schools.

Democratic lawmakers said they hope to one day raise at-risk student funding far higher.

“As we’ve seen from study after study from those in the field and education researchers, we need to get to higher levels of reimbursement for at-risk students,” Sen. Darrin Camilleri, D-Trenton, told Bridge Michigan. “And so we want to put a target in this budget to have at least 35% reimbursement be a goal for us in Michigan.”

Thompson and other education advocates in the Michigan Partnership for Equity and Opportunity coalition have urged policymakers to adopt a funding structure that aligns more closely with Massachusetts, which revamped its education funding in 2019 to provide more for low-income students.

Massachusetts and Michigan have similarly large achievement gaps between low-income and more affluent students on standardized tests. But low-income students in Massachusetts scored 11 points higher in fourth grade reading last year than Michigan’s low-income students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The gap was even wider among Black students, with those in Massachusetts testing 17 points higher.

Under the new budget, school districts will receive 100% of base funding for students who receive special education, rather than 75% provided under the current budget. There is also more funding for English language learners.

“The budget finalized today represents a solid investment in schools for the upcoming year but, more importantly, represents an investment in students for years to come,” said Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance, which represents more than 100 Michigan school districts. “Funding for special education, at-risk students, and universal meal programs will give more students additional opportunities to succeed both in and out of the classroom.”

Longtime community activist Helen Moore, who has championed literacy programs in Detroit schools and currently volunteers tutoring third graders at Detroit Public Schools Community District’s Barton Elementary School, said it will take more money than the Legislature is able to give in the upcoming school year to reverse years of underfunding.

“How do you make up for all the money that was taken from children who have been neglected and treated like slaves?” she asked. “There is no answer for it. There’s not enough money to do it.”

The budget includes $94.4 million for DPSCD as a result of a literacy lawsuit settled in 2020. The settlement required Whitmer to propose the funding, but she needed legislative approval for the funds to be awarded.

The budget prohibits the district from using the funding to supplant existing literacy programs and requires the school district to create a task force and spend funds in a way that aligns with the literacy settlement.

Isabel Lohman is an education reporter for Bridge Michigan. You can reach her at ilohman@bridgemi.com

Hannah Dellinger is an education reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Audit criticizes Michigan education officials’ oversight of fingerprinting for school workers

2023-06-27T19:52:51+00:00

The Michigan Department of Education has no procedures in place to ensure school districts aren’t employing people who’ve been convicted of criminal offenses that prohibit them from working in schools, according to a state audit released Tuesday morning.

The report from the state Office of the Auditor General criticized MDE’s oversight of the fingerprinting and background check process for contract workers. These are people who perform functions such as substitute teaching, food service, and custodial and maintenance services.

State laws require Michigan school districts to ensure that all their employees and contract workers are fingerprinted and undergo background checks. Those laws were part of a sweeping package of legislation that went into effect in 2006 and were aimed at ensuring the safety of children in schools.

The laws bar schools from employing anyone who is on the sex offender registry. For those convicted of any felony or certain misdemeanors — such as criminal sexual conduct in the fourth degree, child abuse in the third or fourth degree, and any misdemeanor involving cruelty, torture, or indecent exposure involving a child — a school board and superintendent must decide whether to employ or continue employing the person.

The audit found that some contract workers were hired without being fingerprinted, and some worked weeks, months, or even years before being fingerprinted.

The number of workers found to have been hired without the required fingerprinting was relatively small, but the audit report said “the deficiencies noted within this report would extend to all individuals regularly working in schools, regardless of their employment arrangement.”

The findings matter, the audit report said, because ineffective oversight by the state education department means there could be a significant threat to child safety “if individuals with unsuitable criminal convictions are provided direct and/or continued access to children through school employment.”

The auditors called for the department to implement procedures to help ensure that contracted staff are fingerprinted and that employment determinations are made for those with criminal convictions that require school boards and superintendents to decide on their continued employment. Department officials pushed back on that recommendation, saying in part that state law doesn’t require MDE to oversee or monitor the fingerprinting process. However, the department said that “in the interests of ensuring the safety of students,” MDE would work with the Michigan State Police to “enhance the monitoring process.”

The total number of contract workers in Michigan schools is unknown. But the audit says a statewide survey found that 91% of the districts in Michigan used contract workers. The 41 school districts sampled for the audit employed 5,010 contract workers.

Here are some of the additional findings in the audit:

An estimated 220 of 5,010 contract workers were never fingerprinted prior to employment.
Fingerprinting did not happen “in a timely manner” for three of 45 sampled workers. They were fingerprinted 23 days, 16 months, and 10 years, respectively, after being employed.
In some cases, MDE received conviction alerts about workers, but did not notify their school districts.
MDE routinely used outdated and incomplete employment data as part of its notification process.

Martin Ackley, spokesman for the education department, said in a statement to Chalkbeat that student safety is a priority and the MDE relies on its partners to ensure students are secure.

“School districts should not be hiring individuals whose criminal history demonstrates the potential to jeopardize the safety of children and other school staff. We do this in partnership with the Michigan State Police to ensure the safety of all Michigan children,” Ackley said.

He said MDE will discuss the auditor recommendations with the state Center for Educational Performance and Information “to have local school districts report employment changes more frequently during a school year.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief of Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan board of education votes to push back against book bans

2023-06-14T21:18:48+00:00

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Michigan’s State Board of Education voted Tuesday to take a stance against book bans and in favor of students’ freedom to read diverse collections of literature.

Amid a wave of book removals in school libraries across the country, often prompted by state and local politicians, the board adopted a resolution expressing concern over censorship.

The move came weeks after the Michigan Civil Rights Commission asked Attorney General Dana Nessel for an opinion on whether removals of books exploring LGBTQ+ issues from public school libraries are a form of discrimination prohibited by state civil rights law.

The board’s resolution calls on local school leaders to follow best practices in handling book challenges and affirms that school librarians have the professional skills to select age-appropriate materials. The board’s statement also recognizes that certified librarians have a positive impact on student’s learning and academic outcomes.

“I do feel like in specific areas and districts, librarians have been targeted with a lot of hate and name-calling, and it’s affecting the mental health of those professionals,” said Kathy Lester, a librarian in Plymouth-Canton Community Schools who heads the American Association of School Librarians. “Hearing some people standing up and saying that this needs to stop and we need to respect our professionals is very helpful.”

Books on race, sexuality face challenges

In recent years, books covering issues such as racism, sexuality, and gender identity have been challenged by conservative politicians, administrators, and parents who deem them inappropriate for students. Some have labeled literature with any mentions or depictions of sexuality or nudity “pornography,” and in certain instances have attempted to have librarians criminally investigated for allowing such titles to stay on shelves.

During its meeting Tuesday, the Democratic-controlled board approved an amendment to its resolution stating that the governing body supports parents’ right to decide which books are appropriate for their children.

“I’m not for banning books,” said board co-Vice President Tiffany Tilley, who suggested the amendment. “For some parents, they may not be ready for their children to read about some of those things, and that’s fine. We’re not trying to make decisions for their children, but we’re not trying to ban books from everybody.”

The board rejected a proposal from member Tom McMillin that he said would clarify that “pornography” would be prohibited from schools.

“I would like to make sure that it’s clear — that it is in here — that at least we can go on record and say that there is a level where certain books or certain materials should not be available in schools to students in any grade,” he said.

Board President Pamela Pugh said it was “unfortunate” that McMillin put the amendment forward, noting that existing laws prohibit pornography from being distributed to minors.

Equating the books under discussion with pornography is “just a way to continue to spread disinformation,” Pugh said.

McMillin and Nikki Snyder were the only members who voted against the resolution.

From July 2021 to June 2022, 41 books were banned in four Michigan districts, according to an analysis by PEN America, a nonprofit that aims to protect freedom of expression in literature. Thirty-four of the removals documented by the organization were in Gladwin Community Schools and were prompted by a school administrator, the database shows. Five books were pulled from Rochester Community Schools, one from Novi Community School District, and one from Hudsonville Public Schools.

During the first half of the 2022-23 school year, PEN America tracked 18 books that were restricted from student access in Michigan. Of those titles, eight were in Davison Community Schools and seven in Dearborn Public Schools. One book was pulled from Portage Public Schools shelves, one in Spring Lake Public Schools, and one in St. Joseph Public Schools, according to the database.

Michigan has a shortage of librarians

Lester, the head of the librarians group, said that while the board’s resolution is a positive move to support school librarians in the state, more can be done to champion reading and literacy for Michigan students.

“In Michigan, we need more access to certified school librarians,” she said. “We are 47th in the nation in terms of the number of school librarians per student in our state.”

While numerous studies show the positive impact certified librarians can have on student achievement, Lester said many of those positions have been cut over the years because of budget restraints.

Districts in low-income and rural communities in the state tend to have few if any librarians, Lester added.

By 2020, there were two full-time, certified librarians in the Detroit Public Schools Community District.

Legislation introduced in 2018 would have required all Michigan public schools to have a library and one certified librarian. The bills failed to move forward that session.

The Legislature’s Democratic majority has “so many priorities,” Lester said, that the shortage of librarians hasn’t made their agenda.

“We have big improvements to make in reading achievement” in Michigan, Lester said, “I feel like this needs to become a critical issue and something we do prioritize in our state.”

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education for Chalkbeat Detroit. Reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Merit-based pay clause for Detroit teachers would be eased under Senate bill

2023-06-06T23:42:18+00:00

Performance evaluations would no longer be the deciding factor in salary increases for newly hired employees in the Detroit school district, under proposed legislation that seeks to remove a distinction between recent and earlier hires and make the criteria uniform across Michigan.

A bill introduced in the state Senate last month would remove provisions in the Revised School Code that say all teachers and staff in the Detroit Public Schools Community District hired after September 2019 must have their compensation based primarily on job performance, rather than seniority or educational credentials.

Supporters of the bill say that removing the language would make it easier for the Detroit Federation of Teachers to bargain for all of its members — newer hires and veterans — equally, and bring Detroit’s district in line with all other districts in the state.

For those districts, the Revised School Code says job performance should be considered a “significant” factor in determining staff pay, but doesn’t specify “primary” factor.

“This bill simply seeks to address an inconsistency in the law, where all educators across the state are able to collectively bargain certain topics except for, right now, educators in the Detroit Public Schools Community District,” said state Sen. Stephanie Chang, the bill’s sponsor, at a Senate Education Committee hearing on Tuesday.

The proposed change “doesn’t necessarily lessen, or de-emphasize in any way, performance,” said Chang, a Democrat from Detroit. “It simply just is saying we’ve got to consider other factors.”

The current law effectively says that for teachers hired after Sept. 1, 2019, DPSCD may not use the length of service or achievement of an advanced degree as a factor in determining their pay, except for teachers with a secondary-level teaching certificate or an advanced degree in elementary education.

The stricter language referring to Detroit’s district was added by a then-Republican-led Legislature in a 2016 package of bills that sought to address the debt crisis facing Detroit Public Schools, and ultimately created the Detroit Public Schools Community District. Teachers union leaders opposed the bills at the time.

Lakia Wilson-Lumpkins, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, said the current law sets a different standard for new hires compared with those hired before September 2019, regardless of how much experience they have.

For the earlier hires, “the union negotiated salary schedule is based upon time,” she said. “We do have some merit-based compensation, however moving on the salary scale is not dependent on merit.”

But some lawmakers say student academic performance and teacher effectiveness should remain a priority in districts like Detroit that have long struggled academically.

“When disadvantaged students are less likely to be taught by highly effective teachers, why should the teacher’s ability to ensure adequate student academic growth not be the No. 1, the primary factor, in determining the teacher’s effectiveness?” asked Sen. Ruth Johnson, a Republican from Holly, during the committee hearing.

Teachers unions and other opponents of the current law argue that current measures of teacher job performance rely too heavily on student scores on standardized tests. Their Democratic allies in the Legislature are working on bills to delink student scores from teacher evaluations.

Wilson-Lumpkins told Chalkbeat that the current provision has become a “deterrent” for current and prospective district teachers.

“This legislation is not only causing educators to choose other districts, but it is causing the new hires who have come in and learned about this legislation on the back end … to consider leaving,” Wilson-Lumpkins said. “And the children in Detroit deserve to have quality education the same as all the children across the state of Michigan.”

Nastassia Szpaichler, a middle school special ed teacher at DPSCD, said in a statement read to the Senate Education Committee that she found out about the Revised School Code provision only after she was hired.

The performance-based evaluation puts undue stress on new hires, she said.

“When I was hired fresh out of college, Detroit was offering me the highest pay for first year teachers at $51,071,” Szpaichler said.

“What I did learn was that my compensation would not be based on my years of experience that I gained, which is what literally every other district does, but based on my job performance and my job accomplishments,” she said. “This truly was frightening to me.”

DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti did not respond to a request for comment about the Senate bill, but he has previously argued that Detroit teachers should be among the highest-paid educators in the state, and he has made increasing pay a priority — especially for newly hired teachers. Their starting salary of roughly $51,000 is now among the highest in the region.

The DFT is currently negotiating a new contract with the district, Wilson-Lumpkins said, with a focus on its union members affected by the district’s budget cuts, including kindergarten paraprofessionals, school culture facilitators, and college transition advisers.

The last contract negotiations, ahead of the 2021-22 school year, resulted in an annual 4% salary increase across the board for Detroit educators, with additional raises for veteran and special education teachers.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit charter school to offer $100,000 teacher salaries

2023-05-25T18:44:38+00:00

A Detroit charter school is offering $100,000 annual salaries to certain teachers with five or more years of experience, in a bold bid to increase the number of certified teachers at the school.

The Detroit Academy of Arts & Sciences, which serves a little over 1,000 K-8 students, made the announcement Thursday morning. The school said the six-figure salary offer is part of an effort to improve student outcomes and to attract what it calls “best in class” teachers.

Teachers must meet a set of criteria in order to be eligible for the $100,000 pay.

They must have at least five or more years of experience as a classroom teacher or a lead teacher.
They must be rated highly effective in two of the last three years.
They must be fully certified.
They must demonstrate an impact on student outcomes, professionalism, commitment to equity, and family and community engagement.

“Revolutionary” is how Krystal Thomas, a 7th grade science teacher at DAAS, described the salary offer, according to the release.

“When you give teachers a livable wage, it makes the profession important,” said Thomas, who plans to pursue becoming a model teacher. “I’m really excited about this opportunity.”

Said Ja’Myrea Jones, an eighth-grader and the school’s valedictorian: “I think it is great that DAAS is committed to ensuring that our students have the best teachers in the classroom. Having highly effective teachers will help us become stronger scholars and future leaders.”

The district expects to hire 18 teachers with the $100,000 salary in time for the start of the 2023-24 school year. The new hires would receive a three-year contract, and would be required to maintain their ratings during that time.

Current staff are also eligible, though they would have to apply, and it’s unclear how many would qualify, a spokesperson for the school said Thursday.

At DAAS, 35% of the teachers aren’t fully certified, though many are going through the steps to earn certification. Seven years ago, 95% of the teachers were certified.

“Every child deserves to be taught by a best-in-class teacher,” Maurice Morton, CEO of the district, said during a news conference held at the school Thursday, according to a press release.

“By creating strong criteria to measure excellence for teachers and investing in their growth with a best-in-class compensation plan, we believe that we will have a profound impact on the educational outcomes for the children we serve.”

It’s not unheard of for teachers to make $100,000, but generally teachers earning at that level have many years of experience and/or are often receiving additional compensation for coaching or leading other extracurricular activities. Michigan ranks 16th in the nation for teacher pay, with an average of $64,884, according to the 2023 review of salaries by the National Education Association.

At DAAS, current teachers make salaries of between $49,000 to $72,000. The school will cover the higher salaries by reallocating portions of its budget.

The DAAS offer is one of many initiatives Michigan schools are using to address teaching shortages that are affecting districts across the state. A new program to recruit, retain, and develop teachers in five Michigan districts was announced Thursday by Teach for America Detroit.

Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools Community District, has made increasing staff salaries a critical budget initiative for the next school year, even as the district seeks to make budget cuts to account for the loss of federal COVID relief funding.

Battle Creek Public Schools on Wednesday announced an agreement with its union to provide a $10,000 increase to base pay, on average. District officials say the pay increase will make it one of the highest paying districts for new teachers in southwest Michigan.

“Everything that we do for our students begins with teachers, and we will continue to invest in them to ensure that together we are creating the conditions for success that our students need and deserve,” Battle Creek Superintendent Kimberly Carter said in a news release from the district.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief of Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Teach for America Detroit to help 5 Michigan districts retain and develop teachers

2023-05-25T04:02:00+00:00

An organization that has drawn hundreds of people into the teaching profession in Detroit by giving them a faster path into the classroom is expanding to five other Michigan communities with an initiative to recruit, retain, and develop more than 700 teachers.

The focus is on developing teachers in high-poverty schools, providing support and training, and thus improving outcomes for some of the most vulnerable students in Michigan.

Teach for America Detroit is launching Teach Michigan, which is partnering with Benzie County Central Schools, Kentwood Public Schools, Saginaw Public Schools, Sault Ste. Marie Area Public Schools, and Traverse City Area Public Schools to recruit educators on their staff who will earn stipends of $35,000 each over three years.

Those who apply and are accepted receive a $5,000 signing bonus, a $5,000 completion bonus after the first year, a $10,000 bonus after the end of the second year, and a $15,000 bonus after the final year.

The program offers three paths for educators: One focuses on early-career educators and is aimed at helping them strengthen their teaching skills. Another is focused on teachers who want to achieve the rigorous National Board Certification. And the third is for experienced teachers who want to take on administrative or supervisory roles.

In addition to the stipend, teachers selected will receive intense training during the three years.

Teach Michigan debuts at a time when many districts across Michigan are struggling to fill teaching jobs, and education leaders and policymakers are looking for ways to address that challenge. But recruiting more people into the profession only addresses part of a systemic problem, said Armen Hratchian, executive director of TFA Detroit.

“All of the talk is about the pipelines. But what are we doing to keep the ones who are already here?” he said.

It’s a question that has informed the organization’s work since 2019, when it began providing support in Detroit to help retain and develop teachers.

“There are really great people teaching every day in our schools, and in particular, in our under-resourced or high poverty communities across the state,” Hratchian said. “Roughly 400,000 students every day go to a school that would be considered high-poverty … . We know that we’re losing teachers at a faster rate in those schools.”

The new initiative will be tracked by the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative at Michigan State University, which has done comprehensive research on the state’s Read by Grade 3 law and other education issues.

Among the questions the EPIC researchers will seek to answer, Hratchian said, is whether this type of investment works, whether it increases retention, whether it improves student outcomes, and whether the educators who participate create better conditions for other educators around them.

TFA Detroit is part of Teach for America, a national organization that recently experienced some challenges that have resulted in layoffs. In Detroit, though, the local arm has been buoyed by a $30 million grant from the state of Michigan. The $60 million initiative has received grants from the Skillman Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Detroit Children’s Fund, United Way for Southeastern Michigan, AmeriCorps Michigan, Masco Corp., Ford Motor Co. Fund and Bank of America.

Skillman, Kellogg, and the United Way are Chalkbeat funders. Click here for a list of our supporters.

The five districts in the Teach Michigan program were chosen because they have strong, stable leadership, good relationships between the administration and school board, and strong district-union relationships, Hratchian said.

Saginaw Public Schools launched a “grow your own” program more than a year ago and helps existing staff earn teacher certification in two phases — one for employees with a bachelor’s degree and another for those with a high school diploma and/or an associate’s degree. The first group of more than 20 educators recently graduated from the program, said Superintendent Ramont Roberts, who has led the district for five years.

Teach Michigan fits into those efforts because of its focus on retention and development, Roberts said.

“We’re working hard to retain our current staff that we know are effective or highly effective instructors, so they don’t seek opportunities elsewhere,” he said. That can be a struggle in an urban district that has to compete with suburban schools that may be able to offer higher salaries.

The district is in the process of selecting the 30 educators who will be part of the first year of Teach Michigan. More than 70 people applied, Roberts said.

“It’s been an overwhelming response,” he said.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Battle Creek scholarship program to pay up to 100% of college tuition for grads

2023-05-17T20:49:10+00:00

The Battle Creek high school seniors walked across the stage to enthusiastic applause as they formally announced their post-high school plans, but that couldn’t hold a candle to the big announcement that came after: A new scholarship program will pay for up to 100% of their college tuition and fees.

The Bearcat Advantage, part of a partnership between Battle Creek Public Schools and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, will ensure that district graduates have an opportunity to attend college. The scholarships begin with the Class of 2023, who graduate next week, Superintendent Kimberly Carter said during a decision day event — one of many held across the country during the month of May that celebrate the post-graduation plans of high school seniors. The district enrolls 3,753 students, including 279 seniors.

At this event, which was live streamed on YouTube, the scholarship announcement overshadowed those decisions. Students learned that if they have been enrolled in the district since kindergarten, they will have 100% of their tuition and fees covered. The amount decreases depending on how many years a student has been enrolled. For instance, a student enrolled for just the four years of high school will have 65% of their tuition and fees covered.

It was unclear Wednesday afternoon how much the foundation had provided to launch the scholarship program.

“It’s amazing,” said Kapree Richardson, a sophomore at Battle Creek High School. “This is like a good side door to a lot of things people can’t do. A lot of people want to go to college, but a lot of people can’t afford the terms of going to college.”

Kapree was uncertain himself. “This right here, it helps me out a lot.”

The scholarships cover tuition and fees at Michigan public or private colleges and universities. It is also eligible to be used at nearly 100 historically Black colleges and universities.

“This will change your life,” said La June Montgomery Tabron, CEO of the Kellogg Foundation. (The foundation is a Chalkbeat funder. Click here for a list of our supporters.)

The program is similar to the Kalamazoo Promise, which also covers up to 100% of tuition and fees for district graduates. Since it was announced in 2005, many other “promise” type scholarship programs have been created, including in Detroit, where eligible students can have their tuition costs covered through the Detroit Promise.

“This is our promise to this community,” Tabron said. “It’s our promise to all of you.”

The district and foundation have partnered for years. In 2017, the foundation gave the district a $51 million grant that was aimed at improving academic outcomes in the district. Carter said the grant helped the district create new academic and extracurricular programs for students, including career academies, dual enrollment programs, International Baccalaureate programs, and programs focused on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

“Over the last few years, our goal has been to use every resource, partnership and strategy available to make sure that each and every one of you succeeds,” Carter said. “For us, failure is not an option.”

The most recent data show that for the Class of 2022, the four-year graduation rate of the district was 58%, which is down from the pre-pandemic rate of 72% in 2018-19. For those who graduated in 2021 and enrolled in college, whether it was a four-year college or a community college, nearly 18% had to enroll in a remedial course because they needed an academic boost before taking more challenging college classes.

When the announcement came Wednesday afternoon, Carter was met with a loud round of applause. But Kapree said some students didn’t fully understand the magnitude of what they heard. But the adults knew. You could see many of them standing in ovation. Many were crying. “It was an emotional moment,” district spokesman Nate Hunt said.

“That is a blessing,” said Christina Taylor, who teaches high school geometry. “People should have been dropping to their knees. We are blessed beyond measurement. The only thing these children do is make sure they get to college. The resources are now there. That barrier has been lifted. Go home and let mom and dad know … the ball is in their court.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan Senate lawmakers spar before passing $21 billion school aid budget

2023-05-11T21:16:32+00:00

Lawmakers in the Michigan Senate sparred Thursday over a nearly $21 billion school spending plan that was hailed by Democrats as putting students and teachers first and derided by Republicans as sending too much money to initiatives that won’t improve learning.

The plan ultimately passed in the Senate on a 20-17 vote.

Like a Michigan House plan that was approved a day before, the Senate plan includes increased per-pupil funding, plus major spending to provide school meals to all students, and to increase funding for at-risk students and students with special education needs. The budgets also include significant increases in spending for early childhood education, programs to help students get back on track academically, mental health programs, and career and technical education.

Sen. Darrin Camilleri, a Democrat from Trenton, lauded the proposal’s inclusion of a 6% increase in the per-pupil foundation amount, which would bring it up to $9,700. The plan approved by the House would bring that amount up to $9,516. He also noted that the budget fully funds special education.

“We set out to create a budget with students and teachers at the forefront,” said Camilleri, who chairs the Senate Pre-K12 appropriations subcommittee. “And I am proud to say that we delivered on that promise.”

Sen. Lana Theis, a Republican from Brighton who voted no, said the budget ignored what she called a “crisis” in the education system.

“Student achievement is lacking. Parents are being ignored. Teachers are fleeing the profession. Time-tested solutions to strengthening school security and response are being ignored. Unfortunately, this budget doesn’t do much to address or resolve these problems,” Theis said.

She specifically called out a proposal in the Senate budget for $160 million to provide free breakfasts and lunches to all public school children. Currently, only students from low-income homes receive free school meals. Federal funding during the first two years of the pandemic that covered meals for all students has dried up.

Democrats rejected a Theis amendment that would have extended the universal meal access to private schools. It was one of more than two dozen amendments Republicans suggested to the school aid budget that failed.

“Every student in a public school is going to be eligible for a free lunch, even if mom and dad make millions,” Theis said. “But if mom and dad are scraping by so their children can go to a nonpublic school, well, their kids’ lunches are on them.”

Responding to Theis’ criticism, Camilleri said many wealthy parents send their children to private schools, so he sees no problem with providing meals to all public school students.

The House and Senate budget proposals attempt to move the state closer to a more equitable funding system that acknowledges that some students are more expensive to educate than others. Currently, a district’s per-pupil amount is increased by 11.5% for each at-risk student. Under the Senate plan, schools would continue to receive the additional 11.5%, but for those with the largest concentrations of children from low-income homes, the added payment would be as much as 15.3%. The House proposal would give districts an increase of 35% for at-risk students.

Students are identified as at risk based on a number of factors, including if they come from low-income families, are English language learners, are chronically absent, or are a victim of child abuse or neglect.

A number of studies in recent years have called out Michigan’s school funding system as being inadequate, particularly for the most vulnerable children. Earlier this year, the Education Trust-Midwest, an education research and advocacy organization based in Royal Oak, proposed a system that would provide even bigger increases than the last few budgets have for districts with large concentrations of children from low-income families and children who are English language learners.

Amber Arellano, executive director of the organization, said she supports the historic nature of the Senate proposal, including the way it provides additional funding for the most vulnerable children.

But she said the proposals “should be considered the beginning — not the end — of a conversation on overhauling Michigan’s unfair school funding system so that Michigan moves in the direction of a system that provides opportunity and access for all groups of students to achieve at high levels.”

Among the other Republican proposals that failed Thursday were restoring funding that helps schools hire school resource officers, eliminating funding for electric school buses, and eliminating funding to the Eastpointe school district that would pay for a new swimming pool.

Senate Republicans also pushed to restore funding for cyber charter schools. Cyber charters, where students attend school fully online, receive the same base amount of per-pupil funding as brick-and-mortar schools. But some have objected to that — including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her Republican predecessor, Rick Snyder — because cyber charters don’t have the same building, transportation, and other costs as schools that educate students in person. Charter school advocates have successfully pushed back attempts to reduce their funding — until this year.

The House proposal would keep funding for Michigan’s online charter schools at the current amount of $9,150 per pupil, while the Senate budget would cut their funding to $7,760 per pupil.

Sen. Joseph Bellino, a Republican from Monroe, said cyber charter schools provide an important option for some students.

“They’re children … Some have been bullied, some of them have disabilities, a high percentage come from low-income families, some only feel comfortable with an online setting,” Belllino said. “I urge my members to support all types of learning.”

Senate Democrats and Republicans sparred Thursday over an amendment Theis recommended that would allow schools to use their safety funding to purchase automated external defibrillators and trauma kits. The latter suggestion rankled Dems.

A typical school trauma kit is an advanced first aid kit containing equipment and supplies to treat a person with major injuries.

Sen. Sarah Anthony, a Democrat from Lansing, called the amendment “disingenuous” and said “school safety is a real and serious issue and should not be politicized.”

Both Democrats and Republicans pointed to reports of a third-grader in Grand Rapids bringing a gun to school this week, the fourth child to do so this school year. The latest incident prompted the district to announce it is banning backpacks.

Sen. Ed McBroom, a Republican from Waucedah Township, said he was puzzled by the discussion over safety funding.

“Why are we shouting at each other over defibrillators and the ability to have trauma kits in school?” he asked.

Mallory McMorrow, a Democrat from Royal Oak, noted that Republicans had earlier this year opposed legislation to require the safe storage of firearms. The legislation passed and Whitmer signed it into law.

“Providing trauma kits acknowledges that you accept a reality in which kids have to be prepared to be shot,” McMorrow said.

Because there are considerable differences in the Senate and House plans, a conference committee will have to work on bridging the gaps.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief of Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan schools would get funding boost under House and Senate budget proposals

2023-05-10T22:08:15+00:00

Michigan school districts would receive funding increases of between $366 and $550 per student, school breakfasts would be free for all, at-risk students would receive record funding, and the state would help cover some school transportation costs.

Those are some of the school funding proposals currently making their way through the Democratic-controlled Michigan Legislature.

The Michigan House on Wednesday approved a spending plan for public schools that would increase the per-pupil foundation amount to $9,516. That’s up 4% from the current amount of $9,150. The vote was 56-52, along party lines.

The Michigan Senate version of the school aid budget, likely to get a vote Thursday, would increase the per-pupil foundation amount to $9,700.

In the House, Democrats lauded its version of the budget, with some calling it “transformational.”

“This budget proposal does amazing things for every student in our state,” said Rep. Matt Koleszar, a Democrat from Plymouth who leads the House Education Committee.

Once both chambers have approved their respective budgets, a conference committee will iron out the differences, which are wide in some cases.

For example, they are far apart on how much to increase spending for students who are considered at risk. Students are identified as at risk based on a number of factors, including if they come from low-income families, are English language learners, are chronically absent, or are a victim of child abuse or neglect.

Currently, a district’s per-pupil amount is increased by 11.5% for each at-risk student.

Under the Senate plan, schools would continue to receive the additional 11.5%, but for those with the largest concentrations of children from low-income homes, the added payment would be as much as 15.3%.

The House proposal would give districts an increase of 35% for at-risk students.

Rep. Regina Weiss, a Democrat from Oak Park, said the House proposal would be the most the state has invested in the state’s neediest students.

Republican Rep. Brad Paquette, from Niles, voted no on the spending plan. He said that while there are some positive spending proposals, such as the foundation amount and increased spending on mental health, he is concerned about the increased spending on at-risk students, among other issues.

“The increase in at risk sounds like a noble increase. Ultimately these dollars become a slush fund for districts, where dollars do not track with the actual student that is in need,” Paquette said. “How can we ensure that these dollars actually follow those students who are deemed at risk?”

Paquette spoke against several other provisions of the budget, but he was cut off by the House member who was presiding over the chamber at the time while detailing his concerns over funding implicit-bias training after being told he was veering too far off the topic of the budget.

Democrats praised a proposal that would have the state spend $160 million to reimburse school districts for the cost of providing free breakfasts and lunches to all students. During the first two years of the pandemic, federal funding helped pay for free meals, but that funding ended.

“No one deserves to go hungry while they are attending school,” Koleszar said. “Students should focus on what they’re learning, not worry about where their next meal will come from.”

The Senate plan also allocates $160 million for meals.

The budget proposals also include $300 million for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s MI Kids Back on Track program, which is aimed at helping students recover academically after pandemic-era declines in achievement; $94.4 million for the Detroit Public Schools Community District for the settlement of a literacy lawsuit; and $75 million to expand the Great Start Readiness Program, Michigan’s free preschool program for 4-year-olds.

Some other features of the budget proposals:

The House proposal includes $150 million in new funding for school transportation.
The House would keep funding for Michigan’s online charter schools to current per-pupil levels, while the Senate would cut their funding to $7,760 per pupil.
The House proposal includes one-time funding of $300 million over two years to provide public schools with per-pupil grants to improve mental health. The Senate plan includes $310 million for public schools and $17.5 million for private schools.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief of Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan child care providers demand more money to provide a livable wage

2023-05-08T18:37:13+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for Chalkbeat Detroit’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and Michigan education policy.

The child care providers marched up and down Grand Boulevard in Detroit, chanting “No child care, no work” and other messages they hope will reach state officials with the power to address their demands.

“What do we want?” the woman with the megaphone asked the crowd.

“More money!” the crowd shouted.

“When do we want it? the leader asked.

“Now.”

The “Day Without Childcare Rally,” which took place outside the Cadillac Building, where Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has a Detroit office, was held with the hope that state officials would include even more money for child care than has already been proposed in budget negotiations.

More than 100 people showed up for the Detroit protest. Similar demonstrations were happening across the U.S.

The demonstrators — a mix of child care and preschool providers, educators, and parents — say they appreciate Whitmer’s efforts to invest more heavily in child care, but they say it’s not enough. Whitmer’s budget proposal includes a tax credit of $1,000 to $3,000 for early childhood educators who work in child care, preschool, and after-school settings.

Whitmer has also proposed expanding the Great Start Readiness Program, the state’s free preschool program that currently serves mostly children from low-income families. The expansion would give thousands more 4-year-olds access to the program.

Among the demonstrators’ demands is additional funding so they can pay workers a living wage and an end to the state’s rating system for child care programs that assigns a star rating based on quality.

The national effort is pushing for an equitable child care system, thriving wages for providers, and affordable child care for all families.

Protesters advocating for more funding for child care programs in Michigan picket outside the Cadillac Building in Detroit.

Protesters in Detroit say providers struggle to pay their staff and themselves a living wage.

“In this line of work, I have to get paid in hugs and kisses because my families can’t afford to pay me adequate money to sustain myself,” said Makese Taylor, a licensed child care provider who operates Twins Hands with her sister.

“It leaves me part of the working poor,” Taylor said.

Another common message: Michigan’s economy can’t recover from the pandemic if the state’s system for providing care for children while their parents are at work isn’t healthy.

“Without child care, the economy can’t go,” Hodge said. “We should never be an afterthought.”

Bobby Leddy, spokesman for Whitmer, said in a statement that the governor “is using every tool in her toolbox to lower the cost of child care for Michigan families and address decades of disinvestment in child care.”

Leddy said Whitmer has already worked with Republican lawmakers, who controlled the Legislature until this year, to make child care more affordable for working families, stabilize child care businesses, and expand access to child care. In addition, the state is three-quarters of the way toward meeting a Whitmer goal to open 1,000 new child care programs.

“As a mom, the governor knows how important it is for parents to know their kids are safe while they’re at work,” Leddy said.

Michigan’s child care system has struggled to provide quality care for parents who need it, and to recruit and retain staff. A 2022 Muckrock report found that Michigan has far more child care deserts — regions of the state with too few facilities to meet demand — than policymakers estimated.

Earlier this year, a Chalkbeat story noted that Whitmer’s proposal to expand the free preschool program would need to address staffing shortages. Low wages are at the heart of the staffing challenges.

Symone Wilkes, a parent of two boys, came to a demonstration of child care providers because she said she wanted her voice to be heard.

Symone Wilkes, a single mother of two small boys, has experienced the child care desert problem firsthand. She said there are 16 providers in her neighborhood, but none had a slot available for her 1-year-old son. That meant having to travel well outside her neighborhood to find care, which has created its own set of challenges.

Wilkes came to the protest Monday because “our voices need to be heard” and so state officials understand the need for all families to have access to child care.

Many of the providers who participated in the protest shut down their facilities for the day, hoping that action would also send a message.

“We need them to hear us,” Taylor said.

Tichina Sanders, a child care teacher at Hodge’s facility, wants lawmakers to understand how essential her work is.

“We’re not just babysitters to kids,” said Sanders, who makes $13 an hour. “I’m helping them learn.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Metro Detroit teacher turnover concerns aired in Michigan legislative hearing at Mumford H.S.

2023-04-11T19:58:51+00:00

Hezekiah Smith was in third grade when his teacher at Detroit’s Bagley Elementary School of Journalism and Technology left in the middle of the school year.

He and his classmates weren’t given any notice. One day Ms. McConnell was there, and the next day she wasn’t, he told Michigan lawmakers on Monday. But word soon spread about why she decided to leave.

“She left because she wasn’t being paid enough, and the principal wasn’t being nice to the teachers at that time” said Hezekiah, now a high school student at The School at Marygrove.

Another teacher in the building covered McConnell’s classroom. But losing their teacher eroded some of the trust and stability students had established with her.

“It’s important to me and my peers that we can build a relationship with our teachers,” he said.

Hezekiah was joined by over a dozen students, educators, union leaders, and parents at a special hearing Monday organized by the Michigan Senate and House Education committees to discuss teacher recruitment and retention efforts in Metro Detroit. Teacher turnover has been a critical issue for Michigan, particularly in low-income communities where students who most need stable school environments have had to deal with a revolving door at the front of the classroom.

In Detroit, charter schools, which educate nearly half of the city’s public-school students, have higher turnover rates than traditional public schools.

Those who testified Monday largely spoke in favor of increasing school aid, limiting class sizes, and raising teacher salaries to try to reduce teacher turnover.

They also spoke about the personal cost of persistent turnover in a school.

“When teachers are not being paid enough or treated right by (administrators) and leave the school, we’re left without a connection to someone who understands what we’re going through academically or even personally,” Hezekiah said.

Spanish teacher Brian Peck worked for seven years at Detroit’s Osborn High School before switching to University Prep Schools. During those seven years, Osborn went through five principals, a churn that motivated him to leave the Detroit school district.

“I’m only going to go to a place where I know that principal has been there and is going to be there,” Peck said. “I don’t want this continual carnival.”

The hearing was held not in Lansing, but at Detroit’s Mumford High School. Sen. Darrin Camilleri of Trenton, chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on PreK-12, said the point of that was to engage with community members and professionals in the field.

“When we make our decisions up in Lansing it needs to be with your voices in mind,” Camilleri said.

In the Detroit Public Schools Community District, Michigan’s largest school district, officials have worked in recent years to address teacher vacancies, most notably by increasing teacher salaries. Teacher recruitment has been a key piece of Superintendent Nikolai Vitti’s plan to turn the district around after over a decade of emergency management. By the end of emergency management in 2016, teacher vacancies were as high as 250.

But many Detroit educators and parents said attracting and retaining teachers will require more than a salary boost.

“We just want to have more voice in what we do as professionals,” said Jason Posey, vice president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers. A key concern for his union members, Posey said, was annual teacher evaluations, which have often led to educators feeling as though they “don’t have the professional freedom to teach what they believe is best.”

Many educators in recent years have called for certain factors such as students’ standardized test scores, to be removed from evaluations, claiming that those metrics don’t accurately reflect student learning in the classroom.

State Sen. Dayna Polehanki, chair of the Senate Education Committee, said a legislative package intended to address teacher evaluations is currently in the works.

DPSCD officials, who face tough budget decisions heading into the 2023-24 school year, are trying to figure out how to prioritize teacher salary increases, protect classrooms from budget cuts, and ensure the district’s future financial strength. The district is weighing cutting more than 100 jobs, most of them central office employees, as well as school-based administrators and support staff.

Perriel Pace, a junior at Detroit’s Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School, said those looming decisions should prompt the Legislature to respond.

“We will be losing our college advisers, counselors, staff from the community engagement department all around,” Pace said. “This lack of funding affects the students completely. I’m asking that we get more funding for our schools and employees.”

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan schools turn to COVID relief funds to upgrade aging buildings

2023-03-29T23:15:42+00:00

As many as 32 students crowd into classrooms originally meant for 22 to 24 students in the Crestwood School District.

Many of Crestwood’s buildings were built in the 1960s, said Youssef Mosallam, superintendent of the district in Dearborn Heights. But updates have been few and far between for the district’s needs, the superintendent said.

Then came a small fortune from the federal government: $24 million in COVID relief funds for the district of nearly 3,800 students. At least $8 million of the relief money is going to build 12 new classrooms in the district’s elementary schools, to reduce class sizes and to keep students spaced farther apart, he said.

Dozens of school districts across Michigan are also directing relief funds to rehab aging school buildings, some of which lack air conditioning or functioning heating systems. In rural Harrison Community Schools north of Mount Pleasant, Superintendent Judy Walton said that means heat may work in one side of a school building in the morning and the other side in the afternoon. The district hasn’t had the funding to make updates for years, she said.

For school districts in lower-income areas like Harrison, relief funds have covered essential facility upgrades that annual state funding and bond money don’t.

“We’re probably one of the most economically depressed counties in Michigan,” Walton said. “So the availability of those funds to do those HVAC upgrades was really critical for us.”

Michigan’s public schools planned to spend about 18% of relief funds on buildings and facilities needs, according to a May 2022 analysis of approved school district plans by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, around $641 million at that time. Since the analysis, more spending has likely been approved. In all, Michigan schools have nearly $6 billion in COVID relief funds to spend by September 2024.

About this project

$6 billion.

That’s how much Michigan schools are receiving from the federal government to help students and staff recover from the pandemic.

But it isn’t entirely clear how this unprecedented amount of federal cash is being spent and whether it is having an impact.

Chalkbeat Detroit, the Detroit Free Press, and Bridge Michigan have teamed up to find out where the money is going, who is benefiting, and whether the money is helping students get back on track academically, emotionally, and socially.

Please share your thoughts — and tips — with reporters Koby Levin at klevin@chalkbeat.org, Lily Altavena at laltavena@freepress.org, and Isabel Lohman at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

Check out a few of the most recent stories from our series below:

Federal COVID relief aid to schools will dry up soon. Are districts ready?

Michigan school districts are flush with cash, but wary

COVID aid helps Michigan school districts plug deficits

How private schools are spending COVID relief cash

New MI ESSER tutoring programs have room to grow

The largest district in the state, Detroit Public Schools Community District, is also allocating roughly half of its more than $1 billion in relief funds to building needs, a total not included in the Citizens Research Council’s analysis.

Michigan schools might be particularly hard-pressed to find funding to keep buildings from falling apart. Robert McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan and part of a group advocating for stronger school funding measures in the state, said Michigan is one of only a few states in the nation that do not specifically allocate money for facilities on a statewide level. The state in its most recent budget created a fund partially dedicated to infrastructure, with $250 million for buildings. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also recommended $500 million for the next budget to go to infrastructure.

“Michigan probably has a much more rapidly aging school infrastructure than a lot of other states do,” he said, “because Michigan is also one of the handful of states that doesn’t really have any sort of statewide infrastructure spending for schools.”

Schools close because of building problems

Lawmakers in June 2022 assigned $20 million to go to an audit of school facilities in the state. McCann said such a study has never been conducted before.

But anecdotal evidence suggests many Michigan school buildings in low-income areas are in disrepair or facing major problems:

Flint Schools closed for several days in summer 2021 due to a lack of air conditioning in certain buildings.
Dearborn Schools canceled class when temperatures soared in June 2022 because some rooms in the district weren’t cooled.
A Government Accountability Office report in 2020 found that half of the districts it studied across the nation needed multiple systems, such as the HVAC system, replaced. GAO officials visited a school building in Michigan that still relied on a boiler from the 1920s for heat.
The photos in the GAO report included one of water damage in a Michigan school library and another of signage warning of asbestos.
In 2016, a series of protests led by Detroit public schools educators raised, among other issues, crumbling conditions in the district’s school buildings. Teachers described mold issues, leaky ceilings, and pest infestations.

In May 2022, the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s board approved a $700 million facilities plan to address longstanding needs. The plan involves rebuilding five buildings and renovating 64, focusing on roofing, heating and cooling, building exteriors, and lighting.

Construction at Highview Elementary School in the Crestwood School District will add additional classrooms to address crowded classrooms.

The district will use nearly half of its COVID relief money to make the sweeping changes over the next five years.

A national analysis of spending data by the Associated Press found that school districts with the highest numbers of students living in poverty are more likely than wealthier districts to spend the relief funds on building and transportation upgrades.

Phyllis Jordan, associate director at FutureEd, an education think tank based at Georgetown University, said it makes sense that districts in low-income areas are directing funds to facilities after struggling for so long.

“It also reflects that a lot of these poor districts, with years and years of disinvestment, of underinvestment — that they haven’t been able to make these repairs,” she said. “This is an opportunity with a lot of cash and a lot of cash they have to spend quickly.”

In Michigan, that means districts like Walton’s are turning to federal relief funds to address critical building issues. Nearly 54% of students in Harrison Community Schools are economically disadvantaged, defined by eligibility in the free or reduced price lunch program.

The Harrison district is spending $3.15 million to install air conditioning where the district doesn’t have it, and to replace old furnaces and air-handling units. Bond money approved by the community in past elections has helped facilities, Walton said, but ultimately, property values in the area weren’t high enough to cover HVAC repairs and replacements.

“You can only get so much through a bond, and at some point, the balance of the percentage of home value isn’t going to support the numbers you need,” she said.

Michigan’s school funding formula does not allocate specific sustained funding for buildings or facilities, which means schools without bond or other supplemental funding often struggle to find room in the budget to replace failing boilers or fix what’s broken. The most recent state budget did allocate some funds, $250 million, for school facilities, though the money hinges on a statewide facilities audit that has not yet been conducted. It’s also unclear whether the fund is ongoing or one-time.

Building improvements pay off later

Essexville-Hampton Public Schools near Bay City will use $1 million in COVID relief funds to help fund a nearly $5 million energy efficiency project in its buildings, Superintendent Justin Ralston said. The district was able to pay for the rest of the project with bond money, but the COVID relief funds helped bring the project to fruition.

More efficient buildings will save money in the long run.

“Everybody is strapped for cash,” Ralston said. So the energy efficiency project “is looking at adding new heating boilers, new rooftop units, chillers, and then also doing water conservation efforts in all of our buildings.”

In Crestwood, Mosallam, the superintendent, said district leaders focused on areas that most needed improvement, finding class sizes and school security to be priority areas. To lower class sizes, Crestwood needed more classrooms. And to ease security concerns, the district needed to add cameras and door lockdown systems, and upgrade fire systems.

While many districts are focusing on necessities, research indicates that higher quality school facilities help students learn. When they feel safe and in a nurturing environment, they’re more likely to engage with education.

Olivia Graf Doyle, design principal for Architecture for Education, a California-based firm dedicated to learning environments, said funding ideal learning environments in public schools has always been difficult, because schools often struggle to receive funding for even the necessities, such as keeping heating and cooling systems running or fixing bona fide safety hazards like crumbling ceilings.

Features like big glass windows or folding walls that seamlessly connect classrooms or enhanced outdoor spaces end up feeling like luxuries, she said.

“We really need to shift the conversation away from physical security and barriers, to really how we can use the learning environment to create a sense of belonging, which inherently builds safety,” she said.

Jordan said a lot of focus in media coverage around this spending has gone to new athletic fields or other projects that may seem more frivolous. But projects like that are rare, she said, according to her organization’s research. Instead, Jordan said districts nationwide are taking care of the necessities.

One school superintendent from a rural area of the country told Jordan that in an effort to replace a school’s roof, an inspection found the entire school needed to be condemned.

“Now there’s a lot of pushback like, ‘This is money that’s supposed to be emergency money or learning loss. Why is it going to facilities?’ And that’s a legitimate point,” she said. “But at the same token, you can’t really divorce facilities from learning. If kids are too hot or too cold, if there’s mold in the building, you get a lot of absenteeism. It’s harder to learn.”

Editor’s note: This story has been edited to add details around the state’s school consolidation and infrastructure fund.

Lily Altavena is an education reporter for the Detroit Free Press. You can reach Lily at laltavena@freepress.com.

Michigan’s ‘historic’ rise in education budget is tempered by inflation

2023-03-09T22:32:54+00:00

Michigan schools collecting increased state aid and federal COVID relief dollars are finding that those dollars don’t go as far as they used to.

At L’anse Creuse Public Schools, a 9,400-student district in Macomb County, expenses have spiked in virtually every area, said Superintendent Erik Edoff. Bus fuel is twice as expensive today as it was in 2020. Paper costs 24% more. Natural gas is up 80%.

To help employees keep up with rising prices for consumer goods, the district paid them unscheduled raises and bonuses.

So while Edoff is thankful that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is proposing another big funding increase for schools, he and other education leaders in the state caution that schools in Michigan still aren’t funded adequately when you account for inflation and rising student needs.

Inflation “mutes the positive impact” of the budget increases, Edoff said, “and I don’t think that’s being discussed very much.” The increases, he said, are about enough to maintain services, but don’t leave much room for improving them.

To be sure, education funding more than kept pace with inflation last year. Whitmer’s 2022-23 budget, which education leaders hailed as “generational,” provided a 16% increase in state education spending — or 7% in inflation-adjusted terms, as prices reached a 40-year high. Her budget for next year would also outpace prices.

“When Governor Whitmer described her education budget as ‘historic,’ she meant it,” Craig Thiel, research director for the Citizens Research Council, wrote in a recent blog post.

But advocates say the current pace of budget increases still isn’t enough to make up for decades of underfunding.

“The reality is, given the cost of education, there’s not enough money to do the things that we need to do,” said Molly Sweeney, organizing director for 482Forward. “COVID money is going away, we’re not keeping up with inflation, and we’re already underfunding our state as a whole.”

Inflation typically hasn’t factored into debates over Michigan’s annual education budget. For many years inflation rates were so low, that they made little appreciable difference in the impact of year-to-year funding changes.

But the pandemic and recovery period have roiled the economy. Michigan schools are getting much more funding, but part of that is going toward covering new costs for educational programs , and higher prices for basic goods and services, from fuel and food to raw materials for construction projects.

What’s more, schools face another round of fiscal reckoning once federal COVID aid ends next year.

In that context, it’s hard to tell whether school districts are unusually flush with money, or unusually strapped. The truth is a bit of both. Districts have much more money to work with than they have had in a long time, but the unpredictable effects of inflation, combined with other longstanding financial pressures, make it harder to allocate those funds.

Inflation compounds funding challenges

High prices are being felt in districts statewide. Detroit Public Schools Community District recently amended its budget to reflect several million dollars in unexpected, inflation-related costs. In Dearborn, officials ruled out a tentative plan to renovate two schools, pointing to rising building costs.

In rural Michigan, where school buses travel long distances, higher fuel prices are exacerbating already high transportation costs. “We had $100,000 in our diesel budget, and we burned through that in the first third of the year this year,” said Tom McKee, superintendent of Rudyard Area Schools in the Upper Peninsula.

Districts also face funding challenges unrelated to rising prices.

Declining enrollment, a long-running phenomenon exacerbated by the pandemic, will hurt districts financially because they are funded largely on a per pupil basis.

And staffing costs are up, part of the statewide effort to help students recover academically.

Whitmer spokesperson Stacey LaRouche pointed out that the governor’s budget proposal would exceed inflation over the coming year. Whitmer is proposing an increase of 9% for education — or 4% in inflation-adjusted terms.

“Governor Whitmer has worked to reverse decades of disinvestment in our state’s K-12 schools by securing more funding in every aspect of a child’s education to ensure that they have what they need to be successful,” LaRouche said in a statement.

The largest single item in Whitmer’s schools budget, per-pupil funding to schools, would increase 5% to a minimum of $9,608. That’s slightly less than the expected rate of inflation for this year. But it’s buttressed by substantial new proposed investments in tutoring, student loan forgiveness for teachers, and other specific programs. The per pupil increases of the last two years — 5% and 7% — are the largest of the last decade.

Thiel, from the Citizens Research Council, told Chalkbeat that Whitmer’s budget proposal would bring state spending in line with inflation over the last decade.

Sweeney and other education advocates say spending should be accelerated more to make up for a history of underfunding that goes further back.

Inflation effects may linger for some districts

While prices seemingly peaked in 2022 — Michigan economists expect inflation to drop to 5.5% this year and 3% the following year — the effects of the price spike may prove particularly persistent for school districts.

Most school spending goes to educator salaries, which are often set in three-year contracts.

Kentwood Public Schools, for instance, increased salaries for first-year teachers by 5% when its current contract began in 2021. When prices spiked, the district gave another 1% raise to all employees, plus additional scheduled pay increases. Even so, the raises hardly matched inflation.

The district will face the prospect of addressing several years of inflation when the current teachers contract expires this summer.

“The greatest impact of inflation is on our staff,” said Kentwood Superintendent Kevin Polston. “Their take-home increases aren’t keeping up with inflation. We want to increase compensation, but it’s not so easy.”

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Repeal of Michigan’s 3rd grade retention policy ready for Whitmer’s signature

2023-03-07T23:43:24+00:00

LANSING — Michigan’s Democratic-controlled House voted Tuesday to repeal the part of the state’s controversial third-grade reading law that required students who test more than a grade behind in reading to repeat third grade.

The repeal legislation, previously approved by the state Senate, is now headed toward the desk of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for her likely signature.

Reading laws with retention policies have become fairly common in recent decades as states seek to improve literacy early in students’ academic lives and reduce dropout rates. But critics contend the Michigan law is overly punitive, inequitable and ineffective.

In truth, the so-called read-or-flunk law was not so absolute. The GOP-passed measure contained multiple loopholes that allowed most struggling students to proceed to fourth grade — though in practice, Black and low-income students who qualified for retention were far more likely to be held back than more affluent and white students.

“The retention aspect of this law has been a threat hanging over our students’ heads,” state Rep. Nate Shannon, a Sterling Heights Democrat and former teacher, said before the vote. “Holding students back reinforces achievement gaps, racial inequality and disproportionately impacts low-income communities.”

All but one Republican voted against the repeal legislation, arguing that mandatory retention of struggling readers can help improve dismal student test scores and should not be disbanded before its impact can be fully assessed.

The repeal bill “removes tools that a district can utilize in their approach to one of the most important aspects of learning: failure,” said Rep. Brad Paquette, R-Niles. “This legislation is not data driven, yet contributes to a culture that runs away from failure rather than traversing through it and further adds on to a foundation of uncertainty around education policy here in the state of Michigan.”

The retention rule in the 2016 reading law, approved by then-Gov. Rick Snyder and a Republican-led Legislature, was supposed to take effect in 2020 but was delayed a year because the COVID-19 pandemic led to cancellation of the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, or M-STEP.

Michigan schools held back a combined 773 third-grade students because of the law in 2021 and 2022. But administrators used broad exemptions in the law to advance another 9,657 students who would have otherwise qualified for retention, according to researchers at Michigan State University.

Black students and those from low-income families are more than twice as likely to be held back compared with their white and wealthier peers who also were identified for retention because they struggled with reading, researchers found.

The legislation now awaiting Whitmer’s signature would repeal the third-grade retention part of the read-or-flunk law but retain other provisions designed to aid students who are struggling to read, including reading intervention services.

Public education groups have generally supported the repeal effort, and the MSU study found that only 26% of teachers, 9% of principals, and 8% of superintendents believe retention is an effective intervention.

As of last year, Michigan was one of 17 states with a third-grade reading retention law, in addition to eight others that allow for retention but do not require it, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

With Whitmer’s signature, Michigan would join Nevada as the only other state to repeal mandatory retention provisions. Tennessee legislators have been considering changes to a stricter retention policy that takes effect this year.

The Michigan repeal effort comes amid continued academic struggles. The state’s fourth grade students last year recorded their lowest reading scores in three decades, according to results from spring testing of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a nationally representative and ongoing assessment which evaluates students’ knowledge and abilities in a variety of subjects including reading.

Michigan’s fourth grade average scale reading score ranked 40th in the nation. Reading and math scores dropped from 2019 to 2022 in every state. Experts said it was no surprise given the extreme disruptions COVID-19 caused schools.

“There is no one-size-fits-all solution, which is why educators develop individualized reading plans,” said state Rep. Lori Stone, D-Warren, who voted to repeal the retention law.

“Arbitrarily retaining students results in an increased dropout rate and increased rates of incarceration. As such, continuing this policy of retention will continue to be counterproductive.”

The repeal legislation is the latest in a series of relatively quick actions by Democrats who in January took over both chambers of the Michigan Legislature for the first time in 40 years.

The new liberal majority has already repealed a GOP tax on pension income, expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, moved up the state’s presidential primary date, advanced gay rights legislation and begun to take up gun control measures, among other things.

On Wednesday, Democrats will begin another major policy debate as the House Labor Committee takes up union-backed legislation to repeal the state’s right-to-work law and restore worker wage guarantees for government-funded construction projects.

Jonathan Oosting is a reporter for Bridge Michigan. You can reach him at joosting@bridgemi.com.

State board recommends against group’s effort to shield students from ‘rogue sex ed’

2023-02-15T15:00:00+00:00

The State Board of Education is pushing back against a coordinated campaign to shield children from school lessons and conversations about sex, sexuality, gender, and abortion.

Members voted Tuesday along party lines to ask local school boards to require parents to use existing methods if they want to exclude their children from sex education in Michigan public schools.

An opt-out form from Great Schools Initiative, a new Michigan nonprofit, is encouraging parents to have their children excluded from “rogue sex ed.”

But, the board, which has no enforcement authority, can only issue recommendations against the coordinated campaign.

The board recommended that local districts reject any third-party forms as “invalid, irrelevant, and inconsequential.”

Board President Pamela Pugh introduced the resolution in response to the opt-out campaign.

The Great Schools form includes a long list of topics the nonprofit says parents can exclude their children from. Those include information about abortion, “self-pleasure,” gender fluidity, explicit sex acts, family planning, condoms, gender-neutral bathrooms, and more. The form includes opt-outs to ensure teachers don’t display LGBTQ+ flags, provide access to library books about sexuality and gender, or discuss gender-neutral bathrooms.

The group is affiliated with the Thomas More Society, a conservative law firm that uses litigation to try to shape laws around social issues such as abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and prayer in schools.

Its effort appears to be an outgrowth of debates over parents’ rights that dominated school board meetings and political campaigns in Michigan and across the country last year.

The Detroit Free Press reported that some districts have been receiving Great Schools Initiative’s forms and have been redirecting parents to follow opt-out procedures already established locally.

Pugh said the group is trying to confuse parents, to overwhelm school districts with a barrage of opt-out forms, to threaten lawsuits to intimidate teachers, and to advance a discriminatory “Don’t Say Gay” agenda.

“They want to cause so much disruption that it’s going to cause our school districts to just halt everything, and where does that leave our children?” Pugh asked in an interview during a break in Tuesday’s meeting. “It’s a way to pit parents against educators, and to cause fear.”

State law already requires districts to notify parents before offering sex education and includes provisions for children to be excluded without penalty.

Great Schools Initiative did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon.

Its website urges parents to opt out of “rogue sex ed” and “hyper-sexualization occurring in your child’s school today.” It includes a printable opt-out form for parents to submit to schools, an online form for reporting violations to Great Schools Initiative, and instructions for filing complaints against school districts.

“If the degree or quantity of such violations has become unacceptably egregious, legal action may be the remedy,” according to the website.

Republican board member Tom McMillin of Oakland Township, who voted against the resolution, said parents should be able to use any form they want so they can tailor their opt-out requests.

“People have different family values, different family circumstances,” he said during Tuesday’s meeting. He said it “goes against parental rights for government schools to decide what parents are allowed to do and not to do.”

Republican board member Nikki Snyder of Dexter, who also voted against the resolution, said the issue is broader than what form is used to exempt children out of sex education.

Parents “want their kids to go to school to learn the basics of education, and they want the right to opt out of certain topics that were never meant to be taught in school.”

Pugh’s resolution stipulates that “while the decisions of parents or legal guardians to remove their child from sex education classes must be respected, the established processes of school districts for opting out of classes must also be preserved for consistency, continuity, and accountability, solely through the use of a district’s legally drafted and legally binding forms.”

The Michigan Association of School Boards supports the resolution.

“I appreciate what GSI is trying to do but there’s already a process for parents to follow and a form that districts use,” MASB lobbyist Jennifer Smith said in a telephone interview after the board meeting. “The state board is trying to encourage districts to follow the law, and we would encourage the same. The tools are already there for parents that have a concern.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit literacy and transportation programs get big support in Whitmer budget proposal

2023-02-10T19:31:58+00:00

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s education budget proposal includes $103 million in new funding for Detroit education programs, signaling a commitment from state government to invest directly in the city’s education future as Democrats take control in Lansing.

Whitmer is proposing a $1.5 billion increase in state school funding, or 9%, including a 5% increase in per pupil spending that would reach every school in the state. Her budget taps an estimated $4 billion school aid surplus to fund a wide range of new programs.

While Detroit isn’t the only local beneficiary of the proposal — schools in isolated rural areas, for instance, would get extra funding — the city stands out as a big potential winner if Whitmer’s proposal becomes law.

That’s welcome news for a city and school system working to recover from generations of declining enrollment and disinvestment.

The governor’s proposal includes “the kind of investments Detroiters have long championed,” said Angelique Power, president of the Skillman Foundation, in a statement. “This is parents’ and educators’ voices being heard.”

Skillman is a Chalkbeat funder. Click here for a list of our supporters.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District would get $94.4 million to support literacy programs. The GOAL Line, a local after-school and student transportation program, would get a one-time $6 million investment, and the Detroit Parent Network, a nonprofit, would get $3 million to help with outreach about literacy programs.

That’s in addition to proposed funding for tutoring and mental health programs, which will benefit students statewide but are particularly needed in Detroit, given the high rate of COVID deaths and widespread virtual learning.

Whitmer proposed the DPSCD literacy programs as part of a settlement in the 2016 “right to read” lawsuit against the state, in which a group of DPSCD students charged that the state violated their constitutional right to a basic education by failing to teach them to read. Whitmer settled the case, agreeing to pay damages to the students and to propose $94.4 million for literacy programming in DPSCD every year as long as she was in office.

Republicans rejected that expenditure, but with Democrats in control of the state Legislature, there’s a stronger chance that it will happen this year.

“I’m all in for it,” said Helen Moore, an education activist who was a prominent public champion of the lawsuit. “The children are really behind, I think they’re worse off than (district officials) are reporting to the public … We need all the help we can get.”

If the district were to receive the settlement funding, according to DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti, officials would consider allocating the money toward hiring more academic interventionists for small group and one-on-one sessions, continuing literacy intervention for high school students and for teacher recruitment and retention.

To help with outreach for the new literacy programs, Whitmer is asking lawmakers to send $3 million to the Detroit Parent Network, a nonprofit that helps parents get involved in their children’s education.

The GOAL Line, which launched in 2018, serves children at 11 schools in northwest Detroit. The program is funded by the city, local foundations, and participating schools with the goal of helping working families.

Under Whitmer’s proposal, the GOAL Line would get $6 million in one-time federal COVID aid to supplement its $2.5 million annual budget and help expand its operations.

The GOAL Line currently serves 300 students, according to Adrian Monge, director of the Office of Early Learning for the City of Detroit. The Community Education Commission, which oversees GOAL Line operations, hopes to expand its services to as many as 525 students city-wide next year. The program currently transports students to Northwest Activities Center to participate in after-school activities. In the long term, Monge said, GOAL Line intends to open smaller sites across the city.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Whitmer taps surplus for 9% increase in Michigan school spending

2023-02-08T19:00:19+00:00

LANSING — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s new education budget proposal features a boost in per pupil funding for public schools, a new tutoring program, and a broad expansion of state-funded preschool.

The proposal would draw on $18 billion from the School Aid Fund, $74 million from the state’s general fund and $991 million in supplemental, one-time funding for fiscal year 2023. Altogether, it amounts to a 9% increase in state school aid spending over last year’s budget, which education leaders had hailed as a “generational” investment.

“This budget builds on the Get MI Kids Back on Track plan, which offers every student individual tutoring, after-school support, and other personalized learning supports,” Whitmer told reporters after she presented her budget to lawmakers. “There are resources geared toward improving classroom experiences, increasing compensation for educators, and investing in what kids need,” she added.

The governor’s spending request comes amid a record $9 billion state surplus, including $4 billion in the school aid fund.

It’s Whitmer’s fifth state budget, but the first she presented to a Legislature controlled by her own party.

Republican lawmakers said they generally support Whitmer’s most salient education proposals — tutoring and expanded preschool — but have questions about the details and concerns about whether her proposals would be sustainable in leaner times.

“I am a little surprised at how big the budget is, because it has grown tremendously,” said state Rep. Jaime Greene, Republican vice chair of the House Education Committee.

Per pupil funding would increase

Whitmer is proposing that the state raise the base per pupil funding for public schools to $9,608 from $9,150.

For students who receive special education, schools currently receive 75% of the per pupil allowance in addition to required cost reimbursements. Whitmer’s proposal would increase the rate to 87.5%, while keeping the cost reimbursement portion.

A funding decrease for online charter schools

Amid a general funding increase, Whitmer wants fully online charter schools to receive 20% less funding than brick-and-mortar schools.

Other states have similar policies, and the idea has been repeatedly proposed in Michigan, including by former Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican. GOP lawmakers have nixed the idea each year, but it now has a chance of passing.

Experts have long argued that online charter schools have lower costs, because they generally don’t transport students or maintain school buildings. This is harder to prove in Michigan, because many so-called cyber charters are operated by private, for-profit management companies that don’t have to disclose their spending.

“There is no way in the world that a cyber school should be getting full funding per pupil,” said Mike Addonizio, an emeritus professor of education policy at Wayne State University. “They don’t have brick-and-mortar schools to run.”

Charter school advocates criticized the proposal. Amy Dunlap, chairwoman of Public School Options’ Michigan chapter, said in a statement posted to Twitter that it is confounding that Whitmer’s budget “rightly” prioritizes the needs of students still struggling from the pandemic, but cut funding for cyber charter students.

“For thousands of children and their parents, as well as the public school teachers who teach there, these schools have provided a lifeline before, during, and after the pandemic,” Dunlap said.

State Budget Director Chris Harkins told reporters after the budget presentation that the cyber charter cut is “intended to reflect the lack of some of the infrastructure needs that some of our perhaps more traditional schools have.”

Charter schools have funding needs, too, Greene said.

“Cyber schools still have to pay their teachers, still have to purchase curriculum, still have to pay the administration,” she said in an interview on the House floor. “A lot of cyber schools also offer in-person opportunities for sports, and tutoring. … So why would they be punished when per-pupil funding still funds the same things for cyber schools? They’re essentially punishing them for being a cyber school.”

Budget calls for another preschool expansion

Whitmer wants to offer free preschool to every 4-year-old in Michigan within four years. Her budget takes a step in that direction, asking lawmakers to invest an additional $306 million in the state’s Great Start Readiness Program.

The money would allow thousands more children to enroll, expand the program from four to five days a week, and boost funding by 5%, to $9,608 per student, the same as K-12 funding. GSRP funding drew even with K-12 for the first time last year.

Republican state Rep. Nancy DeBoer of Holland agrees that free preschool should be available to more children but isn’t convinced the state should foot the bill for families who can afford it.

Currently, eligibility is based on family income and other factors such as homelessness and disability.

“I don’t think the state needs to pay for everybody at age 4,” said DeBoer, a former teacher and a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on School Aid. “I can understand if people are in difficult situations and don’t have a healthy place for their children, but otherwise, no.”

Greene said Whitmer’s preschool proposal leaves out parents who want to stay home with their children.

“Not all moms want to send their 4-year-olds to preschool. What about opportunities so they can work and also stay with their kids?” asked Greene, who homeschools her own children in Richmond. She suggested state support for job sharing and additional job security for working parents.

Greene also expressed concerns about the educator shortage, which could make it more difficult to staff preschool for all.

Recent expansions of the Great Start Readiness Program have been slowed by teacher shortages, exacerbated by disparities in pay. The $20,000 pay gap between teachers in Michigan’s state-funded preschool program and K-3 teachers is among the largest in the U.S.

“Right now it’s really hard to find staff,” said Amerra Macki, director of A & W Day Care Center, which operates four GSRP classrooms in Detroit. “I would love to see more money so we can hire more people.”

To draw more educators into early education, Whitmer is asking lawmakers for $50 million to assess the problem, expand training programs, and boost recruitment efforts.

Her preschool proposal also includes grants to help new GSRP classrooms open and to help existing programs expand.

Whitmer wants some of this funding to be approved quickly in a supplemental budget bill, rather than waiting for the state budgeting process, which likely won’t conclude for months. Among those proposals is $18 million to expand a pilot preschool program for 3-year-olds.

Budget offers $100 million for teacher recruitment and retention

Districts continue to struggle with a shortage of educators at all grade levels.

To alleviate that, Whitmer is calling for continued investment in the MI Future Educator program created last year. It provides scholarships of up to $10,000 per year for education majors and stipends of up to $9,600 per semester during student teaching. Whitmer budgeted $100 million for the program, up from the current $75 million.

Don Wotruba, executive director of the Michigan Association of School Boards, said his organization supports the investment in teacher recruitment and retention.

“By ensuring that our schools have the funds and talent necessary for excellent learning environments and experiences, Michigan is investing in its future thought leaders and changemakers — our kids,” Wotruba said in a statement.

Whitmer revives tutoring plan to mitigate learning loss

Whitmer will try again to roll out a comprehensive statewide tutoring program. Last year, Republicans rebuffed her $280 million proposal for individualized tutoring but agreed to $52 million in grants that districts could use for tutoring.

Whitmer is resurrecting that proposal and requesting that the state pass a supplemental spending package before spring break that includes $300 million for tutoring.

She first proposed the program after a media collaborative including Chalkbeat, Bridge Michigan, and the Detroit Free Press reported that Michigan, unlike other states, had not provided funding or a structure for a coordinated tutoring program.

Republicans preferred to provide $1,000 per pupil in grants that parents could use for private tutoring and instruction, but Whitmer vetoed that plan in 2021. A different tutoring proposal led by Republicans did not pass out of the House last year.

Greene hopes there will be flexibility in Get MI Kids Back on Track for private tutoring and online programs from vendors.

“Parents should be able to use the funding toward programs like that when their kids need a little bit of a boost,” Greene said.

Literacy and mental health would get more resources

Whitmer’s budget proposal also includes several other spending items, including:

$42 million for literacy coaches at intermediate school districts
$1.2 million for 10 new regional early literacy hubs
$94 million for the Detroit Public Schools Community District for literacy programs; the dollar amount was part of the settlement of a literacy lawsuit that alleged the state denied Detroit students their right to a basic education.
$4 million to get students books and other literacy materials using the Dolly Parton Imagination Library
$300 million for literacy professional development
$300 million for school mental-health staffing and programming to be spent over two years.

Trina Tocco, executive director of the Michigan Education Justice Coalition, said Whitmer’s budget proposal “recognizes that our leaders in Lansing have chronically underfunded our schools for decades, depriving students of the education they deserve.”

But Tocco said the budget doesn’t fully meet the needs of the education system, and state leaders must dig deeper.

“It’s time that our leaders in Lansing start talking about where additional funds will come from, because our kids deserve the investment,” Tocco said.

Free meals for all

Whitmer also proposed to spend $160 million to provide free meals in school for all students and another $1 million to help districts forgive debts that accumulated because of families who couldn’t afford to pay for breakfast and lunch.

The Whitmer proposal comes after a federal program that guaranteed universal school meals for students during the COVID-19 pandemic expired in July.

“We know that kids struggle to learn when they are also struggling with hunger, and ensuring that not a single student in our state has to go to school and face that reality is one of the best investments we can possibly make,” said Robert McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, which represents 123 school districts in the state.

Currently, families must make below 185% of the federal poverty level to qualify for free and reduced priced meals at school. For example, a family of four must make $51,338 or less to qualify for reduced priced meals, and $36,075 or less a year to qualify for free meals.

In Michigan, 581 of the state’s 889 school districts and charter schools qualified for federal support to provide districtwide free school meals, but only 323 of them — or 55.6% of eligible districts — opted in for the school year 2021-22, The Detroit News reported.

Nancy Lindman, public policy and research director for the Michigan Association of United Ways, applauded the proposal on Wednesday as “a good start” to remove “barriers to learning and kids thriving.”

“That is a great investment across the board,” she said. “It’s been tested, it’s been tried in some communities. To take this next step to make sure that we’ve got this universally in place is going to make our state a better place for kids to get an education.”

The next fiscal year begins Oct. 1, but lawmakers typically try to pass the school aid budget by the end of June, because school district fiscal years begin on July 1.

Bridge Michigan reporter Yue Stella Yu contributed to this report.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Isabel Lohman covers education for Bridge Michigan. Reach her at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Whitmer’s $306 million preschool proposal includes more money to hire teachers

2023-02-08T01:31:26+00:00

LANSING — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is asking lawmakers for $306 million to expand the state’s free preschool program, hire more teachers, and fund student transportation as part of her push for a universal pre-K system.

The plan, which Whitmer will formally pitch Wednesday in her executive budget presentation, calls for $73 million to add up to 5,600 4-year-olds to the Great Start Readiness Program and allow more families to access the free preschool, according to an outline provided to Bridge Michigan by the governor’s office.

Additional spending would help providers address teacher shortages, boost transportation options, and shift to five-day preschool programs, which experts say are hurdles the state must overcome to make the program universal over the next four years, as Whitmer proposed in her recent State of the State address.

Enrollment in Michigan’s state sponsored preschool program is still recovering from pandemic-era declines — about 36,000 of 60,000 slots were filled last year. But Whitmer said last month she wants to ensure all 110,000 Michigan 4-year-olds can enroll by the time she leaves office in 2027.

Under the governor’s new budget proposal, 4-year-olds would qualify for Great Start Readiness if they live in a home with adults who earn 300 percent or less of the federal poverty level or about $79,000 for a family of four.

That would be up from the current 250 percent threshold, and in some instances, families who earn up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level could also qualify, according to Whitmer’s office.

As Bridge Michigan reported last week, experts and educators say universal preschool is good for kids and the economy. A year of childcare now costs nearly $11,000 per year in Michigan, which experts say deters some parents from working.

But building an effective universal program would require hiring teachers to fill classrooms, boosting transportation funding, and expanding offerings to make the program more competitive with day care or developmental kindergarten, Superintendent Michael Rice previously told Bridge Michigan.

Whitmer’s budget proposal begins to address each of those potential hurdles.

It includes $50 million in one-time spending to help school districts hire new teachers and early childhood professionals. The governor also wants $30 million in ongoing funding to create a new tax credit of up to $30,000 for early childhood educators and child care professionals.

“We need to make sure our early educators feel supported to take care of their children and families while they make so many sacrifices for ours,” Whitmer said in a statement, calling them “critical to empowering our youngest Michiganders and helping them get on track for long-term success.”

While Democrats now control both chambers of the Michigan Legislature, their slim majorities mean the governor will seek bipartisan support for her preschool proposals. GOP leaders have supported the Great Start Readiness in the past, but last month questioned the cost and benefits of making it universal.

Whitmer’s plan includes $50 million in one-time funding for startup grants that her office said would help providers open up to 2,000 new classrooms, expanding the availability of preschool across the state.

She is also asking lawmakers for $75 million in one-time funding to help preschool programs shift to a five-day weekly schedule instead of four days.

The plan also includes $18 million in ongoing funding to support transportation of preschool students, along with $10 million in one-time funding for an outreach program to encourage parental enrollment.

Whitmer is set to unveil her full executive budget proposal Wednesday in an 11 a.m. presentation during a joint meeting of the House and Senate appropriations committee.

Return to Bridge Michigan for more coverage.

Jonathan Oosting is a reporter for Bridge Michigan. You can reach him at joosting@bridgemi.com.

Tutoring, literacy, and preschool: Whitmer K-12 budget centers on proposals with bipartisan support

2023-02-07T16:30:00+00:00

Literacy and tutoring are two things that Michigan Republicans and Democrats agree are important. And it’s probably no coincidence that they’re both near the top of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s education agenda.

Emerging details from the school aid budget that Whitmer will present Wednesday show that she is prioritizing areas nearly everyone supports, even if they can’t agree on the details.

That could help her conserve her political capital for partisan fights later.

Republicans are likely to push back hard against some of Whitmer’s non-budgetary priorities, including strengthening gun control, requiring more financial transparency from charter schools, codifying protections for LGBTQ people, and repealing the state’s right-to-work law.

With those fights on the horizon, Whitmer is being more cautious on the school budget, said Sarah Reckhow, associate professor of political science at Michigan State University.

“The proposals that have been coming out are not likely to raise a lot of pushback,” Reckhow said. “They would fall into the bread-and-butter categories. They’re programs that are pretty popular, things for kids that Democrats usually support and Republicans probably support, too.”

Still, Whitmer could face opposition, particularly over her tutoring program. Republicans and conservative education advocates are still angry about her 2021 veto of a GOP bill to provide state-funded scholarships for private tutoring.

State Board of Education President Pamela Pugh, a Democrat, said that she hasn’t yet seen the governor’s budget but that she supports proposals to offer universal preschool, provide one-on-one tutoring, and prepare parents to help children learn to read.

“We need to make sure the necessary budget is there for there to be healthy school learning environments,” she said.

Pugh said she would also like to see teacher retention bonuses like the ones Whitmer proposed last year, but Whitmer’s office said they won’t be part of this year’s budget.

Pugh said she hopes Whitmer’s budget will at least provide enough money for districts to provide their own teacher bonuses if they choose to, as some already do.

“They should be strongly encouraged” to provide bonuses to educators, she said.

The state board has no budgetary authority but can make spending recommendations.

Whitmer’s school funding priorities include the following, according to budget details shared with Chalkbeat Detroit, Bridge Michigan, the Detroit Free Press, and MLive:

Providing $300 million for individualized tutoring for all students.
Expanding the Great Start Readiness Program to offer free preschool to all 4-year-olds.
Creating regional literacy hubs and adopting the Parents as Teachers program so families have the tools to help children learn to read.
Training AmeriCorps volunteers to be literacy tutors.
Providing $160 million for free breakfast and lunch to all students. Children from low-income families already receive free or reduced-price lunch.
Funding college scholarships for education majors and stipends for student teachers.

The full school aid and general fund budgets are scheduled to be released at 11 a.m. Wednesday before the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. The budgets are expected to be posted online at about the same time.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Whitmer wants to extend help for future educators, but drops teacher retention bonus plan

2023-02-06T13:00:00+00:00

During her reelection campaign, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer promised to prioritize teacher recruitment and retention, but the budget she will unveil on Wednesday includes just $100 million for it — a small fraction of what she proposed last year.

Her proposal last February called for spending $1.5 billion on teacher retention bonuses over four years. Republicans wouldn’t support that. This year, Whitmer’s own party is in charge of the Legislature, but the bonuses are no longer a budget priority.

Instead, Whitmer’s education agenda is focused on tutoring and preschool. During her State of the State address last month, Whitmer said she would work to provide free preschool for all 4-year-olds and to provide one-on-one tutoring for all students who need it.

How much she intends to invest in those initiatives will become clear Wednesday during a budget presentation to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.

Those measures are part of the school aid budget that Whitmer will present along with a broader general fund budget proposal to invest in everything from agriculture to workforce development.

The governor’s office provided an early peek at her plan to continue the MI Future Educator incentive program, which was created in last year’s budget to help attract teachers. It provides $50 million in stipends for student teachers and $25 million in scholarships for education majors. Her new budget proposal would maintain those spending levels and add $25 million to “ensure sustainability of the program,” spokesman Bobby Leddy said.

“This is everything on recruitment and retention” in the budget, Leddy added in a text message Sunday. He did not provide details on how the additional money would be spent.

“In the best of years, education is a tough job, but the last few years have been historically challenging,” Whitmer said Sunday in a written statement. “Let’s build on our work last year to establish education fellowships, pay student teachers, boost teacher recruitment, and create more paths to the profession so every classroom has a caring, qualified educator.”

MI Future Educator provides up to $9,600 per semester for student teachers and up to $10,000 per year in tuition for Michigan residents who are enrolled in eligible educator preparation programs and working toward their first certification.

Education advocates including Launch Michigan, which first proposed the MI Future Educator program, are glad Whitmer wants it to continue.

“It clearly indicates that the governor recognizes that the solution to (the teacher shortage) is of a long-term nature,” said Adam Zemke, who was president of Launch Michigan when the program was conceived. “These are recruitment strategies that work.”

The Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals supports the initiatives, too.

“We have a massive educator shortage in the state of Michigan, and we need to address that shortage,” said spokesman Bob Kefgen. “Helping people become teachers will certainly help.”

Leddy did not respond to questions about why retention bonuses aren’t part of Whitmer’s new budget.

Others say that the moment for them may have passed. Last year at this time, COVID cases were spiking, and teachers were struggling to manage student behavior as students readjusted to in-person learning.

When Whitmer proposed the $1.5 billion in bonuses last year, “that felt like a one-time thing,” said Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, which represents school administrators in six counties. “It’s not sustainable, to be honest.”

And, McCann said, bonuses aren’t the only way to support teachers.

“What we should be doing to keep teachers invested in staying in school starts with investing in classrooms,” he said. That means “putting more money into reading coaches, social workers, and things that help teachers to do their jobs and be successful in the classroom. That’s what’s critical in retaining teachers.”

The budget request comes as the state considers what to do with a projected $9 billion budget surplus. Whitmer and fellow Democrats want to use some of that to distribute inflation-relief checks to all taxpayers.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Teacher unions back right-to-work repeal effort, even though it wouldn’t help them

2023-02-02T16:15:00+00:00

Michigan teachers unions are backing a Democratic plan that would help labor groups in the state generate more resources for their collective bargaining efforts, even though the plan wouldn’t involve public school educators or other government employees.

At issue is a 2012 state law that freed workers at unionized workplaces who decline to join the union from having to pay a portion of dues — known as “agency fees” — to support the work that unions do on their behalf, such as negotiating wages and benefits. The law, which supporters refer to as a “right to work” policy, sparked fierce debate and spirited protests that drew national attention when it was passed in a state that has long been a stronghold for organized labor.

Democrats and their allies in the labor movement have long opposed the law. And now that they control the state Legislature and the governor’s office, Democrats have put the issue at the top of their agenda, making repeal bills the first legislation introduced this legislative session: One has been introduced in the House, and another in the Senate.

But neither bill would apply to public school teachers and their labor unions. That’s because of a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says public employees who opt not to join a union cannot be required to pay agency fees.

Still, teachers unions are joining the fight against a law that opponents say strengthens private industry and employers at the expense of organized labor.

“Right to Work is an attack on working folk and all of organized labor,” said David Hecker, president of Michigan’s branch of the American Federation of Teachers.

Union leaders also want to be prepared if the Supreme Court reconsiders its 2018 decision in Janus v. AFSCME, which established the exception for public employees. Reversals are rare but not unprecedented. Just last year, the high court overturned its 1973 decision in the abortion case Roe v. Wade.

“It’s important to us that we already have state laws in place so if the Supreme Court does reconsider Janus down the road we have laws on the books (in Michigan) that allow workers to have their rights,” said Thomas Morgan, spokesman for the Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union.

“People who don’t join a union should still pay their fair share for the cost of representation,” he said. “Negotiating the contract and all the things unions do are not free.”

Conservatives warn that repealing the law would discourage employers from coming to Michigan or staying here.

The right-leaning Mackinac Center for Public Policy supports the right-to-work law and says there’s good reason for keeping the policy in place for government employees in particular.

Labor unions have political arms that influence public policies set by their members’ employers, said Patrick Wright, a labor attorney and vice president of legal affairs for the Mackinac Center, which advocates for free-market principles.

MEA spent $3.8 million on lobbying and political activities last year according to Department of Labor filings. That’s about 4.5% of its $84.2 million in revenue.

Those figures don’t tell the whole story, Wright said. Public-sector unions are intrinsically political, he said, and employees shouldn’t be required to support unions if they don’t want to.

“Maybe you disagree with what the union spends its money on. Maybe you don’t like their abortion stance, their gun stance, their whatever else stance,” he said. “There are so many things that unions get their fingers in.”

Michigan State University researcher Katharine Strunk, who has studied teachers’ unions and collective bargaining for decades, warned in 2018 that the Janus ruling would reduce union membership and revenue, and diminish bargaining power.

“When unions no longer have the ability to require people to pay union dues, it does seem to drastically reduce membership, because why would you pay for something you could free-ride on?” Strunk said in an interview this week. Her labor research is separate from her work as director of the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative.

In the 10 years since the right-to-work law took effect, MEA’s membership decreased from 151,771 to 117,994, according to U.S. Labor Department filings. Its revenue dropped from $122 million to $84.2 million over that period, filings show.

It’s not possible to know how much of that decline resulted directly from the law. MEA attributes some of the decline to declining enrollment and a shortage of teachers that was exacerbated by the pandemic.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Repeal of retention rule in 3rd-grade reading law advances in Michigan Senate

2023-01-31T22:54:36+00:00

The Michigan Senate took a big step toward undoing an unpopular GOP-backed rule requiring districts to flag poor readers in third grade to be held back for a year.

The Senate Education Committee on Tuesday voted 5-1 to advance legislation to repeal the retention rule in Michigan’s Read by Grade Three law. Earlier Tuesday the House Education Committee heard testimony on similar legislation and could vote it out of committee as soon as next week, putting one of Democrats’ top education priorities on the fast track to the House and Senate floors.

The legislation has broad support among Democrats, who control both chambers, but amendments are possible, particularly from lawmakers who might use the bill as a vehicle for bipartisan reforms in the way students are screened for dyslexia.

GOP opponents of the bill say repealing the retention rule would water down Michigan’s academic standards. But even some Republicans back the repeal effort, including state Sen. Ruth Johnson of Holly.

“There’s no skill as vital to success in life as reading but I don’t believe that a student should be held back in third grade just because they’re struggling to read,” Johnson said at Tuesday’s hearing. Instead, she said, they should be given tutoring and other help to succeed.

Sen. Dayna Polehanki, the committee’s chairperson and sponsor of the bill, said that help will be available.

“All of the supports a student would have received repeating the third grade will now be extended to a student in their fourth grade year,” said Polehanki, a Democrat from Livonia and a former teacher.

Those supports include individualized reading improvement plans, progress monitoring, read-at-home plans, and daily small-group instruction. All of those provisions would remain in state law, along with requirements for literacy coaches and professional development for teachers, Polehanki said.

State Superintendent Michael Rice testified before both committees in favor of ending the retention rule.

“Let’s eliminate the punitive, and let’s start building on the more positive to support our children,” Rice told members of the House Education Committee.

Retention is ineffective, unpopular with teachers, and damaging to students’ self-efficacy, said education researcher Katharine Strunk, who testified before both the House and Senate committees. Strunk is executive director of Michigan State University’s Education Policy Innovation Collaborative, a research partner of the Michigan Department of Education.

The retention rule hasn’t had the effect lawmakers envisioned when they passed the reading law in 2016 as a way to identify struggling readers, provide individualized help, and hire literacy coaches. The law took effect gradually, and 2021-22 was the first year third-graders were retained because of it.

Because the law allows broad exemptions, fewer than 1% of students flagged for retention actually repeat third grade. Most of them are exempted from the requirement, because of their status as English language learners or special education students, or simply because their parents and school administrators agreed that it was in the students’ best interest to promote them to fourth grade, Strunk said.

The time spent working out such agreements would be better spent on actually improving students’ reading skills, Rice told the House committee.

The retention rule “is a well-intentioned reform but it does not, in fact, meet its mark,” he said. Repealing it “doesn’t preclude retention in those rare cases where it might be a good circumstance. It simply means that the default is no longer retention.”

Spokespeople for House Speaker Joe Tate of Detroit and Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks of Grand Rapids did not immediately respond to questions about whether and when they might schedule floor votes on the repeal bill.

Johnson, who supports the bill, abstained from Tuesday’s vote, saying she intends to support the legislation if a provision is added to ensure that parents are notified about their children’s reading difficulties.

Republican Sen. John Damoose of Harbor Springs, who cast the lone no vote in the Senate committee, opposes the repeal, saying it would weaken educational standards and limit accountability.

In the House committee, too, Republican opponents of the bill said they see the retention rule as a useful tool.

State Rep. Brad Paquette, a Republican from Berrien Springs and a former teacher, said the threat of retention should remain in the law, because it could motivate students to work harder.

“I know when I was young and I had the specter of ‘Oh, you might get held back,’ that really was a good kick in the pants,” he said during the committee hearing.

Rep. Jaime Greene, vice chairperson of the House committee, said retention helps ensure that children have basic reading skills before they move on to fourth grade.

“We have one of the lowest reading levels in the country, so if we’re not going to retain them, what are we going to do?” asked Greene, a Republican from Richmond. “We’ve got to do something.”

Rice and Strunk said there’s a lot that can be done.

“More time in small groups or one-on-one with a qualified educator who is focused on literacy instruction is what we know to be the most impactful,” Strunk said.

In her State of the State address last week, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer proposed a plan to provide individualized tutoring for students in all grades and all subjects. She is expected to lay out details when she presents her budget on Feb. 8.

She also proposed expanding the Great Start Readiness Program, Michigan’s public preschool, to all 4-year-olds.

“I do think we should weave preschool into the fabric of our public education system far more extensively than it is now,” Rice told the House committee Tuesday. Enrollment shouldn’t be mandatory, but it’s “enormously important” for every 4-year-old in Michigan to have access to preschool, he said.

He also asked lawmakers to provide more education funding that could be used to reduce class sizes in low-achieving districts with high poverty, to offer more professional development in reading instruction, to help students with dyslexia, and to provide programs after school and in the summer.

Democrats’ effort to repeal the retention rule could open the door to other reading reforms, including a renewed emphasis on phonics. That approach teaches children to sound out words and apply rules of spelling and pronunciation.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Whitmer’s fifth State of the State: Expanded preschool, tutoring top education agenda

2023-01-26T02:11:51+00:00

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, working with a friendly majority in the Legislature and a historically large budget surplus, used the first major speech of her second term to explain how she plans to use those advantages to shape Michigan’s education policy.

At the top of the wish list: providing free preschool for all Michigan 4-year-olds over the next four years and expanding one-on-one tutoring for older children.

“When a child gets a great start, and learns to read, and graduates high school … they are on track to land a good-paying job or pursue higher education,” the governor told a joint session of the Michigan Legislature in her State of the State address Wednesday. “Unfortunately, the last few years have disrupted regular learning patterns.”

In-class instruction alone isn’t enough for kids to catch up, Whitmer said.

It was the governor’s fifth State of the State speech, but the first delivered to a majority that shares her political ideology. Her first four were before Republican majorities that resisted her plans. Now the Democrats control both legislative chambers for the first time in 40 years.

That doesn’t mean her proposals will sail through without resistance. Republicans and school choice proponents already are pushing back.

Hours before the speech, the Great Lakes Education Project predicted that Whitmer’s plans would only spend more on an already broken system.

“Doubling down on the systems and bureaucracies that have already failed our kids won’t produce better results,” Executive Director Beth DeShone said in a written statement. GLEP is a nonprofit group founded by Betsy DeVos, a former U.S. education secretary and Michigan’s most vocal proponent of school choice.

DeShone said she prefers policies that give parents more control over their children’s education such as a program allowing tax credits for contributions to scholarships that parents could use for private school tuition, tutoring, or extracurricular activities.

DeShone and other Whitmer critics were quick to point out that test scores have been declining across Michigan, particularly in Detroit and other urban areas hit hardest by the pandemic.

Tutoring plan is broad in scope

Tutoring is at the center of Get MI Kids Back on Track, Whitmer’s plan to help struggling students rebound after two years of pandemic-related disruptions that set back learning.

Even if the Legislature agrees, it won’t be easy to staff the program. Already districts are having trouble finding enough tutors for existing local programs.

Whitmer did not say how much the program would cost. Those details will emerge later as she rolls out her 2024 budget over the coming weeks.

Whitmer proposed a similar tutoring plan last May, saying then that it would cost $280 million. The proposal came three weeks after Chalkbeat Detroit, Bridge Michigan, and the Detroit Free Press reported that Michigan wasn’t making the same kind of investments that other states had in the comprehensive statewide tutoring strategies that researchers say make a difference. Instead, Michigan districts have been left to develop their own tutoring programs to help children catch up after two years of pandemic-related disruptions.

Republicans, who then controlled the Legislature, largely dismissed her proposal but did provide $52 million for tutoring in this year’s school aid budget. Their own plan, a $155 million proposal to provide up to $1,000 per student for parents to hire private reading tutors for elementary children, was vetoed by Whitmer, as public school advocates said it would siphon money away from public schools.

Get MI Kids Back on Track is broader in scope than the GOP plan and would provide tutors for all grades and core subjects.

“Whether you’re a third grader learning about the solar system, a sixth grader focusing on fractions, or a junior sharpening persuasive writing skills, tutoring addresses your specific learning challenges,” Whitmer said in her speech.

Advocates from the K-12 Alliance of Michigan back the education priorities Whitmer outlined Wednesday.

“We know that providing students with one-on-one tutoring support is often one of the most important resources we can make available in our schools,” said Executive Director Bob McCann, whose group represents superintendents from Michigan’s most populous counties.

In his written statement, McCann added that universal pre-kindergarten will ensure that all families have access to programs to prepare their children for long term success in school.

Whitmer’s K-12 proposals aren’t new. She raised them during her reelection campaign against Republican challenger Tudor Dixon, who ran on a school choice and parents’ rights platform.

Still, the education agenda Whitmer put forth Wednesday was meatier than the plan in her 2022 State of the State address, which proposed investing more in education but introduced no specific new school programs.

Whitmer begins her second term with a $9.2 billion state budget surplus, including $4.1 billion in the school aid fund. Some lawmakers will be looking to reinvest that money in state programs, while others — Republicans and Democrats alike — are eyeing tax cuts.

Whitmer has both in mind. In her speech she reintroduced her plans to repeal a 2011 law that taxes retirees on their pensions and to expand the Working Families Tax Credit.

“Data shows boosting the Working Families Tax Credit also closes health and wealth gaps,” she told lawmakers Wednesday. “Children who grow up with this support have better test scores, graduation rates, and earnings as adults.”

Whitmer also used Wednesday’s speech to tout her first-term accomplishments. Those included creating a fellowship program for education majors, paying student teachers, and expanding school mental health programs.

“We made record investments in our children and schools by leading with our shared values,” she said. “We closed the funding gap between schools. We brought student investment to an all-time high four years in a row without raising taxes.”

Preschool plan would be open to all 4-year-olds

Whitmer’s ambitious early childhood proposal, which would be rolled out over four years, would lift current restrictions on eligibility for the Great Start Readiness Program, paving the way for every 4-year-old in the state to enroll.

“This investment will ensure children arrive at kindergarten ready to learn and saves their families upwards of $10,000 a year,” Whitmer said. “It helps parents, especially moms, go back to work. And it will launch hundreds more preschool classrooms across Michigan, supporting thousands of jobs.”

There are an estimated 116,000 4-year-olds in Michigan, and about 35,000 are enrolled in GSRP statewide. To qualify for the program today, a family of four must make less than $70,000 per year or face other barriers such as homelessness.

The proposal would add Michigan to a growing list of about a dozen states with universal preschool eligibility. Those states vary widely in the proportion of eligible 4-year-olds who are actually enrolled.

Some providers celebrated the idea, saying it would allow them to reduce paperwork and enroll more children.

“I would go for that,” said Princess Dobbins, who operates three child care centers with GSRP classrooms in the Detroit area. “The only reason we’ve got so much paperwork is the (enrollment) restrictions.”

Whitmer offered few details about how the program would work or how much it would cost. The GSRP budget is currently $418 million; a spokesman for her office said the expansion would be funded in the short-run using the state’s historic surplus. Advocates said they expect more information when the governor releases her budget recommendations in early February.

Key questions include how expansion plans would address chronic early educator shortages, how they would affect the rest of the early childhood landscape, and how much programming families of preschoolers would receive. GSRP programs offer care four days per week.

Educator shortages have hampered the most recent expansion effort. Whitmer tapped federal COVID aid for a large GSRP expansion in 2021, but the state has struggled to find teachers to staff the new classrooms necessary to reach her enrollment goals.

“We’re already lagging in terms of uptake, and we’ll continue to have that lag if we don’t address the talent issues,” said Denise Smith, implementation director for Hope Starts Here, a nonprofit early childhood initiative in Detroit. She suggested that the state could require GSRP programs to pay teachers a living wage as a condition of receiving the new funds.

Advocates also worry that expansion could cause problems for child care programs that enroll 4-year-olds and younger children. Four-year-olds are less expensive to care for than younger children because they require less supervision; drawing them away from community-based child care could make it harder for those programs to continue serving younger children.

“That’s the elephant in the room,” said Matt Gillard, president of Michigan’s Children, an advocacy group. He said his understanding is that the Whitmer administration plans to put together “a panel of experts to figure out how we can fashion this in a way that mitigates those impacts.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org. Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

State of the State: Whitmer pushing for 1:1 tutoring as Michigan students struggle

2023-01-23T11:00:00+00:00

If Gov. Gretchen Whitmer gets her way, Michigan children could start getting one-on-one tutoring in reading before spring break.

Tutoring is her top education priority as she prepares to deliver her fifth State of the State address Wednesday night in Lansing.

“Unfortunately, the last few years have disrupted learning patterns, and in-class instruction alone is not enough,” Whitmer said in a written statement to Chalkbeat and Bridge Michigan.

She is asking lawmakers to quickly fund her Get MI Kids Back on Track plan, a program she first asked for eight months ago to address learning challenges through tutoring and after-school programs and help the state’s long-term economic growth by better preparing students for the workforce, according to her office.

When Whitmer put forward the idea last May, she found little traction in a legislature controlled by Republicans reluctant to give her any policy wins during an election year.

The next budget year begins July 1, so starting the program before then would require a supplemental appropriation to this year’s budget.

Whitmer’s initial $280 million proposal came three weeks after a report by Chalkbeat Detroit, Bridge Michigan, and the Detroit Free Press found that a lack of state leadership on tutoring resulted in an uneven patchwork of programs.

Michigan has no statewide tutoring strategy, but individual districts including Detroit Public Schools Community District — the state’s largest — have their own programs. Many other states already had comprehensive statewide strategies to recruit teachers and dedicate funds to expand tutoring programs.

Enactment of MI Kids Back on Track is far more likely now that Democrats control the Legislature.

State Rep. Matt Koleszar, chairperson of the House Education Committee, declined to discuss the tutoring program ahead of the governor’s address, but indicated he is on board with her priorities.

“I’m excited to work hand-in-hand with the governor and to continue on our path of record funding for our schools, and provide for our students with proven and innovative methods,” a Democrat from Plymouth, said in a text message Sunday.

State Rep. Jaime Greene, Republican vice chairperson of the House Education Committee, said she supports efforts to compensate for learning loss during the pandemic but hopes there also is room for school choice in Whitmer’s K-12 agenda.

Pandemic-related school closures “have greatly affected students, and as a state we need to improve opportunities in many different areas to help students get back on track,” Greene of Richmond said in an email message Sunday.

“I hope the governor on Wednesday will also address the need for parents to have a greater role in their children’s education. Parents have the inherent right to help choose the manner and content of their child’s curriculum,” she said.

School choice is unlikely to be on Whitmer’s agenda. She has opposed proposals that would divert money from public schools. That includes a $155 million GOP tutoring proposal she vetoed in 2021. That plan would have provided publicly funded scholarships of up to $1,000 for elementary students to get private tutoring or reading instruction.

John Damoose of Harbor Springs, Republican vice chairperson of the Senate Education Committee, declined to comment on Get MI Kids Back on Track until after Whitmer’s speech, when he will know more about her plans.

Typically, State of the State addresses provide the broad framework of governors’ goals. Details such as cost emerge later in budget addresses and spending proposals.

Research shows that tutoring is a highly effective way to increase achievement, especially for students from lower income families. Those are the same families whose communities were hit hardest by the pandemic.

That’s born out in Michigan test scores. They sharply declined during the pandemic, particularly for students from economically disadvantaged families. Fourth graders recorded their lowest reading scores in three decades on the National Assessment of Education Progress.

Academic struggles were more pronounced among children in large urban districts with high poverty rates. Researchers from Harvard and Stanford universities found that students in Detroit, Saginaw, and Lansing lost the equivalent of about a year or more of learning during the pandemic.

“Right now, kids in Michigan need extra support to catch up and get on track for long-term success,” Tracey Troy, chairperson of the Michigan Parents’ Council, said in a written statement forwarded by the governor’s office.

Whitmer’s proposal “will expand tutoring, after-school programs, and other learning supports to get kids one-on-one time with a caring, qualified educator that they need to succeed,” said Troy, who also is past president of the Michigan PTA.

Education advocates have been calling for a concerted effort to bring individualized instruction to students who need it most. In a report this month, the advocacy group Education Trust-Midwest said intensive tutoring is key to post-pandemic academic recovery and called on lawmakers to invest in it.

But finding funding isn’t enough.

Districts also need to find people to staff tutoring programs as districts including DPSCD already are struggling to find enough staff for existing programs.

State Superintendent Michael Rice acknowledged the problem at this month’s State Board of Education meeting. He said he is looking to the Legislature to provide funding to hire and train enough tutors to work with the neediest children at least three times a week, either individually or in pairs.

“They need to be trained tutors, not simply Mikey from the curb who’s come in,” Rice said during the meeting. “Mikey can be trained, but Mikey needs training.”

Whitmer also is expected to address other education issues during her speech, including school funding and efforts to attract and retain teachers.

She also will discuss her broader goals for the state, such as making the state more competitive, bolstering manufacturing, and protecting fundamental rights.

The State of the State address is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday before a joint session of the Michigan Senate and House of Representatives. It is expected to be livestreamed and broadcast live on many local television stations.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Former teachers take the reins of education committees in Michigan Legislature

2023-01-13T21:21:10+00:00

Five years ago, Dayna Polehanki was the only K-12 educator on the state Senate Education Committee. It had been at least 10 years since a career educator served on the committee, Polehanki lamented at the time.

Now Polehanki, a Democrat and former English teacher from Livonia, leads the committee. Three other legislative panels that control education policy and spending also are newly under the leadership of former teachers, giving them unprecedented power in the Democratic-controlled Legislature over what Michigan children learn, how they are taught, and how schools are funded.

Teachers have held leadership posts in the Legislature before, but lawmakers and lobbyists said they can’t remember a time when so many former educators were in such powerful positions.

“To me, it sends a message about the priorities of the majority party,” said Bob Kefgen, lobbyist for the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals. “It means the voices of educators will be driving the conversation in both education policy and budgeting.”

The appointments and committee assignments were announced Thursday by the Legislature’s new Democratic leaders: House Speaker Joe Tate of Detroit and Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks of Grand Rapids.

The committee leaders will help advance a Democratic education agenda that includes more money for school facilities, a new school funding formula, bonuses for teachers, an end to the retention policy in the state’s third-grade reading law, and new financial transparency rules for charter schools. Those are priorities Democrats couldn’t get any traction on last session, when Republicans controlled the agenda.

Republican priorities have been centered around parents’ rights and curriculum transparency. Last session members debated how schools teach about race, whether to allow transgender athletes on school teams, and whether to require teachers to post lesson plans online so parents and activists can monitor what’s taught.

“The most important work of the Legislature happens in the humble committee meeting,” Brinks said in a press release. “It’s where problems are identified and people can participate in shaping policy solutions.”

State Rep. Matt Koleszar was tapped to lead the House Education Committee. He taught English and social studies for 12 years at Airport Community Schools in Monroe County. At least six of the committee’s other 12 members also have classroom experience, Koleszar said.

State Rep. Regina Weiss of Oak Park was named chairperson of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on School Aid and Education. She taught English and social studies in the Detroit Public Schools Community District for five years.

Sen. Darrin Camilleri of Trenton will lead the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on PreK-12. Camilleri taught at Consortium College Preparatory High School in Detroit.

Polehanki taught high school English and is a former district teacher of the year for New Haven Community Schools.

The appointments mean that teachers’ voices will be part of every meaningful discussion about education policy and funding in the Legislature for the next two years.

“These are committees that are going to be making huge influential decisions about the policies we set to make sure our kids are succeeding, to make sure our educators are respected, and that our schools are properly funded,” Weiss said. “This is the first time we’ve had educators completely leading this charge.”

That’s encouraging, said Thomas Morgan, spokesman for the Michigan Education Association, the large teachers union.

“So often you see lawmakers and bureaucrats getting together and deciding what the policies are going to be without bothering to go actually talk to teachers and support staff on the front lines who actually work in the schools,” Morgan said.

Polehanki, Koleszar, Camilleri, and Weiss “understand what it’s like to lead a classroom, they understand what it’s like to deal with all the stressors that educators face on a daily basis, and they are legitimately enthusiastic about helping to address the issues in our schools,” he said.

In separate interviews, the four emphasized their commitment to public schools.

That makes advocates for school choice wary that the former public school teachers will give short shrift to other education alternatives.

“Lawmakers should be working to ensure that students have access to the fullest range of educational opportunities,” said Holly Wetzel, spokesperson for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which has advocated for charter schools, online schools, and private school vouchers.

Several Republicans on the committees did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday, but they are likely to ensure that perspectives like Wetzel’s are heard.

For example, state Rep. Jaime Greene, the House Education Committee’s Republican vice chairperson, campaigned on a parents’ rights platform, saying that she supports families’ rights to choose where and how their children are taught. She promised on her campaign website to “stand up for parents having a vital role in education, no matter what form they choose.”

The previous chair of the House Education Committee was Republican Pamela Hornberger, who had been a teacher in Imlay City Community Schools. Hornberger, who ran unsuccessfully for Senate last year, is no longer in the Legislature. The Senate committee was led by Lana Theiss of Brighton, who does not have a teaching background.

Weiss said she ran for office in 2020 because she felt teachers didn’t have enough of a voice in Lansing.

“It seemed like a disconnect between the policymakers in Lansing and the people who were actually on the ground being affected by the policy changes,” she said. Lawmakers weren’t doing things that mattered — such as ensuring safe and secure school buildings, she said.

“Every district in Michigan is on their own when it comes to school funding so we have immense inequality,” said Weiss, who described teaching in Detroit classrooms that had rats, roaches, and leaky roofs.

She said her committee will prioritize developing a system to fund school infrastructure improvements.

That will be a Senate priority, too, Camilleri said.

“We need to make sure our school systems across the state can modernize their school buildings, whether that means pulling down more federal dollars or thinking about ways to spend our state dollars differently,” he said. “It’s time for us to invest infrastructure dollars.”

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Jaime Greene’s name, to clarify that Dayna Polehanki was the only K-12 educator when she first joined the Senate education committee, and to correct when Regina Weiss was elected to the legislature.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Pamela Pugh elected Michigan school board president

2023-01-11T13:30:00+00:00

Democrat Pamela Pugh, the new voice of the state school board, vowed to work closely with the Michigan Department of Education to accomplish a long list of legislative priorities that includes everything from gun control to free school lunches.

Pugh was elected president of the Board of Education Tuesday in a 6-0 vote, with the two Republicans on the panel voting “present” rather than opposing her. She takes office at a significant moment: Her party now controls the state House, Senate, and executive branch for the first time in nearly four decades.

The state board is responsible for the education of the state’s 1.3 million public school students, but it has little authority, other than to hire and fire the state superintendent and to approve standards that local districts use to set curriculums. In Michigan, most education policy decisions are the purview of the Legislature.

That means the board often exercises its power through the bully pulpit.

“The people who are on our board have mouths big enough and loud enough, and the majority have the right intentions as well as the right skill sets to influence and shape the agenda,” Pugh said in an interview. “I do think we’ll have influence, and we won’t be unaligned” with the Legislature.

Among her priorities are repealing the third-grade reading law’s retention rule, requiring more fiscal transparency from charter schools, adequately staffing schools, and funding schools more equitably.

State Superintendent Michael Rice shares those goals and has many more, which he presented to the board on Tuesday. Among them are:

Making it easier for retired school employees to return to work in schools.
Reducing barriers for counselors and teachers certified in other states to work in Michigan.
Strengthening gun control laws to address school violence.
Ensuring that children in foster care receive credit for courses they take while in congregate care facilities.
Implementing a weighted school funding system that ensures adequate resources for students with special needs.
Reviving a temporary provision that allowed school staff to substitute teach last school year even if they hadn’t been to college. The measure was meant to help alleviate a teacher shortage but few districts used it.
Providing teacher retention bonuses.
Streamlining teacher evaluations.
Accelerating teacher preparation programs to get pre-kindergarten teachers in classrooms faster and reduce the wait list for the state’s Great Start Readiness Program.
Requiring parents to register home-schooled children with the state.
Expanding Great Start Readiness to provide instruction five days per week and 38 weeks per year. Currently, it operates four days per week for 30 weeks.
Training tutors.
Creating family literacy centers throughout the state.
Ensuring funding continues for school mental health services.
Providing more funding for career and technical education programs.
Providing free school lunches to every student.

Many of those proposals were introduced during the last legislative session, when Republicans controlled both chambers, but were not brought to the floor for votes.

“We’ll get some traction this session,” said Marty Ackley, the Michigan Department of Education’s director of public and governmental affairs.

The two Republicans on the board — Tom McMillin of Oakland Township and Nikki Snyder of Dexter — said they oppose some of the agenda items, particularly registration requirements for home-schooled students.

“It might sound innocent at first, but it’s a first step toward control,” McMillin said.

The families who home-school their children exercised their constitutional rights to leave public schools because they weren’t the right choice for them, Snyder said, so it isn’t right to require them to register with the public school system.

Pugh expects the new Legislature will be more likely to advance the Department of Education’s proposals. Legislative leaders already have said they share some of those priorities.

“We really have an aligned vision,” Pugh said. “With the expertise we have (on the state board) and the relationships we have, we believe we can move quickly to support the Legislature to make decisions.”

Pugh, of Saginaw, is a public health expert and an environmental health consultant who works with urban communities. She was first elected to the board in 2014 and most recently served as vice president.

She comes from a family of educators. She said her mother was a paraprofessional, her father was a professor and administrator at Delta College, and her grandfather Millage Pugh built a one-room schoolhouse so Black children in Shubuta, Mississippi, could get an education.

Yvette White, president of the Michigan NAACP and a longtime friend, said Pugh will be a good advocate for children who need help the most.

“She’s always reaching out and speaking up on equity issues,” White said. “It’s important to always have someone at the table, to have a voice at the table, who is focused on the issues that are important to the community as a whole.”

Other officers also were elected Tuesday, all on 6-0 votes with Republicans again voting “present.” They are: co-vice presidents Ellen Cogen Lipton of Huntington Woods and Tiffany Tilley of West Bloomfield; Secretary Judith Pritchett of Washington Township, and Treasurer Marshall Bullock of Detroit. All are Democrats.

Bullock is the newest member of the board, having been appointed last month to fill Democrat Jason Strayhorn’s unexpired term. Strayhorn resigned in July and moved out of state.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan students are struggling. A new report calls for fair funding to reverse slide.

2023-01-10T15:25:15+00:00

A new report on Michigan’s struggling education system says dramatic change is needed to stem academic declines and ensure all students are receiving a quality education.

Among the top recommendations in the report: Michigan should adopt a school funding system that is more fair and equitable than the current one, which distributes state funding on a per-pupil basis but has provisions that still allow for wide disparities in spending between poorer and wealthier districts.

In the report released Tuesday, the Education Trust-Midwest, an education research and advocacy organization, predicts that Michigan’s academic rankings will decline or stagnate by 2030 in some key areas. The rankings are based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, an exam taken by a representative sample of students in each state.

Michigan’s rankings on this exam have slid over the last decade. And there are troubling signs of what could come, after scores on the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress and the NAEP showed sharp declines from pre-pandemic levels. On the NAEP, Michigan’s eighth-grade math scores ranked 26th in the country. By 2030, if current patterns hold, Michigan would fall to 29th. In fourth-grade reading, the state ranks 43rd and is projected to remain there in 2030.

As additional evidence of the need for urgent action, the organization points to an October report from researchers at Harvard University and Stanford University that shows how much learning loss occurred in individual districts across the nation since the pandemic. In Michigan school districts with high concentrations of students from low-income homes (Detroit, Saginaw, and Lansing), students lost the equivalent of about a year or more of learning. By comparison, students in wealthier districts such as Northville and Bloomfield Hills lost the equivalent of less than 10% of a school year.

The Education Trust-Midwest report recommends a big shift in how schools are funded, but that would require a big investment by the state. The organization is suggesting, for instance, that the state adopt a funding system that provides between 35% and 100% more in state funding for students from low-income homes, with the higher amounts going to districts with the most vulnerable students. The state funding system already provides additional money for such students, but not nearly as much as the report recommends.

The proposed system for funding schools would address “profound inequities” in Michigan’s current school funding system, said Jen DeNeal, director of policy and research at the organization.

“We know that the experience of being a low-income student in Okemos and Birmingham is different than the experience in the Upper Peninsula or in Lansing,” the report said.

The report also recommends additional funding for students who are English language learners, and students who receive special education services.

The report doesn’t provide a cost estimate, but officials from the organization point to past estimates that suggest such a system could cost an additional $3 billion.

Hours after the Education Trust-Midwest report was released, members of the State Board of Education heard a report from Michigan Department of Education staff and superintendents about why it’s important to move to a funding system that provides more funding for some students, including those from low-income homes and those who receive special education services.

“Even with the recent historic state investments in public education, Michigan schools continue to be underfunded by $2 billion to $5.5 billion annually,” Kyle Guerrant, a deputy superintendent with the state education department, told board members.

Schools receive state and federal funding for special education students, but it doesn’t fully fund those costs. That leaves schools shifting money out of their general fund budgets to help cover the cost of their special education programs.

Wanda Cook-Robinson, superintendent of the Oakland Schools intermediate school district, which provides a range of educational services to local districts, said schools in communities such as Pontiac and Hazel Park have higher needs.

“If you’re a local district and you happen to have a higher number of students who have challenges, you go to your general education budget and you fill that gap,” she said.

In addition to the funding recommendations, the Education Trust-Midwest researchers are also calling for using federal COVID relief dollars to provide intensive tutoring and extended learning time; strengthening early childhood for the most needy children; prioritizing teacher recruitment and retention; ensuring all students have access to rigorous coursework; and identifying students with dyslexia so they have the support they need.

You can read all of the recommendations and the full report here.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief at Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

DeVos-funded campaign for school voucher-like plan withdraws petitions in a sign of defeat

2023-01-10T00:43:51+00:00

A Betsy DeVos-backed proposal to help Michigan families use taxpayer funds to cover private school tuition and other education-related expenses appears finished after organizers withdrew petitions they’d submitted to the Secretary of State.

The proposal — which critics have likened to private school vouchers — doesn’t have a clear political path after Democrats won full control of the state Legislature in November.

“This is an acknowledgement that it failed,” said Joshua Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University who has been critical of the proposal and of vouchers.

Let MI Kids Learn, the group behind the proposal, gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures and spent $11.4 million on its campaign, most of which was donated by former U.S. Secretary Betsy DeVos and her family.

Proposal would have created a tax credit

The initiative was part of a decades-long effort by the DeVos family to direct taxpayer dollars to private schools, in the face of a provision in the Michigan Constitution that broadly bars using public funds for private schools.

Voters overwhelmingly rejected a 2000 ballot proposal funded by DeVos to create a voucher system that allowed students to use public school funds for private school tuition.

Let MI Kids Learn took a different tack. It would have provided tax credits to individual taxpayers who funded scholarships for private schools or other educational services, such as tutoring. Each dollar contributed to the scholarship accounts would be credited back to donors on their state tax bill.

The proposal would have cost the state an estimated $500 million in the first year, of which roughly $50 million would come directly out of the state school aid fund.

Supporters of the proposal said kids would benefit from being enrolled in private school.

“Michigan students already suffered through two years of unnecessary COVID learning disruption, and as the most recent data show, the results have been devastating,” said Fred Wszolek, spokesman for Let MI Kids Learn.

Recent studies of voucher programs in other states show broadly negative academic results, especially in math. They also show that in many cases, students who benefit from the programs were already enrolled in private school. Some older studies tended to show neutral or modest positive effects of vouchers on academic performance.

Campaign hit snags on the way to November

The November election results weren’t the only bump in the road for Let MI Kids Learn. In May, signature gatherers for the campaign were found to be misleading Detroiters about the proposal. In June 2022, the campaign missed a deadline to submit signatures to the state, precluding the proposal from going before the Republican-controlled Legislature before new lawmakers took power in January.

While ballot initiatives generally go to a vote by the public in a general election, Let MI Kids Learn had aimed to have its proposal enacted directly by the Legislature through a provision in the Michigan Constitution that allows a ballot proposal to become law without the governor’s signature. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, vetoed a similar proposal in 2021.

But after the Let MI Kids Learn campaign missed the June signature filing deadline and Democrats won control of both chambers of the Legislature, the proposal’s prospects dimmed.

“With the new Legislature in place, I’m sure they felt it was going to be an undoable task to move things forward,” said Pamela Pugh, a Democrat on the State Board of Education.

In withdrawing the petitions, organizers of the proposal apparently decided against putting the issue to a statewide vote.

“If they thought voters were going to vote for this, they would have gone that route immediately,” Cowen said.

Wszolek, the Let MI Kids Learn spokesman, said “we’ll continue to join with the hundreds of thousands of Michiganders who signed these petitions to advocate for immediate help for students across the state.”

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

After Oxford, Michigan Democrats see gun control as part of school safety agenda

2023-01-06T13:30:00+00:00

A school safety task force formed in response to the deadly 2021 Oxford High School shooting didn’t include any gun control measures in its final recommendations to the Legislature. But that doesn’t mean they’re off the table.

After sweeping Michigan’s statewide races again and capturing a majority in the state House and Senate, Democrats have control over the legislative agenda that they haven’t had since the 1980s. One of their top priorities is gun control, and they’re looking to move quickly while they’re still in power and while memories of the Oxford shooting are still fresh.

“The political will is here to get (gun control) done, and we will not shy away from this issue,” said state Rep. Abraham Aiyash, the Democratic floor leader from Hamtramck.

“We appreciate the work the task force did in the last term,” Aiyash said. “They highlighted some important and necessary steps, but one of the obvious and necessary pieces that wasn’t addressed is responsible firearm policies.”

The bipartisan House School Safety Task Force issued initial recommendations in April 2022, and released its final report just before Christmas. Gun control measures came up repeatedly during the group’s meetings, but were not a focus, because the members — four Republicans and four Democrats — knew they couldn’t build consensus around them.

“We agreed from the get-go that we would proceed only on the things we could all get on board with, and there were members refusing to deal with guns,” said task force member Kelly Breen, a Democrat from Novi who represents a region south of Oxford. “It was incredibly frustrating.”

Republicans on the panel said they, too, gave up some of their priorities. “Frankly, I would like to see more adults in the schools with firearms, but that was not part of our report either,” said state Rep. Luke Meerman, the Coopersville Republican who led the task force along with state Rep. Scott VanSingel of Grant, who left office in December.

The task force members found agreement, though, around $486 million worth of recommendations that center around improving student mental health and fortifying school buildings against intruders.

Aiyash, who was not a member of the task force, said those steps aren’t enough.

“We can’t address all of those things and then ignore the fact that gun violence is what’s inflicting the deaths, and the murders, and the accidental injuries, and suicides, and homicides that happen,” he said. “Guns are the common denominator.”

Aiyash said he wants to protect the rights of responsible gun owners while restricting access for people who may commit violence with them, such as people who have been convicted of domestic violence. He knows that negotiating over gun control won’t be easy, especially with the Democrats’ slim 56-54 majority over Republicans, who largely oppose any restrictions on firearm ownership.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has said she would prioritize gun control as she begins her second term.

Democrats haven’t introduced any bills yet, but their efforts are likely to revolve around safe storage, expanded background checks, and red-flag laws that permit courts to temporarily confiscate firearms from people believed to be an immediate threat to themselves or others.

Republicans largely oppose those efforts, “but we no longer hold the gavel,” Meerman said.

Then-House Speaker Jason Wentworth established the task force last year in response to the Oxford High School incident, in which a 15-year-old student shot and killed four other students with a gun his parents bought for him, and injured seven other people. Members were asked to identify ways to make schools safer and to improve student mental health.

They based their work around the Michigan State Police 2018 School Safety Task Force. In the preliminary recommendations they issued last April, they came to a consensus around 14 measures, but only a few made it into law — either as standalone bills or measures incorporated into the state budget. Those measures were working their way through the Legislature before the task force’s final report was issued.

One law requires school districts to provide local police accurate floor plans of school buildings, including room names, hallway designations, and locations of keys.

Another legalizes the use of temporary door barricades during school emergencies.

Meanwhile, the 2023 budget invests more than $200 million to increase mental health services in schools, which also was among the task force’s recommendations.

Meerman and Breen said they are disappointed that more of the task force’s April recommendations weren’t enacted, such as:

Establishing a grant program to support paid internships for graduate students working toward certification to become school psychologists, counselors, or social workers.
Requiring districts to update school safety plans every three years.
Requiring the Michigan State Police to help schools develop lockdown guidelines.
Requiring districts to print OK2SAY information on student identification cards. OK2SAY is Michigan’s confidential tip line for reporting threats to school safety.
Requiring additional school safety drills.
Installing cameras in classrooms.
Ensuring all doors have locks.
Providing window ladders for rooms on upper levels.

“I’m frustrated that we didn’t get those across the finish line last year,” Meerman said.

He and Breen expect those measures to be reintroduced this year. They expect the task force to continue its work with new members being appointed to replace the five no longer in office.

“Even if all of them pass, it doesn’t mean our schools are safe,” Meerman said. “It means they’re safer. It means we have to take the next steps. We live in an ever-changing world. For anybody to say, ‘Now we fixed it and let’s move on to the next thing’ is a fallacy, and it’s dangerous.”

Correction: January 9, 2022: This story as been updated to clarify that Rep. Kelly Breen’s district does not include Oxford.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Are Michigan teachers exempt from public records laws? A judge’s ruling raises concerns.

2022-12-21T20:42:58+00:00

A judge ruled last week that public school teachers aren’t subject to Michigan’s public information law even though they are public employees, a ruling some fear could make it easier to shield government records.

Oakland County Circuit Judge Jacob James Cunningham made the ruling in a case that centers on parent Carol Beth Litkouhi’s request for materials related to Rochester Community School District’s history of ethnic and gender studies class.

The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation filed the lawsuit on behalf of Litkouhi and plans to appeal.

In his ruling, Cunningham noted that Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act only includes school districts — not individual employees — in the definition of a “public body,” and that the law considers records public only if they are “prepared, owned, used, in the possession of, or retained by a public body in the performance of an official function.”

Litkouhi’s public records request was one of many filed statewide in recent years by Michigan parents who claimed they were concerned about how classes are taught and wanted more input in textbooks and supplementary materials.

While the Thursday ruling only applies to the Rochester case, the Mackinac Center’s Stephen Delie said it could be used to shield other records produced by lower-level government employees from the public.

The ruling may create a loophole that allows records to be deemed private as long as they are maintained by individual public employees, not the public entity, said Delie, the Midland group’s director of transparency and open government.

That could allow a police department, for instance, to argue that records are private because they are held by an employee, not the overall administration, he said.

“If this is read very, very broadly, it tremendously limits FOIA for all except state executive agencies,” Delie said.

“If other lower courts take a look at this decision and begin following it, I think it’s going to be much more difficult not only for parents like our client, but for journalists and for concerned citizens to be able to gain access to all sorts of records, not just school records.”

The case arose when the district provided Litkouhi a copy of topics taught in the course in 2021 and claimed that was the only responsive record “knowingly in RSCD’s possession,” according to the judge’s order. The district claims teachers are not a member of the administration and are not a public body.

Litkouhi, who won a seat on the Rochester school board last month, told Bridge this fall that she wanted to “restore our district’s focus on academic excellence and transparency and partnerships with parents and accountability.”

School district spokeswoman Lori Grein told Bridge in a statement that the district “values and appreciates” the district’s teachers, administrators, and support staff who work to teach students skills to “contribute to a diverse, interdependent and changing world.”

“Rochester Community Schools continues to focus on the education, growth, safety, and wellness of our students, staff and school community,” she said.

Delie said he is not aware of cases similar to the Mackinac case in other states.

It’s unclear how many states deem school materials public records. New York state law defines a school record as “any information kept, held, filed, produced or reproduced by, or for” the school, which includes reports, books, manuals, pamphlets, and more.

In Ohio, school districts are considered public bodies subject to open records laws. But copyright laws may prohibit the release of textbooks, DVDs and other materials, and districts do not have to produce records if they don’t already exist, according to the Ohio School Boards Association.

In Michigan and some other states, school employees’ personal correspondence is exempt from public disclosure.

In 2007, three Howell Public Schools teachers — who were also members of the Howell Education Association — asked the court to clarify if their personal emails addressing union matters were subject to public records requests.

In January 2010, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled in the teachers’ favor, finding that personal emails do not count as public records just because “they were captured in a public body’s e-mail system’s digital memory.”

Similarly, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that emails sent by the state’s public school teachers are not public records, even if they are sent via work accounts on school-owned computers.

“In determining whether a document is a record under (Wisconsin’s public records law), the focus is on the content of the document,” the court ruled. “To be a record ... the content of the document must have a connection to a government function.”

The nature of personal emails from public school employees is different from textbooks and teaching materials teachers use in a classroom, Delie argued.

“Here, the materials that we were pursuing were curriculum materials,” he said. “That’s, in my mind, fairly clearly connected to the core function of educating children.”

Yue Stella Yu and Isabel Lohman are reporters for Bridge Michigan. You can reach Yu at syu@bridgemi.com; Lohman can be reached at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

Michigan education leaders join push to help youth in foster care graduate on time

2022-12-16T22:01:36+00:00

Christian Randle expected to spend his senior year in a dual enrollment program that allows Michigan students to receive college credit while still in high school.

Instead, he’s working toward just a high school equivalency certificate.

He told the State Board of Education on Tuesday that he’s frustrated and feels like he’s starting high school over at age 17, because he’s been unable to get credit for schoolwork he did over the last five years while living in a series of foster homes and residential facilities.

Christian, who now lives in a group home in Farmington, addressed the board at its December meeting along with several other teenagers and young adults who were removed from their homes because of abuse and neglect. They’re asking the board to help ensure that others like them can graduate on time and with a solid education.

More than 10,000 children are in foster care in Michigan, according to the Children’s Defense Fund. About 40% of Michigan students in foster care graduate high school in four years, compared with 80% of all students.

That has to improve, State Board of Education members said Tuesday after hearing from the students and representatives of the Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services.

“We want systemic change,” said board member Tiffany Tilley, a Democrat, who introduced a resolution asking the Legislature “to amend laws that will guarantee that vulnerable youth receive credit-bearing educational programming that will keep them on target to receive high school diplomas and allow them to access post-secondary opportunities.”

Board members unanimously approved the resolution but did not specify what legislative changes they want to see.

Foster youth and their advocates have a lot of ideas.

Above all, they want a law ensuring that foster children have access to accredited education programs.

Because of a shortage of traditional foster families, abused and neglected children are sometimes placed in group homes or in large residential facilities alongside children with mental health issues, drug addiction, or histories of juvenile delinquency, said Saba Gebrai, director of the Park West Foundation, which advocates for foster children. Students in these settings have restricted freedoms and often aren’t allowed to leave even for school, she said.

Instead, the facilities run classes themselves, and the programs might not be accredited, attorney Judith New of the Michigan Children’s Law Center said in a telephone interview. “These kids could be spending years of time in residential placement and then coming back to a regular school and having that school say, ‘You have no transferable credits at all. You have to start over in ninth grade.’”

Current law requires residential facilities to provide education services but does not require that the programs be accredited, which means their courses may not count toward state graduation requirements.

The Department of Health and Services, which contracts with residential facilities, did not immediately respond to questions about the lack of accreditation requirements.

Consequences for students can be dire

Tilley, the board of education member, learned about the systemic academic struggles of foster youth over the summer when she met a group of teenagers at a meeting convened by the Park West Foundation, which works with young people as they age out of the foster care system. Several believed they were earning high school credits during stays in residential care or juvenile justice facilities but left the programs years behind their peers, she said.

“My heart really went out to them,” Tilley said.

She wanted the rest of the state board to hear what she did, so she invited advocates and clients of Park West Foundation to December’s board meeting and introduced the resolution.

Consequences can be dire for children who are moved from place to place without consideration of their educational progress and continuity, Gebrai said in a telephone interview. Many drop out of school in frustration and live out their lives in poverty, because they don’t qualify for jobs that pay enough to support themselves, she said.

“They’ve already experienced so much trauma in separating from their families and from having experienced abuse, and this is another trauma of the same kind,” Gebrai said. “This is one more thing that’s going to exclude them from society.”

Gebrai wants courts and social workers to think about each child’s education plan before moving them to new foster homes or residential facilities. It’s not just about academics, she said.

“It’s having the same friends,” she said. “There’s dances, activities, sports, building memories and connectedness to a community.”

The Park West Foundation advocates only for foster care children — those removed from their homes for their own protection — but those placed in residential facilities for other reasons also would benefit from the changes advocates are requesting, Gebrai said.

NBC News previously reported on the state’s failure to provide a quality education to children in residential facilities.

How a student scrambled to make up credits

Bryanna Cook, now 21, was never in a residential facility, but she, too, fell behind her peers as she was raised in a series of foster homes starting at the age of 5. During high school alone, she changed schools more than 10 times, sometimes moving in the middle of a semester — too early to take final exams, but too late to receive credit in the new school, she said.

“It’s hard to get a footing anywhere or get the proper help or even know what school is about when you’re constantly moving,” she said in a phone interview Thursday.

As she entered senior year, Cook knew she wouldn’t have enough credits to graduate, so she enrolled in an online program on top of her regular classes at Lincoln High School in Warren. She took eight classes a day in person and five online to make up credits.

“My counselor told me she didn’t think it would be a good idea, that it would be too much, but I decided to do it anyway,” Cook said.

She remembers juggling “The Outsiders” for a 10th-grade English course while reading “Lord of the Flies” for 11th-grade English and practicing persuasive writing techniques for 12th-grade English.

“It was a lot,” she said.

That was three years ago, but the memory of that stressful time was fresh, she said, as she testified before the state school board.

“All foster children and youth in Michigan must have the same access and opportunities as everyone else to prepare for high school graduation, earn post-secondary credentials, and reach their full potential,” testified Cook, now a student at Macomb Community College.

Foster youth advocacy group outlines its proposals

Cook and other current and former foster youth presented a slate of legislative proposals they developed as members of Empowering Foster Youth Through Technology, an advocacy group supported by the Park West Foundation.

Among their proposals are laws that would:

Ensure that youth in residential placement have easy access to accurate transcripts.
Require foster parents to enroll foster children in school within one day of placement. (Current law allows five days.)
Ensure student transportation to school.
Require judicial oversight of student transfers between schools.
Increase stipends for foster parents to promote placement with families instead of residential facilities.
Provide support for children in foster care who are behind academically.

“A lot of that needs to happen,” Tilley said after the presentation.

State Superintendent Michael Rice agreed.

“First thing we need to do is get into the Legislature and make sure there’s no such thing as a non-credit-bearing course in Michigan public education, not for anybody,” he said. “Not acceptable.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan school board votes to seek financial transparency from charter schools

2022-12-14T22:28:58+00:00

Michigan’s 295 charter schools received $1.4 billion in state funding last year. But exactly how that money was spent, and how much of that went to for-profit management companies, remain unclear, because those companies aren’t subject to public disclosure laws.

The State Board of Education has been trying to change that, and members are hoping to get help from the newly elected state Legislature controlled by Democrats, who are less protective of the for-profit companies that operate many of the state’s charter schools.

At a meeting Tuesday, the board voted 5-1, along party lines, to ask the Legislature to require every charter management organization to post audit reports of its use of public funds, including information related to salaries, benefits, and contracts.

“To send this over now … will be really, really important in setting a priority for the new Legislature and the new legislators that will be starting” in January, said board member Ellen Cogen Lipton, a Democrat and former state representative.

Republican Tom McMillin, the lone no vote, called the resolution a partisan attempt to discourage charter school expansion and deprive parents of school choice. Nikki Snyder, the board’s only other Republican, was absent.

Eighty-two percent of Michigan’s charter schools contract with private management companies, according to the Michigan Department of Education. In many cases, the management company provides a full range of services, including curriculum, financial, staffing, and custodial. In other cases, charter schools manage the day-to-day operations, but contract with a company that provides one or more of those services.

Those management companies are not subject to public disclosure laws.

“Our laws are tremendously weak,” said State Board of Education President Casandra Ulbrich, who spearheaded an effort to obtain financial records from charter schools in five counties. She and Department of Education staff members filed Freedom of Information Act requests with 166 charter schools asking for information about leases and contracts for food service, custodial work, and more. Nearly all said they could not provide the information because their management companies hold the contracts.

The Michigan Association of Public School Academies, a charter school advocacy group, says its members meet their legal obligations to provide staff rosters, annual reports, board minutes, budgets, and management agreements to anyone who requests those records under the Freedom of Information Act.

The trouble, Democrats say, is that those management agreements often aggregate all expenditures into a single line item for “purchased services.” That means it’s impossible for taxpayers to know how much teachers are being paid, which company is mowing the lawn, or the price of textbooks, for example.

“What information is available is difficult to break down in any meaningful way,” Ulbrich said Tuesday. “As we learned from our FOIA attempts, it cannot be easily compared to the same information from traditional schools. For these reasons, I think it’s time for taxpayers to know how their tax dollars are being spent.”

She said she wants to ensure tax dollars are being used effectively and efficiently. She also wants to know how much charter management companies are keeping as profit.

McMillin said charter management companies are being singled out for scrutiny because Democrats oppose school choice. “There are plenty of other entities that get huge amounts of money from the state” and are not subject to public disclosure laws, he said.

State Superintendent Michael Rice said the debate is not about whether charter schools should exist, but about the need for transparency.

“We have the right to know what happens to taxpayer dollars,” he said. “They’re our dollars, and in some cases with respect to public school academies (charter schools), we lose oversight over them. That’s wrong. It’s unacceptable.”

In March, Democrats in the House and Senate introduced the School Freedom, Accountability and Transparency Act, which would have required more transparency from charter schools.

The legislation would have made charter management companies subject to the state Freedom of Information Act and would have required them to disclose audited financial statements, post student recruitment costs, and hold monthly public meetings.

Republicans, who then led both chambers, did not allow the bills to advance.

Correction: December 15, 2022: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of board member Nikki Snyder’s name.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan teacher shortage prompts superintendents to propose new certification route

2022-12-06T21:41:47+00:00

After scouring the state’s pipeline to find more certified teachers, a group of Michigan education leaders are now looking to create a pipeline of their own.

Regional superintendents across the state are banding together to develop an alternate route to certification that emphasizes early on-the-job training and income opportunities for prospective teachers.

The initiative, called Talent Together, is just the latest in a series of efforts by stakeholders across the state who are working to mitigate a looming shortage of teachers, especially in areas such as special education, math and science. The efforts include initiatives to provide stipends for student teachers, shorten teacher preparation programs, offer scholarships to education majors, create programs for high school students interested in the profession, and more.

Talent Together’s goal is to provide employment in schools for teacher candidates so they can be paid while fulfilling student teaching requirements.

“The current model is when you go to a university, it’s theory, theory, theory, then practice,” during a concentrated internship period, Eric Hoppstock, superintendent of the Berrien County Regional Educational Service Agency, said during a press conference Tuesday. “We’re really promoting practice, theory, practice, theory, practice, theory” under the supervision of an experienced teacher.

That sort of path allows people to earn a living while working toward certification, said Kevin Oxley, superintendent of Jackson County Intermediate School District.

“We don’t want people to quit their lives and have to go back to school,” Oxley said. “They can’t do that, so we are going to meet people where they are and remove barriers so they can become certified.”

The program would be similar to On the Rise Academy, an alternative route program offered by Detroit Public Schools Community District that pays candidates to work in support staff roles while working toward certification. Nine other alternative route providers are approved in Michigan for teacher certification.

Talent Together expects to start enrolling students next September, but it still needs three things: funding, approval from the Michigan Department of Education, and responses to requests for proposals from universities that would provide the coursework.

Elizabeth Moje, dean of the University of Michigan School of Education, said she has been approached by Talent Together organizers and is still trying to learn more about their plans.

Talent Together could not say how much the program would cost. Organizers plan to apply for a share of $175 million the Legislature budgeted for grow-your-own programs that provide free tuition for school staff members enrolled in teacher preparation programs.

The length of the program would depend on each candidate’s background, said Jack Elsey, founder of the nonprofit Michigan Educator Workforce Initiative, which is helping design the program. It might take a year for someone who already has a bachelor’s degree in another field, for example, or several years for someone who enters without any degree, he said.

The idea for Talent Together came out of a meeting of seven regional superintendents in October. Since then, the consortium has grown to 39 of the state’s 57 regional educational service agencies, and more are expected to join. The agencies, also known as intermediate school districts, provide consolidated support to local districts. For example, they provide teacher training and coordinate early childhood, vocational, and special education programs for the districts they serve.

“Together, we are asking for the opportunity to be utilized differently,” said Kyle Mayer, superintendent of Ottawa Intermediate School District. “Imagine if Michigan, as a state, were to have an ISD hub that works in partnership with higher education and has resources to expedite the certification process for high-quality teachers.”

The group expects its program will produce hundreds of teachers over the next five years.

The Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, is still learning about Talent Together and hopes its members will be asked to shape the program.

“It’s important that any efforts include frontline educators at the table,” said MEA spokesman Thomas Morgan.

“We are willing to work with anyone who is committed to ending the educator shortage,” he added.

At least one local superintendent is grateful for the consortium’s work.

“Ypsilanti Community Schools is facing the teacher shortage crisis,” Superintendent Alena Zachery-Ross said.

“This is real for districts, urban and rural,” she said. “We’ve been creative. We’ve been doing our recruitment and retention strategies. Even though we can try to do this on our own, the solution is bigger than us at the local level.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Under Michigan’s 3rd-grade reading law, Black students are far more likely to be held back

2022-12-06T20:05:07+00:00

Black students and students from low-income homes were more than twice as likely in Michigan to have to repeat the third grade compared with their white and wealthier peers who also were identified for retention because they struggled with reading.

The gap in who gets held back is one of the details contained in the latest research report on Michigan’s Read by Grade 3 law, which requires that schools hold back students who are a grade level or more behind in reading.

The law provides so many ways a student can get an exemption that only 545 students who were third graders in the 2021-22 school year are repeating the grade this year. But the racial and income gaps among those students suggest that there may be variations in how the exemptions are being applied.

Overall, Black students and students from low-income homes are more likely to be flagged for retention based on their reading test scores. But researchers with the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative at Michigan State University found that greater proportions of them are actually repeating third grade. The report shows that 13.6% of the Black students who were flagged were held back, while just 5.7% of white students who were flagged were held back. Similarly, 10.5% of eligible students from low-income families were held back, compared with 4.3% of students who are not from low-income families.

“Those are pretty big disparities,” said Katharine Strunk, EPIC director. “Those suggest to me that retention is being implemented differentially for different kinds of students.”

The gaps are growing, too. During the 2020-21 school year 9.8% of Black students who tested at least a year behind grade level were retained, compared with 4.9% of white students; and 7.3% of eligible students from low-income homes were retained, compared with 3.6% of wealthier students.

Michigan’s Read by Grade 3 law, enacted in 2016, required schools identify struggling readers and provide intervention. The rule requiring that students be held back was part of the law, but didn’t kick in until the 2020-21 school year. Exemptions are available based on many factors, such as a student’s special education or English language learner status, if they’ve previously been held back, and if the parent and superintendent agree that retention isn’t in the child’s best interest.

EPIC has been working with researchers from the University of Michigan, the Michigan Department of Education, and the state Center for Educational Performance and Information to research the impact of the law, according to the report.

Here are a couple of other highlights from the latest report, which was released Tuesday:

While the number of students who were held back rose in the last year, from 228 to 545, that number is a tiny fraction of the students who were flagged for retention — just 0.6% during the 2021-22 school year. Nearly 5,700 of last year’s third-graders scored low enough to be identified for retention. That’s 5.8% of all third-graders, up from 4.8% the previous year.
Teachers and principals in districts that retained at least one student were more likely than their peers in schools that promoted all students to believe retention was an effective intervention. That suggests districts are more likely to retain students if they believe it is effective, the report said. But Strunk cautioned that even though these educators were more likely to be optimistic about retention, overall the majority of them were opposed to retention as a strategy.

The Read by Grade 3 law was controversial from the beginning, with many education groups and Democrats in the Michigan Legislature opposed, particularly to the retention rule. Now, as Democrats prepare to assume control of both houses of the legislature and the governor’s office for the first time in decades, it is likely that parts or all of the law could be on the chopping block.

Strunk said it would be a mistake to kill the law entirely.

“There’s a lot more to the law than just retention,” Strunk said. “We have data from prior to the pandemic that actually shows this seems to be improving student achievement in early literacy. So, it would be a shame to throw the baby out with the bathwater and get rid of the entire law.”

That doesn’t mean the law doesn’t have some parts that need to be amended, Strunk said, but “there are a lot of good things in this law, like a real focus on instructional coaching, like the real focus on professional development, like the focus on training teachers about literacy essentials. … We want those things to continue. As policymakers think about how and where to go next with literacy policy, it’s important to think about this.”

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan school turnaround program adds more districts

2022-12-01T21:55:29+00:00

Fifty-four school districts with 112 low-performing schools will get extra support through a Michigan turnaround program that has proven to be helpful to many districts. But each district’s share of the resources may be more limited than in the past.

That’s because state funding for the program remains at $6 million, the same as last year, when just 36 districts were in the program. Those districts entered the program between 2017 and 2019 in three separate cohorts. Districts move out of the program as their struggling schools meet performance goals or once they complete the three-year partnership program.

Some districts that completed the program will continue receiving support as other schools in those districts are flagged.

The increase in the number of so-called partnership districts is not a sign schools are performing worse, said Katharine Strunk, who studies the districts as director of the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative at Michigan State University. Rather, she said, it means that the lowest performing schools across the state are less concentrated. For example, the Detroit Public Schools Community District previously had 39 qualifying schools, but now has 21.

Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said his schools have been improving despite disruptions related to the pandemic over the last three years. He said he expects more academic growth now that those challenges have been mitigated.

Michigan created the Partnership District program in 2017 to meet requirements of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which requires states to identify and provide extra support to their lowest performing schools.

Districts become part of the program if any school within them has a four-year graduation rate of 67% or less, or scores in the bottom 5% on the state’s index accountability system, which rates districts on student performance, attendance, graduation rates, availability of career and college preparation courses, and more. (Vitti said he objects to the bottom-5% criterion for identifying low-performing schools, which will “always identify high-poverty schools”; he called for using lack of improvement as a standard instead.)

No districts entered the program in 2020 and 2021 because of pandemic-related disruptions to student testing used to identify districts that need help.

Partnership districts receive extra help from the Michigan Department of Education and from their local or regional educational service agencies. Liaisons from those agencies help districts set improvement goals and access resources to meet them.

Daveda Colbert, superintendent of the Wayne Regional Educational Service Agency, said her staff will help local district administrators use data to identify root causes of academic needs and then will develop plans to address them.

“Working together with the focus on improving student outcomes will help our identified schools make the necessary improvements to achieve success,” Colbert said in an email message to Chalkbeat and Bridge.

But the program’s finite resources and funding pool — the Legislature set aside $6 million — will now be stretched across 50% more districts than last year. That may make it harder for MDE and educational service agencies to help, Strunk said.

“The challenge about 54 districts is that it’s 54 different organizations with which to work,” she said.

Principals in the partnership districts use the extra money to improve technology, staffing, and teacher training, but they’ve said it isn’t enough.

State Superintendent Michael Rice agrees with them.

“What we’re experiencing is the consequence of underfunding Michigan public school students, educators, and education for many years, the resultant teacher shortage, and a once-in-a-century pandemic,” he said in a press release.

Strunk and other researchers at EPIC found that students in partnership districts made academic gains before the pandemic. Later, progress stalled, but students in partnership district schools still tested as well as or better than students in demographically similar schools that were not in the program.

The lowest performing students, in particular, benefited the most from resources provided to partnership districts, Strunk said.

School choice advocates prefer a different solution. They are pressing for passage of the Let MI Kids Learn plan, which would give tax breaks to people who contribute to voucher-like scholarships for students to attend private schools or obtain other private education services.

“Michigan’s public school bureaucracy has failed our kids,” said Beth DeShone, executive director of the Great Lakes Education Project, an advocacy group that supports the scholarship plan.

But the proposal’s prospects are dimming.

Let MI Kids Learn submitted signatures on petitions for a ballot issue earlier this year, but they weren’t in time to make the November ballot, and supporters hoped to have the plan enacted instead through a vote by the GOP-controlled Legislature.

But Republicans will lose control of both houses of the Legislature after the current legislative session, and the Bureau of Elections is unlikely to certify the petitions by then. Democrats largely oppose the scholarship proposal.

Editor’s note: December 6, 2022: This story was updated to add comment from Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti.

Chalkbeat Detroit staff writer Koby Levin contributed. Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

District	Schools	ISD	Charter Authorizer
Academy for Business and Technology (82921)	Academy for Business and Technology High School (08435)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Eastern Michigan University
Academy of Warren (50911)	Academy of Warren (09602)	Macomb ISD (50000)	Bay Mills Community College
American International Academy (82730)	American International Academy - Elementary (00899)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Lake Superior State University
American International Academy (82730)	American International Academy High School/Middle Schooll (03058)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Lake Superior State University
Arts Academy in the Woods (50905)	Arts Academy in the Woods (08884)	Macomb ISD (50000)	Macomb ISD
Barack Obama Leadership Academy (82933)	Barack Obama Leadership Academy (08572)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Detroit Public Schools Community District
Battle Creek Public Schools (13020)	Northwestern Middle School (02776)	Calhoun ISD (13000)	n/a
Beecher Community School District (25240)	Beecher High School (00253)	Genesee ISD (25000)	n/a
Beecher Community School District (25240)	Dailey Elementary School (00862)	Genesee ISD (25000)	n/a
Bellevue Community Schools (23010)	Bellevue Jr/Sr High School (00267)	Calhoun ISD (13000)	n/a
Benton Harbor Area Schools (11010)	Benton Harbor High School (00286)	Berrien RESA (11000)	n/a
Benton Harbor Area Schools (11010)	Career and Alternative Pathways to Education Center (09912)	Berrien RESA (11000)	n/a
Benton Harbor Area Schools (11010)	Fair Plain East Elementary (01629)	Berrien RESA (11000)	n/a
Benton Harbor Area Schools (11010)	Fair Plain Middle School (02068)	Berrien RESA (11000)	n/a
Benton Harbor Area Schools (11010)	Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary (03502)	Berrien RESA (11000)	n/a
Benton Harbor Charter School Academy (11903)	Benton Harbor Charter School Academy (08706)	Berrien RESA (11000)	Ferris State University
Bradford Academy (63917)	Bradford Academy (09292)	Oakland Schools (63000)	Bay Mills Community College
Comstock Public Schools (39030)	Comstock High School (00765)	Kalamazoo RESA (39000)	n/a
Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences (82929)	Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences (08489)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Oakland University
Detroit Community Schools (82925)	Detroit Community Schools - High School (08456)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Bay Mills Community College
Detroit Leadership Academy (82722)	Detroit Leadership Academy High School (02222)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Central Michigan University
Detroit Leadership Academy (82722)	Detroit Leadership Academy K-8 (00334)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Central Michigan University
Detroit Public Safety Academy (82704)	Detroit Public Safety Academy (02015)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Eastern Michigan University
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Brenda Scott Academy for Theatre Arts (09341)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Brewer Academy (09991)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Burns Elementary-Middle School (00456)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Central High School (00617)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Cody High School (00018)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Davis Aerospace Technical High School at Golightly (00029)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Denby High School (00902)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Detroit Lions Academy (08925)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	East English Village Preparatory Academy (01189)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Emerson Elementary-Middle School (01134)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Hamilton Academy (09994)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Henderson Academy (00004)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Henry Ford High School (01634)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	J. E. Clark Preparatory Academy (09992)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Mackenzie Elementary-Middle School (00853)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Mason Academy (02431)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Mumford High School (02644)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Nolan Elementary-Middle School (02708)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Northwestern High School (02778)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Palmer Park Preparatory Academy (01552)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Pershing High School (03015)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Southeastern High School (03540)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Wayne Elementary School (04406)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Western International High School (04477)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Service Learning Academy (82953)	Oak Park Service Learning Academy (OPSLA) (03655)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Lake Superior State University
Eagle's Nest Academy (25916)	Eagle's Nest Academy (02434)	Genesee ISD (25000)	Grand Valley State University
Eastpointe Community Schools (50020)	Eastpointe High School (01003)	Macomb ISD (50000)	n/a
Eastpointe Community Schools (50020)	Pleasantview Elementary School (03074)	Macomb ISD (50000)	n/a
Faxon Academy (63926)	Faxon Academy (01364)	Oakland Schools (63000)	Saginaw Valley State University
FlexTech High School (47903)	FlexTech High School (00760)	Livingston ESA (47000)	Central Michigan University
Flint, School District of the City of (25010)	Brownell STEM Academy (01916)	Genesee ISD (25000)	n/a
Flint, School District of the City of (25010)	Eisenhower School (01098)	Genesee ISD (25000)	n/a
Flint, School District of the City of (25010)	Freeman School (01320)	Genesee ISD (25000)	n/a
Flint, School District of the City of (25010)	Neithercut Elementary School (02670)	Genesee ISD (25000)	n/a
Flint, School District of the City of (25010)	Pierce School (03033)	Genesee ISD (25000)	n/a
Flint, School District of the City of (25010)	Potter School (03108)	Genesee ISD (25000)	n/a
George Washington Carver Academy (82963)	George Washington Carver Elementary School (02484)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Bay Mills Community College
Grand Rapids Public Schools (41010)	Alger Middle School (02051)	Kent ISD (41000)	n/a
Grand Rapids Public Schools (41010)	Campus Elementary (02028)	Kent ISD (41000)	n/a
Grand Rapids Public Schools (41010)	Ottawa Hills High School (03197)	Kent ISD (41000)	n/a
Greater Heights Academy (25914)	Greater Heights Academy (01751)	Genesee ISD (25000)	Central Michigan University
Highland Park Public School Academy System (82749)	Barber Elementary School (03228)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Highland Park City Schools
Hope Academy (82942)	Hope Academy (08637)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Eastern Michigan University
Inkster Preparatory Academy (82762)	Inkster Preparatory Academy (03034)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Central Michigan University
International Academy of Saginaw (73912)	International Academy of Saginaw (09784)	Saginaw ISD (73000)	Bay Mills Community College
Jackson Public Schools (38170)	John R. Lewis Elementary (03921)	Jackson ISD (38000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	Attwood School (01273)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	Gardner International School (03382)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	Gier Park School (01400)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	J.W. Sexton High School (01865)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	Lyons School (02290)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	Mt. Hope School (01278)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	North School (06662)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	Reo School (03181)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	Wexford Montessori Magnet School (04650)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Macomb Montessori Academy (50914)	Macomb Montessori Academy (01738)	Macomb ISD (50000)	Lake Superior State University
Marvin L. Winans Academy of Performing Arts (82924)	Marvin L. Winans Academy - Elementary (09705)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Saginaw Valley State University
Mildred C. Wells Preparatory Academy (11904)	Mildred C. Wells Preparatory Academy (09608)	Berrien RESA (11000)	Bay Mills Community College
Mount Clemens Community School District (50160)	Mount Clemens High School (02624)	Macomb ISD (50000)	n/a
Multicultural Academy (81908)	Multicultural Academy (09446)	Washtenaw ISD (81000)	Bay Mills Community College
Muskegon Heights Public School Academy System (61905)	Dr. Martin Luther King Academy (02546)	Muskegon Area ISD (61000)	Muskegon Heights School District
Muskegon Heights Public School Academy System (61905)	Muskegon Heights Academy (02651)	Muskegon Area ISD (61000)	Muskegon Heights School District
New Paradigm Glazer-Loving Academy (82735)	New Paradigm Loving Academy (03725)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Grand Valley State University
Old Redford Academy (82956)	Old Redford Academy - High (09481)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Central Michigan University
Plymouth Educational Center Charter School (82904)	Plymouth Educational Center (08255)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Central Michigan University
Pontiac City School District (63030)	Herrington School (01652)	Oakland Schools (63000)	n/a
Pontiac City School District (63030)	Pontiac High School (02756)	Oakland Schools (63000)	n/a
Port Huron Area School District (74010)	STEAM Academy at Woodrow Wilson Elementary (04588)	St. Clair County RESA (74000)	n/a
River Rouge, School District of the City of (82120)	River Rouge High School (03208)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Romulus Community Schools (82130)	Romulus Senior High School (03260)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Romulus Community Schools (82130)	Romulus Virtual Learning Center (02874)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Saginaw Academy of Excellence (73901)	Saginaw Academy of Excellence (03407)	Saginaw ISD (73000)	Eastern Michigan University
Saginaw, School District of the City of (73010)	Arthur Eddy Academy (02446)	Saginaw ISD (73000)	n/a
Saginaw, School District of the City of (73010)	Herig School (01645)	Saginaw ISD (73000)	n/a
Saginaw, School District of the City of (73010)	Jessie Loomis School (01929)	Saginaw ISD (73000)	n/a
Saginaw, School District of the City of (73010)	Jessie Rouse School (01930)	Saginaw ISD (73000)	n/a
Saginaw, School District of the City of (73010)	Saginaw High School (03336)	Saginaw ISD (73000)	n/a
South Redford School District (82140)	SOAR Academic Institute (02347)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Taylor School District (82150)	Taylor Virtual Learning Academy (01381)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Van Dyke Public Schools (50220)	Lincoln High School (02201)	Macomb ISD (50000)	n/a
Washtenaw Technical Middle College (81903)	Washtenaw Technical Middle College (08483)	Washtenaw ISD (81000)	Washtenaw Community College
Westfield Charter Academy (82766)	Westfield Preparatory High School (03608)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Grand Valley State University
Ypsilanti Community Schools (81020)	ACCE (03000)	Washtenaw ISD (81000)	n/a

2022 Michigan partnership districts and schools

Michigan Department of Education

After a bruising Michigan election, what’s next for Betsy DeVos and her education agenda?

2022-11-28T23:00:00+00:00

Over a decade of Republican dominance in Michigan, perhaps no individual shaped school policy as much as Betsy DeVos.

Michigan has some of the nation’s highest concentrations of charter schools run by for-profit companies, and key aspects of their financial operations, such as teacher salaries, are shielded from public scrutiny. In Detroit, schools can open and close anywhere in the city at any time without input from local authorities. Teachers unions in the state are limited by so-called right-to-work laws and limitations on tenure and bargaining.

All of that is thanks, in large part, to DeVos and her billionaire family’s political influence.

Seeking to expand on those wins, DeVos and her family members spent at least $11 million to support various political causes in the 2022 election cycle, including the Let MI Kids Learn ballot proposal to create voucher-like scholarship accounts for private school, and the gubernatorial campaign of Tudor Dixon, who ran on a pro-school-choice platform.

But the November election turned out to be the most striking public repudiation of DeVos’ agenda since 2000, when Michigan voters overwhelmingly rejected a school-voucher proposal she funded. Dixon lost by double digits to Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, who made reproductive freedom the center of her campaign. And the Let MI Kids Learn proposal, which DeVos’ team failed to get on the November ballot, appears to have little chance of becoming law anytime soon.

Democrats won full control of the Legislature for the first time in 38 years and are now in position to undo some of DeVos’ signature education policies of the past decade.

Two of their top priorities are requiring charter schools to disclose more detailed financial records and rolling back a DeVos-backed law requiring third-graders to be held back if they are more than a grade level behind in reading.

So does that mean DeVos’ influence over education in Michigan is waning?

It depends on whom you ask.

The Michigan Education Association would like to think so. MEA is the state’s largest teachers union and a longtime opponent of DeVos’ voucher initiatives.

“The far right don’t like her because she didn’t stand up for Donald Trump” after the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, said MEA spokesman Thomas Morgan. “And the left and middle have never liked her here in Michigan because of her repeated attempts to destroy public education.”

But few others are convinced that the election setbacks will halt the family’s decades long pursuit of a school-choice agenda.

“It’s a loss, and all losses sting,” said Bill Nowling, former spokesman for the Republican Party of Michigan and a longtime campaign consultant. “Are these fatal moments (for DeVos’ agenda)? I don’t think so … . It’s something they believe strongly in, and they’re going to keep trying.”

DeVos was not available to comment for this article, a spokesperson said.

Supporters of her school-choice agenda say the change in control of the Legislature doesn’t diminish the urgency of their cause.

Let MI Kids Learn would provide a path for students to catch up academically, said Beth DeShone, executive director of the Great Lakes Education Project, a nonprofit advocacy group founded by DeVos.

“Doing what’s best for our children shouldn’t be political,” DeShone said.

Debates play out on a field DeVos helped build

Before she was education secretary, DeVos was chairperson of the Michigan GOP, a prominent member of the state’s richest family of political donors, and a driving force behind a wave of reforms that redefined the state’s school landscape.

Many DeVos-backed policies are now deeply embedded in the state’s education system and would be hard to undo.

Consider the cap on the number of charter schools statewide that can be opened statewide, which DeVos and her political allies successfully fought to eliminate in 2011.

Teachers unions and other education groups fiercely opposed that move, but reinstating the previous cap would mean closing schools — never an easy political task, and one that would have the most impact in Detroit and Flint, which have large concentrations of both charter schools and Democratic voters. Any new cap without school closures wouldn’t have much effect on the charter school movement, because charter school growth has slowed.

Even the language that defines debates over teachers unions and vouchers bears DeVos’ influence.

“Vouchers were considered very, very radical in the ’80s and ’90s,” said Ellen Cogen Lipton, a state Board of Education member and former Democratic state representative from Huntington Woods. “Now they call them ‘education scholarships’ or ‘opportunity scholarships,’ and the terms they’re using have enabled them to change the conversation. They talk about rescuing kids from failing schools.”

So-called right-to-work legislation — which unions have blamed in part for declining membership — is another example of the way DeVos and her allies have established the terms of the debate. The phrase is widely used now to describe policies in Michigan and other states that free workers from requirements to pay union dues if they are covered by a union contract. Opponents of the policy say the phrase is implicitly partisan.

Money still counts in politics

Michigan Democrats appear to have enough votes to roll back some of DeVos’ favored policies, no matter how vigorous the opposition. But even slight delays could make a difference: Democrats have a long list of priorities and a narrow majority that they’ll be forced to defend in just two years.

DeVos’ personal wealth allows her to be a forceful advocate of some of the policies that Democrats seek to undo, said Joshua Cowen, a professor of education at Michigan State University.

“She’s still a billionaire,” said Cowen, a fierce critic of DeVos. “She could outspend the public education community for the (equivalent) of what it costs you and me to go to the grocery store.”

DeVos is already a major funder of state advocacy groups that support her agenda, including the Great Lakes Education Project and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. And she could support an additional public campaign against the changes Democrats propose, such as a requirement that charter schools disclose more financial information, including about teacher salaries, Cowen said. Such changes have been fiercely opposed by the charter sector, particularly by large for-profit school operators such as National Heritage Academies.

Meanwhile, spokespeople for Let MI Kids Learn have signaled that they’ll keep fighting for the tax-favored scholarship proposal, even though it likely won’t be certified until next year, when the Democratic-led Legislature would be able to vote it down.

If they succeed in putting the proposal on the 2024 ballot, that would also mark a major milestone for DeVos and her agenda. Michigan voters would be able to weigh in directly on a DeVos-backed education issue for the first time since 2002, while the battle for control of the reconfigured state legislature would determine whether Democrats get more than two years to try to undo her education policy legacy.

And DeVos’ influence is likely to endure in electoral politics. It’s hard to win a Republican primary in Michigan without DeVos’ support, Nowling said. She has been strategic in contributing to PACs and candidates who will advance vouchers and school choice, he said.

The family gave a combined $50,000 directly to Dixon’s campaign. But they gave $6.3 million to Let MI Kids Learn and millions more to other conservative PACs that support private school choice, such as the Great Lakes Education Project.

They also gave $270,000 to the state GOP and contributed to dozens of individual Republican candidates’ campaigns.

Supporters of public school choice say their investment in their cause will pay off in the long run.

“We’re trying to make a groundbreaking change, so it’s certainly not wasted,” said Fred Wszolek, spokesman for Let MI Kids Learn. “We’re not convinced there’s not voters who don’t see this need for alternatives” to the public school system.

Even by DeVos standards, the 2022 contributions in Michigan were a big investment – $11 million this election cycle, not counting contributions that won’t be reported until the Dec. 2 filing deadline. In each of the last two midterm election cycles, they contributed just $3 million to Republican campaigns.

Given that push, the homestate setback has to sting, said Lipton, a longtime critic of DeVos.

“She has funded voucher movements in other states, and I think it’s really been a personal affront that in her home state, she hasn’t been able to get something that is really, really important to her,” Lipton said.

But DeVos has deep enough pockets to keep trying even when voters resist, Lipton said.

“People like the DeVos family, their fortunes are so vast,” Lipton said. “I don’t know that they ever have the self-reflection (to say), ‘Gee, maybe what we want is not what the people want.’”

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: Nov. 29, 2022: A previous version of this story said that Betsy DeVos backed a ballot initiative to create private school vouchers in 2002. The initiative was voted down in 2000.

Little action expected on education issues as Michigan lawmakers wind down term

2022-11-22T14:00:00+00:00

After the last midterm election, Michigan lawmakers voted on 300 bills and ended the term with an exhausting 21-hour day as Republicans looked to push through controversial legislation before Democrat Gretchen Whitmer took office.

Don’t expect the next few weeks to look anything like that.

Lawmakers may gather during the lame-duck period before their terms end Dec. 31, but the departing GOP majority isn’t likely to use its waning days to try passing anything that Whitmer would veto.

“I hear rumors we might not even be doing lame duck,” said state Rep. John Damoose, R-Harbor Springs. “I’m frustrated, because I have some bills I’d like to see passed.”

Currently, the House is scheduled to meet for six days — Dec. 6-8 and 13-15 — but some of those session days could be canceled, and others will likely be filled with departing lawmakers’ farewell speeches rather than legislative deliberations.

House Republican spokesperson Gideon D’Assandro said leaders haven’t yet confirmed a schedule for the lame duck period. Senate GOP spokesperson Matt Sweeney did not respond to questions about lame duck plans.

“Lame duck is likely to be a tame duck,” said state Sen. Jeff Irwin, an Ann Arbor Democrat. “There’s not going to be a flurry of crazed action, as is sometimes the case, which is unsurprising. What happened during the election doesn’t create a ton of incentive for anyone to do that.”

In 2018, Democratic lawmakers accused the Republican majority of overreaching in the weeks before Whitmer took power.

Among the lame-duck laws passed then was an unpopular GOP-backed law requiring the Michigan Department of Education to grade schools on an A to F scale so that parents could better gauge performance.

Starting Jan. 1, Democrats will control both houses of the Legislature. Even so, there would be no reason now for Republicans to ram through something partisan just to have Whitmer veto it, said Ellen Lipton, chairperson of the Michigan State Board of Education Legislative Committee and a former Democratic legislator.

Rather than picking fights, Lipton said, lawmakers will be looking for easy wins on issues where there’s general agreement and on bills that have already passed one of the two chambers.

One package of bills that fits those criteria would provide help for students with dyslexia, a learning disorder that can affect word recognition and reading ability.

The bills would require schools to screen for dyslexia, provide extra support for struggling students, and ensure that all students receive phonics-based reading instruction. They passed the Senate unanimously in May but stalled in the House Education Committee.

The departing committee chairperson, Pamela Hornberger of Chesterfield Township, who lost a tight state Senate race, has not said why the bills haven’t been scheduled for a hearing.

Irwin, who has been shepherding the bills through the Legislature, said there’s still time.

“It’s one of those few (packages) that is completely bipartisan,” he said. “It promotes literacy. It will help thousands and thousands of kids. Employers support it. And it’s gotten a tremendous amount of support.” And, he said, declining reading proficiency underscores the urgency of passing the bills.

“If we pass these bills and bring phonetic awareness back into the classroom we’re going to help thousands of kids learn to read earlier and better,” Irwin said.

A couple of other bills have also passed one chamber and could be taken up by the other during the lame duck session.

Programming could count as a language credit

One bill would allow computer programming courses to replace world language credits required for high school graduation. It passed the House 59-49 in May and is now teed up for a vote in the Senate Committee on Education and Career Readiness.

Committee Chairperson Lana Theis, a Brighton Republican, has not said publicly whether she plans to schedule a vote.

The Republican bill had some crossover support from Democrats in the House. It has the backing of the business community, which says computer programming is a skill relevant to future jobs.

The Michigan Department of Education opposes the bill.

Whitmer has not taken a public position.

WorkKeys test could be optional

The House in July 2021 overwhelmingly passed a bill that would eliminate a requirement for high school juniors to take the WorkKeys career readiness test.

Districts or individual students could still opt in, and the state would cover the cost of the test, under the legislation.

Michigan juniors have been taking the test since 2007, when it became part of the Michigan Merit Exam. The state spends about $4.4 million a year for about 105,000 students to take the test.

Proponents of the legislation say that money could be better spent on Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams most test-takers now pay for themselves.

Opponents say the WorkKeys tests help employers evaluate workers and help students discover career pathways.

The Senate education committee held hearings on the bill earlier this year and recommended passage. It now awaits action on the Senate floor.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan Democrats sweep State Board of Education, university races

2022-11-09T22:24:09+00:00

In a year in which education debate has been dominated by Republican culture war attacks — from LGBTQ inclusivity to the teaching of critical race theory — Democrats swept contested races on Tuesday in a slate of university and K-12 board races in Michigan.

Democrats Pamela Pugh and Mitchell Robinson took two contested seats on the State Board of Education, which sets education standards for Michigan schools. Their victories maintained a Democratic majority on the board, and denied openings to Republican candidates who argued that schools were indoctrinating students on Communist, Marxist, and “perverted” ideologies.

Pugh, an incumbent, took just over 25% of the statewide vote, while Robinson captured just over 24%.

Democrats also took the two contested seats on each of the governing boards for the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University, according to unofficial results from all 83 counties.

Republican activists and parents groups had framed the state’s education debate this election year on “parental rights,” seeking to rid the public schools of so-called “woke” ideology on race, history, and other subjects, while also saying they were frustrated by schools that they felt weren’t transparent about lesson plans and diversity initiatives.

To be sure, a number of parental rights candidates secured positions on local school boards Tuesday. But on board openings put to statewide votes, they were shut out.

The eight-member State Board of Education (SBE) serves staggered, eight-year terms. The board currently tilts 5-2 in favor of Democrats, with two Democratic seats being the ones up for election this year. (There is also a pending vacancy following the departure of another Democrat member in the summer. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is expected to fill that opening, presumably with a Democrat.)

Michigan also elects boards at its three largest universities by statewide vote. The MSU board is receiving extra scrutiny after years of criticism and infighting over the university’s failure to improve policies and protections dealing with sexual misconduct.

Here is who won each of the races.

State Board of Education

Pugh and Robinson won their races Tuesday over Republicans Tamara Carlone and Linda Lee Tarver. Robinson squeezed past Carlone for the second seat by less than a single percentage point.

Pugh, of Saginaw, is the current vice president of the board and previously worked in public health roles. She is the co-founder of Regeneration, LLC, a “catalyst for economic sustainability and healthy urban communities,” according to her biography on the Board of Education website.

Robinson, of East Lansing, defined himself as a “career educator” with more than 40 years of experience. He is currently an associate professor of music education at Michigan State University.

Current SBE President Casandra Ulbrich, also a Democrat, chose not to run for reelection.

Republicans Carlone and Tarver had been vocally critical of the public education system, accusing schools of liberal “indoctrination” and keeping parents out of education decisions.

The state superintendent, Michael Rice, who is hired by the board, had come under fire recently over teacher training videos. One video showed an instructor suggesting that there may be circumstances in which a teacher might not let parents know about how their children identify at school about their gender identity or sexual orientation.

Rice defended the videos, saying that schools want to partner with parents but there may be some instances where revealing a student’s gender identity or sexual orientation to a parent without that student’s consent could put a student’s safety in jeopardy.

Michigan State University Board of Trustees

Three of Michigan’s 15 public universities have governing boards that are elected by statewide vote.

At Michigan State University, incumbent Renee Knake Jefferson won along with newcomer Dennis Denno. Jefferson won 24.9% of the vote while Denno received 24.4% of the vote. The two Democrats edged out Republicans Mike Balow (24.2%) and Travis Menge (23.2%).

The board currently has five Democrats and three Republicans. That will shift to six Democrats and two Republicans once Denno replaces Trustee Melanie Foster at the beginning of 2023.

Michigan State University interim president Teresa Woodruff started in her new role last Friday. She replaced Samuel Stanley Jr., who resigned after citing his lack of confidence in the MSU board, which appeared to share the same sentiment about Stanley, with several members questioning whether he had complied with university safeguards relating to sexual misconduct.

University of Michigan Board of Regents

Democratic incumbents Michael Behm and Kathy White each earned another term. White received 25.2% of the vote while Behm received 24.6%.

They beat Republicans Lena Epstein (23.9%) and Sevag Vartanian (22.3%).

Their reelection means that Democrats’ current 6-2 advantage on the board will not change.

Santa Ono, the new university president, started in mid-October. He has already announced the creation of a new ethics and compliance office in response to U-M’s own faltering response to years of sexual assault and misconduct by faculty and staff. He told Bridge Michigan he is listening to faculty, students, state leaders, and general community members to see what the university’s future should look like.

Wayne State University Board of Governors

Both Democrat incumbent Marilyn Kelly and newcomer Danielle Atkinson earned about 24.9% of the vote Tuesday, with Kelly earning slightly more votes.

Atkinson will replace Democrat Dana Alicia Thompson, who decided not to run for reelection. Democrats will retain a 6-2 majority.

Current Wayne State University President M. Roy Wilson announced he will step down from his role next summer. The board is in the process of finding a new president.

Isabel Lohman is a reporter for Bridge Michigan. You can reach her at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

Governor’s election: Michigan voters give Gretchen Whitmer a second term

2022-11-09T15:07:54+00:00

Tudor Dixon worked to make the election about parents’ rights and school choice, but in the end, Michigan voters chose Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who ran on her record rather than an ambitious education plan for sweeping change.

The incumbent Democrat touted her accomplishments, including closing the school funding gap and tripling the number of school literacy coaches, but she faced criticism over decisions she made in 2020 around pandemic-related school closures and mask mandates.

When the Associated Press called the race for Whitmer at 1:20 a.m. Wednesday, she was leading with nearly 52% of the vote.

Later in the morning, Whitmer said “Michigan’s future is bright and we are about to step on the accelerator,” during a speech to supporters and media.

Whitmer said that over the next four years, she wants to build a Michigan “where every person is treated with dignity, can enjoy their personal freedoms, and chart their own path toward prosperity. I promise to be a governor for all of Michigan. I promise to work with anyone who wants to get things done and compete and win against anyone. We’re going to move this state forward. And I am excited about the work we will continue to do together.”

Jenna Bednar, professor of political science and public policy at the University of Michigan, said that though there was frustration during the pandemic, “voters appreciated how hard she worked to increase the funding available for public schools.”

“She didn’t run on a major transformation of the education system” like Dixon did, Bednar said. “She didn’t run saying we need to revamp the curriculum, or ban books, or keep certain ideas out of the classroom. Voters responded to that. They said, ‘Yeah, we don’t need to go there.’”

Whitmer’s win is evidence that voters want a more traditional set of education policies and platforms, said Sarah Reckhow, associate professor of political science at Michigan State University.

Throughout the campaign, Whitmer and Dixon offered vastly differing views on school safety, private school choice, curriculum, Michigan’s third-grade reading retention law, and more.

Reckhow said it’s possible that Dixon’s plan for private school choice didn’t resonate with voters because they have been satisfied with their local public schools even through the pandemic.

She also noted that Whitmer’s campaign focused on traditional Democratic educational values such as increasing school funding and providing more early childhood programs.

A second term gives Whitmer, 51, another chance to advance her agenda of paying teachers retention bonuses and piloting a home-based version of the Great Start Readiness preschool program. She included those items in her 2022-23 school aid budget proposal but was unable to get them through the Republican-controlled Legislature.

She now has the ability to push through these priorities, and others, now that Democrats gained control of both the Michigan House and Senate. It’s the first time in 40 years Democrats will control the governor’s office and the Legislature, according to Bridge Michigan. Their successes are due in part to redistricting.

A Democratic Legislature would mean support for even more school funding, particularly for the neediest districts, said Michael Montgomery, a political scientist and consultant who was chief analyst on the 1989-91 Citizens Education Committee to Improve Public Education in Detroit.

“Mostly, I think she’ll stay the course, making more progress if she has a Democratic Legislature and not making progress with a Republican Legislature,” Montgomery said. “She’s going to keep working.”

Tracie Mauriello covers education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

True or false? Checking 5 education claims from Mich. gubernatorial candidates

2022-11-04T18:20:00+00:00

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says her challenger, Republican Tudor Dixon, downplayed the seriousness of children getting COVID and joked about guns around the time of the deadly Oxford school shooting.

Tudor says Whitmer kept children out of school longer than other governors and that Michigan children are failing in reading under her watch.

As Election Day approaches, Chalkbeat Detroit fact-checked these claims and others related to education. Here’s what we found:

Dixon’s claim: “The truth is (Whitmer) changed over to the Department of Health and Human Services and forced them to close down schools … She had all the power in the state to say no, we’re not going to have our schools shut down, we’re going to make sure that our students are back in person learning, just like other states.”

Dixon’s claim is misleading. Whitmer ordered classroom closures early in the pandemic, but the majority of remote learning was ordered by local school boards based on local COVID conditions, parent preferences, and other factors largely outside of Whitmer’s control.

In March 2020, state leaders across the country, including Whitmer, shuttered classrooms in response to COVID — a highly infectious, deadly illness without any treatments at the time. That summer, Whitmer struck a deal with Republican legislators to allow local school boards to choose between in-person and virtual learning in the fall.

In November 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services closed high schools statewide for about a month in response to a surge in new COVID cases, forcing districts to shift to remote instruction.

That was the last time school closures were required by Whitmer or the Department of Health and Human Services. In January of 2021, Whitmer called on districts to return to in-person learning by March.

Districts’ reopening timelines varied widely. Some kept classrooms open through much of 2020-21, while others — notably in urban areas — stuck with remote learning for the whole year or saw most parents opt for remote learning. School boards based their reopening decisions on parent preferences, local COVID conditions, and the stances of teachers unions, among other factors.

By May 2021, roughly half of Michigan students were learning fully in person, and most of the remainder were enrolled in a hybrid model that included some remote instruction. With the exception of a few remote days in some urban districts during COVID surges, the vast majority of Michigan students attended school fully in person throughout the 2021-22 school year.

Dixon has attacked Whitmer for saying that “kids were out for three months” on her watch. Many students learned remotely for much longer than that. Whitmer later said she was referring only to closures mandated by her administration, which did in fact last about three months.

Dixon’s claim: “What are you going to do to get these kids back on track? We got our reading scores back from the spring, nearly 60% of our third graders failed.”

Dixon ignores Whitmer’s record on education, but her reference to Michigan’s test results is roughly correct.

Students who take Michigan’s statewide exam are categorized as advanced, proficient, partially proficient, or not proficient. On state exams given in the spring, 58% of third graders were not deemed at least proficient.

With help from federal COVID funds, Whitmer signed a record school budget this year, including investments in mental health and teacher recruitment that will help students recover from the pandemic. While Whitmer’s administration was slow to prioritize tutoring as a learning recovery tool, she has since for a $280 million tutoring program.

Whitmer’s claim: “In the same month that the Oxford shooting happened (Dixon) posted a picture of herself with a gun with a caption saying, ‘Gun control means using both hands.’”

Dixon did post the photo and caption on Twitter, but the tweet appeared on Nov. 1, 2021, 29 days before the shooting at Oxford High School, where four students were killed, and six others and a teacher were injured.

Whitmer’s claim: Dixon is “bankrolled by Betsy DeVos. She has endorsed Betsy DeVos’s plan to drain half a billion from our public schools.”

Campaign finance reports show no direct contributions to Dixon’s campaign from Betsy DeVos, the former U.S. secretary of education, or her husband, former Amway CEO Dick DeVos.

But the pro-voucher DeVos family has contributed heavily to political action committees that support Dixon and her top education initiatives, making the DeVoses indirectly among her top financial supporters.

The DeVoses contributed $2.6 million to Michigan Families United, a super PAC that has spent most of the $7.6 million it raised on television commercials supporting Dixon.

The DeVos family also contributed $7.9 million to Let MI Kids Learn, the super PAC behind a voucher-like tax credit proposal that has been a centerpiece of Dixon’s education platform.

DeVos was the creator of that plan, which is structured to circumvent the state’s constitutional ban on using tax dollars to fund private schools.

Under the proposal, donors would get tax breaks equal to the amount of their scholarship donations. Private school families who meet income qualifications could receive up to $7,830 per child to offset tuition. Other families could receive up to $500 in scholarships for tutoring, books, speech therapy, or other help to supplement public school education.

The scholarships are estimated to cost $500 million a year in money that would otherwise be collected as tax revenue that goes toward state services including public safety, transportation, corrections, public schools, and health and human services.

It isn’t clear whether all of that $500 million would otherwise go into the school aid budget, but it is likely that public schools would be affected by decreased state revenue.

Whitmer’s claim: “Mrs. Dixon … said kids couldn’t get COVID.”

Dixon has repeatedly denied she said that, but her statements were captured on video.

On America’s Voice Live, a conservative talk show she hosted, Dixon downplayed the risks of children getting and spreading COVID.

On one 2020 episode, she said, “A lot of people would say that there is no evidence that shows that kids can transmit the virus, and so now they’re wondering, should kids have even been taken out of school because they’re not transmitting the virus.”

On another, she said that “this is not a virus that affects the young students.”

In fact, children are susceptible to COVID, although typically their symptoms are less severe. Nearly 14.9 million children are reported to have tested positive, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. That’s 18.3% of all cases.

And researchers found that children can transmit COVID, more likely to adults than to other children.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Tracie Mauriello covers statewide education policy for Bridge Michigan and Chalkbeat Detroit. Contact Tracie at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

New scholarships aim to make college more attainable in Michigan

2022-10-28T12:00:00+00:00

Grace Fawcett is intent on becoming a radiology technician.

She’s been looking into colleges that have radiography programs and recently settled on Jackson College. Now all she needs is $7,080 a year for in-state tuition and fees.

The new Michigan Achievement Scholarship will take care of a third of it if she qualifies, and that’s a big relief to Fawcett, a senior at Niles High School in West Michigan.

The program was introduced by Republican state Sen. Kim LaSata of Hagar Township in Berrien County and was signed into law this month. Income restrictions are low enough that 94% of community college students and more than 75% of students at Michigan’s four-year schools will be eligible.

“This is an absolute game changer for kids who are on the fence because they’re not sure about their financial status in terms of paying for college,” said Stiles Simmons, superintendent of Westwood Community Schools in Dearborn Heights.

Starting with the class of 2023, eligible high school graduates can receive between $2,750 and $5,500 per year.

The funding is guaranteed for students who have lived in the state for at least a year, will attend a Michigan college full time, and whose family contribution to college expenses is expected to be less than $25,000 per year based on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA.

That’s much higher than the threshold for other kinds of aid such as federal Pell Grants, which are available to students whose expected family contribution is less than $5,846.

The higher contribution limit for the new Achievement Scholarship will capture a lot of middle-income students who wouldn’t qualify for other aid, LaSata said.

“This gets up into the middle class, and that was a priority for me to be able to get scholarships into the hands of as many students as possible,” she said. “I want to help as many students as possible in getting a degree.”

The scholarship program is estimated to cost $169 million in the 2023-24 school year and to grow to $562 million in four years.

Students who complete the FAFSA automatically will be considered for the Michigan Achievement Scholarship. Fifty-two percent of Michigan seniors already fill out the FAFSA to be eligible for federal loans and other grants.

“It’s nice that it notifies people without them really having to apply,” said Fawcett, 19. Many of her friends probably don’t know about the new scholarships and wouldn’t know to apply if they had to do it separately from the FAFSA, she said.

She expects to be eligible for $2,750 a year for up to three years, the amount designated for community college students. Students who attend an in-state private college or university can receive $4,000 per year for up to five years, and those attending one of Michigan’s 15 public universities can receive $5,500 for up to five years.

The new law also creates the Michigan Achievement Scholarship Private Training Program to provide up to $2,000 per year for two years for students to attend trade schools or receive other occupational training. To qualify, applicants must have lived in Michigan for a year, apply for all other available aid, and not have previously earned a college degree.

“Is it a cure-all that’s going to fix everything? No,” said Onjila Odeneal, Michigan director of policy and advocacy for the Institute for College Access and Success. “Is it going to encourage some students who otherwise wouldn’t have gone (to college) because of the cost? Yes.”

A state university student going to school for five years could wind up receiving $27,500, noted Dan Hurley, CEO of the Michigan Association for State Universities.

That’s significant, he said.

“This is supplanting monies that would be paid for out of family savings or student loans, and it may reduce the amount of hours that students have to work, whether during the school year or during the summer,” Hurley said.

It could be enough of an incentive for students to spend their post-secondary years in Michigan, and to stay after graduation to join the workforce, Hurley said.

“It’s a remarkably smart investment on the part of state lawmakers,” Hurley said. “It’s synergistic in terms of retaining young, degreed adults in the state as well as sending a strong message to employers and prospective future employers that we are a state that’s serious about building out a more talented workforce.”

Fawcett’s classmate Melody Palafox is considering both in-state and out-of-state schools. The scholarship is one more factor to weigh as she makes her decision. Choosing an out-of-state school would make her ineligible.

“For me personally, any amount of money is helpful,” said Palafox, 17, who will be the first person in her family to attend college.

In-state tuition at the state’s four-year public universities ranges from $10,800 at Saginaw Valley to $17,296 at Michigan Tech. Simmons said a $5,500 scholarship could make a difference, especially when combined with federal aid and other scholarships and grants students may receive.

For some, it could be the last chunk they need to be able to go to school, he said.

“At the center of this is hope,” Simmons said, “especially for low-income students or students who are the first to attend college in their families. This is hope. This reduces the financial barrier to college that so many of our families face.”

Fewer than 50% of Westwood students go on to college or a post-secondary job certification program, Simmons said. Michigan Achievement Scholarships could increase that, he said.

“I’m really over the moon about this because, in my mind, it places my students in a very advantageous situation regarding their post-secondary options,” he said. “It provides meaningful post-secondary opportunities.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Sparks fly over test scores, books, school safety in second Michigan debate

2022-10-26T13:50:53+00:00

Tudor Dixon and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer traded barbs over books, guns, and test scores Tuesday during an acerbic debate at Oakland University.

Dixon, the Republican challenger from Norton Shores, accused the incumbent Democratic governor of driving down test scores by keeping schools closed too long during the pandemic.

Whitmer accused Dixon of promoting a plan that would divert money from public schools to for-profit private ones.

It was the second and last debate before the Nov. 8 election. Whitmer is leading in the polls, but Dixon has begun to close the gap, according to Real Clear Politics.

The hour-long debate came a day after National Assessment of Education Progress test scores showed Michigan students declined in every grade level since the last round of tests in 2019 before the pandemic. Declines in fourth-grade reading were particularly steep.

The National Assessment of Education Progress, or NAEP, was given to a representative sample of students across the country between January and March to test reading and math proficiency. Known as “the nation’s report card,” NAEP allows state-to-state comparisons.

Dixon blamed the decline on school closures Whitmer ordered to prevent the spread of COVID.

“We are not a Top 10 state,” Dixon said. “We’re not even close. We are actually a bottom 10 state.”

Michigan fourth graders ranked 40th nationally in reading and 35th in math on the NAEP exam. Eighth graders were 23rd in reading and 25th in math. But the rankings can be misleading, since scaled scores in 27 other states were very similar to Michigan.

Test scores are horrible, Dixon said, and Michigan has been slower than other states to implement comprehensive tutoring programs that would help. She has proposed hiring back retired teachers to provide every student 25 hours of tutoring next school year.

She said the state needs to help students get back on track after they were forced to learn online during the pandemic.

Whitmer defended school closures.

“The reason kids were out of school during the pandemic was because we were working off of knowledge from 1918, when kids died from the last global pandemic,” she said. “As a mom, I was thinking about saving the lives of our kids.”

She said the closures lasted three months, which Dixon disputed.

“I think I just heard an audible gasp around town” when she said that, Dixon said. “This is shocking to me that she thinks that schools were only closed for three months — or maybe she thinks she can convince you that schools were only closed for three months, but you know better because your students are the ones that are so desperately behind.”

Whitmer ordered schools closed from mid-March 2020 until the end of that school year. In November of that year, the state ordered high schools closed for nearly a month. Some schools in the state were closed for in-person instruction much longer than the state ordered, but those were individual decisions by local elected school boards.

Whitmer said an unprecedented boost in this year’s school aid budget will provide for tutoring, smaller class sizes, mental health counseling, and literacy coaches that will improve education.

Whitmer also said public schools would suffer under Dixon.

“The problem is, if Mrs. Dixon is elected, she and her biggest funder, Betsy DeVos, will be writing the education budget,” Whitmer said. “And their plan is to take half a billion dollars out of our public school system. If you want to get kids to Top 10 in literacy, draining the school aid fund is not going to get us there.”

The candidates also shared vastly different plans for keeping schools safe from violence. The back-and-forth came a day after the teenager accused in last year’s Oxford High School shooting pleaded guilty to killing four and wounding seven.

Whitmer said she supports background checks, secure storage requirements, and red flag laws that would allow police to temporarily seize guns of people believed to be a present danger to themselves or others.

Dixon wants schools to have armed guards, single points of entry, and training to help educators identify children struggling with mental illness.

“I want to make sure that kids are safe, and I don’t want kids in a sitting-duck zone where the only person that has a weapon is the shooter that is going in to take their lives,” Dixon said.

She also wants the state to implement recommendations from a 2018 School Safety Task Force that called for incentives for school counselors, standardized floor plan maps for schools, more thoughtful active-shooter drills, more training for school resources officers, and more.

Whitmer responded pointedly.

“There was a school shooting in Missouri yesterday in a district that had exactly what she just described: one point of entry, armed guards in the school, and people are dead,” Whitmer said.

She circled back to guns later in the debate, accusing Dixon of worrying more about books in schools than weapons in them.

“Do you really think books are more dangerous than guns?” Whitmer asked her. “Do you really think that books pose a greater danger to our kids than gun violence does?”

Dixon has made book banning a campaign issue, calling sexually explicit material in some school libraries pornographic.

“These are books that are describing to children how to have sex, and parents are outraged about it across the state,” she said. “I stand with those parents that want to make sure we go back to the basics of reading, writing, and math in our schools.”

Whitmer said parents have the right to tell teachers they don’t want their children to have access to particular lessons or materials. She said Dixon is using the local issue as a distraction from more important issues.

They also offered differing perspectives on abortion, inflation, tax plans, balanced budgets, energy costs, the opioid epidemic, and state infrastructure.

Whitmer and Dixon’s first debate was Oct. 13 in Grand Rapids. The two also responded separately to questions, but did not debate, last week at the Detroit Economic Club.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

New Michigan law requires school districts to post parents’ rights

2022-10-24T20:00:00+00:00

It’s been 45 years since Michigan lawmakers passed a law guaranteeing parents the right to direct the education of their children.

Now lawmakers want to make sure parents know about it.

A new law enacted last week requires school districts and the Michigan Department of Education to prominently post excerpts of the 1976 law in school offices and rooms where boards of education meet. They also will be required to post an excerpt from the Michigan Constitution affirming the importance of religion and morality as a premise for encouraging education.

“This will serve as a visible and valuable reminder that parents have a fundamental right to direct the education of their children,” said Republican state Rep. Annette Glenn of Midland who sponsored the bill.

The law comes against a backdrop of volatile and politically charged school board meetings in Michigan and around the country, as conservative groups and community members challenge officials over what books are available in schools, how racism is taught, and whether districts should limit transgender girls’ participation in school sports.

The law requires that the following language be posted:

From the Michigan Constitution: “Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”
From the school code: “It is the natural, fundamental right of parents and legal guardians to determine and direct the care, teaching, and education of their children. The public schools of this state serve the needs of the pupils by cooperating with the pupil’s parents and legal guardians to develop the pupil’s intellectual capabilities and vocational skills in a safe and positive environment.”

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed the bill into law last week. Education officials have until Jan. 1 to post the notices in rooms where school boards conduct their meetings, in school offices and administrative buildings, in the principal’s office or chief administrator’s office in every school, in every building operated by the Michigan Department of Education, and in the state board meeting room. in rooms where school boards conduct their meetings, in school offices and administrative buildings, in the principal’s office or chief administrator’s office in every school, in every building operated by the Michigan Department of Education, and in the state board meeting room.

The law doesn’t specify the size or format of the required notice.

The language also must appear in training materials provided to employees of the Michigan Department of Education and state Board of Education.

The House and Senate passed the legislation 84-20 and 28-5, respectively, on Sept. 28, the Legislature’s last scheduled voting day before the general election. In each chamber, all Republicans and some Democrats voted yes.

Sen. Dayna Polehanki voted no.

“I’m not buying into these efforts to elevate falsehoods that schools aren’t cooperating with parents,” said Polehanki, a Livonia Democrat and former Michigan teacher of the year. “To say schools aren’t cooperating with parents and then to insert some blurb from the constitution about religion and morality, that’s just a pure political game.”

She said it’s a distraction from more important issues.

“This doesn’t raise test scores,” she said. “It doesn’t do anything to promote academic achievement. It’s just a purely political thing introduced at the last minute to fire up their base before the election.”

Glenn introduced her bill in February. She renewed her call for passage late last month after a Michigan Department of Education teacher training video surfaced and enraged many conservatives. In the video, a trainer suggests that teachers can talk with parents about a child’s suicidal thoughts without revealing that gender identity may be a source of the student’s distress.

Republicans including gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon criticized the video as suggesting that teachers keep secrets from parents.

State Supt. Michael Rice defended the video, saying it’s ordinarily the preference of schools to work closely with parents. But under longstanding education policy, schools may be cautious about sharing a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity when a “student is concerned about abuse, neglect, or homelessness if parents are told.” Schools, he said, “have a responsibility not to put children in harm’s way, even inadvertently.”

“Regrettably, public schools have become Ground Zero for the culture wars,” said Marshall Grate, a Grand Rapids-based attorney from the firm Clark Hill who represents many Michigan school districts.

Schools already fulfill their obligation to let parents and others have their say at public meetings and to work with parents to meet individual students’ academic needs, Grate said.

“The clients I work with value parental engagement,” he said in a telephone interview. “There needs to be dialogue going back and forth.”

Posting notices in schools board meeting rooms won’t change anything, said Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance for Michigan, which advocates for schools in the state’s five most populous counties.

“We’re acting as if this is some stand we have to take for parental rights,” McCann said. “Everybody agrees that parents need to play an active role in the decisions being made in their schools, so I’m unclear why this bill is necessary.”

In Niles Community Schools, Superintendent Dan Applegate said he’s glad to post the notices in district buildings.

“I think everybody should be informed of the rights they have,” Applegate said in an interview. “Putting that information up on the wall for when parents walk through, I think it’s a good idea. They may see it and say, ‘I didn’t know about my rights.’”

Applegate said teachers and administrators communicate regularly with parents about both district policy and specific opportunities and challenges for their children. Most of the time, he said, a phone call can alleviate concerns that have triggered volatile school board meetings in other places.

For example, he said, parents have raised concerns over how the district plans to teach about reproductive health. Some have said they want their children to opt out of those lessons, which the district allows.

“They’ll come in and say, ‘I hear you guys are teaching this or that,’” Applegate said. “We’ll say, ‘No. Let’s show you the lesson plan.’ Once they see how we’re doing it, they’re like, ‘That’s fine. We understand that.’”

Most of the time, objections to curriculum are based on misinformation, he said.

“There’s a lot of fearmongering,” he said.

Parents just want to know what’s going on in their schools, and they want to feel heard, Applegate said.

He suspects some of their frustration is that the structure of most school board meetings doesn’t allow for a back-and-forth discussion.

The state Board of Education, for example, has a policy of not responding to public speakers other than to thank them for their comment. As a result, Applegate said, “they feel the school board is not listening.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan state school board race features 8 candidates for 2 seats

2022-10-20T13:41:04+00:00

One is a public health expert. Two have taught college. Two work in real estate. Another is an organizational psychologist. One is an accountant. And all of them want to be members of Michigan’s State Board of Education.

Eight candidates are running for two seats on the board, whose most significant duty is hiring and firing the state superintendent. Most education policy decisions in Michigan are the responsibility of the Legislature and local school districts.

Seven of the candidates responded to a Chalkbeat questionnaire ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

Their responses show stark differences in ideologies and priorities. They offered divergent opinions on how students should learn about racism, whether schools should limit access to controversial books, and whether the state should give tax breaks for vouchers that can be used for private school tuition.

Candidates also weighed in on state Superintendent Michael Rice’s performance. Responses ranged from high praise to a call for his resignation. Read more below in Chalkbeat’s voter guide.

The candidates include two Democrats, two Republicans, two Libertarians, one member of the Working Class Party, and one member of the U.S. Taxpayers Party.

The current board comprises two Republicans and five Democrats, including two whose eight-year terms are ending: incumbent Pamela Pugh and Casandra Ulbrich, the board’s president, who is not standing for re-election.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, is expected to soon appoint an eighth member to replace Democrat Jason Strayhorn, who resigned in July with 5½ years left in his term.

Biographical responses were edited for length and clarity.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Tutoring and teacher retention top Whitmer’s education agenda as she seeks second term

2022-10-13T20:10:21+00:00

Tripling the number of school literacy coaches. Closing the school funding gap. Creating a college scholarship program for education majors.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer counts these among her accomplishments in education. But the incumbent Democrat has more she wants to do if she is reelected.

That includes checking things off her first-term to-do list that got derailed by the pandemic or the Republican-controlled Legislature. It also includes dealing with the effects of the pandemic, such as academic and mental-health setbacks from extended periods of online instruction, and teacher burnout that has led to shortages in districts across the state.

In many ways, Whitmer’s record has been defined by her response to the pandemic. In March 2020, within days of the first confirmed COVID case in the state, she ordered all K-12 public schools closed as a health precaution, and went on to exercise broad emergency powers until the courts and the Legislature reined her in.

The following school year, while other governors pushed for schools to reopen classrooms and get back to normal — some went so far as to ban districts from requiring face masks and threaten to withhold funding — Whitmer remained a prominent advocate of keeping COVID prevention steps in place.

That record has drawn attacks from Republican challenger Tudor Dixon, who has accused Whitmer of “robbing students of their education” by ordering schools closed in 2020 and letting local school officials decide whether and when to resume in-person instruction.

Some of those closures persisted well into 2021, dealing a blow to student learning and mental health.

Whitmer says that helping them on both fronts is a priority heading into 2023. And she has taken advantage of Michigan’s strong economic recovery and federal relief funds to spearhead — in tandem with Republican leaders in the Legislature — unprecedented investment in education and mental health resources for children.

“We’ve got to do everything for our kids to ensure that there are better outcomes for our kids academically,” she said.

More money in school aid budget

Whitmer, 51, was a longtime state legislator from East Lansing before she was elected governor in 2018. Her mother and grandmother were teachers. Her grandfather was superintendent of the Pontiac School District. Both she and her children attended Michigan public schools.

“That’s why the work I’ve done has been centered around public education — protecting it and making greater investment,” she said.

On her watch, and following negotiations with the GOP-controlled legislature, the state’s school aid budget has grown from $14.8 billion to $19 billion, with a big boost in the latest budget for special education, mental health services, and teacher retention programs.

Meanwhile, she stymied efforts by conservatives to steer public dollars toward private schools, vetoing a voucher-like program for reading scholarships.

Going forward, Whitmer said she wants to provide a tutor for every child and create individualized learning plans.

Yet Michigan under Whitmer was slower to propose a comprehensive tutoring plan than other states that had big academic losses from the pandemic. While many other states were investing federal COVID relief money in statewide tutoring programs, and Michigan voters identified tutoring as a top priority, Whitmer didn’t make it a key part of her initial plan for the federal money. Months later, she proposed a $280 million tutoring plan, but only $52 million made it into the state school aid budget.

Whitmer’s campaign didn’t explain why she didn’t embrace tutoring sooner.

Spokeswoman Maeve Coyle noted that Whitmer has made historic investments in education resources, including stronger individualized instruction and more reading coaches. Those coaches are specially trained to help classroom teachers improve reading methods. The $24 million Whitmer negotiated into the school aid budget was enough to increase the number of coaches from 92 to 279 across the state.

Whitmer also increased the state’s investment in school-based mental health services to help students recovering from trauma so they are ready to learn. She wants to do more next year if reelected.

Teacher retention is a priority

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer addresses supporters at a campaign event outside the Trenton Cultural Center.

A second term would mean a second chance to persuade the Legislature to provide retention bonuses for teachers and to pilot a home-based version of the Great Start Readiness preschool program — two of her priorities that Republicans shot down in budget negotiations. Democrats are hoping to not only beat Dixon, but also strengthen Whitmer’s hand by winning control of the Legislature.

Whitmer has portrayed Dixon as an agent of Betsy DeVos, the Trump administration education secretary and longtime proponent of private-school vouchers and other initiatives that would steer taxpayer dollars to private schools to promote school choice.

DeVos — who helped bankroll a campaign for a ballot initiative to allow people to claim tax credits for contributions to scholarship accounts for private schools and education services — was a major financial backer of Dixon’s campaign. .

“She and Betsy DeVos are arm-in-arm, and this is DeVos’ agenda to starve public schools of resources, to divert them to for-profit charters or parochial schools,” Whitmer said in a recent interview. “This is a dangerous strategy for Michigan and it will leave a lot of kids behind.”

Education advocates project the plan could reduce tax revenue by as much as $500 million.

“That would be devastating, and that’s why I think that public education is very much on this ballot,” Whitmer said.

Supporters at a recent campaign rally in Trenton, downriver from Detroit, said they appreciate Whitmer’s focus on teacher recruitment and retention at a time of worsening staff shortages and declining interest in teacher preparation programs.

“She’s being very intentional about empowering teachers and getting them what they need,” said Velma Jean Overman, 67, of Inkster, who attended the rally with her 6-year-old granddaughter.

Whitmer’s four-year plan to offer teachers annual retention bonuses of up to $4,000 was another casualty of battles with the Legislature, but it will likely be back on the table if she is reelected.

“If we ask people to go into this critical work, they’ve got to be able to make a good living, and be treated with respect, and have the support to be successful,” Whitmer said.

She said she hopes that in November, voters will elect moderate senators and representatives who will be more receptive to retention bonuses and her other education initiatives.

“We can’t look at one another as the enemy,” she said. “We’ve got to be partners. When we’re successful in public education, it helps every child no matter what household they live in or what the politics of the community are.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Dixon focuses on parents’ rights in final weeks of gubernatorial campaign

2022-10-13T20:00:00+00:00

Tudor Dixon said she is trying to motivate the “silent Republicans” who quietly support her campaign for governor, but it’s the bold and boisterous who have been turning up at her campaign rallies.

Their shouts of “Amen!” and “That’s right!” punctuated her speech to a packed dining room last week at Marlena’s Bistro and Pizzeria in Holland, Michigan.

It was the fourth stop on her “Michigan is Open for Business” tour meant to highlight entrepreneurs who, like restaurant owner Marlena Pavlos-Hackney, were punished for failing to heed emergency closure orders as a public health precaution during the early months of the COVID pandemic.

But Dixon spent nearly a third of her 22-minute speech talking about education policy and the distrust of the public school system that she says sparked her campaign for governor.

Dixon, 45, of Norton Shores, left her family’s steel foundry five years ago to found the right-leaning Lumen Student News to counter what she has called an “anti-American vibe” in schools around the country. That effort led to her role as a conservative media commentator and, now, a candidate for governor.

“The beginning of me moving into the political world was seeing that we need to bring back American pride and make sure kids understand that we need to defend our freedoms,” Dixon said in an interview this week. “It’s about making sure our kids understand our government system, how it is the best form of government, and why.”

Dixon’s primary run was propelled by endorsements and financial contributions from the DeVos family: former Amway CEO and 2006 gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos and former Trump administration Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The billionaire Grand Rapids couple has been a driving force behind initiatives around the country to steer public money to private schools.

Dixon was an early proponent of the latest DeVos-backed proposal to sidestep Michigan’s constitutional ban on using public money for private schools. The voucher-like plan would allow Michiganders to contribute to scholarship accounts that could be used for private school tuition or extra educational support such as tutoring. They would then receive an equivalent tax credit.

“The state should allow educational freedom that would allow parents to not be stuck and not be beholden to a broken system,” she said, noting that Michigan’s test scores are lower than other states and falling. “We need to start funding the students, not funding the system.”

Dixon focuses agenda on parents’ rights

Since securing the GOP nomination in August, Dixon has been talking less about school choice and more about other educational culture-war issues that have flared across the country.

She has backed conservative parents’ mission to restrict students’ access to books with sexual content. She has proposed a bill to prohibit transgender students from playing on girls’ sports teams, and another to bar teachers from talking about gender identity or sexual orientation with students under fourth grade. And she has called for state Superintendent Michael Rice’s resignation over a state training video for teachers dealing with LGBTQ students who may be suicidal.

In the video, which Rice later defended, a trainer tells teachers that they can talk to parents about a student’s suicidal thoughts without revealing that gender identity is a source of their distress if the student is not ready to share that information with family. MDE has said the training acknowledges that coming out to parents may expose some children to more harm.

But to Dixon, it all comes down to parents’ rights.

“Parents want to know exactly what’s happening in the classroom,” she told reporters after a recent campaign event. “When you see the Department of Ed has come out and said we’re going to keep secrets from parents, that’s where the distrust starts.”

Dixon’s four daughters no longer attend public schools. They enrolled in private school in fall 2020 because Dixon said she and her husband wanted them to be in classrooms, not learn remotely. By that time, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s emergency executive order closing public schools was no longer in effect, but many local districts were choosing to stick with teaching remotely as a health precaution. Dixon said her children remain in private school now because of the quality of education, particularly around civics.

She wants public school students to have that kind of instruction, too. That’s why she wants to require an elementary civics curriculum that focuses on the U.S Constitution and the roles and responsibilities of government envisioned by America’s founding fathers.

Michigan law already requires civics classes at the high school level, but it also requires that instruction “shall begin not later than the opening of the eighth grade.” Dixon wants to ensure students receive that instruction in earlier grades.

She has said she wants to prohibit the teaching of critical race theory, a college-level framework that focuses on the enduring effects of systemic racism.

Critical race theory is not typically taught in K-12 schools. But Dixon’s opposition to it still resonates with supporters like Robin Mulder, 61, a grandmother of seven who attended Dixon’s rally at Marlena’s.

“They’re teaching these kids to hate one another,” Mulder said in the parking lot where she waited more than an hour for a glimpse of Dixon. She arrived too late to get inside the restaurant but caught a shortened version of Dixon’s stump speech outside.

Mulder supported Republican Garrett Soldano in the primary but now stands firmly behind Dixon.

“Anyone who is going to protect the rights of classroom children to learn … and protect the rights of parents to be involved in education” has her vote, Mulder said.

Dixon would subject curriculum to parental review

In an interview this week, Dixon said parents’ rights and student achievement are her top education priorities.

That’s why she wants to require teachers to post curricula, assignments, lesson plans, and books online for parents to review before the start of school each year. Many already do. A similar proposal was introduced in the Republican-led state House in February but has not moved through committee.

Dixon also wants to close loopholes in the state’s controversial read-by-grade-three law, which calls for students to be held back from fourth grade if they are more than a grade level behind in reading skills. The law provides for broad exemptions and gives superintendents enough leeway that hardly any students are actually held back. Dixon wants far fewer exceptions, so that children don’t advance to fourth grade unless they are competent readers.

Opponents of the law note that research shows retention has negative long-term effects on mental health, self esteem, and high school graduation rates. In one Harvard study, though, third-graders in Florida who were left back made significant short-term gains in reading and math and were better prepared for high school.

To resolve the state’s literacy problem and to help students recover from learning loss during the pandemic, Dixon proposes to provide 25 hours of tutoring to every student over the course of next school year, even though school districts already are having trouble finding enough tutors for existing programs.

Dixon said she would provide incentives to encourage retired teachers to return as tutors, but has not provided any details.

She also wants to provide merit pay to help retain high-quality classroom teachers.

“At the end of the day, we want more money flowing into teachers’ pocketbooks and classrooms, and less into buildings and bureaucracy,” she said.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan’s ban on public dollars for private schools survives challenge

2022-09-30T22:30:00+00:00

Michigan’s prohibition on public funding for private schools remains intact after a federal judge dismissed a legal challenge to that rule in the Michigan Constitution on Friday.

The case, brought by five families with the support of the free-market Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, argued that Michigan’s constitutional ban on public funding for private education violated the U.S. Constitution. The families want to use their tax-protected Michigan Education Savings Program accounts to pay tuition at private, religious K-12 schools.

The savings accounts were designed for college expenses, but the plaintiffs and the state disagreed as to whether K-12 expenses are eligible after a 2017 change to federal tax law.

“There is nothing of record that shows Michigan approving any tax-advantaged use of MESP funds for any grade or secondary school expense in either private or public education,” wrote U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker in Michigan’s Western District.

The Mackinac Center said in a statement Friday it plans to appeal the ruling.

In 1970, voters approved an amendment to Michigan’s Constitution that prohibits public financial aid to any nonpublic school. The plaintiffs alleged the clause violates their First Amendment religious rights and the equal protection clause in the U.S. Constitution. While the provision in the Michigan Constitution doesn’t single out religious schools, the plaintiffs argued that it was motivated by anti-Catholic sentiment, pointing to rhetoric used during the amendment campaign five decades ago.

But Jonker, nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush, wrote that Michigan’s private school provision is “neutral on parochial education” on its face, and that there was no precedent supporting the use of the plaintiffs’ “narrow political process theory” — that the amendment was motivated by discriminatory sentiment — in a tax law case.

Many state constitutions include some prohibition on public funding for private schools, but most focus on parochial schools alone. Michigan’s focuses on all private schools — making no distinction on whether they are parochial or secular — which is why it was not affected by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down a so-called Blaine Amendment case in Maine. The Maine suit focused on state funds that were sent to private rural schools that were secular, but not to religious-based rural schools.

The Michigan lawsuit is part of a two-pronged effort by school-choice advocates to provide state support to parents who want to send their children to private school.

A ballot initiative backed by former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos would use a system of tax breaks to fund both public and private school scholarships for K-12 students. While backers of the initiative missed a June deadline to file signatures, they are still hoping the Michigan Legislature will vote on the issue this fall or next year.

If the scholarships program is passed into law, opponents plan to file a lawsuit claiming that the policy violates the Michigan Constitution.