Chalkbeat

Detroit schools are enrolling more migrant students. Can the district meet their needs?

2024-02-26T19:29:50+00:00

As an influx of school-aged migrant and refugee children have resettled with their families in Detroit in recent weeks, schools are working to quickly adapt to meet their needs.

Some are more prepared than others.

Detroit Public Schools Community District campuses on the southwest side of the city have long served diverse student groups and have many Spanish-speaking teachers and administrators who can easily communicate with parents. But a large number of students who have recently migrated to the U.S. are being placed in available shelter beds on the city’s east side, where schools have historically served children with different needs.

“It’s no fault of the schools,” said Elizabeth Orozco-Vasquez, CEO of Freedom House Detroit, a nonprofit that supports asylum seekers and refugees. “It’s just that they’ve never had to prepare for that before. Meeting the needs of a new population of kids is a big ask to put on an already tasked school system.”

Translation services in those schools are often limited. Additionally, transportation for kids to attend schools in southwest Detroit can be difficult to arrange, advocates say. The district is required by the federal McKinney-Vento Homelessness Assistance Act to help students without a fixed address maintain school stability.

“We are seeing a lot of school-aged children come in, primarily in schools outside of southwest Detroit that aren’t necessarily prepared for children coming from other countries who don’t speak English,” said Orozco-Vasquez. “It’s a resource that has to be built.”

About 70 families who recently arrived from Venezuela enrolled their children in DPSCD, according to the district, and the number continues to grow. Administrators say they are providing language interpretation and translation, and training staff to understand new students’ unique needs. In the long term, the district is considering establishing newcomer programs, which would centralize students at specific schools to streamline services for migrant and refugee children.

Detroit hasn’t seen the large numbers of migrants and refugees arriving that large cities like Chicago and New York have in recent months. But some of the families arriving in Detroit are coming from those cities because shelters and humanitarian organizations there are overwhelmed.

DPSCD is working to meet students’ needs

Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in an email all schools in the district are now receiving support as they adapt to meet the needs of migrant students. Staff are being trained to use translation tools, to identify curricular resources to help students learn English, and to address the trauma the kids may have experienced.

The district has formed a small team of teacher training and support coordinators specializing in English language learning to deploy to schools with newcomer students, he said. DPSCD is also continuing to collaborate with community members through its Bilingual Parent Advisory Council as well as the Office of Family and Community Engagement to meet the families’ needs.

Staff can request a live interpreter and document translations, said Vitti. The district also offers over-the-phone and remote video interpreters, and students and staff are able to use Microsoft Translate.

“The district is working with all school leaders and teachers to make sure that they are fully aware of these resources and use them consistently to communicate with families who need language services,” said Vitti.

Part of the challenge, said Orozco-Vasquez, is that the newly arrived students are speaking many languages. In addition to Spanish-speakers, some speak Portuguese or French.

Some nonprofit organizations work with school districts to fill gaps in providing language support to refugee students. Samaritas, a faith-based statewide nonprofit, works with DPSCD.

“If there is no comprehensive ELL program in place, we work with the school on providing that,” Rawan Alramahi, supervisor of Samaritas’ school impact program.

Funding from a $94.4 million settlement – from a 2016 lawsuit that alleged Michigan failed to teach Detroit students to read and described inadequate education for English language learners – will likely allow the school system to hire more academic interventionists to work with English language learners, the superintendent said. A task force formed to identify how DPSCD should spend the settlement recently recommended the district do so.

The settlement funding will also be used to help the district determine whether there is a need for more newcomer programs to be developed at schools in DPSCD to “better serve first- and second-year immigrants,” Vitti said. There is one existing program at Western International High School that provides academic and social support to newcomer families.

“Through this strategy, newly arrived students with limited English skills would be assigned to these schools so we can concentrate resources for support, such as ELL teachers and [academic interventionists],” said Vitti.

The planned Health Hub at Western International, which will provide medical, dental, and mental health care, will also have a resource center with services for newly arrived families, said Vitti. Other Health Hubs, which will expand over the next three years at schools across the district, may also have the same focus, depending on need, according to the superintendent.

For migrant students who experience homelessness or are housed in shelters, the district will provide all the services guaranteed by the McKinney-Vento Act, which mandates that unhoused students be allowed to quickly enroll in schools, stay in the same school even if they move outside of enrollment boundaries, and receive transportation to their schools regardless of the distance, among other protections.

Overall, the district’s system for identifying students who need services through the act has improved, said Vitti. The need for transportation services with that funding has increased in the community across the board and is not unique to newcomer or refugee students.

“Newcomer and refugee students are not always homeless, but when they are, we are committed to providing transportation services,” said Vitti.

In the past, there were concerns about DPSCD’s ability to educate English language learners, who graduate from high school at lower rates compared to their English-speaking peers. Parents expressed a need for more language access in the district, and felt their concerns were ignored.

Inequities for ELL students is not unique to DPSCD. Michigan ranks among the lowest in the nation for funding for students who are not native English speakers, according to an analysis by The Education Trust-Midwest.

Last year, the state passed a historic school budget that provided $1.3 million more in funding for ELL students.

Some migrant families arrive from Chicago, New York, Texas

Most of Detroit’s migrant students have come from Venezuela, according to the school district.

Others are coming from Columbia, Angola, Senegal, Haiti, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Orozco-Vasquez said there is a mix of families coming from larger cities like New York and Chicago as well as various cities in Texas, where officials have struggled to keep up with the growing need for services for migrants, as well as people coming directly from their countries of origin.

Samaritas is currently serving more than 250 school-age children, and has recently seen more families coming from Venezuela and Cuba, along with families from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Ukraine.

Both Freedom House and Samaritas said most of the newly arrived school-age children they serve have enrolled in DPSCD, and some are attending charter schools in Wayne County.

The increase in the number of families migrating to Michigan isn’t expected to slow anytime soon – officials expect to see a 40% increase in refugees settling in the state this year, which would amount to more than 3,600 people. As demand for temporary housing grows, the Office of Global Michigan this week asked residents to open their homes as part of a refugee support program.

Michigan has long been a destination for refugees and asylum seekers. Though the recent influx of migrants is sizable, it’s not the largest the state has experienced.

In 2013, more than 3,400 Iraqi refugees resettled in Michigan. And after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, more than 2,000 refugees came to live in the state.

DPSCD has also previously seen influxes of migrants. More than 40 refugees from Afghanistan enrolled in the district in May 2022.

Navigating a foreign school system

Ivan Nakonechngi, 13, works on his computer at home on Wed., Feb., 21, 2024 in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

In addition to DPSCD and other schools in Wayne County, refugees are also being placed and enrolling in schools in Macomb, Oakland, and Genesee Counties.

One mother, Svitlana Nakonechna, 33, arrived in the U.S. three years ago after fleeing the war in Ukraine with her son, Ivan Nakonechngi, now 13.

Nakonechna is still learning English, and she communicates with Ivan’s teachers at South Hills Middle School in Bloomfield Hills Schools through an online translator application in email and on video calls. The mother tries to keep up with Ivan’s grades and when his work is due.

“Usually, I keep track of that since she’s not really good with English,” said Ivan, who began learning English in school in Ukraine.

Ivan Nakonechngi, 13, left, poses for a portrait with his mother, Svitlana Nakonechna, 33, in their home on Wed., Feb., 21, 2024 in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Nakonechna said through an interpreter that she doesn’t know much about the curriculum Ivan is being taught, but she trusts he’s learning because she sees he’s engaged in his school work.

Though her sponsors and Samaritas have been helpful in enrolling her son in school and navigating the system, Nakonechna worries what may happen if she has to move out of the housing she receives through her employer to another school district.

“If we move from this place to another city and I need to find a new school, I still will need help because I don’t know how to handle it by myself,” she said.

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

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

Adults failed me as a kid. I am a journalist today to be a watchdog for children.

2023-11-07T11:00:00+00:00

My earliest memory is of an adult hurting me in an unspeakable way.

For decades, pieces of the memory would sneak into the forefront of my mind from my subconscious. I spent a lot of time running away from the flashbacks, trying to keep them from becoming a reality. And yet, the abuse bled into almost every aspect of my life.

Hannah Dellinger

The sexual abuse I suffered at ages 3 and 4 impacted my childhood, my education, and my development in ways I am only now coming to understand three decades later.

I acted out as a cry for help in school. I had trouble focusing in class. Trauma-induced memory loss made me a poor test-taker. Executive dysfunction caused me to put off assignments. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder meant I was easily overstimulated in crowded settings. I didn’t trust any adults, especially those who held authority over me, like teachers. My self-esteem was shattered, and I had trouble connecting with other kids.

I exhibited all the telltale signs of a child in pain who needed extra support, but no adults heeded the call. Instead, I was punished for behavioral issues. I was made to feel like I was a “bad” kid, which exacerbated the feelings of guilt and shame that stemmed from the abuse.

After I was assaulted by an adult during a school activity at 15, my cries for help got louder. I self-harmed, had suicidal ideation, and developed a substance abuse disorder while still in high school.

No adults ever took the time to ask what was behind my surface-level behavioral issues, like acting out in class or not pushing myself academically, throughout my childhood and adolescence, despite best practices and what research tells us about kids who “act up.”

Because I never received any kind of trauma therapy or services as a kid, issues that could have and should have been addressed as early as pre-K, followed me into adulthood and were exacerbated by the intimate partner violence I survived in my early 20’s.

I became a journalist in part to help protect the vulnerable — especially children — from systemic injustice and the people in power who hurt them.

As I join the team at Chalkbeat Detroit as a reporter covering K-12 education in Michigan, I want our readers and the community to know I am here to be a watchdog for children and families. I will be a safe adult who will listen and believe children who are suffering. Because I know what it feels like to be a child in pain.

As the number of children experiencing trauma and mental health issues in America grows, those issues are becoming more a part of covering education. We are becoming more aware as a society and as journalists that children can’t learn if their basic needs aren’t being met.

Trauma can impact children’s bodies physiologically and alter their brains. Adverse childhood experiences can negatively affect overall health for a lifetime.

Around two-thirds of U.S. children will experience trauma such as abuse, neglect, homelessness, loss of a loved one, serious illness, domestic violence, or gun violence by age 16, according to a 2007 study.

In Michigan and Detroit, the way trauma impacts learning cannot be overlooked. The region’s long history of poverty and racism contributes to childhood stressors and kids experiencing trauma.

Seven out of 10 adults in Michigan reported adverse childhood experiences, according to a 2019 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

Ninety percent of educators in the Detroit Public Schools Community District surveyed in 2019 said more than half of their students were impacted by trauma that hurt their ability to learn in the classroom.

The collective trauma of the pandemic in Detroit exposed many more kids to poverty, death and grief, food insecurity, as well as mental and physical health issues.

Behind those statistics are real children who are hurting in ways we can’t possibly measure. There are teachers and schools who aren’t equipped to meet their needs. There are policies in place that allow the cycle to continue.

As reporters covering these issues, we can bring awareness to these realities and, in some cases, prompt change. I am fortunate to be here to do this work.

I made a choice to embrace healing through therapy, psychiatry, and sobriety after years of powering through the pain until I hit a wall and I couldn’t anymore. I faced my worst fear and confronted my first memory.

After years of work, I am fully functioning in a healthy and sustainable way. Though I will always have to live with the impacts of the abuse, I have learned how to thrive and love myself. And I make the trauma serve a purpose because I want it to.

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@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.

Improving literacy post-pandemic: This Detroit teacher shares what works in her fifth grade classroom

2023-10-17T23:45:44+00:00

As the daughter of a former librarian, Anna Mayotte has long been passionate about literacy. So a job teaching kids to love reading was a natural fit.

As a fifth grade English language arts and social studies teacher at Gardner Elementary School in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, Mayotte improves literacy skills in her classroom by meeting with students in small breakout groups for part of the day. She gets them excited about the books they study by reading aloud in a theatrical, exaggerated manner. She also makes sure to keep her classroom library stocked and connect kids with the kinds of stories they enjoy reading and reflect their own identities. Mayotte engages her students in the literature they explore by connecting the pages to their lived experiences.

When the class reads “Esperanza Rising,” by Pam Muñoz Ryan, for example, her students learn about the racism poor immigrant farm workers faced after World War II. The kids then discuss the racism they have experienced in their own communities, as Gardner Elementary serves a predominantly Black student body. They talk about the threats to basic human rights described in the literature and the parallels they see playing out around the world today.

Anna Mayotte, a fifth grade English teacher at Gardner Elementary school, says she always knew she wanted to be a teacher.

“Before we begin the book, I ask them why they think it’s important to study human rights,” Mayotte said. “I always go back to the fact that if we don’t know what our rights are, we don’t know when they are being violated and when to stand up for ourselves.”

(Books like “Esperanza Rising” have been challenged in school libraries and curriculum for years, with conservative lawmakers arguing that texts dealing with race and racism aren’t appropriate for young readers).

Mayotte, recently selected for the Education Trust-Midwest Michigan Teacher Leadership Collaborative, said reading literature that covers those topics gets students thinking and “practicing that muscle of empathy.”

“I absolutely think it’s beneficial and I would say it’s necessary because these things are happening to kids in all age groups,” she said. “If it’s happening to them, it’s something we should be talking about.”

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Was there a moment when you decided to become a teacher?

There wasn’t one specific moment. I am one of those teachers who has always known they want to teach. From a young age, I’ve had a love for learning and children and knew I wanted to make a difference in the lives of students. Growing up, school was my home away from home and some of my favorite memories from childhood happened within the school building. It’s where I made lifelong friends, and the experiences I had in school shaped me into who I am today.

How do you get to know your students?

I try to find out little things about them like what they enjoy doing in their free time. But the best relationship building comes from the casual conversations we have while eating breakfast together, in the hallway, or at dismissal. Many of our students are newcomers to the country, so I also try to get to know their home culture and learn some words in their native language to connect with them. Students appreciate when you take the time to make those connections and even though they may seem small, they can make a huge difference in how welcome a student feels at school.

Tell us about a favorite lesson to teach. Where did the idea come from?

While I can’t take credit for it, our first English language arts module of fifth grade is my favorite. While reading “Esperanza Rising,” we make connections to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We talk about what human rights are and how this document was written post-World War II. Even though the writers of this declaration set out to ensure that those atrocities never happened again, we discuss how people still have their rights threatened today. Students find examples of human rights being defied in the novel and then write to raise awareness about how people are still experiencing this hardship in today’s world. My students absolutely love the book, and I love seeing them practice empathy while also working toward the goal of becoming proficient writers.

What object would you be helpless without during the school day?

I’d be helpless without my wireless slideshow clicker. I’m constantly moving throughout my classroom to check for understanding during a lesson, so I use the laser on the end to draw students’ focus to different anchor charts or a specific part of the text that we’re reading. It allows me to keep the lesson moving without having to stand in one spot.

What’s something happening in the community that affects what goes on inside your class?

The lasting impacts of COVID on our community and classroom cannot be understated. Many of our students and families are still dealing with the trauma of the pandemic and that’s resulted in a mental health crisis. We also have students entering fifth grade without essential foundational skills from previous grades. I have to be a lot more strategic in my instruction to make sure all my students are learning at grade level and get the interventions they need. There’s a huge push to bolster research-backed literacy instruction in the early grades, especially coming out of the pandemic. I am part of the 2023-2024 Education Trust-Midwest and Teach Plus Michigan Teacher Leadership Collaborative, which empowers educators to advocate for policy changes that will positively impact students. One of the things my colleagues and I are advocating for is ensuring that training in early reading intervention is provided to all Michigan educators to help close this gap made worse by the pandemic.

Tell us about a memorable time — good or bad — when contact with a student’s family changed your perspective or approach.

During the pandemic, we conducted daily wellness checks on our students and families. These very quickly transitioned from just checking in to see how everyone was doing to hearing about illness, loss, and food and housing insecurities and then trying to locate resources to help. It reminded me that being an educator and part of a school community is so much more than just what happens inside the classroom, and for many of our families our schools are a lifeline. We offer wraparound services and resources on which so many in our community depend. It kind of expanded my perspective from just thinking about the students that I serve to include the families and the community.

What part of your job is most difficult?

I think the most challenging part of teaching is meeting all the individual needs of my students. I have many students and they all come to school with different academic, behavioral, and social-emotional needs. I plan individualized instruction and after teaching the whole group, I meet with students in small groups to teach the skills in which they need more practice. Sometimes I use this time to just talk with students about how things are going and provide emotional support. Students thrive during these moments, and I’ve seen a lot of students make progress. Unfortunately, meeting every single student’s needs is impossible and even though I try to do everything I can to make sure they are getting what they need from me, it can be overwhelming and disheartening when those needs are not met.

What was your biggest misconception that you initially brought to teaching?

When I came into teaching I believed that I was going to be able to make big changes to the education system. I didn’t have a full understanding of how the system worked nor did I understand just how many stakeholders there are in the world of education. There are so many people who are situated within a school or district, all working toward the same end goal of student success, but in different ways. It can be really hard to navigate that within the classroom, but I work hard to advocate for my students and the changes that I know will have a positive impact on their lives.

Recommend a book that has helped you be a better teacher, and why.

“The Reading Comprehension Blueprint: Helping Students Make Meaning from Text” by Nancy Lewis Hennessy has really changed my perspective on reading instruction. It translates the research on each dimension of skilled reading into useful practice. So much of the literature on the science of reading focuses on word recognition, which is helpful. But for the upper grades, a lot of our focus is on reading comprehension. This book discusses how to align comprehension instruction with that same science of reading research. One of the most helpful things about this book was that it shifted my thinking of comprehension taking place at the text level to how understanding at the sentence level is how students derive meaning from the whole text.

What’s the best advice you’ve received about teaching?

Prioritize your responsibilities. Teachers have so many things on their plate and there’s no way to get everything done. Take a look at your to-do list and identify what items will have the biggest impact in your classroom. For me, that’s carefully planning out instruction and providing meaningful feedback on student work. My advice: complete those tasks and then leave work at work. Rest and enjoy your family at home so you can show up for your students the next day.

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.

Chronic absenteeism in Michigan schools drops, but still exceeds pre-pandemic levels

2023-10-10T20:01:34+00:00

Chronic absenteeism in Michigan schools is declining, but new data released Tuesday show nearly a third of students in public schools are missing too much school, and the rate is still higher than it was before the pandemic.

During the 2022-23 school year, 30.8% of Michigan students were chronically absent, down from 38.5% the previous year.

Before the pandemic, the rate was 19.7%.

“We’re moving in the right direction, but we’re not where we need to be,” Judy Pritchett, a member of the State Board of Education, said during a presentation on the data at a meeting Tuesday. “I’m not sure we were where we needed to be prior to the pandemic.”

Michigan had one of the highest rates of chronic absenteeism in 2021-22.

Pamela Pugh, the board president, said Michigan’s rank is tied to many systemic issues.

“We can’t look at that statistic without looking at our statistics around Michigan being at the bottom of the 50 states in how our schools are funded equitably in the state, but also our building infrastructure,” she said. “Would you want to go to a home where roofs are leaking, where there are rodents in the schools, where they don’t have heat in the winter and air in the summer?”

The Detroit Public Schools Community District, which has long struggled with high rates of chronic absenteeism, saw its percentage improve to 66.11%, from 76.73%. The improvement was better than what the district reported in July. In the 2018-19 school year, the rate was 62.1%.

In Michigan, a student is chronically absent if they miss 18 days during the 180-day school year.

Chronic absenteeism rates among certain demographic groups were significantly higher than the statewide average of 30.8%, including students experiencing homelessness, at 60.1%; students from families considered to be “economically disadvantaged,” at 41.8%; students with disabilities, at 39.5%; and Black students at 53.1%.

State Superintendent Michael Rice pointed out during the presentation that for most of these vulnerable student groups, the disparities narrowed during the 2022-23 school year from the previous year.

The chronic absenteeism rate among students experiencing homelessness, for example, was down from 66.8% in 2021-22, a nearly 7-point drop. Similarly, the rate among students from economically disadvantaged families decreased by 8.6 points. Rates for students with disabilities and Black students also significantly decreased.

Chronic absence rarely boils down to a student’s choice to skip school, experts say. Far more often, it reflects economic challenges such as a lack of access to health care, employment opportunities, affordable housing, reliable transportation, or child care. The problem is especially acute in Detroit and other cities with high child poverty rates.

Many districts saw a surge in chronic absenteeism during the pandemic, in part because quarantine rules required students who had COVID or contact with someone with COVID to miss multiple days of school.

“As the pandemic waned, attendance rates improved, and chronic absenteeism declined significantly,” Rice said in a statement. “That said, we have a great deal of work still to do in our local schools on this important, multi-faceted issue.”

Republican board member Nikki Snyder agreed that the progress hasn’t been enough, and pointed to the high cost of absenteeism. “The most important factor in dropping out is absenteeism,” she said. “So, it’s not even just GPA. We lose these kids altogether.”

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan is ‘improving outcomes’ for early childhood health and education, report says

2023-09-27T04:01:00+00:00

Michigan is improving its outcomes for early childhood education, well-being, and health, according to a national report released Wednesday.

The annual report, by the nonpartisan research organization Zero to Three, details areas where Michigan performed better than national averages, such as the percentage of parents who read to their babies daily and the number of 1-year-olds participating in special supplemental nutrition programs.

The study looked at various indicators of health and well-being, such as maternal health; infant and early childhood mental health; availability of childcare; housing and economic security; as well as newly adopted policies to support health and education.

Based on the data, the authors grouped states into one of our categories. Michigan was in the second-highest category overall — “improving outcomes.” Other states in the same category include California, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Indiana.

In recent years, Michigan has invested millions of dollars to expand early childhood education initiatives.

Michigan still falls behind national averages in key areas, the report says, including the percentage of children ages 3 and younger in lower-income families who receive child care subsidies, the number of babies and toddlers who are food-insecure, the percentage of babies receiving preventive dental care, and the number of mothers reporting poor mental health.

Nearly 41% of Michigan children 3 and under come from families considered to be economically disadvantaged. The state has a higher percentage of uninsured young children in low-income families, compared with the national average, the report says, and a higher percentage of babies who have had two or more “adverse experiences,” such as economic hardship, death of a parent, or living with someone with a drug problem.

“Economic insecurity and particularly poverty literally gets under the skin of babies, impacting their neurological development as well as physiological systems,” Patricia Cole, an author of the report, said in a presentation.

Nationally, authors of the report say, there are urgent needs for the nearly 11 million children ages 3 and under in the U.S. — 2 million of whom live in poverty.

“The data from this report tell us that poverty and disparities in access to resources along racial and ethnic lines are defining features of a baby’s experience in this country,” said Miriam Calderon, chief policy officer Zero to Three. “Most of our babies will struggle with access to resources and that will affect their development.

The report identified five key priorities:

Maternal and infant health is in “crisis,” with the U.S. experiencing the one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. According to the report, racial disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes worsened during the pandemic, with data showing significant gaps in indicators such as preterm births and low birthweight.
Data included in the report suggests there is an urgent need to address young children’s mental health. Isolation and hardships during the pandemic created more emotional distress for parents, which was tied to the same in their children. Additional stress stemming from issues such as more poverty, housing instability, and mistreatment also affect parents and their children’s mental states.
The report says there is a crisis in early child care and education, with scarce access to affordable, high-quality care in many communities. Many child care centers were negatively affected by the pandemic, and the impending end of federal relief funding will exacerbate the issue, the report says.
The report found a large number of young children live in unstable or crowded housing. Crowded housing, the report says, puts children at risk of adverse effects to their development and health and, in some cases when combined with poverty, early death.
Nearly two-thirds of Black and Native American and half of Hispanic babies and toddlers live in families that are considered economically disadvantaged, which can affect their families’ ability to access needed resources to support their development and education.

Read the full report here.

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@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.

Schools are cutting recovery programs as U.S. aid money dries up. Students are still struggling.

2023-09-06T04:01:00+00:00

This story is a collaboration with the Associated Press. Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to get essential education news delivered to your inbox.

DETROIT – Davion Williams wants to go to college. A counselor at his Detroit charter school last year helped him visualize that goal, but he knows he’ll need more help to navigate the application process.

So he was discouraged to learn the high school where he just began his sophomore year had laid off its college transition adviser — a staff member who provided extra help coordinating financial aid applications, transcript requests, campus visits, and more.

The advisers had been hired at 19 schools with federal pandemic relief money. In June, when Detroit’s budget was finalized, their jobs were among nearly 300 that were eliminated.

“Not being able to do it at this school is kind of disappointing,” Williams said in August at a back-to-school event at Mumford High School.

An unprecedented infusion of aid money the U.S. government provided to schools during the pandemic has begun to dwindle. Like Williams’ school, some districts are already winding down programming like expanded summer school and after-school tutoring. Some teachers and support staff brought on to help kids through the crisis are being let go.

The relief money, totaling roughly $190 billion, was meant to help schools address needs arising from COVID-19, including making up for learning loss during the pandemic. But the latest national data shows large swaths of American students remain behind academically compared with where they would have been if not for the pandemic.

Montgomery County schools, the largest district in Maryland, is reducing or eliminating tutoring, summer school, and other programs that were covered by federal pandemic aid. Facing a budget gap, the district opted for those cuts instead of increasing class sizes, said Robert Reilly, associate superintendent of finance. The district will focus instead on providing math and reading support in the classroom, he said.

But among parents, there’s a sense that there remains “a lot of work to be done” to help students catch up, said Laura Mitchell, a vice president of a districtwide parent-teacher council.

Mitchell, whose granddaughter attends high school in the district, said tutoring has been a blessing for struggling students. The district’s cuts will scale back tutoring by more than half this year.

“If we take that away, who’s going to help those who are falling behind?” she said.

Districts have through September 2024 to earmark the last of the money provided by Congress in three COVID relief packages. Some schools have already started pulling back programming to soften the blow, and the next budget year is likely to be even more painful, with the arrival of what some describe as a “funding cliff.”

In a June survey of hundreds of school system leaders by AASA, The School Superintendents Association, half said they would need to decrease staffing of specialists, such as tutors and reading coaches, for the new school year. Half also said they were cutting summer-learning programs.

As the spending deadline looms, the scope of the cuts is not yet clear. The impact in each district will depend on how school officials have planned for the aid’s end and how much money they receive from other sources.

State funding for education across the country has been generous of late. But states may soon face their own budget challenges: They also received temporary federal aid that is running out.

Many school officials are bracing for the budget hit to come. In Shreveport, Louisiana, officials say that next year they might have to cut some of the 50 math teachers they added to double up on math instruction for middle schoolers.

Schools there added the teachers after identifying deep learning gaps in middle school math, and there’s evidence it helped, with a 4-point increase in math scores, officials say. But at a cost of $4 million, the program will be in jeopardy.

“Our money practically is gone,” Superintendent T. Lamar Goree said.

Some researchers have questioned whether the money was sufficient or sustained enough to address the deep declines in learning. But with a recent deal limiting federal spending increases in education, more money from Congress will not be forthcoming.

Meanwhile, some lawmakers and commentators have pointed to anemic academic recovery to suggest schools didn’t spend the COVID relief money wisely in the first place.

Experts note that district officials had wide discretion over how to spend the money, and their decisions have varied widely, from HVAC upgrades to professional development. “Some of the spending was very wise, and some of it looks, in hindsight, to have been somewhat foolish,” said Lori Taylor, an education finance researcher at Texas A&M University.

To date, there is limited research on whether the federal money has helped address learning loss. One recent study of eight districts’ summer school programs found no impact on reading scores but improvements in math. Since only a fraction of students in each district attended, this made only a small contribution to learning recovery, though.

School officials insist the money has made a difference.

“I wonder what the counterfactual would have been if we didn’t have the money,” said Adriana Publico, the project manager for COVID relief funds at Washoe County School District in Reno, Nevada. “Would students have been even worse off? I think so.“

The Washoe system has cut hours for after-school tutoring in half this year and eliminated teacher coaches from many elementary schools. The district just finished a dramatically expanded summer school program, but officials aren’t sure if they’ll be able to afford to continue it next summer.

Some school systems are trying to maintain COVID-era additions. In Kansas City, Missouri, district officials say they’re planning to keep a number of the positions that were added with federal money, including intervention teachers and clinicians who work with students who have experienced trauma. The district will be able to do so, said CFO Erin Thompson, because of higher property tax revenue.

“This might not be as bad as what we thought,” she said. “We’re optimistic at this point.”

In Detroit, which received a windfall of federal COVID money, district officials say they budgeted carefully to avoid steep cuts when the money runs out. This included earmarking more than half of their federal relief — some $700 million — for one-time building renovations to aging campuses across the city.

But ultimately, officials said some reductions were necessary. Expanded summer and after-school programs have been phased out, in addition to the hundreds of staff positions, like the college advisers.

“In an ideal world, I would rather have college transition advisers,” said Superintendent Nikolai Vitti. “But it’s another example of making hard decisions.”

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Matt Barnum is interim national editor, overseeing and contributing to Chalkbeat’s coverage of national education issues. Contact him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

Collin Binkley is an education reporter for the Associated Press.

Barnum reported from New York and Binkley reported from Washington, D.C.

Detroit public schools Superintendent Nikolai Vitti speaks on budget cuts, academic recovery

2023-09-06T04:00:00+00:00

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As federal COVID relief dollars for education begin to run out, school systems across the country are facing a jolt to their finances. But the Detroit Public Schools Community District has fared better than many in limiting the impact of the funding loss.

The district hasn’t been immune to cuts: Hundreds of positions were eliminated, the community has criticized district decisions, and parents remain concerned about the loss of some programs. But it deliberately focused most of the $1.27 billion it received from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER, on one-time costs — rather than recurring budget items that can’t be sustained without federal aid.

That strategy will save the district from a so-called funding cliff that many other school leaders may soon face when the federal dollars run out in September 2024, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said in an interview with Chalkbeat.

Vitti talked about what he thinks the district did right and his recommendations for other school leaders.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What was the district’s strategy as you planned for the loss of the federal COVID relief money? What did you prioritize?

One thing that I’ve tried to do as superintendent is be disciplined with finances. … I always think about recurring revenue with recurring expenditures, and one-time revenue with one-time expenditures.

Boards, in particular, can be very vulnerable to spending one-time funding in a recurring way. Because of the concentrated poverty that our families face, you look at our outdated infrastructure, salaries that are not fully competitive, the wraparound services that our kids need — and all of that was magnified and exacerbated because of the pandemic.

So the normal challenges that we have as a district linked to concentrated poverty, linked to historic racism, you see that money and it’s like, “Wow, we can solve a lot of our problems,” because we’ve been talking about the need for revenue, because our kids need more than the average student.

When we paid for things that needed more people, we tried to rely on contracted services rather than increasing employment.

One focus of the dollars was let’s fill the revenue gap because of the loss of enrollment. Right when the pandemic hit and the first year we came back, we were down about 3,000 students. We’ve picked up some since.

(We kept everyone employed) that normally would have been laid off. You know, let’s not close schools, let’s not cut programming — that’s the last thing we want to do during the middle of the pandemic.

We funded things that were very specific to COVID, like masks, temperature check machines, ventilation systems, COVID testing, moving to smaller class sizes in order to have social distancing, the virtual school, nurses in every school, expanding mental health in all schools — we did all of that through contracted services, or it was one-time. There were things we did that weren’t linked to contracted services like expanding summer school.

About half of the dollars went to fund facilities, which was a clear one-time expense, one-time need, and an enormous gap in our district, which is that we have a $2 billion infrastructure problem with no revenue to solve.

There is a way to use the money to, for example, increase salaries, but you have to do it through bonuses if you’re going to be responsible. If you link it to salary increases, you’re going to hit a cliff.

Was getting kids back into classrooms in person with things like smaller class sizes, masks, hazard pay for teachers, and upgrading HVAC systems a focus to improve academic outcomes in the long run?

I think if we go back to the pandemic, the greatest sense of urgency I had was to get kids back in school, without a doubt. That literally kept me up at night and led to my own mental health issues. I did deal with mental health issues, because I didn’t feel like we were serving children the way they needed to be served. … Our children in particular needed in-person learning in order to continue to show the improvement we were definitely showing before the pandemic. I knew every day they were at home, we were getting farther behind.

2021-22 was the first year that everyone tested on M-STEP, and we really saw the impact of the pandemic that year. But in 2021-22, DPSCD showed less learning loss on average than the state of Michigan and less learning loss than city charter schools. That showed me that having this urgency of getting back in person and keeping schools open in that 2020-21 year was important (along with) fully implementing our curriculum online.

Which cuts were the most difficult to make, and which programs do you wish could continue but had to end due to the end of ESSER funding?

I never want to be the superintendent that has to reduce staff to get to a number, because I understand that there’s a human being behind it, and that human being is connected to a family. It’s never easy for me.

The next hardest decision probably came to not having summer school at the scale that we had before.

We heard from some parents and students that the loss of college transition advisers is disappointing. Do you wish the district could keep those positions?

What we said was, we have to protect direct impact on student achievement, so we definitely protected the classroom. We didn’t increase class sizes. We definitely have invested in our academic interventionists and even expanded them.

When looking at the college transition advisers, there’s no question they had an impact on children — no doubt about that — but not a direct impact on student achievement.

What we tried to do was convince college transition advisers to go into the On the Rise Academy program and become counselors, because that was something we could see expanding in future years, maybe with more (state money for at-risk students).

Did you anticipate the amount of criticism from the community you received about the cuts? Has it been difficult to communicate to the community that the end of some of the programs and resources funded by ESSER was due to the federal relief money expiring?

Detroit children have great need, and the school system in and of itself does not provide the resources that children deserve to be competitive with their peers in more affluent neighborhoods and school districts. That’s not a function of an incompetent, corrupt school board or superintendent. It’s the nature of how the schools are funded.

Although Gov. Whitmer has made strides in narrowing the gap between wealthy districts and DPSCD, the gap is still there. We not are not even equal yet. We are definitely not equitable.

People are very passionate about what we should be doing for our children. And there’s a sense of anger because our families know our children are capable.

What do you think other districts need to consider as they get to the point DPSCD reached last school year with the remainder of ESSER money being earmarked? What should they prioritize as those dollars run out?

My recommendation is to communicate often, frequently, and honestly about the advantages and disadvantages of the funding, and be upfront about how you’re spending the money.

DPSCD had less learning loss than our counterparts. And as we move into the 2023-24 school year, undoubtedly we’re narrowing the gap in performance, which means not only did we use the money effectively, we used it efficiently.

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.

Michigan state school board seeks ruling on constitutionality of new education agency

2023-08-08T22:04:45+00:00

Michigan’s State Board of Education voted unanimously Tuesday to ask for clarity from the attorney general on the constitutionality of a new education agency created by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer by executive order last month.

The newly formed Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential, or MiLEAP, would take on some key functions of the Michigan Department of Education, whose leader is selected by the state board.

The board’s resolution notes that the state constitution vests leadership and supervision of public education in the elected board, and that there may be overlapping authority between the existing education department and MiLEAP.

The resolution directs State Superintendent Michael F. Rice to ask Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel for a formal opinion on the matter.

“The framers of our constitution intentionally separated public education outside of the governor’s office,” Board President Pamela Pugh said during the meeting, adding that the board wanted to ensure that the executive order creating the agency satisfies the framers’ intent.

Stacey LaRouche, press secretary for the governor, said her office consulted with the attorney general while drafting the law.

“We are confident in our legal authority and look forward to working with everyone who is serious about providing Michigan students with a world class public education,” she said.

Nikki Snyder, one of two Republicans on the Democratic-controlled board, said she believes creating another department would bring “chaos and confusion.”

“I definitely have major concerns about the constitutionality of the governor’s executive order,” she said. “I’m not sure that the AG opinion will satisfy those concerns. It’s definitely a step forward.”

Whitmer, a Democrat, said at the time of the announcement that MiLEAP was created to streamline lifelong education in the state from pre-K, to higher education, to workforce development.

The basic functions of K-12 education will remain with the MDE under the law. Both the MDE and the state board will work with the new department, Whitmer said.

The Office of Great Start, which serves the educational needs of children up to age 8, would move from the MDE to the new department under Whitmer’s order, along with the Governor’s Educator Advisory Council and the Michigan PreK-12 Literacy Commission.

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@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.

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.

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.

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.