Chalkbeat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bill would make kindergarten mandatory for Michigan children

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Advocates ask Michigan legislators to invest in retaining teachers of color

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dyslexia bills advance in Michigan legislature with some changes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What would the revised bills require?

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

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

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

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

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

Last year’s graduation rate was 81.01%.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lansing district ‘overwhelmingly impressed’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How is literacy instruction evolving?

Early literacy skills are important for students’ future success.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which literacy curricula does Michigan use?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What about students with dyslexia?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inequities in Michigan’s literacy proficiency

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Community college guarantee for high school graduates

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

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

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

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

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

Expanding free preschool for all

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

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

Child care workers would get free care for their children

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

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

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

Expansion of free school meals

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

School closures could be on the horizon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which areas of the state are seeing the biggest declines?

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

Should school closures be the answer to declining enrollment?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Expanding preschool program to reach more students

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

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

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

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

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

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

Free community college for all high school graduates

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whitmer to push to extend free school meals

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He regrets that now.

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

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

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

Crowley said the resolution was necessary and liberating for teachers.

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

Educators navigate a tense environment in schools and on campuses

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Teachers share strategies for classroom discussion

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wading into heated topics is risky for teachers

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

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

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

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

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

In some communities, faraway conflict is ‘real life’

Discussions can depend on the community.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Students are hungry for information

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Teachers see a ‘responsibility’ to tackle tough topics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FAFSA form completion could become a Michigan high school graduation requirement

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

States with FAFSA requirements see higher completion rates

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bill allows for waivers from FAFSA requirement

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Legislation changed to address privacy concerns

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As a result, he had to repeat an entire year of classes, and redo school work he had already completed.

“At times, I didn’t want to do it, because I had already done it,” Goode said of the work. “It felt like I was forgotten and no one cared.”

Goode is now 21 — years past high school and living in Van Buren Township. But the holes in Michigan’s foster care system that disrupted his education persist today, and they continue to create turmoil for thousands of students in foster care.

As reported by NBC in 2022, many students describe having to repeat years of school due to lost academic records. Some say they were placed in residential facilities that failed to give them an education that met state graduation requirements. Others said they missed weeks or months of school while waiting to be enrolled after moving to a foster-care facility.

Their experiences are now inspiring efforts in the Michigan Legislature to ensure that students in foster care get more of the education they deserve.

“These are young people who have already been dealt a lot of trauma,” said State Rep. Stephanie Young, a Democrat from Detroit. “The very minimum we can do is ensure they get the best education they can.”

Three bills introduced last year by Young passed the Michigan House in November. Young said she is pushing for the legislation to move quickly through a hearing in the Senate Housing and Human Services Committee and for a vote in the Senate. She says the bills have bipartisan support.

One of the bills would require that residential facilities enroll students in school within five days of placement, and that they provide an education that meets the state’s graduation requirements. Another bill would give the Michigan Department of Education responsibility for overseeing the facilities’ educational programs and enforcing compliance.

The third bill would require the MDE and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to keep better records on the number of children in foster care, where they are, and how they’re progressing in their education.

The state has an estimated 10,000 kids in foster care, but the total number is unknown because many go uncounted in the current system, advocates say. For example, people ages 18 to 23 who are still eligible to receive state services are not included in that count.

Michigan foster youth have a high school graduation rate of about 40% – lagging about 40 percentage points behind the state’s overall graduation rate. That figure doesn’t give a clear picture either, because it doesn’t include youth who drop out or complete high school in residential facilities.

“This problem has existed for years, and we’ve finally decided to come up with a solution,” said Young. “I don’t foresee any major obstacles in moving this thing forward.”

A group of foster youth and advocates spoke at the Dec. 12 Michigan State Board of Education meeting to ask the board to support a package of bills that would reform the way the state oversees education for kids in foster care.

Inadequate record-keeping adds to challenges for youth in foster care

Christian Randle entered the foster care system at age 11, when he said he was abandoned by his mother. He thought he was excelling in his school work for years, and worked hard to fulfill the promise he made to himself that he would graduate high school.

But when he left a residential facility and tried to enroll in a traditional community high school two years ago, he found out there was no record of him attending nearly three years of high school. In fact, Michigan has no centralized electronic system to track foster youth and their educational records.

“Through all that stress and trauma going on inside of that foster care facility, the one thing I was happy about coming out of it was my schooling,” Randle, now an 18-year-old senior at an online school, said in January. “And that was taken away from me.”

“I felt defeated and like I had to restart everything,” he said through tears. “To me, it felt like my life was over.”

The inability to access records also makes it impossible for traditional public schools to identify students who are in foster care, which can deprive those children of resources they need or their rights under federal education law.

For example, schools can’t fulfill the federal Title I requirement to engage with students’ families if they can’t identify who holds a foster youth’s parental rights. Neither can they comply with the federal 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act’s assurance of transportation for foster youth if they can’t identify which students are in foster care.

“They are invisible in schools,” said Saba Gebrai, program director at Park West, a Michigan nonprofit that supports foster youth. “Under the federal law, they have all these protections, but we can’t protect and serve them if we don’t know who they are.”

Because schools can’t see the youths’ case files, administrators can’t identify who has their parental rights. Biological parents, caregivers, and students old enough to hold their own parental rights are routinely denied access to the educational records they are legally entitled to.

Carlos Correa, a former foster youth who spoke about his experience to the Michigan State Board of Education in December, said he regularly struggled to get absences excused when he was in high school.

“They kept insisting that I get permission from my parents to attend my doctors appointments,” he said.

Education for foster youth lacks consistency

Beyond the record-keeping, it’s the quality of education that concerns many advocates for foster youth.

When kids move from one facility to another, often in the middle of a school year, there is no continuity in their curriculum, said Gebrai. The assessments they take to determine what classes or grade levels they should be in vary from facility to facility.

Residential facilities, many operated by private companies, can decide on their own what students are taught.

“Graduation and high school diplomas are not mentioned in the contracts that these facilities have,” said Gebrai. “Each facility is creating its own idea of what school is and what assessments to give, and they are not in communication with each other.”

Many youth who live in the facilities describe being placed in classrooms packed with kids of all ages and grade levels. They say there is often only one instructor or facility staff member overseeing large numbers of students. Some say they are instructed entirely online, and others say they are assigned packets to complete as lessons without instruction from a teacher.

“I was in a place for like one month without receiving education because of constant fights,” said Correa of a residential facility he was placed in.

Existing state laws require parents or facilities only to provide youth with “timely” enrollment in school. That vague language often leads to weeks of missed school for kids moving around in the system, advocates say.

Young said the explicit five-day deadline in the legislation she introduced would clear that up.

Gebrai and other advocates argued for the bill to mandate “immediate” placement, but Young argued for some flexibility. “Kids might be dealing with the trauma of being removed from their house and the only school they knew,” said Young. “Going to a new school the very next day, that’s traumatic. I get that there needs to be some wiggle room.”

According to a fiscal impact analysis of the bills, the laws would cost the state around $600,000 to hire three full-time staff members in the MDE to implement the proposed new requirements.

The residential facilities may contract with public schools to provide curriculum, the analysis says. The school aid budget already allocates $10.5 million to reimburse districts for on-site education for youth.

Foster youth see an opportunity for change

Goode, the former Lakeside Academy student, ultimately got his high school diploma there, and plans to go back to the University of Michigan-Flint in the fall. But he feels he missed out on a “normal” high school experience and childhood.

“I’ve never been to a homecoming dance or prom,” he said. “I’ve never experienced a high school science fair. A lot of things I grew up without and I sat on the outside of it. I can’t change that now.”

But he and Randle see Young’s bills as hope that things can change for other youth in foster care.

Randle, who lives on his own in Southfield and works several jobs to support himself and his cat, hopes to complete high school this year. His dream is to be the first in his family to attend college and to eventually have a career helping foster youth.

He says the changes in the law are long overdue.

“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.

These are the 6 storylines that defined Michigan education news in 2023

2023-12-21T16:16:06+00:00

This was a transformative year for education in Michigan. Democrats took control of the state Legislature and rolled back some of the reforms enacted during Republican control.

Gone are the requirements for holding back struggling readers, using test scores to evaluate teachers, and giving letter grades to schools.

A new state education department was launched with an eye on improving outcomes for students. The state education budget invested historic amounts of money in the most vulnerable children.

The news went beyond Lansing, of course. Schools in Detroit dealt with budget cuts precipitated by the loss of federal COVID relief funding, which dried up in the district. They also tried to address high rates of chronic absenteeism.

As we head into the holidays and into a new year, here’s a look back at six big story themes from 2023:

Chronic absenteeism continues to threaten pandemic recovery

All the education reforms in the world won’t make a difference if students aren’t coming to school every day. That poses a particular problem in Michigan, where low achievement levels have driven calls for improving the way students are educated and schools are funded.

Those efforts have bumped up against data showing nearly a third of Michigan students were chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year, meaning they missed 18 or more school days; in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, two-thirds were chronically absent.

Chalkbeat Detroit has made reporting on chronic absenteeism a priority, because it’s important for readers to understand the consequences of frequent absences, the reasons students miss school, and the broader factors that are fueling absenteeism.

During 2023, we wrote about how Detroit’s spotty transportation options for students make it difficult for some to get to school every day. We also wrote about a state law enacted in 2015 that punishes parents of chronically absent students. If those parents receive public assistance, the state has the option of yanking that aid. Family poverty is a leading contributor to student absenteeism, and as Chalkbeat reported, some research has found that punitive approaches to chronic absenteeism don’t work. Critics argued the state shouldn’t take away assistance from the very families who need it the most.

Chalkbeat took readers inside Gompers Elementary-Middle School to capture efforts to improve chronic absenteeism. We introduced you to Effie Harris, an attendance agent whose work is at the center of those efforts, and students such as Jay’Sean who were benefiting from a mentoring program that paired students at risk for chronic absence with an adult in the school. We also reported on community efforts to boost attendance.

Finally, we reported on some positive developments after after the dramatic increases in chronic absenteeism during the pandemic. The state’s 30% rate in 2022-23 was down from 38% in 2021-22, and DPSCD’s 66% rate was down from 80% in the previous year.

Democrats take control of Lansing, roll back GOP school reforms

For the first time in decades, Democrats had control of the Michigan Legislature and the governor’s office. They didn’t waste any time flexing that power, and applied much of it to the state’s schools.

Among the big moves lawmakers made during 2023: They repealed Michigan’s A-F letter grade accountability system for schools. They repealed the portion of the Read by Grade 3 law that requires schools hold back third graders who are a year or more behind in reading. They passed legislation that restores the collective bargaining rights of teachers — rights that were removed under Republican control more than a decade ago. Legislation was also enacted to remove student test scores as a factor in evaluating teachers.

Perhaps the biggest move was in the passage of a state K-12 budget that was lauded by many education experts and advocacy groups as groundbreaking, because it reflected an aggressive approach to addressing learning that was lost during the pandemic, and because it allocated more money to some of the most vulnerable students in the state.

Much of the Democratic-led education legislation passed along party lines, with Republicans largely opposed. Some of the opponents told Chalkbeat for a recent story that they believe accountability and transparency have been removed from classrooms.

New state education department launched

Among the other big political issues that grabbed headlines in Michigan was Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s announcement in July that she was creating a new education department focused on improving outcomes for students in preschool through postsecondary programs.

The new department is the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential, or MiLEAP. It is taking on some functions previously handled by the Michigan Department of Education, such as early childhood education.

Some cheered the announcement, saying it would give the governor more direct control over some important functions. But others worried that a new department would create more layers of bureaucracy. The State Board of Education, which oversees the MDE, asked the state attorney general’s office to rule on the legitimacy of the department.

The department launched this month with Michelle Richard, a Whitmer adviser, as its acting director.

Federal relief aid is on its way out in Michigan schools

As we’ve reported for more than a year, federal COVID relief funding has helped school districts pay for expanded tutoring, mental health services for students, and other resources needed to recover from the pandemic. It has also helped school districts, particularly those that are financially troubled, become more secure.

But that money has already dried up in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, which undertook the difficult task of cutting positions and laying off some staff during the spring. The federal funds don’t run out until September 2024, but because the district allocated more than half of its nearly $1.3 billion allocation toward a massive facility plan, the district hit what experts have described as a fiscal cliff sooner than most other districts in the state.

Early in the year, Chalkbeat reported on whether school districts are ready for the impending loss of the federal aid. And throughout the spring, we provided consistent coverage of the debate over cuts in the Detroit school district, as some in the community worried that the district could return to the days of state control, when financial crises led to routine cutbacks and school closures.

Detroit district finally gets literacy lawsuit money

The 2016 Detroit “right to literacy” lawsuit was finally fully resolved this year when the Michigan Legislature allocated $94.4 million to support literacy efforts in the Detroit school district. As part of the settlement in that suit, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had committed to including the funding in her budget proposals, but it wasn’t until Democrats took control of the Legislature that her proposal became a reality.

Now, the focus turns to how that money will be spent. There is no shortage of opinions on how that money will benefit students most. A task force required by the settlement held meetings this fall to hear from residents and is required to deliver recommendations to the district. Detroit school board members discussed options during a November retreat.

The money comes at a crucial time. Improving reading skills among Detroit schoolchildren has been a large concern for decades. Reading scores for Detroit students have ranked among the lowest in the nation over the past decade and a half.

Mixed news on early childhood education

State officials have made early childhood education a priority for years now, and this year, lawmakers took a step toward ensuring that any child, regardless of family income, is eligible to enroll in the state’s free preschool program. And Whitmer has also pushed to expand access to child care programs. Meanwhile, a report released this summer said Michigan is improving outcomes for early childhood health and education.

But the early childhood education industry in Michigan is still unstable. Staffing shortages will make expansion efforts difficult. Child care providers have demanded more funding so they can pay their workers competitive wages. And federal COVID relief money that was intended to keep child care centers open during the pandemic dried up in September, leaving some predicting the loss of the money will result in programs closing or increasing costs.

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

Student absences for mental health would be excused under Michigan bill

2023-12-20T21:10:47+00:00

Karalynn Santiago’s father died on Nov. 28. She has struggled to get through each day since.

Karalynn, a 15-year-old 10th-grader at Western International High School in Detroit, took four days off school to grieve her sudden loss.

When she returned, she felt overwhelmed by the amount of material she missed in class and how much she had to catch up on to make passing grades by the end of the quarter.

“Imagine, four days off,” she said, recalling the struggle this week. “I’m still in the grieving process. I don’t want to do the work, but I know I have to … . On top of everything else I’m going through, it’s hard.”

A bill proposed in January in the Michigan Senate recognizes the challenges faced by children like Karalynn. It would allow K-12 public school students to take up to five excused absences each school year for mental or behavioral health issues, without a note from a doctor or therapist, and would require schools to let students make up any school work they miss.

Additionally, educators would be able to refer students who take two or more mental health days to counselors so they can get help.

Karalynn said she feels the bill would benefit her and many other struggling youth.

“There’s a lot of kids here going through a lot of stuff,” Karalynn said. “And I know that’s one of the main reasons kids skip. I feel like that would be a good thing for us.”

Others caution that it’s only a small step that won’t have much effect unless students who are struggling have wider access to help and resources.

Mental-health challenges are a barrier to learning

The legislation is part of a growing national effort to help schoolchildren dealing with mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

Twelve states have enacted similar legislation as of May, according to Verywell Mind, a website that tracks health and wellness bills. Another eight states, including Michigan, have had bills for student mental health days introduced by lawmakers.

“Kids can’t learn if they are struggling or experiencing other issues in their lives,” said state Sen. Sarah Anthony, a Democrat from Lansing who introduced the bill.

Anthony said she was inspired to author the bill after hearing from many constituents who said they wanted their kids to have more flexibility to address their mental health. Her family’s experience also influenced the legislation.

“When I was running for state representative, my older brother passed away and he left behind five kids,” she said. “We needed to have that flexibility when the kids were having a bad day. Whether it’s a death or a loved one being ill, these things can have lasting effects.”

Anthony said that when the Legislature returns for its next session, she will advocate for it to move quickly through the Senate Education Committee and to a vote, and expects it to gain bipartisan support.

“Everyone we’ve talked to — Republican or Democrat — they know that mental health is one of those key pieces that people in their districts care about,” she said.

Support for mental health days is broad

The need for student mental health days has grown in recent years, advocates say, as many adolescents are still dealing with the impact of trauma and isolation brought on by the pandemic. And the idea is becoming more popular.

In a 2022 poll by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 67% of children ages 12 to 17 said they thought schools should offer mental health days. Most also said they wanted their schools to help address their mental health and educate them on where to find resources.

Parents back the idea, too. A 2021 poll conducted for NAMI found 70% of parents supported students taking days off for their mental health. The poll also found 87% of the parents were in favor of mental health education in schools.

“I have done this with my own children when they are in a stressful situation or are feeling down and tired,” said Jennifer Rothman, director of youth and young adult initiatives at the NAMI.

In the decade leading up to the pandemic, the number of teens reporting persistent feelings of sadness and suicidal thoughts increased by around 40%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System.

The potential causes of the increase are complex, and research does not point to any singular reason, said Matthew Diemer, professor at the Marsal Family School of Education at the University of Michigan.

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

More than 20% of teens have had suicidal ideation, or serious thoughts of suicide, a 2021 report from the CDC said.

The start of the COVID-19 pandemic, March to October 2020, coincided with a spike in mental-health related emergency-room visits for youth ages 12 to 17: a 31% increase compared with 2019, CDC data shows.

How absences can help students get help

Giving students time to address their mental health would likely help them do better in the classroom, supporters of the bill say, citing years of research showing a link between poor academic performance and mental health problems.

Moreover, if a student takes a mental health day, that attendance record could be used to trigger a response from school officials to target resources to that student, said Anthony.

The data could be used to guide changes at the district and state level, too, Rothman said.

“It could get some conversations happening about more funding to address the need for more counselors and what other resources need to be brought in,” she said. “If we see a lot of students are using this, we will recognize we need more time and effort and funding put into mental health education.”

Rothman said she’d like to see the states that already have student mental health days collect more data on how often kids are using those days.

Some skeptics of the bill argue that kids may abuse excused mental health days as a way to skip school. Michigan is already struggling with high rates of chronic absenteeism.

Some administrators argue that the bill isn’t needed because absences are already considered excused when a parent tells the school their child won’t be there.

“If a parent calls a school and says their child is home sick it’s an excused absence, whether it happens to be mental or physical health,” said Wendy Zdeb, executive director of the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals. “Schools usually ask for a doctor’s note in a longer-term situation.”

Still, Rothman said many parents may not be aware that it’s OK for a child to take a day off solely for their mental health.

“Not every parent thinks that that is a reasonable excuse to keep kids home,” she said. “This gives a needed spotlight to the fact that mental health is just as important as physical health and that we need to allow students time to address it.

By allowing excused absences without doctors’ notes, supporters of the bill say, it would benefit students who can’t easily access mental health services in the state, which has a shortage of adolescent psychiatrists, especially in rural communities.

As for the potential for abuse, Rothman said, “The way we look at it, if it helps even one student, it’s worth it.”

Students need resources when they return to school

Some researchers caution that students need more than days off to deal with mental health challenges: They need support when they return to school.

“I think the policy is a step in the right direction,” said Diemer. “But I don’t think giving days off without any other improvements would lead to desired changes.”

Karalynn, the Detroit student, said her school paired her with a therapist earlier in this school year, but she hasn’t gotten support from any mental health professionals since her dad died.

“Not every student shows the same emotions physically,” said Karalynn. “Some can have a straight face, but you don’t know that they’re going through something. You don’t know what’s going on at home. You don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors.”

Detroit Public Schools Community officials did not respond to a request for comment about Karalynn’s experience.

Michigan has long had a shortage of student mental-health resources. The state lags behind almost every other state in the ratio of students to counselors.

Anthony, the bill sponsor, said the bill is one of several addressing mental health she’s introduced. Both she and Rothman agree that more needs to be done.

“This is not a fix-all,” said Rothman. “It’s a step in the right direction to get some of those conversations happening. We need more funding to address the need for more counselors and to make mental health programs more accessible to those who don’t typically have access.”

Karalynn said she feels the adults around her don’t believe her or her peers when they ask for help.

“If we ask to go to our therapist or a counselor or even to the bathroom to deal with it ourselves, I feel we should be able to go, because you don’t know what we’re going through,” she said. “I feel like these parents, these faculty members don’t understand that. And I know they’re going through stuff, too.

“I know it’s not easy,” she said, “but we’re people. We’re human.”

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

In their words: The students, teachers, and advocates we heard from in 2023

2023-12-19T21:22:56+00:00

At Chalkbeat Detroit, we take seriously our mission to inform readers about efforts to improve public education in Michigan and explain how inequities create barriers to learning.

Crucial to our work is ensuring that the voices of the people who have the most at stake — students, parents, advocates, teachers, and other school staff — are front and center.

That’s part of our regular reporting. But we also elevate these voices with special features, such as first-person essays, How I Teach features, interview Q&As, and other formats.

As we wrap up 2023, we’re looking back at some of the voices we showcased over the last 12 months. Below, you’ll see highlights of those pieces.

And as always, if you have a story you’d like to share, or know of a voice that deserves to be heard, please reach out to us at detroit.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Confronting racial violence with tenderness

I am required to teach Abraham Lincoln and how he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but not about the felony disenfranchisement that keeps many of my students’ families from experiencing true freedom.
N’Kengé Robertson

Detroit teacher N’Kengé Robertson tackled issues of racial violence and identity in this first-person piece. She explains that learning materials often leave out “critical conversations of race, gender, religion, language, and sexuality,” and fail to capture the lived experiences of students they’re supposed to reach. To address that, she said, she worked with her high school students to “improve the situation by compiling new resources, reshaping our lessons, and moving away from Eurocentric narratives in our classroom.”

Detroit students shed light on the need for self-love, inner peace

The pandemic has done a number on me. I don’t and can’t go anywhere, can’t sleep some nights, always see the negative before the positive, and I doubt almost everything and everyone around me.
TaMyra Smith

Detroit teen TaMyra Smith wrote about mental health and depression as part of Local Circles, a nonprofit that works with youth to research issues that are important to them.

In February, we published excerpts of student-written pieces about mental health that shed light on some of the post-pandemic struggles students are facing. The writing was part of a project of an organization called Local Circles. The participants included one student who said she struggled with depression, and another who urged students to seek help when they need it. For the most part, they agreed that self-love and inner peace are important for their healing. There is still widespread concern about the mental health challenges of students who are grappling with the after-effects of the pandemic. Adults trying to address this must listen to what young people are saying they need.

A Detroit man’s passion for getting kids to school every day

It was heartbreaking to me to see these children squandering an opportunity that later in life they’ll have to pay to get.
Larry Simmons

Chronic absenteeism has been a major storyline for Chalkbeat Detroit for more than a year. We’ve given readers a close-up view of one Detroit school’s efforts to get students to school regularly, the role community agencies have played, and barriers to improving attendance, such as spotty transportation and a state policy that punishes the parents of chronically absent students. In this interview Q&A, retired pastor Larry Simmons talked about what drove his years-long effort to help get kids in school regularly, and what it felt like to see children walking around his neighborhood when they should have been in school.

Looking at the world through a similar lens at Michigan camp

Detroit teen Torrance Johnson wrote a first-person essay about attending a Michigan camp for children with muscular dystrophy.

I rejoice in thoughts that my lost friends are running around happy and alive in the afterlife; at the same time, my heart aches, because they are no longer by my side.
Torrance Johnson

Detroit teen Torrance Johnson wrote a first-person piece, a version of which was initially published by the Detroit Writing Room, about how a camp in Lexington, Michigan, for children with muscular dystrophy changed his life. Going to this camp each year gave him an opportunity to be around other children like him who have muscular dystrophy. He wrote of the joys that brought, but also the sadness of losing friends.

Adults failed her when she was a kid. Now she is a watchdog for children.

No adults ever took the time to ask what was behind my surface-level behavioral issues … despite best practices and what research tells us about kids who “act up.”
Hannah Dellinger

Chalkbeat Detroit reporter Hannah Dellinger wrote a first-person essay about overcoming childhood trauma.

Chalkbeat Detroit reporter Hannah Dellinger, who joined our team in June, wrote an intensely personal essay about her experiences overcoming trauma. The sexual abuse she suffered as a young child led to behavior problems in school — signs of the trauma that adults ignored. Hannah’s piece illustrates not only the importance of having school staff trained to meet the needs of students struggling with trauma, but also how important it is for adults to be able to act on telltale signs that a student isn’t just acting out, but perhaps exhibiting the effects of trauma.

This Detroit teacher’s mission: Bring back school libraries

I really need to impress and stress how important going to school is and the work that students do there, not only because they’re young and they’re learning, but also because it has long-term ramifications for their life. The absence of libraries is an atrocity.
Josie Silver

Josie Silver teaches early elementary grades in the Detroit school district, and one thing she’s passionate about is equipping her children with books that will fuel their love of learning. Chalkbeat highlighted Silver as part of its regular How I Teach column, in part because the educator had been named a Michigan Collaborative Teacher Leader. Silver talked about the need for school libraries, and the challenges she has faced teaching students who are still struggling to rebound academically from the pandemic.

Detroit student who fought for ‘right to literacy’ is still in the fight

We obligate children to go to schools, but we don’t obligate schools to teach.
Jamarria Hall

Jamarria Hall was the lead plaintiff in the historic lawsuit that claimed state officials had deprived Detroit students of a right to literacy.

Jamarria Hall was the face of the historic 2016 “right to read” lawsuit that argued state officials failed to provide a basic reading education when they oversaw the Detroit school district between 2009 and 2016 under emergency management. Hall was a high school student when that lawsuit was filed, and became the lead plaintiff. Now 23, he told Chalkbeat in this interview that he sees the $94 million the state allocated this year to the district — part of a 2021 settlement of the case — as a way for young people to have a say in their future.

Michigan’s History Teacher of the Year helps educators combat racist myths

The world is such a fascinating place. Each student has passion and curiosity inside them, and I am so honored whenever I can play a small part in igniting these things.
Matt Vriesman

Teacher Matt Vriesman was named Michigan History Teacher of the Year.

In 2020, as the nation was undergoing a racial reckoning after the murder of George Floyd, an administrator asked social studies teacher Matt Vriesman to share resources with other teachers. Vriesman had already adapted his own classroom lessons after realizing that state standards don’t always provide an accurate view of race, slavery, and injustice. That request turned into something bigger than his East Kentwood High School building. Vriesman, whom Chalkbeat featured in a How I Teach piece after he was named Michigan History Teacher of the Year, created a website that provides antiracism resources for Advanced Placement teachers across the nation. This work is important to Vriesman, who teaches at one of the most diverse schools in the state. “We are always looking for new ways to bring in the knowledge and experience of our students into the classroom,” he said. “It makes world history so much more ‘real’ for students.”

Michigan’s top teacher wants more focus on mental health, learning recovery

Many children are dealing with mental health issues themselves or dealing with the mental health issue of a parent or caregiver. In Michigan, we need to put as much time, resources, and funding into meeting the students’ mental needs as we do their physical and educational needs.
Candice Jackson

Detroit educator Candice Jackson was named Michigan Teacher of the Year.

Soon after being named Michigan’s Teacher of the Year, Candice Jackson used her new platform to push for schools to address the academic and mental health needs that have lingered as schools attempt to help students recover from the pandemic. Williams, the first Detroit district teacher to be recognized as the state’s top teacher since the 2006-07 school year, told Chalkbeat that students need counseling services and social-emotional learning programs to get back on track. That will pay off academically, she said, because stronger mental health “enhances academic performance, supports overall well-being, enables early interventions, and has short-term and long-term positive outcomes for students.”

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

A look back at key Michigan education legislation in 2023

2023-12-04T16:08:24+00:00

With Democrats in control of the Michigan Legislature for the first time in decades, a number of education policy changes and priorities they have long fought for became a reality in 2023.

They include some reforms that educators and school administrators have pushed for as well, from a historic school aid budget that prioritized funding for students considered to be at risk, to the repeal of a retention provision in the third-grade reading law, to the elimination of the A-to-F school rating system.

“Educators for a lot of years said they agreed with some of the problems identified by the Legislature, but didn’t feel like they were listening to what was needed,” said Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, which advocates for public schools. “On a number of these issues, the end result of this session in large part was that lawmakers were listening to what we were telling them was going to be the most effective way of addressing these issues.”

McCann said that compared with previous years of Republican control, the Legislature sent a clearer signal to educators that it was looking to better understand the needs of schools and how to best support them.

Most notably, this year’s school aid budget set the foundation for changing the way the state funds public education, following some recommendations from the School Finance Research Collaborative, which has developed a roadmap for more equitable school funding.

“It’s impossible to say we liked every piece of every bill, but the fact that there is a lot of input from educators and thoughtful discussion happening, I think is appreciated,” said Wendy Zdeb, executive director of the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals.

Republicans and conservative advocacy groups viewed this year’s Democratic-backed policy changes differently, saying accountability and transparency were removed from classrooms.

“Whether it’s the adding of items to collective bargaining, educator evaluations, changes to the third-grade reading law, or the removal of school report cards, these are anti-student efforts,” said Beth DeShone, executive director of the Great Lakes Education Project, a school-choice advocacy group founded by Trump administration Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Molly Macek, director of education policy at the conservative Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said that in a record school aid budget, “very little was directed toward improving student outcomes and learning.”

Here’s a look at the key education measures that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and lawmakers enacted this year, and one that’s making its way through the Legislature:

School aid budget boosts funding for the most vulnerable students

The $21.5 billion K-12 budget that passed in a mostly party-line vote in June was lauded by many education experts and advocacy groups as historic and groundbreaking, because it reflected an aggressive approach to recovering lost learning after the pandemic, particularly for the state’s most vulnerable students.

The budget allocated more money to special education, English language learners, and students from low-income households. Many supporters said it addressed “past wrongs” and failings by the state.

In addition to increasing overall per-pupil funding, the budget provided a new way to calculate funding for “at risk” students, setting aside $952 million to give schools 11.5% more money per eligible student.

And the budget included the $94.4 million for literacy programs that was promised to the Detroit Public Schools Community District to settle a 2016 lawsuit alleging that the state denied the city’s schoolchildren a basic education by failing to teach them to read.

Also funded in the budget were free school meals for all students.

Smaller ticket budget items also delivered money to benefit community-based advocacy efforts, education nonprofits, rural districts, and teachers. Among the beneficiaries were programs in Detroit that support student transportation and parent engagement.

Retention provision in third grade reading law is gone

In March, the Legislature voted mostly along party lines — with one GOP vote — to repeal part of Michigan’s controversial law that required third-graders who tested more than a grade level behind in reading to repeat the grade.

The law, which provided many ways for students to get exemptions, was criticized for its disparate impact on children from lower-income families and Black students, who were more likely to be held back than their white or wealthier peers who also struggled with reading.

Supporters of the repeal said holding back students didn’t help their learning outcomes and only did harm.

Defenders of the law said the prospect of retention helped boost test scores. But research on the issue is not conclusive, and suggests any improvement in test performance is short term.

Teacher evaluations delinked from student test scores

In November, legislators passed changes to the state’s teacher evaluation system that eliminated student test scores as a factor in teachers’ job performance ratings. Many educators hailed the change as a big win for teacher retention.

Under the previous system, as much as 40% of a teacher’s rating was based on student test scores. But little evidence emerged that the system led to better student outcomes.

Republicans largely opposed the change, saying it would lead to less accountability for individual teachers.

A-to-F school rating system eliminated

Lawmakers in May scrapped a law that required the state to assign A-to-F grades to schools.

Critics of the system, put in place in 2018, said it was redundant, because Michigan schools are already rated on a 1-to-100 scale to comply with a federally mandated accountability system. They also said the A-to-F grades stigmatized lower-performing schools and encouraged teachers to focus their lessons on standardized tests rather than broader learning.

Republicans had argued that a letter-based grade would be simpler for parents to understand than the 1-to-100 scale.

Teachers regain collective-bargaining rights

Under a bill Whitmer signed into law in July, teachers regained collective-bargaining rights that were stripped away by Republicans more than a decade before.

The change allows teachers once again to bargain on issues such as performance evaluations, staff reductions, teacher placements, discipline, and classroom observations.

The bill was a huge win for teachers unions, but some organizations representing school administrators and school boards opposed it.

McCann and Zdeb said their organizations have concerns over a provision that says seniority can be used as a tie-breaker in deciding teacher placement.

“A seniority-based system hurts young teachers and potentially puts teacher longevity over student needs,” said Zdeb.

Student-inspired bill to address sexual assault is now law

A law that requires Michigan schools to help students understand terms like “consent” and “sexual assault” passed with bipartisan support this summer.

The long-pending legislation was born out of an idea from a group of Detroit girls of color based on their own and peer experiences. The girls found that many of the kids they talked to didn’t know where they could find help or resources for sexual assault survivors.

In June, the Legislature passed a bill that amends state discipline law to protect public school students who report being sexually assaulted from being expelled or suspended more than 10 days in a school year.

According to research and testimony in favor of the bill, responses to trauma can often include behaviors that go against school policy.

Charter schools could face new disclosure requirements

A bill introduced in October would require Michigan charter schools to publicly disclose average teacher and support staff salaries.

Currently, those costs aren’t always clear in charter schools’ financial reports, because they can be lumped in with other expenses paid to for-profit management companies that operate most charter schools.

The State Board of Education has sought more clarity on how much public funding charter schools spend on educating their students, and how much goes to the private management companies.

McCann, from the K-12 Alliance, said the proposed bill is a good start to a larger, “long overdue” conversation on ensuring that charters operate by the same rules as traditional public schools. “Tax dollars are being spent and appropriated, and we need some accountability on the back end when these charter schools fail.”

Macek, from the Mackinac Center, agreed that “some level” of transparency for charter schools would be a positive, adding that she believes “it’s important to not be putting added regulations or restrictions” on the entities.

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

Whitmer announces leader of new education agency that launches Friday

2023-12-01T16:21:48+00:00

A new Michigan education department conceived by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer launches Friday. Supporters say they hope it brings cohesion to a fragmented education system. But some wish the governor had gone further to shake up a system that has struggled for decades.

In announcing the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential in July, Whitmer stressed the need to better support students at both ends of their educational journey: preschoolers headed toward kindergarten and young adults after graduation from high school.

If nothing else, the department, known by its acronym MiLEAP, will do something critics of the current system have demanded for years: make the governor’s office more directly accountable for educational performance in the state.

The department’s director, Michelle Richard, previously the governor’s senior education adviser, steps into a cabinet-level position in the Whitmer administration. That proximity, for better or worse, ties MiLEAP’s success or failure to the state’s top elected official.

When Whitmer unveiled MiLEAP through an executive order last summer, she was careful to note it was meant to complement, not replace, the work of the State Board of Education, which oversees the Michigan Department of Education, which in turn oversees K-12 education in the state.

While members of the state board said they feared MiLEAP represented an incursion on its constitutional independence, Whitmer said in a statement Friday that MiLEAP is more focused on the endgame of education.

“Every Michigander deserves a path to ‘make it in Michigan’ with strong,

lifelong learning support and a path to a good job, but for too long, we have thought of education as just K-12,” Whitmer said. “We know that’s not good enough, which is why MiLEAP will tackle bold goals like expanding access to pre-K for all 4-year-olds, offering more affordable paths after graduation to get a higher education or skills training, and forging strong partnerships with our employers so they can get a good-paying, family-sustaining job.”

More than 300 people are being transferred from existing state departments to MiLEAP, where they will work on issues including child care licensing, before- and after-school programming, and college scholarships.

In Richard, the governor has tapped an ally who was instrumental in the administration’s efforts to make college more affordable for Michigan residents. Richard helped with the rollout of the state’s tuition-free community college program.

Some education experts told Bridge they hope the new department will speed Whitmer’s ability to work on education policy initiatives.

While state board President Pamela Pugh — like Whitmer, a Democrat — told Bridge she will “remain vigilant” to ensure MiLEAP does not step on the board’s authority, other state education leaders said they are hopeful it will allow Whitmer to take action on key issues.

“MiLEAP helps Gov. Whitmer be able to move forward her education priorities in the areas that MiLEAP covers,” said Venessa Keesler, president and CEO of Launch Michigan, a nonprofit aimed at reimagining the state’s education system.

“It gives her some control over pieces in the education system and to move some things faster and with more concerted focus,” Keesler said.

Whitmer has set a goal of ensuring that 60% of working-age adults in Michigan hold a college degree or skills certificate by 2030. (The number is currently about 50.5%.)

“She’s creating a system that’s going to enhance that goal, to accelerate those numbers,” said John Severson, executive director of the Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators.

“When you’re the governor and you’re talking about the future of this state, I really believe she’s leaning in with this department, and it is very transformational with this change,” Severson said.

Whitmer has also set a goal of ensuring access to pre-K education for all 4-year-olds by the end of her second term.

Scott Koenigsknecht, superintendent of Clinton County Regional Educational Service Agency, an intermediate school district, said that Whitmer is “extremely committed to all things early childhood,” and investment in early childhood will help improve student outcomes.

Will MiLEAP lead to more efficiency or bureaucracy?

Tom Haas, president emeritus at Grand Valley State University, where he teaches leadership studies, said he sees the new department as a way to create efficiencies. It also is an acknowledgement that education starts with pre-K and that more college graduates is good for the state’s economy, Haas said.

The state’s current system of an elected state board and a superintendent who does not answer to the governor has been criticized for years, including by then-Gov. Rick Snyder’s 21st Century Education Commission, which Haas was on.

The PreK-12 workgroup of Whitmer’s Growing Michigan Together Council, which is focused on expanding the state’s population, recommends that the state align priorities among MDE, the state board, and the governor’s office. The group also recommends a “reconsideration of how the state superintendent is selected.”

Many education experts told Bridge they hope MiLEAP leads to more collaboration and cohesiveness in Lansing on education policy issues — but not to more bureaucracy.

Launch Michigan, for instance, supports a model where the governor, rather than the State Board of Education, appoints the state superintendent.

“As I’ve stepped into my role as Launch president, I have heard from many sources that collaboration with the Michigan Department of Education is not strong right now and there’s a desire for better collaboration with Dr. Rice and the department,” Keesler said, referring to Michael Rice, the state superintendent.

Keesler said collaboration would be stronger if education groups had more opportunity to share input with MDE and had a better understanding of what is happening at the department.

Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, which represents 123 school districts in Southeast Michigan, agreed.

“Often, our districts would like proactive communication (with MDE on) ‘how could this work better for you?’”

Rice, in a statement Friday morning, said he expected the work of the Office of Great Start (an early childhood education agency), which will transfer from MDE to MiLEAP, to continue.

“Whether or not we agree on the formation of a new department, we’re all going to continue to serve kids,” Rice said.

Brandy Johnson, president of the Michigan Community College Association, said she believes MiLEAP will help the governor exert more influence on education policy than she currently has.

“I think having someone in her cabinet that she can trust, and certainly that’s true of Michelle, that’s a big difference.”

Sheila Alles, former interim state superintendent, told Bridge she wished Whitmer had gone even further. Currently in Michigan, many education decisions are made at the local level.

Alles said she would like to see a system where local school districts are accountable to their regional intermediate school districts and those districts are accountable to MDE. The state superintendent would report to the governor.

“We don’t have time to wait,” Alles said. “Our children deserve better now.”

Mike Flanagan, state superintendent from 2005 to 2015, told Bridge that he, too, has long thought the state superintendent should report to the governor.

“Until the governor gets full control, I don’t think it’s going to drastically change,” he said of the state’s public schools, which typically test in the bottom half of U.S. states on national tests. “And then I think the public can hold the governor accountable for results. The governor can hold the state superintendent (responsible) for results.”

Higher education leaders see opportunity in MiLEAP

Dan Hurley, CEO of the Michigan Association of State Universities, which represents the state’s 15 public universities, told Bridge he believes the new department will increase awareness of the state’s college aid programs, elevate research about the benefits of getting a college degree, and enhance the way student data is used in making decisions.

Richard is a person who “gets things done,” Hurley said, and she “brings the right vibe to the department in terms of synergy, energy, and momentum.”

Johnson, of the community college association, who previously served in Whitmer’s administration, said she hopes MiLEAP will take a leadership role in expanding dual enrollment programs, which allow students to earn college credits while they are still in high school.

While MDE will continue to handle the core functions of K-12, MiLEAP has the potential to improve wraparound supports for students, Johnson said.

“There’s so much going on around a student,” Johnson said. “To me, when I read the executive order in July, the real common thread is student success.”

Isabel Lohman covers education for Bridge Michigan. You can reach her at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

Gaps in Michigan student achievement remain wider than pre-pandemic norm, report finds

2023-11-16T23:00:57+00:00

The gaps between Michigan’s lowest and highest performing K-8 students are wider than would have been expected before the pandemic, and some students are falling further behind, according to an analysis of benchmark testing results released this week.

However, the students and districts that saw the most learning loss also have shown the strongest academic recovery, the research findings suggest.

“Overall, the results show us that progress is being made, but that progress is gradual — especially compared to how large the impact of the pandemic was,” said Tara Kilbride, interim associate director of the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative, the research group that did the analysis. “It’s going to be a long-term, multiyear effort.”

The analysis covers assessments given to Michigan students each fall and spring since 2020, and captures how student growth compared with national trends before the pandemic.

Since spring of 2021, student achievement in the state improved slightly in math and very little in reading, the report found.

In fall 2020, Michigan students were in the 42nd percentile of national norms in math, meaning 58% of students nationwide performed better. Michigan students fell to the 39th percentile in math by spring 2021. In spring 2023, they returned to the 42nd percentile.

It is likely that students are still behind where they were in math prior to the pandemic, since the first benchmark assessments were administered well after in-person learning went on pause in March 2020.

In reading, students in the state fell from the 51st percentile in fall 2020 to the 45th percentile in spring 2021. Results in reading have not moved substantially since then.

“The differences in recovery align with findings from other states across the country — at least what we see in math,” said Kilbride. “But reading results in other states have been varied. Michigan falls somewhere in the middle.”

Districts that were the most affected by the pandemic — many of which are in urban areas serving more diverse populations of students from low-income families — made the strongest recovery, according to the report. The accelerated learning rates out of those districts drove overall growth at the state level.

Overall, Michigan students are making the growth in a school year that would have been expected before COVID, the assessment results in the report show, but some students are still falling behind, because they are not learning at a fast enough pace to catch up.

The same trend is being seen nationally, researchers say.

“We are making only very slow progress,” said Dan Goldhaber, a professor at the University of Washington and director of the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research.

“You really need the pace of learning to be considerably faster” to make up for lost learning, he added, “and we’re not seeing that.”

Goldhaber said the state of recovery nationally is “concerning” because tests are highly predictive of how kids will fare later on in life.

Benchmark assessments offer researchers and policy makers a couple of advantages over yearly M-STEP standardized test results, because they more clearly measure student growth during a school year, from fall to spring. Some of the assessments show how kids are achieving at a level beyond their grade.

In many cases, the assessments can be better than letter grades or report cards at helping parents understand how their children are performing, said Goldhaber.

“Grades are actually higher than they were before the pandemic, and they don’t seem to comport with what we know about test scores,” he said. “The meaning of an ‘A’ in terms of knowledge as assessed by the test is different from what we knew before the pandemic. I am worried that parents can be getting false signals about how their students are doing from grades, and maybe they should be paying some attention to the tests.”

The assessment results do have their limitations. The analysis includes assessments from about 773,000 of the 947,000 K-8 students in the state, at 769 of 852 school districts.

Legislation that passed in 2020 requiring Michigan districts to give the benchmark assessments gave them several options of approved test providers. Because of this, researchers did not include students who moved districts in their analysis.

Additionally, many students missed testing dates.

“Some of the reasons students did not take tests are the same reasons that they may have been impacted even more by the pandemic,” said Kilbride. “That could mean our results are showing a rosier picture than what truly happened.”

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

After Oxford shooting report, a call for stricter safety training requirements falters

2023-11-14T20:42:23+00:00

Michigan’s State Board of Education on Tuesday dismissed a school safety proposal calling for stricter training requirements for public school staff to help prevent gun violence, along with greater accountability for school employees and administrators for safety lapses.

But members who opposed the resolution signaled that they’re still committed to taking steps to improve school safety and are open to taking up the proposal later.

The proposal came from Republican board member Nikki Snyder in response to the release last month of an independent report on the 2021 mass shooting at Oxford High School, where a 15-year-old killed four students and injured seven others. The report found multiple failures by school officials to take steps to prevent the killings.

Snyder’s proposed resolution called for state laws requiring all school administrators and educators to receive behavioral threat assessment and management training, with the Michigan Department of Education enforcing compliance. It also called for MDE to check current student codes of conduct to make sure they align with the federal policies on notifying school resource officers of students who may pose a threat of violence.

Snyder’s proposal also called for removing any liability shield for school personnel and administrators who failed to report potential threats.

“We need to lead now in making sure this is what we expect,” Snyder said during the board meeting.

The board voted 5-3 against adding the resolution to its agenda. Republican member Tom McMillan, and board President Pamela Pugh, a Democrat, voted with Snyder.

Other members of the board agreed with Snyder that school safety is an urgent priority for the board but said they believed the proposal needed more research and input from officials before the board could consider it.

“We definitely are not voting this down and saying we don’t want to do anything with it,” said board member Tiffany Tilley, a Democrat. “We are saying we need more time. We need to make sure there is capacity to get the program, as well as MDE’s capacity to audit.”

Tilley said she would also like to work with MDE to pass additional proactive resolutions on school safety.

“There is no question that school safety is extremely important, and you’re absolutely right that this is the time to lead,” Democratic board member Judy Pritchett told Snyder. “I believe this board has been doing that.”

She cited the board’s October 2022 Resolution on Safer School Environments, which urged lawmakers to adopt Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s request for funding to support school safety and children’s mental health, as well as stronger gun safety laws.

That resolution did not recommend any new requirements in state law.

Snyder and McMillan said they voted against that resolution because it fell short of needed action.

The latest resolution “is about the requirement of that training — not the suggestion that it’s a fancy thought or a good idea,” Synder said.

Snyder added she would support amending the previously passed resolution with what she proposed.

She called the board’s choice to not take up the resolution on Tuesday “disgusting.”

“What we could do today is discuss this resolution, we could come to an agreement, and we could make a statement and lead,” she said. “And then we could work together on building the capacity to make sure students are safe and schools are safe. But you’re choosing not to do that.”

Pugh said she agrees there was room for the board to consider the resolution, but disputed the idea that it has not addressed the gun violence issue urgently enough.

“We’ve acted, and we will continue to provide guidance and support through MDE to our schools,” Pugh said.

“There are those of us who, for a long time, have been acting in urgency,” she said. “So, this resolution falls short of that urgency. We had an opportunity to give that input — and have — a year ago and have continued to work for the safety and healthy environment of children.”

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

Michigan lawmakers OK debt relief for some districts, and a change in teacher evaluations

2023-11-03T21:50:57+00:00

Another round of education legislation is headed to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s desk after Michigan lawmakers passed a budget bill that will provide debt relief for some of the most financially troubled districts in the state, as well as a bill that will change how teachers are evaluated.

The bills are further illustration of how Democrats’ rise to power this year in the Michigan Legislature has changed the education landscape in the state. In addition to the bills that passed this week, the Democratic majority has halted key GOP-backed education initiatives of the past decade and a half, such as state laws that required schools hold back some struggling third graders, required the state to assign letter grades to schools, and weakened teacher bargaining rights.

The bills were forwarded to Whitmer during a busy week for education news in Michigan: Lawmakers in the House discussed a new bill that would require charter schools to post teacher salary information on their websites. A new report on the deadly Oxford High School shooting in 2021 left some asking for more information. And state officials released new information about school districts providing free meals for students.

Here is more on the new legislation:

Struggling school districts get debt relief

Advocates for months have pushed lawmakers to provide debt relief for a handful of school districts, several of which had been under emergency management by the state. That paid off Thursday when lawmakers approved a supplemental budget bill that in part will whittle down debt for districts in Benton Harbor, Pontiac, Muskegon Heights, and Ypsilanti.

“Fixing the debt is going to help out everybody,” Seven Green, a fifth grader in Benton Harbor, said in a statement from the Michigan Education Justice Coalition, which had pushed for the debt relief. “It helps the teachers, the staff, the buildings, and the students would get more attention.”

Also benefiting are homeowners in the former Inkster Public Schools district, which was dissolved by the state in 2013 because of its massive debt. Even though the district closed, taxpayers were on the hook for millions of dollars in debt. Sen. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat from Livonia, said in testimony Thursday that without the aid, the debt wouldn’t be paid off until 2032. The supplemental bill erases that $12 million debt.

“My constituents in Inkster need this relief, they deserve this relief, and if they choose to try and resurrect their school district, it can’t happen without remaining debt forgiveness,” Polehanki said.

Here’s how the debt relief will benefit the other districts:

The Pontiac School District will receive up to $18.4 million to pay an outstanding emergency loan balance.
Benton Harbor Area Schools will receive up to $10 million to pay an outstanding emergency loan balance.
The Muskegon Heights School District will receive up to $31.3 million to pay an outstanding emergency loan balance, outstanding school bond loan fund balances, school loan revolving fund balances, associated general obligation unlimited tax debt, or costs associated with the payoff of debt.
Ypsilanti Community Schools will receive up to $5.5 million to pay the outstanding long-term limited tax debt held by the Michigan Finance Authority.
The former Willow Run Community Schools (which consolidated with the Ypsilanti district in 2013) will receive up to $19.36 million to pay outstanding school bond loan fund balances or school loan revolving fund balances.

The bill passed in the House and Senate along party lines, with Republicans opposed to the spending plans.

A statement from the Benton Harbor district described the debt relief as a “vital lifeline.”

“This relief is not just a financial reprieve but a moral support to our entire school community,” Superintendent Kelvin Butts said in the statement. “It stands as a testament to the faith that the State of Michigan and our local representatives have in our future.”

Millions allocated to ensure safe drinking water in schools

Schools and child care centers can get financial help from the state to ensure their drinking water is safe.

The supplemental bill that passed Thursday allocates $50 million for the purchase of drinking water filtration devices for schools and child care centers.

This comes just weeks after Michigan lawmakers passed new laws that Whitmer described in a statement at the time as protecting children. The laws now require schools and child care centers to install filtered faucets, develop a drinking water management plan, and conduct routine sampling and testing to ensure safe and accessible drinking water for children, the statement said.

Teacher evaluation legislation gets final passage

The Legislature this week passed a bill that would eliminate test scores as a factor in how teachers are evaluated. The bill passed along party lines, with Republicans opposed.

Current state law requires that student scores on standardized tests count for 40% of a teacher’s performance rating.

The bill that passed Wednesday eliminates that requirement and allows districts to use their own criteria for evaluating teachers, such as classroom observations, samples of student work, rubrics, and lesson plans.

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

Michigan bill would require charter schools to disclose teacher, staff salaries

2023-11-01T00:34:49+00:00

Proposed legislation would require Michigan charter schools to tell the public how much they pay their teachers and support staff.

Rep. Matt Koleszar, the chair of the House Education Committee who introduced the legislation, described the bill as a tool to help new teachers make career decisions. “This just helps them be better informed as to what they might make if they choose to teach at a charter school,” said Koleszar, a Democrat from Plymouth, during a committee meeting Tuesday.

But the bill would also fulfill a priority of the State Board of Education, which has sought more clarity on how much public funding charter schools spend on educating their students, and how much goes to the private management companies that operate most charter schools.

Those for-profit management companies are not subject to public disclosure laws, so although Michigan law requires all public schools to post budget and salary information on their websites, charter operators have been able to shield that information from the public, citing the privacy of their employees.

Koleszar’s proposal, House Bill 5269, calls for the average salaries of new and veteran teachers, as well as support staff, such as paraprofessionals, food service workers, bus drivers, and literacy coaches, to be made available on school websites.

The bill was among several bills discussed Tuesday that would push for greater charter school transparency. Others would require charter schools to post the name of their authorizer or management company on any future building signage and promotional materials.

The bill does not specify what consequences charter schools would face for not disclosing employee salary information.

Dan Quisenberry, president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, a charter advocacy group, said that charter schools already report teacher compensation and other fiscal reports to their school boards.

“All the information dealing with budgets, spending, contracts, are all made available to those public boards,” Quisenberry said. “When we say charter schools are public schools, it means we are publicly accountable. We’re publicly transparent. This is a different way to post that information.”

Advocates of greater transparency argue that the agreements and budgets that charter operators share with the public often aggregate all expenditures into a single line item for “purchased services.” That means it’s difficult for taxpayers to know how much teachers are being paid, for example, or to compare spending to traditional public schools.

The Great Lakes Education Project, a school choice advocacy group, said in a statement Tuesday that the new bills “target public charter schools with new costs, regulations, and requirements that are not placed on traditional public schools.”

“The bills are designed to limit the effectiveness of public charter schools by tying them up in red tape and regulations not-at-all related to classroom learning or education,” said executive director Beth DeShone, who called on the House Education Committee to reject the bills.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering the Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

How Michigan teacher evaluations would change under proposed reforms

2023-10-30T10:30:00+00:00

Proposed legislation in Michigan that would eliminate student test scores as a factor in teacher evaluations would represent a victory for teachers if it passes, and a turnabout in an education reform effort that began nearly a decade ago.

Current state law requires that student scores on standardized tests count for 40% of a teacher’s performance rating. Under two proposed bills that passed the Senate last week, that requirement would go away, and the districts would be able to use their own criteria for evaluating teachers, such as classroom observations, samples of student work, rubrics, and lesson plans.

The bills would also de-emphasize evaluations as a factor in districts’ decisions to fire or demote teachers or deny them tenure. But they would require districts to take action against teachers who don’t improve after repeated interventions.

The House Education Committee is expected to take up the bills on Tuesday.

Here’s some background on the current law, and highlights of the new proposals:

Michigan law followed a push for more accountability

Michigan’s law on test scores and evaluations grew out of a push for greater accountability in education that began in the 2000s. Some advocacy groups theorized that more rigorous reviews would generate detailed feedback that could be used to improve teachers’ performance.

In 2009, under the Obama administration, the federal government offered money from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act to states that made policy changes, including revamping teacher evaluations to include test scores.

In response, Michigan passed a law in 2015 requiring that teacher evaluations be 25% based on student growth, as measured by changes in test scores from one year to the next. The requirement went up to 40% at the start of the 2018-19 school year.

Skepticism of test-based evaluations has grown

Teachers have long argued that growth in test scores is an unfair way to measure their job performance, because it compares the performance of two different cohorts of students.

And in recent years, many education experts and policy analysts have become more vocal in questioning the changes that were made in the 2010s.

By 2019, nine states had stopped requiring that test scores be considered in teacher evaluations. Many other states have considered making the same change.

Proponents of returning to the old evaluation method say there is no evidence to suggest the current system benefits students, and that tying ratings to test scores contributes to burnout amid persistent teacher shortages.

Critics are concerned that de-emphasizing student test scores could lower standards for teachers while students are still struggling to recover from pandemic learning loss and need high-quality instruction.

How the proposals would change teacher evaluations

The bills proposed in Michigan would be a return to the system that was used before 2015. Districts would have more power to set their own standards to decide how and when teachers are evaluated.

But the proposals would still require districts to set up a common rating system, and they prescribe some consequences for teachers who don’t measure up.

School districts would have to start using teacher and administrator rating systems by July 1, 2024, that include four possible ratings: “highly effective,” “effective,” “minimally effective,” and “ineffective.” After that, districts would have to add “developing” and “needing support” ratings as well.

Teachers rated “needing support” would get individualized development plans from their districts to improve their performance within 180 days.

Districts would not be allowed to fire, deny tenure to, or withhold full certification from teachers rated “ineffective.” But they would be required to terminate teachers or administrators who are rated “needing support” three years in a row. Those who receive that rating could request reviews of their evaluations.

Staff who conduct evaluations would have to take “rater reliability training” from their districts.

A Senate analysis of the proposals said local districts might face some new costs to update teacher and school administrator evaluations and to incorporate collective bargaining agreements as part of that process.

On the other hand, it says, schools could save money by not having to calculate testing data, and by evaluating consistently effective teachers less often.

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

Dyslexia support proposals are back in the Michigan Legislature

2023-10-18T15:17:20+00:00

Four bills introduced in the Michigan Legislature this month would aim to better identify and teach students with dyslexia, and jumpstart reform initiatives that have stalled in the past.

The new legislation comes with bipartisan support and follows years of failed efforts to better address dyslexia in school — most recently last year, when a package of bills calling for better screening of students for dyslexia languished in the Legislature.

Dyslexia is a hereditary reading disability that affects an estimated 5% to 20% of people. Students with dyslexia who go undiagnosed and don’t receive interventions are more likely to struggle in school, and studies show most people with the learning disability who get high-quality instruction early on will become average readers.

“We have to do something about it now,” said Rep. Kathy Schmaltz, a Republican from Jackson who introduced one of the bills. “When we know how to fix something and we’re not doing it, that’s on us, and our children shouldn’t have to suffer because we can’t get it together.”

The legislation includes two bills in the House and two in the Senate. All four were referred to their respective education committees. Here’s what they would do:

A bill introduced by Sen. Jeff Irwin, a Democrat from Ann Arbor, would tighten the state standards for the literacy screeners schools use to ensure that they can identify a student who has dyslexia or has difficulty decoding language. The bill also aims to provide evidence-based support early on for students who are identified as having a reading disability.
Sen. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat who represents parts of Canton and Livonia, introduced a bill that would set standards for teacher education programs to ensure future educators have the tools to help students with dyslexia.
In the House, Rep. Carol Glanville, a Democrat from Grand Rapids, introduced legislation that would create a dyslexia resource guide and advisory committee in the Michigan Department of Education.
Schmaltz’ House bill would require school districts to have at least one teacher trained in Orton-Gillingham, a multisensory teaching methodology that research suggests helps students with dyslexia.

Rep. Mike McFall, co-sponsor of Schmaltz’ bill, said the additional resources will give teachers “more tools to ensure positive student outcomes and educational growth.”

Lawmakers who back the bill say the measures would help students who have difficulty reading and processing language due to dyslexia. But some advocates disagree, citing Michigan’s restrictive parameters for determining whether schoolchildren are eligible for special education.

The percentage of students in the state identified as having a specific learning disability, which includes students who schools identify as having dyslexia, decreased from 35% in 2013-14 to 25.9% in 2022-23, according to data from the Michigan Center for Educational Performance and Information. Nationally, the number went up during the same time period, aside from a dip during COVID.

“It is meaningless if they don’t incorporate changes to the criteria for determining specific learning disabilities,” said Marcie Lipsitt, a special education advocate.

Lipsitt also said requiring schools to have one teacher trained in Orton-Gillingham methodology presents its own challenges.

“To say you’re training Orton-Gillingham, does that mean the teacher does four hours of training and then they are considered the Orton-Gillingham teacher?” she said.

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

Michigan schools have added more than 1,300 mental health professionals since 2018 with more funding

2023-10-12T21:39:19+00:00

Michigan added more than 1,300 mental health professionals to its schools in the last five years, according to state records.

During a national shortage of mental health professionals who serve youth and an ongoing child and adolescent mental health crisis exacerbated by the pandemic, Michigan schools hired an additional 1,316 staff to address student’s mental well-being, including counselors, social workers, and psychologists. The hirings occurred from the 2018-19 school year through 2022-23.

“Providing these services during the school day leads to early identification and intervention, better access to care, better academic outcomes, a more positive school climate and safety, better psychosocial outcomes, and better engagement with students, families, and educators,” State Superintendent Michael Rice said in a statement.

Of the additional staff, 772 were social workers, 406 were counselors, 44 were nurses, 43 were school psychologists, and 33 were behavioral analysts and assistants.

The hirings began to address a big shortage of student mental-health resources in Michigan, which lags behind almost every other state in the ratio of students to counselors.

The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 250 students per counselor. Nationally, the average ratio was 408 students per counselor in 2021-22.

Michigan had the second-highest student-to-counselor ratio in the nation in 2019-20: 671-to-1. That improved to 615-to-1 in 2021-22, according to an analysis by ASCA, the third-highest in the U.S.

In 2015-16, 41% of Michigan students did not have access to a school counselor, an analysis by Education Trust Midwest found.

In recent years, legislators have aimed to help more students access counselors and other mental health professionals. The Michigan school aid budget allocated $150 million in 2023 to improve mental health and $328 million for 2024.

The 2021 budget provided a one-time investment of $240 million specifically to add more school staff to address student mental health.

“This work is critical for meeting children where they are,” said Rice. “These helping professionals are essential for contributing to the success of Michigan’s children and their future and support our work to build a comprehensive school-based mental health system statewide.”

Jill Ball, assistant superintendent for instructional services at Tuscola Intermediate School District, said in a statement that state funds for mental health services have allowed the district to hire more providers in the past year.

“Our providers have been focused on helping students handle the mental health issues that are prohibiting them from participating in the school community,” she said. “These include gaining coping skills and strategies, as well as the ability to recognize their needs and advocate for them.”

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

‘Child care disaster’ looms in Michigan after COVID aid expires, advocates say

2023-10-03T19:32:11+00:00

Nina Hodge is willing to forgo some of her salary to make sure she can continue paying her employees at the Above and Beyond Learning Childcare Center in Detroit.

“They deserve a living wage,” said Hodge, the director and owner of the center.

She and other child care providers in Michigan are preparing to take drastic measures now that federal COVID relief funds that helped keep many centers afloat during the pandemic ran out Sept. 24. That relief came in the form of increased reimbursement rates providers received for low-income families who receive child care subsidies from the state.

Those higher rates were considered temporary during the course of the pandemic because they were funded with federal dollars that would eventually expire. Although the new rates are higher than they were before COVID, providers will still see a big reduction from what they became used to during the pandemic.

“Child care reimbursement rates may not fully support the true cost of quality, including offering competitive wages to attract and retain child care workers,” the Michigan Department of Education said in a letter to providers and families about the end of the temporary rates.

Early childhood advocates have been sounding the alarm about the loss of this money and the consequences for providers and the families who rely on their services. Without state intervention, they say, some providers will close, leaving child care workers out of work and the neediest families without child care services. Other providers, they say, will reduce services or increase their rates, or both.

A handful of organizations sent a letter last week to every Michigan lawmaker, urging them to “prevent an approaching child care disaster” by approving a supplemental budget that would maintain the funding levels that recently expired. In the letter, they said rates are declining by 26%. Department officials said they had not calculated such a percentage.

“We need new state investment now more than ever to help stabilize child care operations in Michigan. Without needed new investment, it is certain more child care businesses will close leaving a projected 56,000 young children without stable care outside the home,” the letter said.

The organizations that signed on to the letter were Michigan’s Children, Michigan Association for the Education of Young Children, Think Babies Michigan, and Michigan League for Public Policy.

The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, projected in a report earlier this year that nearly 56,700 children would lose child care services due to the drop in reimbursement rates.” That report predicted the child care funding cliff would cause 1,261 Michigan child care facilities to close. Nationwide, the foundation projected 3.2 million children to lose services and more than 70,000 facilities to close.

Some national early childhood experts, however, have taken a more conservative tone. They told Vox they don’t expect the impact to be as great, in part because some states have invested heavily in child care in recent years.

Michigan’s child care system already struggling

But if the dire predictions become true in Michigan, it would further destabilize an already troubled early childhood system.

A 2022 Muckrock investigation concluded Michigan’s child care system was in crisis, with far more so-called deserts — areas of the state where demand far outweighs available slots — than policymakers had estimated. Meanwhile, staffing challenges have made it difficult to hire staff, and low wages have providers competing with other industries for workers.

In May, more than 100 people picketed and chanted outside Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Detroit office, hoping to raise awareness of challenges in the industry and demanding more funding than lawmakers had already proposed in the state budget.

“This industry is broken to begin with,” said Matt Gillard, president and CEO of Michigan’s Children, a nonprofit advocacy organization. “It’s going to require increased public investment at both the state and federal level to solve the child care problem.”

Gillard said he hopes Michigan lawmakers act on the message in the letter his group and others sent last week. He said Michigan is “the only state that has Democratic control that has not really moved significantly to offset the reduction of the reimbursement rates with increased state resources.

“There’s a real fear out there that we’re going to see a significant number of providers either go out of business or maybe stop taking children that are eligible for a subsidy and focus their efforts on families who are able to pay higher amounts,” he said.

Michigan has done some good things, Gillard said, including a plan to transition the state to provide universal free preschool to 4-year-olds, regardless of income. Michigan has also gone to a system of reimbursing providers based on enrollment, not attendance, which would provide guaranteed funding.

Stacey LaRouche, a spokeswoman for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, cited the recent investments, including the expansion to universal preschool, in a statement to Chalkbeat. But she didn’t say whether Whitmer would push to maintain the pandemic-era rates. LaRouche said Whitmer also set a goal to open 1,000 new child care programs, and the state is 90% of the way to that goal.

“We will continue to closely monitor childcare access and strengthen our economy by helping parents return to work knowing their children are safe and learning,” LaRouche said.

For now, providers such as Hodge are planning for the worst. She had a recent meeting with her accountant in which she discussed plans to reduce the salary she pays herself from $50,000 to $30,000. Reducing the wages of her employees isn’t an option, Hodge said.

“These are the people who keep our economy going, who keep our economy thriving,” she said.

That’s precisely why there was so much effort to keep child care centers afloat during the pandemic, because essential workers needed places to send their children while they worked on the front lines of the health crisis.

Up north in Traverse City, Anna Fryer is the director and co-owner of Teddy Bear Day Care and Preschool, which has three locations in the city. Starting in 2020, the federal relief money helped subsidize salaries for workers during a delicate time when “our bank accounts were dwindling.”

To address the loss of the money and rising costs, the business recently raised its rates by between 5% and 6%. It was not an ideal decision, she said, “because we don’t want to tuition ourselves out of business.”

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

Michigan bill to tackle teacher shortage would remove barrier for retirees to return to work

2023-09-19T22:14:07+00:00

Michigan lawmakers advanced legislation Tuesday that seeks to address school staffing shortages by allowing retired public school teachers to return to the classroom immediately without forfeiting their pensions.

Under current law, retired teachers must wait at least nine months before taking jobs in the public school system if they want to continue collecting their retirement benefits.

The measure that cleared the Michigan Senate Education Committee unanimously Tuesday would allow those retired from the public school system to come back and earn up to $15,100 within a six-month period, while still receiving their pensions and subsidies for healthcare benefits. After that, teachers would be able to negotiate their salaries with school systems.

The changes would be in effect for five years — by which time school leaders hope that new grow-your-own workforce development programs will produce more educators and ease the teacher shortage.

Under the bill, retired superintendents would not be allowed to return to work in public schools as superintendents.

“It’s not perfect — it’s far from it,” Robert McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, said of the bill. “But it makes the law better, and it will be helpful for us.”

McCann said he has heard from superintendents across Michigan who say they are still having trouble filling open jobs weeks into the new school year.

“Michigan is the only state I know of that has an arbitrary nine-month sit-out,” said McCann. “It puts us at a disadvantage. The reality is we are opening schools this year with dozens of unfilled positions we are desperate to fill.”

The Senate committee votes Tuesday were on substitutions to House Bill 4752. Those changes will now go back to the House for a vote.

An earlier version of the bill, passed by the House in June, retained the nine-month waiting period, but allowed retirees to return to work during that time and make up to $10,000.

The teacher shortage is an issue many districts in the state are facing, said Rep. Matt Koleszar, a Democrat from Plymouth who introduced the legislation in the House.

The retiree bill is “another way where we can attack this shortage,” said Koleszar, chair of the House Education Committee.

The state is investing millions of dollars in teacher development programs that will launch this fall in an effort to attract more talent to the profession amid a shortage of qualified applicants. Graduates of those programs won’t be ready to become full-time educators for several years.

“This is a temporary solution to a problem we wish we didn’t have but believe it’s necessary in the times now so we can staff our classrooms with the best professionals, the most highly trained professional that we can,” Eric Edoff, superintendent of L’Anse Creuse Public Schools, said of the bill during committee testimony.

The nine-month waiting period in the current law was created in 2010 to discourage “double dipping” by high-paid administrators who could retire and immediately return to work to receive both a pension and a salary. The law lets retirees return after nine months, and earn a salary without limits, without giving up their pensions.

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

Michigan students gain on M-STEP, but results are still down from pre-pandemic levels

2023-08-31T14:00:14+00:00

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Michigan standardized test results for grades 3 through 7 last year remained below pre-pandemic levels in math and English language arts, but there were also some year-to-year gains.

Results on the spring’s Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, known as the M-STEP, were released Thursday. The data underscore continuing challenges that reverberate beyond Michigan, as U.S. schools attempt to steer students back on track after years of disruption tied to COVID.

The M-STEP is an important marker of academic progress, affecting everything from the amount of aid districts receive for tutoring, to teacher evaluations and, potentially, which low-performing districts are targeted for state intervention.

State and district leaders will examine the results closely as they make decisions about how to most effectively distribute what remains of the $6 billion in federal COVID relief funding that Michigan received, before that money runs out this year.

“If these scores show stalling, then we really essentially have between now and the end of this school year to figure it out for kids. Otherwise their lives will be permanently impacted,” said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab and research professor at Georgetown University. “It’s sort of now or never.”

Key takeaways from the results released Thursday:

Of the 20 assessments given to students across grades, results in 15 areas improved in 2023 from spring 2022 testing. Results fell in four others and remained the same on one test.
Michigan students in grades 3 through 7 showed slight improvements in math during 2022-23 from the previous year.
But students still have far to go to reach pre-pandemic levels. The drop in the proficiency levels when compared with 2018-19 was widespread. That was true for low-income students and for students from more affluent families.
In almost every grade and in both English language arts and mathematics, proficiency rates fell between 2018-19 and 2022-23, with a persistently wide gap between poor children and those from more affluent families.
In third grade, 27.6% of students from low-income families were proficient in English language arts in 2022-23, a drop of 3.7 percentage points from 2018-19. Among the non-poor, 59.2% were proficient, a drop of 3.6 percentage points.
The drops were steeper in sixth and seventh grades for students of different income levels in English language arts and math. For instance, 15.7% of low-income sixth graders were proficient in math in 2022-23, down 4.4 percentage points. More affluent sixth graders saw a bigger drop, from 52.1% in 2018-19 to 46.8% this year.

The M-STEP is given each spring to students in grades 3 through 7 in English language arts and math. Fifth grade students also take the science and social studies M-STEP. (Eighth graders take the PSAT 8/9 test for English language arts and math, and 11th graders take the SAT for English language arts and math.)

In typical years, schools would be able to compare M-STEP results year by year to measure student progress. But the pandemic upended that rhythm — with the annual test being canceled in 2020 as COVID-19 ended the school year early. Disruptions continued through 2020-21, when the test was optional, resulting in fewer than 75% of Michigan students taking the exam.

That has left educators to compare this year’s results with scores dating back to 2018-19, the last year of full testing before the pandemic, to gauge learning loss.

Third graders had big setbacks

Just 36.9% of Michigan seventh graders were deemed proficient in English language arts this year, compared with 42.7% in 2018-19, a 5.8 percentage-point drop.
Among sixth graders, 29.6% were proficient in math this year, down from 35.1% in 2018-19.
Some populations of at-risk students showed even greater learning loss than the overall student populations. In Detroit public schools, for example, English language learners dropped from an 18% pass rate in English language arts during 2018-19 to 14% in 2022-23. In math, the same group dropped from a 16% pass rate to 11%.

Michigan third graders, who were in kindergarten when the pandemic hit, took state standardized tests for the first time this spring as third graders. Just 40.9% of these students were deemed proficient in English language arts, compared with 45.1% during 2018-19. The latest results were also below the 41.6% level for third graders in 2021-22.

“This past year’s third graders were perhaps the most adversely affected of any age cohort, as they had pandemic-influenced school years during grades kindergarten through second grade, a challenge that was particularly noticeable in reading,” State Superintendent Michael Rice said in a statement. “Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade are pivotal in early literacy efforts, which may help explain the slight decline in the third grade ELA proficiency rate.”

Sen. Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, chair of the Senate Education Committee, said the third grade reading scores “reflect the unfinished learning during the COVID and post-COVID years.”

She highlighted several investments contained in the new state school budget, including tutoring expansion, funding for early literacy, expansion of pre-K programming, and increased funding for special education students and at-risk students. But she also said she wants her committee to take a closer look at what research says about reading instruction.

“I would like to see education professionals take a closer look at word recognition or phonics versus the whole language comprehension,” she said.

How test results are being interpreted

Nikki Snyder, Republican member of the State Board of Education and a U.S. Senate candidate, said the M-STEP results underscore the importance of getting funds to parents through education savings accounts to help them pay for literacy services for their children.

“We can’t let the slowness of the implementation or the political argument about not having enough money get in the way,” she said.

“Anything slight right now does not match the huge gaping hole and need that the pandemic created.”

But Pamela Pugh, the Democratic president of the state board who is also running for U.S. Senate, said recovery efforts are paying off.

“Michigan’s students and educators are working hard to emerge from the disruption of the pandemic, and it’s making a difference,” she said. “We need to continue to invest in our schools and educators and provide the supports needed to help our kids continue to grow academically, socially, and personally.”

Niles Community Schools Superintendent Dan Applegate said his district uses M-STEP to assess whether the district curriculum is working. The district is now in its second year of implementing a new elementary English language arts curriculum.

To address learning loss, Applegate said, the district has taken some high-quality teachers out of the classroom to work as academic interventionists and classroom consultants. They lead small group instruction, coordinate academic interventions, and help other teachers ensure they are following the curriculum correctly.

Jasen Witt, superintendent of Redford Union Schools, noted that M-STEP results are only one measure of student achievement, and the district also gives students periodic assessments throughout the school year to make more timely interventions. Witt said it is clear the district still has more work to do to improve literacy and math skills across the board.

“Students are making gains … but we still have a long way to go as a district,” he said. “That period of time they lost during the pandemic, we are still working all the time to overcome those gaps.”

Ypsilanti Community Schools Superintendent Alena Zachery-Ross said the district uses other assessments throughout the year to get real-time feedback and will look to see if M-STEP results align with results from those tests.

At the national level, policy experts are concerned that academic recovery has stalled and is not on pace to get students back on track to pre-pandemic achievement.

“I don’t think there was as much urgency around academic recovery as there could have been, given how far kids were behind,” said Roza, the Georgetown professor.

Because districts across the country did not receive much guidance on how to use federal COVID relief funding, Roza said there were vast differences in the way school leaders chose to use the money.

“We’re seeing a lot of different things at once,” she said. “Some districts are seeing more progress than others, and there really are no uniform patterns.”

In Michigan, M-STEP results have ramifications for students, teachers and school districts. Districts can apply for a new $150 million state program to fund tutoring and other academic support initiatives. Districts will receive funding based on how many students are considered to not be proficient on statewide assessments.

Beth DeShone, executive director of the Great Lakes Education Project, a group focused on school choice, said she has “little faith that (the) bureaucracy is going to find its way to getting the money direct into the kids’ hands or direct into teachers’ classrooms to make an impact on the kids that are struggling.”

Jennifer Mrozowski, senior director of The Education Trust-Midwest, an education and advocacy organization, praised the most recent state education budget but said Michigan must invest in “evidence-based interventions” and have a clear system “to monitor if dollars are indeed reaching the classrooms of the students for whom the funding is intended” and if the interventions are speeding up learning.

Under Michigan law, standardized test results play a major role in teacher evaluations. School districts must base 40% of a teacher’s evaluation on student growth as determined by testing data. For teachers who teach subjects and grades that are assessed by state standardized testing, at least half of that 40% must be based on the state assessment. (Democratic lawmakers are aiming to remove student growth data as a factor in future teacher evaluations.)

Ron Koehler, superintendent at Kent ISD, which services about 20 traditional school districts and 25 charter schools, said one area of focus will be seventh grade English language arts, where his team’s analysis of local students showed 42.8% of students are proficient, compared with 46% before the pandemic. He said member districts showed gains in fifth and eighth grade social studies compared with pre-pandemic levels, but 11th grade social studies is significantly down from spring 2019.

Koehler said districts also will be working with community groups to emphasize the importance of consistently attending school.

“Attendance has a direct relationship to student performance in many ways,” he said.

Isabel Lohman covers K-12 and higher education for Bridge Michigan. You can reach her at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

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

Mike Wilkinson is a data reporter for Bridge Michigan. You can reach him at mwilkinson@bridgemi.com.

Michigan attorney general: It’s too soon to rule on new education agency

2023-08-28T16:17:35+00:00

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said it’s too soon to issue an opinion on the constitutionality of a new education agency created by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer by executive order last month.

In response to a request from the State Board of Education for a ruling, Nessel said in a letter to state Superintendent Michael Rice Monday that the newly formed Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential, or MiLEAP, could overlap with the board’s constitutional authority to oversee public education. But she said she would wait until after the governor’s executive order is implemented in December to see whether such a conflict happens.

Unless and until such a situation arises, she said, “issuing any type of opinion on potentially overlapping authority of the Board and MiLEAP is premature.”

The Democratic-controlled state board voted unanimously on Aug. 8 to seek a ruling from Nessel’s office on the new agency, which would take over some functions of the Michigan Department of Education, including responsibility for early childhood education programs. The elected state board chooses the MDE’s leader.

“Given the response from the attorney general, I believe that the actions and possible encroachment of the new department will be closely monitored,” said Pamela Pugh, president of the board, in a prepared statement Monday. “The State Board will not stand by and watch its authority be threatened or stripped away, at the expense of our children’s future.”

Rice said he “appreciates the attorney general’s review and initial reflections, as well as the letter’s ramifications.”

Pugh said she at the time of the board’s vote she wanted to ensure the new agency would satisfy the intent of the framers of Michigan’s constitution given that they separated public education from the governor’s office.

Nessel noted in the letter that Whitmer’s executive order specifies that nothing in the law should diminish the constitutional authority of the state board. If that intent is honored, Nessel said, the executive order could be deemed constitutional.

Stacey LaRouche, press secretary for the governor, said earlier this month that Whitmer’s office consulted with the attorney general’s team while drafting the law and that they were confident in the order’s legal authority.

Whitmer, a Democrat, has said MiLEAP was created to streamline lifelong education in the state, from pre-K to higher education to workforce development.

Under her order, the Office of Great Start, which serves the educational needs of children up to age 8, would move from the MDE to MiLEAP. The Governor’s Educator Advisory Council and the Michigan PreK-12 Literacy Commission would also shift to the purview of the new agency.

Authority for overseeing operations of K-12 education would remain with the MDE. Both the MDE and the state board will work with the new department, Whitmer said.

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

It’s a new school year in Michigan. What’s the biggest issue at your school?

2023-08-23T12:00:00+00:00

Over the next few weeks, students in school districts and charter schools across Michigan will return to the classroom for the 2023-24 school year. Some have already started.

At Chalkbeat Detroit, our team of reporters and editors began preparing for the new school year weeks ago, with discussions about our reporting and engagement priorities.

Our work isn’t done though. We need input from our readers, because you are often the eyes and ears that help us ensure that our reporting is relevant and captures the voices of those who have the most at stake in decisions made at the district and state levels.

We’ll continue to home in on chronic absenteeism, which is a problem not just in Detroit — where many district and charter schools have high rates of students missing school — but also across Michigan.

Last school year, we reported on how persistent transportation woes have fueled absenteeism. We also took a look at a Michigan law that punishes poor parents for their children’s absenteeism by withholding public assistance. Recently, we shared some promising news: The chronic absenteeism rate in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, which soared to around 77% at the height of the pandemic, declined during the last school year. And soon, we’ll provide an inside look at one school’s quest to reduce its high chronic absenteeism rate.

The Chalkbeat Detroit team is ready to hear what education issues are important to our readers. Our Detroit-based team, clockwise from far left, are Hannah Dellinger, K-12 reporter; Emiliana Sandoval, managing editor for style and standards; Ethan Bakuli, Detroit schools reporter; Elaine Cromie, photo editor; Krishnan Anantharaman, story editor; and Lori Higgins, bureau chief.

We’ll also be keeping an eye on how students are affected as federal COVID relief dries up in school districts across the country. We’ve already covered how that has played out in DPSCD, which made painful budget cuts in the spring. We’ll also be monitoring continued efforts to help students recover from the pandemic.

Please take a few minutes to take the survey below and share your thoughts on what you’re most interested in, what questions you have, and what topics need more coverage. Your feedback is invaluable to us.

This isn’t your only opportunity to reach out. You can contact the bureau anytime at detroit.tips@chalkbeat.org.

If you are having trouble viewing this form, go here.

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

Michigan girls pushed for schools to inform students about sexual assault. Now it will be state law.

2023-08-01T14:15:00+00:00

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Lydia Maciel never learned the definitions of consent or sexual violence as a student at Western International High School in southwest Detroit.

Nor did many of the more than 100 students she and a group of her peers surveyed in the Detroit school district during their time as the inaugural fellowship class of Girls Making Change in 2016.

The high school juniors and seniors, all girls and young women of color from Detroit tasked with finding a project to address social issues in their community, found that many of the kids they talked to also didn’t know where they could find help or resources for sexual assault survivors.

So, the group pushed for legislation that would require public schools to provide definitions of sexual violence and consent, as well as resources to help survivors — information that advocates say can be life-saving. It took five years, but their idea, born out of personal and peer experience, will soon become a reality when a new law goes into effect next school year.

Such early conversations about consent that destigmatize shame for survivors may help prevent violence, researchers say.

“We were shocked that a majority of students didn’t know what consent was or what it looked like,” said Maciel, now 25 and a graduate of Wayne State University.

As a survivor of sexual assault herself, Maciel wanted better for students who will go through the Michigan public education system after her.

Senate Bill 66, approved by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on July 11, will require all public school districts and charter schools as well as intermediate school districts to provide age-appropriate material explaining what constitutes sexual assault and harassment to sixth through 12th graders. The material must also include explanations of consent — defined as an agreement to participate in sexual activities — and let students know that sexual violence is not the victim’s fault. The information must also list resources available to survivors and the actions they can take.

The Michigan Department of Education has until June 1, 2024 to develop the material in consultation with experts and advocates, including the Michigan Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention and Treatment Board and the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence.

School systems can decide how to distribute the information. It must include contact information for the district’s Title IX coordinator and its policies on sexual harassment and assault, including the fact that retaliation and harassment against those who disclose abuse is prohibited.

The information must remain accessible to middle and high school students and their parents in student handbooks and district websites.

Beginning in the 2024-25 school year, school systems will be encouraged to train all educators and staff who come into contact with students on how to respond to disclosures of sexual violence. The training, which would take place at least every five years, would be provided as professional development through nonprofits that receive funding from the state’s domestic and sexual violence prevention and treatment board or the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence.

Education can help prevent violence, experts say

Maciel said many students who answered the group’s survey said they had experienced sexual violence or had friends who did and did not know where to find help.

Others described situations that constituted sexual assault and did not have an understanding that the interactions were not consensual, she said.

“These girls didn’t want these things to happen to them, but they didn’t know it was assault,” said Maciel.

Adolescents are at higher risk of sexual assault than any other group, research shows, and about 1 in 9 girls and 1 in 20 boys experience sexual abuse or assault before they turn 18.

Lydia Maciel poses for a portrait at Riverside Park on Friday, July 28, 2023 in Detroit, Mich.

More recently, numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior survey suggest an uptick in cases of abuse of high school girls. In 2019, an estimated 850,000 girls in high school reported being raped. In 2021, that number jumped to more than 1 million.

Research also indicates such estimates are often likely undercounts, especially when based on criminal reports.

Such abuse can have negative mental and physical health impacts on survivors, including causing poor educational outcomes.

While many researchers and advocates say educating kids in K-12 about consent may prevent sexual violence, experts say more research is needed to determine its effectiveness because few public school districts in the nation provide such lessons as part of a comprehensive sex education curriculum.

By 2019, the 74 reported, 24 states had mandated sex education in schools. Of those, nine required curricula include the concept of communicating sexual consent.

Amanda Barratt, senior program director at the Michigan Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, said the impact of conversations around sexual violence that foster an understanding of consent should never be underestimated.

“If we are having these conversations that dismantle the shame of survivors and shifts it to the people causing harm, that absolutely changes how people are going to hold others accountable and that is what helps prevent violence,” she said.

Many advocates say talking to kids as early as possible in age-appropriate language about consent sets the foundation for deeper conversations about sex in middle and high school.

“That actually builds something much more longstanding and can last an entire lifetime,” said Barratt.

‘Consent isn’t really talked about’

Juanita Zuniga, also part of the Girls Making Change group and now a 24-year-old graduate of Detroit Cristo Rey High School and Kalamazoo College, said the sex education she received in private Catholic high school was similar to what she heard Detroit public school students describe learning in class.

“Consent isn’t really talked about,” she said. “It’s more ‘don’t have sex and you won’t have a baby and nothing bad will happen to you.’”

That type of language without the context of assault and rape not being the fault of victims can be harmful, said Zuniga.

“That type of rhetoric does perpetuate guilt, especially when you’re young and so impressionable,” she said. “It contributes to youth not wanting to speak up about abuse and being silenced.”

Barb Flis, founder of Parent Action for Healthy Kids, a Michigan nonprofit that aims to teach youth about sexual health, said the state’s existing laws do not allow for universal comprehensive sex education. Additionally, parents may opt their children out of all sex education.

“The best practice in an ideal world would be teaching early and often in a comprehensive way,” she said. “I think this is a good step in the right direction. But, we have to understand that handing out a brochure or providing information is not going to take care of the whole issue.”

Law took five years to become reality

State Sen. Stephanie Chang, who introduced the legislation, said it was strategically written to reach as many students as possible. Requiring districts to provide the information to all kids enrolled in grades 6 through 12 will mean the information will be received by more middle and high schoolers than if it were only included in sex education curriculum.

“This actually is an opportunity to reach all students, which is very powerful,” said Barratt.

Chang, who created the Girls Making Change program as a newly elected state house representative, first introduced the legislation in 2018 after around 500 women and girls came forward to say they were sexually abused by Michigan State University team physician and Olympic trainer Larry Nassar.

“I think for us, it’s really about how do we effectively make an impact for kids and prevent future sexual assault,” said Chang. “It’s very clear that it has to start with education.”

The new law was introduced as part of a bipartisan package each legislative term beginning in 2018.

Maciel is grateful the bill will now become law, but said it’s hard for her to understand why it took five years to pass.

“I want this to open eyes for politicians here in Michigan to see how long this took,” she said. “It could have been helping students the moment it was introduced. It should have been passed and we shouldn’t have waited this long.”

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

With Democrats in control in Michigan, teachers win back key bargaining rights

2023-07-26T20:43:46+00:00

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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation Wednesday that restores teacher bargaining rights that were legislated away more than a decade ago. It’s a big win for unions that have argued the laws put in place under Republican control limited the voices of school employees.

The governor’s signing comes during a year in which Democrats took control of both the Michigan Legislature and the governor’s office. And it came a week after Whitmer signed legislation that invested heavily in Michigan schools, especially in the state’s most vulnerable students.

The legislation, which received widespread support from teachers unions but was largely opposed by groups representing school administrators and school boards, would allow teachers to once again be able to bargain on issues such as performance evaluations, staff reductions, teacher placements, discipline, and classroom observations.

“We are sending a clear message that we value and respect them,” said Michigan Rep. Regina Weiss, a Democrat from Oak Park. “Teachers in Michigan will now once again have a voice in determining important employment conditions that impact their jobs and their classrooms, which will lead to stronger schools and improved student outcomes.”

Among the groups that advocated against the legislation was the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, which represents school districts in southeast Michigan. In a statement last month, the organization urged Whitmer to veto the legislation, saying it “makes it difficult for school administrators to effectively staff their schools and ultimately hurts students.”

House Republican Leader Matt Hall called the legislation “radical” in a statement after Whitmer endorsed it.

“Democrats are dismantling accountability metrics that help parents and teachers keep kids on track,” said Hall, a Republican from Richland Township. “They’re giving union bosses free rein to lord over the most important decisions at our schools. Teacher placement, performance evaluations, and communication with parents are all vital to creating an effective learning environment and fostering good working relationships with families.”

Whitmer also signed a handful of additional bills that are related to teachers. In a statement, she said that as a whole, all of the bills signed Wednesday will help Michigan recruit and retain skilled educators and counselors.

Here’s a breakdown of what several of those bills will do:

It will be easier for teachers from other states to be eligible to teach in Michigan. They would need to have met certain requirements, such as teaching successfully for three years in the state from which they’re moving. Another bill makes it easier for out-of-state counselors to receive licenses in Michigan.
Language requiring teachers in the Detroit Public Schools Community District to be evaluated solely based on student performance, was struck. Advocates had argued that DPSCD teachers should be held to the same criteria as other teachers in the state whose evaluations are based on several factors, one of which is student performance.
While seniority cannot be used as a sole factor in decisions regarding filling vacancies, it can be used as a tie-breaker if a personnel decision involves two or more employees for the position and “all other factors distinguishing those employees from each other are equal.” The legislation also requires “clear and transparent procedures” for all personnel decisions.

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

Gov. Whitmer creates new Michigan agency for early childhood through post-secondary education

2023-07-12T20:47:59+00:00

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer established a new state agency Wednesday to focus on improving educational outcomes for students in preschool through postsecondary programs.

The Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential, or MiLEAP, will aim to help families access affordable child care, enroll kids in free pre-K, connect kids with before- and after-school activities, teach students about career options, and create paths for no-cost and affordable higher education in fields that are in demand.

The governor’s executive order creating the new agency transfers the offices and functions of six existing state offices. The new department will work with the Michigan Department of Education and the elected State Board of Education, according to Whitmer’s office.

“For too long, we have thought of education as K-12, but we know that’s not good enough,” Whitmer said in a prepared statement. “I’m establishing MiLEAP today because we need to get every kid started early, in pre-K, so they succeed in kindergarten, have paths after graduation to get higher education tuition-free, and forge strong partnerships with our employers so they can get a good-paying, high-skill, and in-demand job.”

Few specifics are known about how the department would operate, how it would be funded, and whether it would diminish the role of the Michigan Department of Education, whose leader is selected by the state board. One Republican member of the state board says she is exploring whether Whitmer’s move is legal, and two Democratic members expressed concern it would add a layer of bureaucracy.

Key functions move out of Michigan Department of Education

The department will be made up of three offices: early childhood education, higher education, and education partnerships. It will be led by a state-appointed director.

“We will have more on the director selection in the future,” said Robert Leddy, director of communications for the governor’s office.

The executive order transfers the Office of Great Start, which serves the educational needs of children up to age 8, from the Michigan Department of Education to the new agency.

State Superintendent Michael Rice, who heads the MDE, said he was assured the transfer would carry on his department’s commitments, such as the state-funded preschool program.

The order also moves the Governor’s Educator Advisory Council and the Michigan PreK-12 Literacy Commission from the purview of the MDE to MiLEAP.

Functions of the Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, and Labor and Economic Opportunity departments, the student aid office, and the Office of Rural Development will also move to the new agency.

Nikki Snyder, one of two Republicans on the eight-member State Board of Education, said she learned of the new department Wednesday and was not contacted by the governor’s office about it.

“The systems and structures providing these services are already in place and need more accountability,” said Snyder, who is running for U.S. Senate. “We don’t need more centralized government with less accountability.”

Some Democrats on the board also expressed skepticism about the new agency.

“We must ensure that MiLEAP is not just another bureaucratic entity but a truly effective organization that addresses the longstanding issues in our education system,” said a joint statement from board member Mitchell Robinson and board President Pamela Pugh, who is also a U.S. Senate candidate.

“Years of underfunding have had a detrimental impact on our schools, and while MiLEAP presents an opportunity to coordinate resources and create a clear vision, we must ensure that the necessary investments and equitable funding follow. Our children deserve access to quality education, regardless of their zip code or background,” they said.

Mike Flanagan, who served as state superintendent from 2005 to 2015, said Whitmer’s move to create the Office of Higher Education within the new agency will likely lead to more funding for post-secondary initiatives.

“I think the governor did exactly the right thing on the college part,” he said. “If I were governor, I probably would have left early childhood where it was. But I trust her judgment.”

Previous Michigan governors have also tried to reorganize the way state agencies manage educational programs and responsibilities. Republican Gov. John Engler moved school assessments out of the MDE, and his successor, Democrat Jennifer Granholm, reversed that decision. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder moved the school reform office out of the MDE only to reverse the decision two years later.

Flanagan, who served after the changes to the department made by Engler, said the transfers made to Whitmer’s new agency are “very different.”

“This was thoughtfully done,” the former state superintendent said of the new changes to MDE. “The governor left the basic K-12 functions to the department. Engler just blew up the department.”

Rick Snyder also created the 21st Century Education Commission, which considered changing the way state education policymakers are selected.

Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan which represents 123 Southeast Michigan school districts, said superintendents are waiting to see how the department will operate.

“We’re optimistic about this, and I think our superintendents just want to make sure they have a seat at the table as these things are being discussed and that it works as well as it can,” he said in an interview.

How will MiLEAP’s progress be measured?

MiLEAP’s overall goals will be to add capacity to early learning, to have every student in the state eventually earn a skill certificate or degree after high school, and to prioritize strategic state partnerships.

Whitmer has made access to early childhood education and increasing the number of people with postsecondary degrees or certificates two top priorities.

The new department also touches on a years-long effort by advocates to boost after-school programming in the state.

“MiLEAP will get this done by establishing clear metrics for lifelong learning, collaborating with cross-sector leaders at the local, regional, and state level, and developing a shared action plan for everyone to work towards,” Leddy said.

Dan Quisenberry, president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, which represents charter schools, said Whitmer’s decision Wednesday will be considered a success “if people recognize better outcomes” from the state programs being transferred to the new agency.

Matt Gillard, president and CEO of nonprofit Michigan’s Children, said his organization is optimistic about the change.

“I know we’ve struggled under our current system in some of these areas,” he said. “This signals a commitment from the Whitmer administration to rethinking things and becoming innovative and progressive in our approach to some of these issues.”

The cost of the department’s programming is built into the state budget, and the agency will work with the Legislature to fund operational needs, said Leddy.

It will use state and federal funding, including $50 million in next year’s budget to provide before- and after-school programs, Leddy added.

Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future Inc., a nonprofit education think tank, praised Whitmer’s focus on before- and after-school programming and called the creation of the agency a “big step in the right direction.”

Whitmer has set a goal of having 60% of working age adults with a college degree or skills certificate by 2030.

Asked whether the new structure would lead to more partisan education policy decisions, Glazer said “the advantages of having a department which is focused on improving education outcomes for all Michigan kids from birth to college to me outweighs the potential that maybe it gets caught up in the polarization we have everyplace else.”

Lawmakers recently approved budgets that expand eligibility for the state’s free community college program, Michigan Reconnect, and its free pre-K program, Great Start Readiness.

Molly Macek, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said she wants to see the new agency collect more data to measure if these programs are worthwhile and achieving their goals.

Dan Hurley, CEO of the Michigan Association of State Universities, said he hopes creating a new office of higher education within the new department will increase awareness and use of the Michigan Achievement Scholarship.

The scholarship, created in 2022, provides funds for Michigan high school graduates to attend community colleges, independent nonprofit colleges or public four-year universities in Michigan.

Hurley said the new department could lead to increased college affordability, college enrollment and “ultimately boost attainment levels.”

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

Isabel Lohman is a reporter for Bridge Michigan covering preK-12 and higher education. Contact Isabel at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

Detroit’s $94 million ‘right to read’ lawsuit settlement is finally coming through for DPSCD

2023-07-07T19:37:10+00:00

It has been more than three years since Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer promised the Detroit school district $94.4 million to settle a 2016 lawsuit alleging that the state denied the city’s schoolchildren a basic education by failing to teach them to read.

Now that money is finally on its way to Detroit.

The funds were included in the $21.5 billion K-12 school aid budget that the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed last month and Whitmer is expected to sign.

Under the settlement terms, negotiated in 2020, the money will go toward increasing reading instruction and support for students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District to address longstanding challenges with literacy. DPSCD officials have already shared proposals to use the money to hire academic interventionists to provide one-on-one support to students struggling with reading.

“Every child in Michigan deserves access to a quality public education regardless of their ZIP code,” Stacey LaRouche, press secretary for Whitmer, said in a statement. “Governor Whitmer has worked to reverse decades of disinvestment in our state’s K-12 schools by securing more funding in every aspect of a child’s education to ensure that they have what they need to be successful.

Here’s a look at how the legal case arose, what the settlement provides, and how the district is preparing to spend the money.

Settlement grew out of ‘right to read’ lawsuit

The federal case settled in 2020 is called Gary B. v. Whitmer, but it dates back to the period when the Detroit school district was under state oversight during Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration, and was originally filed as Gary B. v. Snyder.

The plaintiffs were seven Detroit public school students who alleged that they were denied the opportunity to have a quality education because of poor building conditions, a shortage of textbooks and other learning materials, and poorly qualified teachers.

In the 136-page lawsuit, students describe learning in classes of 50 or more children, inadequate education for English language learners, and rodents and cockroaches in classrooms.

The lawsuit specifically called out Michigan’s deployment of emergency managers to control the city’s public schools between 2009 and 2016. Those managers created conditions so awful, the plaintiffs alleged, that students were denied what they claimed was their constitutional right to a basic reading education.

Reading scores among Detroit students have ranked among the lowest in the nation over the past decade and a half. In fourth- and eighth-grade reading, the Detroit district’s test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress have ranked near the bottom statewide and nationwide.

The lawsuit sought to establish a constitutional right to literacy for all students, but the plaintiffs agreed to a settlement in 2020 and dropped their bid to establish that right. The settlement awarded some money to each of the plaintiffs and to the district, and required the governor to propose legislation to provide more money to the district to support literacy efforts. The legislation failed to clear the Republican-led Legislature in 2021 and 2022, but it passed this year under Democratic leadership.

The legislation requires the district to spend the $94.4 million by Sept. 30, 2027.

The settlement money is small but significant

Community members, school officials, and education experts welcomed the settlement, though some argued that the $94.4 million earmarked for Detroit’s literacy initiatives is a small sum in relation to the needs that the lawsuit cited, which spanned everything from textbooks to school buildings. A 2018 audit estimated that the district’s building repair needs alone would grow to $1.2 billion by 2023.

But the district has been able to tap its share of federal COVID relief aid to address building needs and fund a $700 million facility plan. And the settlement money will help the district free up money in its general fund for other priorities, such as retaining contracted nurses, offering one-time staff bonuses to help reduce teacher turnover, and sustaining summer school and after-school programming that had been funded by COVID relief aid.

“More than $94.4 million is needed to get things back where they belong, but it is a monumental victory for a struggle that certainly did not start with this lawsuit,” said Mark Rosenbaum, the lead attorney for the right-to-read lawsuit.

Molly Sweeney, director of organizing for Detroit education advocacy group 482Forward, applauded the Legislature’s approval of the funding, saying that “this is hard-earned money for the community.”

482Forward was among the community groups that advocated for the settlement agreement.

“This is community money, and this should have community input,” Sweeney said. “We should be able to have a say in how it’s spent.”

Two task forces will address Detroit education challenges

In addition to providing money for the district — an initial $2.7 million and the $94.4 million from the legislation — the settlement requires the Michigan Department of Education to provide guidance to schools on the best practices for K-12 literacy education.

The settlement also promised the creation of two task forces to address literacy and educational challenges in Detroit, the Detroit Literacy Equity Task Force and the Detroit Education Policy Committee.

The literacy equity task force is charged with conducting annual evaluations of Detroit literacy and providing state-level policy recommendations to the governor. It will convene a series of town hall meetings over the next year and provide recommendations to the DPSCD school board on how the funds should be used.

The educational policy committee will make recommendations to the governor about Detroit’s education system. Its work will be overseen by the Community Education Commission, a nonprofit created by Mayor Mike Duggan in 2018 to address barriers to accessing quality schools in Detroit.

The district has early plans for how to use the money

Anticipating lawmakers’ approval of the settlement funding, DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti has already outlined some early strategies on how the district plans to spend the money.

“We are awaiting the recommendations from the Literacy Task Force on how to use the funds,” Vitti said in an email. “We will certainly consider their recommendations but are not required to abide by them.”

Among the district’s top priorities: hiring more academic interventionists, increasing literacy support for high school students, and expanding teacher training on how to help students who are several grades below reading level.

The settlement requires that the district spend its money on programs that follow evidence-based literacy strategies. But it allows for spending on a range of initiatives that could support student learning, such as reducing class sizes for K-3 students, upgrading school facilities, and providing students with more reading materials.

Under Vitti, DPSCD has prioritized staff training on Orton-Gillingham, a multisensory teaching method typically used for students with dyslexia or other reading challenges, as well as hiring academic interventionists to work one-on-one or in small groups with students struggling to read and with English language learners.

Even after the settlement money is spent, Vitti said, the district would continue to find different funding sources to fund academic interventionists, a position he considers “a centerpiece of our literacy support.”

Literacy task force has begun working

The settlement requires 15 members to be assigned to the Detroit Literacy Equity Task Force:

Two DPSCD representatives selected by the superintendent and approved by the board
Two teachers selected by the Detroit Federation of Teachers
One paraprofessional selected by the Detroit Federation of Paraprofessionals
Three DPSCD students
Three DPSCD parents or caregivers
Two Detroit community members
Two literacy experts selected by the task force’s DFT, DFP and DPSCD members

Lakia Wilson-Lumpkins, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers and co-chair of the task force, says the group began meeting privately as early as 2022 for exploratory discussions about what to do with the money.

“In our initial meetings, we discussed possibilities in terms of supplemental resources, technologies, adaptive equipment, books,” Wilson-Lumpkins said. “Ninety-four million dollars seems like a lot of money, but it is not. We definitely want to improve facilities, improve materials, improve training, and once you do all those things for 50,000 students I think $94 million will be well spent.”

The task force is required to host six public meetings before April 30, 2024, to get community input on how the money should be spent. Then by June 30, the group will need to submit recommendations to the DPSCD school board.

The recommendations “are not mandatory, but nobody expects a tug of war on this,” said Rosenbaum. “The school board and Superintendent Vitti have been responsive to the community.”

In approving the settlement, Michigan Senate lawmakers included a clause that requires the district to explain how it intends to use community input to guide its spending.

DPSCD is required to host at least one community meeting to discuss its spending plan, Vitti said, and district officials will introduce the plan to the school board’s academic and finance committees before it comes up for a full board vote.

But he added that the district would like to move fast to allocate the money once it’s released to DPSCD.

“The School Board would likely approve use of the literacy lawsuit funding by the first (2023-24) budget amendment, which takes place after the fall count period” in October, Vitti said.

“We want to start using the funds as soon as possible, so we are eager to consider the recommendations from the Task Force.”

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan education budget contains some smaller-ticket items that could have big impact

2023-07-05T16:53:19+00:00

The most notable winners in Michigan’s $21.5 billion budget for K-12 schools will be the state’s neediest students, English language learners, children in high-poverty schools, and special education students.

But with smaller amounts, the budget also delivers money to benefit teachers, Detroit schools and other local districts, campus infrastructure, community-based advocacy efforts, regional education nonprofits, and rural districts. Those less-noticed budget items could have a significant impact on education across the state.

Here’s a closer look at the smaller-ticket budget items that are expected to have huge payoffs.

Money aimed at tackling the statewide teacher shortage

While a shortage of teaching applicants is a national issue, Greg Nyen, superintendent of the Marquette-Alger Regional Educational Services Agency in the Upper Peninsula, said the scarcity of educators is acute in Michigan.

“About 10 years ago, 23,000 teachers or potential teachers were in educational preparatory programs across the state,” he said. “Last year, there were under 15,000. Only about 20% end up completing their certification.”

As part of an effort to address the shortage, a number of districts will receive a total of $76.4 million to support Talent Together, a partnership among 48 school systems and nine universities that widens pathways for aspiring teachers.

“So often, when new teachers start, they don’t feel successful,” said Jack Elsey, founder of the nonprofit Michigan Educator Workforce Initiative. “Over half quit in the first year.”

The new collaborative aims to tackle barriers for prospective teachers, Elsey said, including paying for their training, offering paid apprenticeships in the classroom, and mentoring them while they are in those programs.

Districts will also be granted a total of $50 million to expand support for new teachers, school counselors, and administrators, including mentor stipends and professional development.

And the budget allocates $63.8 million to districts to increase pay for educators.

“Elevating salaries and making this career an attractive one once again makes the financial burden lighter and makes it feel like it’s worth the effort,” said Elsey.

Financial awards for teachers who have national board certification will be funded with $4 million. Eligible teachers in districts that apply for the funds will receive $4,000 and an additional $6,000 if they work in Title I schools, which have large concentrations of students from low-income households.

Paula Herbart, president of the Michigan Education Association teachers union, called the funding a proactive step in recruiting and retaining quality educators.

“It’s critical that we keep great educators on the job and attract talented people into this noble profession, and this budget agreement provides our schools with much-needed resources to help accomplish these goals,” she said in a statement.

Detroit community initiatives get support

The budget provides $6 million for a local or intermediate district to use on services from Get On And Learn, or GOAL Line, a program that transports students from northwest Detroit schools to free after-school programs. The nonprofit began in 2018 as an effort to get students to school and decrease absenteeism. But after listening to parent feedback, the group ended morning transportation and focused solely on after-school bus rides. In November, the organization’s waitlist was bigger than its enrollment due to financial constraints.
The budget will give $3 million to local districts to distribute to Detroit Parent Network, a nonprofit that works to engage parents in their kids’ education. Those dollars will help cover the cost of training for parents, health resources, support groups, civic engagement programs, and advocacy to families. The nonprofit also offers a literacy program in English and Spanish as well as workforce development.
The Legislature voted to give $2 million to the nonprofit group Brilliant Detroit for neighborhood-based tutoring and noninstructional services for children ages 3 to 12. The group transforms underused housing into neighborhood centers focused on early childhood development and kindergarten readiness.

Novi, Hamtramck and other district initiatives win funding

Novi Community School District will receive $1 million to support a wellness center that will offer onsite mental health support for students outside the regular school day, a medical clinic that will provide basic care to students with and without insurance, and a building wing for staff to destress and exercise. The center will also use the funds to offer onsite, after-school tutoring for students who can’t afford private instruction and will create a hub for families to access other health resources.
The budget allocates $2 million to Hamtramck Public Schools to hire accelerated-learning coaches for all eight of its schools. The coaches will lead targeted tutoring efforts in the district; work with teachers to model lesson plans and co-teach; and identify gaps in instruction. The money will also provide professional development for the coaches on data analysis, among other areas.
The budget provides $100,000 to a district to support the Student Advocacy Center of Michigan’s statewide helpline for families in “educational crisis.”
Dearborn City School District will receive $250,000 to support a cybersecurity certificate program.

Construction projects get a boost

The Detroit Public Schools Community District will get $6.5 million for essential structural improvements and renovations for Coleman A. Young Elementary and another $5 million for needed updates to its Foreign Language Immersion and Cultural Studies School building.
Beecher Community School District near Flint will receive $2.5 million to fund the construction of a new high school to match money already raised through donations.
Waverly Community Schools in Lansing is set to get $3 million to build a new high school auditorium.
The budget provides $500,000 to Eastpointe Community Schools to build a new swimming pool.

Programs for rural and ‘isolated’ districts benefit

The budget provides $11.6 million in special weighted funding for instructional costs in rural and isolated districts.
A new rural-educator credentialing hub pilot program will get $15 million in startup funding. The program will provide free support to educators for credentialing and course fees. According to many administrators and a recent report, rural schools face unique challenges in attracting teachers.
The state created a school transportation fund and will deposit $350 million this fiscal year, $125 million of which will be spent by districts in the 2023-24 school year. The funds will likely benefit rural schools the most, which on average spend $200 more per pupil on transportation than nonrural districts.
Grosse Ile Township Schools will get $500,000 because students must cross a bridge to travel to their campuses, and the school system has not gotten funding under an existing allocation for isolated districts.

Other items

Districts including DPSCD will be awarded a total of $1 million to purchase tampons or menstrual pads to distribute free to students in school bathrooms.
Districts will receive $125 million total in grants to buy less-polluting buses.
More than $6 million in a new one-time pot of money will go to partnership schools which will be used to improve attendance, increase graduation rates, and reduce class sizes, among other targeted initiatives. Partnership schools are low-performing schools that operate under support agreements with the state to improve their operations.
Covenant House Michigan, a religious nonprofit that mostly serves students experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity in Detroit and Grand Rapids, will receive $1 million to support its residential education program. The organization offers shelter, educational and vocational programs, and support for survivors of human trafficking.

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

Correction: July 5, 2023: A previous version of this story said a number of districts would receive a total of $10 million to support Talent Together. That number did not include money to support the organization’s Grow Your Own program, which will receive an additional $66.4 million.

Michigan schools will see big funding gains for neediest students under budget deal

2023-06-29T00:07:36+00:00

Michigan lawmakers approved a $21.5 billion K-12 budget Wednesday that includes a significant funding increase for students considered to be at risk of not meeting educational goals.

It’s the first K-12 budget since Democrats took full control of the Legislature this year, and reflects an aggressive approach to addressing significant learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among the state’s most vulnerable students.

Under the budget, districts will receive more money in the upcoming school year for economically disadvantaged students, English language learners, and students who receive special education, according to a House Fiscal Agency analysis of Senate Bill 173.

The budget also funds free school meals for all students, expands eligibility for the state’s pre-K program, and increases per pupil funding for tutoring.

In separate higher education budgets that total $2.8 billion, the state’s public universities and community colleges will receive 5% increases in operating funds.

The House and Senate voted on the budgets along party lines late Wednesday as they worked to beat a July 1 budget deadline.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer expressed satisfaction late in the afternoon, tweeting that the budget deal was “done.” After the Legislature’s vote, her office sent a press release in which State Superintendent Michael Rice said, “This is another outstanding budget, one that again works hard on funding adequacy and equity.”

Republican Sen. Thomas Albert, of Lowell, opposed the state education budget and said in a speech ahead of his no vote that both the school aid and general budget “simply spends too much money and it is not sustainable.”

But Republican Sen. Jon Bumstead, of North Muskegon, who served on the conference committee for the school budget, voted for the Democratic-led package.

He said ahead of his yes vote that “no budget is perfect,” but that the budget deal on schools reflects several Republican priorities.

“And just as Republicans did for many years in the majority, this budget makes a record investment in our schools,” he said.

Supporters say budget addresses ‘past wrongs’

More than half of Michigan students are considered economically disadvantaged. Advocates say the additional funding will help the state better support school districts and their students.

“This year’s school aid budget represents a giant step toward righting past wrongs and ensuring that all Michigan students have access to an excellent public school education,” said Alice Thompson, of the NAACP Detroit branch, who co-chairs a coalition that advocates for school funding reform.

“The unprecedented funding for students with the greatest needs, particularly those living in concentrated poverty, will be tremendously important to address the wide and unfair opportunity gaps that exist for students who are most underserved, especially Michigan’s Black and Latino students,” Thompson said.

The budget includes a 5% increase in the school “foundation allowance,” which is the base amount schools receive per student from the state. School districts will receive $9,608 for each student in the 2023-24 school year, an increase of $458.

The same increase will not be available to online schools, which will continue to receive $9,150 per student. Democrats and teachers unions have long argued that online schools require less money from the state because they don’t pay for buildings, transportation, sports, or other extracurriculars as traditional public schools do.

Dan Quisenberry, president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, a charter industry group, said online students deserve equal funding.

“Students in online schools include many of the most vulnerable students in the state, many of whom are minority students, LGBTQ students, children living in poverty, and students facing medical challenges,” Quisenberry said. “It would make no sense to fund students differently. That’s not who we are as a state. While we’ve made great progress, we’re not there yet. All kids deserve equal funding, and we will continue to advocate for that principle.”

Funding for ‘at risk’ students uses new calculation

The education budget sets aside $952 million in additional payments for districts with students deemed “at risk.” That’s an increase of more than $200 million over what was set aside in this year’s budget, which provided schools with 11.5% more funding for each eligible student.

Under the new budget, schools will receive at-risk student funding using an “opportunity index” that considers a district’s concentration of poverty, based on the number of economically disadvantaged students, which could mean an index boost of up to 15.3% for some schools.

Democratic lawmakers said they hope to one day raise at-risk student funding far higher.

“As we’ve seen from study after study from those in the field and education researchers, we need to get to higher levels of reimbursement for at-risk students,” Sen. Darrin Camilleri, D-Trenton, told Bridge Michigan. “And so we want to put a target in this budget to have at least 35% reimbursement be a goal for us in Michigan.”

Thompson and other education advocates in the Michigan Partnership for Equity and Opportunity coalition have urged policymakers to adopt a funding structure that aligns more closely with Massachusetts, which revamped its education funding in 2019 to provide more for low-income students.

Massachusetts and Michigan have similarly large achievement gaps between low-income and more affluent students on standardized tests. But low-income students in Massachusetts scored 11 points higher in fourth grade reading last year than Michigan’s low-income students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The gap was even wider among Black students, with those in Massachusetts testing 17 points higher.

Under the new budget, school districts will receive 100% of base funding for students who receive special education, rather than 75% provided under the current budget. There is also more funding for English language learners.

“The budget finalized today represents a solid investment in schools for the upcoming year but, more importantly, represents an investment in students for years to come,” said Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance, which represents more than 100 Michigan school districts. “Funding for special education, at-risk students, and universal meal programs will give more students additional opportunities to succeed both in and out of the classroom.”

Longtime community activist Helen Moore, who has championed literacy programs in Detroit schools and currently volunteers tutoring third graders at Detroit Public Schools Community District’s Barton Elementary School, said it will take more money than the Legislature is able to give in the upcoming school year to reverse years of underfunding.

“How do you make up for all the money that was taken from children who have been neglected and treated like slaves?” she asked. “There is no answer for it. There’s not enough money to do it.”

The budget includes $94.4 million for DPSCD as a result of a literacy lawsuit settled in 2020. The settlement required Whitmer to propose the funding, but she needed legislative approval for the funds to be awarded.

The budget prohibits the district from using the funding to supplant existing literacy programs and requires the school district to create a task force and spend funds in a way that aligns with the literacy settlement.

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

Hannah Dellinger is an education reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Audit criticizes Michigan education officials’ oversight of fingerprinting for school workers

2023-06-27T19:52:51+00:00

The Michigan Department of Education has no procedures in place to ensure school districts aren’t employing people who’ve been convicted of criminal offenses that prohibit them from working in schools, according to a state audit released Tuesday morning.

The report from the state Office of the Auditor General criticized MDE’s oversight of the fingerprinting and background check process for contract workers. These are people who perform functions such as substitute teaching, food service, and custodial and maintenance services.

State laws require Michigan school districts to ensure that all their employees and contract workers are fingerprinted and undergo background checks. Those laws were part of a sweeping package of legislation that went into effect in 2006 and were aimed at ensuring the safety of children in schools.

The laws bar schools from employing anyone who is on the sex offender registry. For those convicted of any felony or certain misdemeanors — such as criminal sexual conduct in the fourth degree, child abuse in the third or fourth degree, and any misdemeanor involving cruelty, torture, or indecent exposure involving a child — a school board and superintendent must decide whether to employ or continue employing the person.

The audit found that some contract workers were hired without being fingerprinted, and some worked weeks, months, or even years before being fingerprinted.

The number of workers found to have been hired without the required fingerprinting was relatively small, but the audit report said “the deficiencies noted within this report would extend to all individuals regularly working in schools, regardless of their employment arrangement.”

The findings matter, the audit report said, because ineffective oversight by the state education department means there could be a significant threat to child safety “if individuals with unsuitable criminal convictions are provided direct and/or continued access to children through school employment.”

The auditors called for the department to implement procedures to help ensure that contracted staff are fingerprinted and that employment determinations are made for those with criminal convictions that require school boards and superintendents to decide on their continued employment. Department officials pushed back on that recommendation, saying in part that state law doesn’t require MDE to oversee or monitor the fingerprinting process. However, the department said that “in the interests of ensuring the safety of students,” MDE would work with the Michigan State Police to “enhance the monitoring process.”

The total number of contract workers in Michigan schools is unknown. But the audit says a statewide survey found that 91% of the districts in Michigan used contract workers. The 41 school districts sampled for the audit employed 5,010 contract workers.

Here are some of the additional findings in the audit:

An estimated 220 of 5,010 contract workers were never fingerprinted prior to employment.
Fingerprinting did not happen “in a timely manner” for three of 45 sampled workers. They were fingerprinted 23 days, 16 months, and 10 years, respectively, after being employed.
In some cases, MDE received conviction alerts about workers, but did not notify their school districts.
MDE routinely used outdated and incomplete employment data as part of its notification process.

Martin Ackley, spokesman for the education department, said in a statement to Chalkbeat that student safety is a priority and the MDE relies on its partners to ensure students are secure.

“School districts should not be hiring individuals whose criminal history demonstrates the potential to jeopardize the safety of children and other school staff. We do this in partnership with the Michigan State Police to ensure the safety of all Michigan children,” Ackley said.

He said MDE will discuss the auditor recommendations with the state Center for Educational Performance and Information “to have local school districts report employment changes more frequently during a school year.”

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

Michigan board of education votes to push back against book bans

2023-06-14T21:18:48+00:00

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Michigan’s State Board of Education voted Tuesday to take a stance against book bans and in favor of students’ freedom to read diverse collections of literature.

Amid a wave of book removals in school libraries across the country, often prompted by state and local politicians, the board adopted a resolution expressing concern over censorship.

The move came weeks after the Michigan Civil Rights Commission asked Attorney General Dana Nessel for an opinion on whether removals of books exploring LGBTQ+ issues from public school libraries are a form of discrimination prohibited by state civil rights law.

The board’s resolution calls on local school leaders to follow best practices in handling book challenges and affirms that school librarians have the professional skills to select age-appropriate materials. The board’s statement also recognizes that certified librarians have a positive impact on student’s learning and academic outcomes.

“I do feel like in specific areas and districts, librarians have been targeted with a lot of hate and name-calling, and it’s affecting the mental health of those professionals,” said Kathy Lester, a librarian in Plymouth-Canton Community Schools who heads the American Association of School Librarians. “Hearing some people standing up and saying that this needs to stop and we need to respect our professionals is very helpful.”

Books on race, sexuality face challenges

In recent years, books covering issues such as racism, sexuality, and gender identity have been challenged by conservative politicians, administrators, and parents who deem them inappropriate for students. Some have labeled literature with any mentions or depictions of sexuality or nudity “pornography,” and in certain instances have attempted to have librarians criminally investigated for allowing such titles to stay on shelves.

During its meeting Tuesday, the Democratic-controlled board approved an amendment to its resolution stating that the governing body supports parents’ right to decide which books are appropriate for their children.

“I’m not for banning books,” said board co-Vice President Tiffany Tilley, who suggested the amendment. “For some parents, they may not be ready for their children to read about some of those things, and that’s fine. We’re not trying to make decisions for their children, but we’re not trying to ban books from everybody.”

The board rejected a proposal from member Tom McMillin that he said would clarify that “pornography” would be prohibited from schools.

“I would like to make sure that it’s clear — that it is in here — that at least we can go on record and say that there is a level where certain books or certain materials should not be available in schools to students in any grade,” he said.

Board President Pamela Pugh said it was “unfortunate” that McMillin put the amendment forward, noting that existing laws prohibit pornography from being distributed to minors.

Equating the books under discussion with pornography is “just a way to continue to spread disinformation,” Pugh said.

McMillin and Nikki Snyder were the only members who voted against the resolution.

From July 2021 to June 2022, 41 books were banned in four Michigan districts, according to an analysis by PEN America, a nonprofit that aims to protect freedom of expression in literature. Thirty-four of the removals documented by the organization were in Gladwin Community Schools and were prompted by a school administrator, the database shows. Five books were pulled from Rochester Community Schools, one from Novi Community School District, and one from Hudsonville Public Schools.

During the first half of the 2022-23 school year, PEN America tracked 18 books that were restricted from student access in Michigan. Of those titles, eight were in Davison Community Schools and seven in Dearborn Public Schools. One book was pulled from Portage Public Schools shelves, one in Spring Lake Public Schools, and one in St. Joseph Public Schools, according to the database.

Michigan has a shortage of librarians

Lester, the head of the librarians group, said that while the board’s resolution is a positive move to support school librarians in the state, more can be done to champion reading and literacy for Michigan students.

“In Michigan, we need more access to certified school librarians,” she said. “We are 47th in the nation in terms of the number of school librarians per student in our state.”

While numerous studies show the positive impact certified librarians can have on student achievement, Lester said many of those positions have been cut over the years because of budget restraints.

Districts in low-income and rural communities in the state tend to have few if any librarians, Lester added.

By 2020, there were two full-time, certified librarians in the Detroit Public Schools Community District.

Legislation introduced in 2018 would have required all Michigan public schools to have a library and one certified librarian. The bills failed to move forward that session.

The Legislature’s Democratic majority has “so many priorities,” Lester said, that the shortage of librarians hasn’t made their agenda.

“We have big improvements to make in reading achievement” in Michigan, Lester said, “I feel like this needs to become a critical issue and something we do prioritize in our state.”

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education for Chalkbeat Detroit. Reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Merit-based pay clause for Detroit teachers would be eased under Senate bill

2023-06-06T23:42:18+00:00

Performance evaluations would no longer be the deciding factor in salary increases for newly hired employees in the Detroit school district, under proposed legislation that seeks to remove a distinction between recent and earlier hires and make the criteria uniform across Michigan.

A bill introduced in the state Senate last month would remove provisions in the Revised School Code that say all teachers and staff in the Detroit Public Schools Community District hired after September 2019 must have their compensation based primarily on job performance, rather than seniority or educational credentials.

Supporters of the bill say that removing the language would make it easier for the Detroit Federation of Teachers to bargain for all of its members — newer hires and veterans — equally, and bring Detroit’s district in line with all other districts in the state.

For those districts, the Revised School Code says job performance should be considered a “significant” factor in determining staff pay, but doesn’t specify “primary” factor.

“This bill simply seeks to address an inconsistency in the law, where all educators across the state are able to collectively bargain certain topics except for, right now, educators in the Detroit Public Schools Community District,” said state Sen. Stephanie Chang, the bill’s sponsor, at a Senate Education Committee hearing on Tuesday.

The proposed change “doesn’t necessarily lessen, or de-emphasize in any way, performance,” said Chang, a Democrat from Detroit. “It simply just is saying we’ve got to consider other factors.”

The current law effectively says that for teachers hired after Sept. 1, 2019, DPSCD may not use the length of service or achievement of an advanced degree as a factor in determining their pay, except for teachers with a secondary-level teaching certificate or an advanced degree in elementary education.

The stricter language referring to Detroit’s district was added by a then-Republican-led Legislature in a 2016 package of bills that sought to address the debt crisis facing Detroit Public Schools, and ultimately created the Detroit Public Schools Community District. Teachers union leaders opposed the bills at the time.

Lakia Wilson-Lumpkins, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, said the current law sets a different standard for new hires compared with those hired before September 2019, regardless of how much experience they have.

For the earlier hires, “the union negotiated salary schedule is based upon time,” she said. “We do have some merit-based compensation, however moving on the salary scale is not dependent on merit.”

But some lawmakers say student academic performance and teacher effectiveness should remain a priority in districts like Detroit that have long struggled academically.

“When disadvantaged students are less likely to be taught by highly effective teachers, why should the teacher’s ability to ensure adequate student academic growth not be the No. 1, the primary factor, in determining the teacher’s effectiveness?” asked Sen. Ruth Johnson, a Republican from Holly, during the committee hearing.

Teachers unions and other opponents of the current law argue that current measures of teacher job performance rely too heavily on student scores on standardized tests. Their Democratic allies in the Legislature are working on bills to delink student scores from teacher evaluations.

Wilson-Lumpkins told Chalkbeat that the current provision has become a “deterrent” for current and prospective district teachers.

“This legislation is not only causing educators to choose other districts, but it is causing the new hires who have come in and learned about this legislation on the back end … to consider leaving,” Wilson-Lumpkins said. “And the children in Detroit deserve to have quality education the same as all the children across the state of Michigan.”

Nastassia Szpaichler, a middle school special ed teacher at DPSCD, said in a statement read to the Senate Education Committee that she found out about the Revised School Code provision only after she was hired.

The performance-based evaluation puts undue stress on new hires, she said.

“When I was hired fresh out of college, Detroit was offering me the highest pay for first year teachers at $51,071,” Szpaichler said.

“What I did learn was that my compensation would not be based on my years of experience that I gained, which is what literally every other district does, but based on my job performance and my job accomplishments,” she said. “This truly was frightening to me.”

DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti did not respond to a request for comment about the Senate bill, but he has previously argued that Detroit teachers should be among the highest-paid educators in the state, and he has made increasing pay a priority — especially for newly hired teachers. Their starting salary of roughly $51,000 is now among the highest in the region.

The DFT is currently negotiating a new contract with the district, Wilson-Lumpkins said, with a focus on its union members affected by the district’s budget cuts, including kindergarten paraprofessionals, school culture facilitators, and college transition advisers.

The last contract negotiations, ahead of the 2021-22 school year, resulted in an annual 4% salary increase across the board for Detroit educators, with additional raises for veteran and special education teachers.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit charter school to offer $100,000 teacher salaries

2023-05-25T18:44:38+00:00

A Detroit charter school is offering $100,000 annual salaries to certain teachers with five or more years of experience, in a bold bid to increase the number of certified teachers at the school.

The Detroit Academy of Arts & Sciences, which serves a little over 1,000 K-8 students, made the announcement Thursday morning. The school said the six-figure salary offer is part of an effort to improve student outcomes and to attract what it calls “best in class” teachers.

Teachers must meet a set of criteria in order to be eligible for the $100,000 pay.

They must have at least five or more years of experience as a classroom teacher or a lead teacher.
They must be rated highly effective in two of the last three years.
They must be fully certified.
They must demonstrate an impact on student outcomes, professionalism, commitment to equity, and family and community engagement.

“Revolutionary” is how Krystal Thomas, a 7th grade science teacher at DAAS, described the salary offer, according to the release.

“When you give teachers a livable wage, it makes the profession important,” said Thomas, who plans to pursue becoming a model teacher. “I’m really excited about this opportunity.”

Said Ja’Myrea Jones, an eighth-grader and the school’s valedictorian: “I think it is great that DAAS is committed to ensuring that our students have the best teachers in the classroom. Having highly effective teachers will help us become stronger scholars and future leaders.”

The district expects to hire 18 teachers with the $100,000 salary in time for the start of the 2023-24 school year. The new hires would receive a three-year contract, and would be required to maintain their ratings during that time.

Current staff are also eligible, though they would have to apply, and it’s unclear how many would qualify, a spokesperson for the school said Thursday.

At DAAS, 35% of the teachers aren’t fully certified, though many are going through the steps to earn certification. Seven years ago, 95% of the teachers were certified.

“Every child deserves to be taught by a best-in-class teacher,” Maurice Morton, CEO of the district, said during a news conference held at the school Thursday, according to a press release.

“By creating strong criteria to measure excellence for teachers and investing in their growth with a best-in-class compensation plan, we believe that we will have a profound impact on the educational outcomes for the children we serve.”

It’s not unheard of for teachers to make $100,000, but generally teachers earning at that level have many years of experience and/or are often receiving additional compensation for coaching or leading other extracurricular activities. Michigan ranks 16th in the nation for teacher pay, with an average of $64,884, according to the 2023 review of salaries by the National Education Association.

At DAAS, current teachers make salaries of between $49,000 to $72,000. The school will cover the higher salaries by reallocating portions of its budget.

The DAAS offer is one of many initiatives Michigan schools are using to address teaching shortages that are affecting districts across the state. A new program to recruit, retain, and develop teachers in five Michigan districts was announced Thursday by Teach for America Detroit.

Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools Community District, has made increasing staff salaries a critical budget initiative for the next school year, even as the district seeks to make budget cuts to account for the loss of federal COVID relief funding.

Battle Creek Public Schools on Wednesday announced an agreement with its union to provide a $10,000 increase to base pay, on average. District officials say the pay increase will make it one of the highest paying districts for new teachers in southwest Michigan.

“Everything that we do for our students begins with teachers, and we will continue to invest in them to ensure that together we are creating the conditions for success that our students need and deserve,” Battle Creek Superintendent Kimberly Carter said in a news release from the district.

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

Teach for America Detroit to help 5 Michigan districts retain and develop teachers

2023-05-25T04:02:00+00:00

An organization that has drawn hundreds of people into the teaching profession in Detroit by giving them a faster path into the classroom is expanding to five other Michigan communities with an initiative to recruit, retain, and develop more than 700 teachers.

The focus is on developing teachers in high-poverty schools, providing support and training, and thus improving outcomes for some of the most vulnerable students in Michigan.

Teach for America Detroit is launching Teach Michigan, which is partnering with Benzie County Central Schools, Kentwood Public Schools, Saginaw Public Schools, Sault Ste. Marie Area Public Schools, and Traverse City Area Public Schools to recruit educators on their staff who will earn stipends of $35,000 each over three years.

Those who apply and are accepted receive a $5,000 signing bonus, a $5,000 completion bonus after the first year, a $10,000 bonus after the end of the second year, and a $15,000 bonus after the final year.

The program offers three paths for educators: One focuses on early-career educators and is aimed at helping them strengthen their teaching skills. Another is focused on teachers who want to achieve the rigorous National Board Certification. And the third is for experienced teachers who want to take on administrative or supervisory roles.

In addition to the stipend, teachers selected will receive intense training during the three years.

Teach Michigan debuts at a time when many districts across Michigan are struggling to fill teaching jobs, and education leaders and policymakers are looking for ways to address that challenge. But recruiting more people into the profession only addresses part of a systemic problem, said Armen Hratchian, executive director of TFA Detroit.

“All of the talk is about the pipelines. But what are we doing to keep the ones who are already here?” he said.

It’s a question that has informed the organization’s work since 2019, when it began providing support in Detroit to help retain and develop teachers.

“There are really great people teaching every day in our schools, and in particular, in our under-resourced or high poverty communities across the state,” Hratchian said. “Roughly 400,000 students every day go to a school that would be considered high-poverty … . We know that we’re losing teachers at a faster rate in those schools.”

The new initiative will be tracked by the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative at Michigan State University, which has done comprehensive research on the state’s Read by Grade 3 law and other education issues.

Among the questions the EPIC researchers will seek to answer, Hratchian said, is whether this type of investment works, whether it increases retention, whether it improves student outcomes, and whether the educators who participate create better conditions for other educators around them.

TFA Detroit is part of Teach for America, a national organization that recently experienced some challenges that have resulted in layoffs. In Detroit, though, the local arm has been buoyed by a $30 million grant from the state of Michigan. The $60 million initiative has received grants from the Skillman Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Detroit Children’s Fund, United Way for Southeastern Michigan, AmeriCorps Michigan, Masco Corp., Ford Motor Co. Fund and Bank of America.

Skillman, Kellogg, and the United Way are Chalkbeat funders. Click here for a list of our supporters.

The five districts in the Teach Michigan program were chosen because they have strong, stable leadership, good relationships between the administration and school board, and strong district-union relationships, Hratchian said.

Saginaw Public Schools launched a “grow your own” program more than a year ago and helps existing staff earn teacher certification in two phases — one for employees with a bachelor’s degree and another for those with a high school diploma and/or an associate’s degree. The first group of more than 20 educators recently graduated from the program, said Superintendent Ramont Roberts, who has led the district for five years.

Teach Michigan fits into those efforts because of its focus on retention and development, Roberts said.

“We’re working hard to retain our current staff that we know are effective or highly effective instructors, so they don’t seek opportunities elsewhere,” he said. That can be a struggle in an urban district that has to compete with suburban schools that may be able to offer higher salaries.

The district is in the process of selecting the 30 educators who will be part of the first year of Teach Michigan. More than 70 people applied, Roberts said.

“It’s been an overwhelming response,” he said.

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

Battle Creek scholarship program to pay up to 100% of college tuition for grads

2023-05-17T20:49:10+00:00

The Battle Creek high school seniors walked across the stage to enthusiastic applause as they formally announced their post-high school plans, but that couldn’t hold a candle to the big announcement that came after: A new scholarship program will pay for up to 100% of their college tuition and fees.

The Bearcat Advantage, part of a partnership between Battle Creek Public Schools and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, will ensure that district graduates have an opportunity to attend college. The scholarships begin with the Class of 2023, who graduate next week, Superintendent Kimberly Carter said during a decision day event — one of many held across the country during the month of May that celebrate the post-graduation plans of high school seniors. The district enrolls 3,753 students, including 279 seniors.

At this event, which was live streamed on YouTube, the scholarship announcement overshadowed those decisions. Students learned that if they have been enrolled in the district since kindergarten, they will have 100% of their tuition and fees covered. The amount decreases depending on how many years a student has been enrolled. For instance, a student enrolled for just the four years of high school will have 65% of their tuition and fees covered.

It was unclear Wednesday afternoon how much the foundation had provided to launch the scholarship program.

“It’s amazing,” said Kapree Richardson, a sophomore at Battle Creek High School. “This is like a good side door to a lot of things people can’t do. A lot of people want to go to college, but a lot of people can’t afford the terms of going to college.”

Kapree was uncertain himself. “This right here, it helps me out a lot.”

The scholarships cover tuition and fees at Michigan public or private colleges and universities. It is also eligible to be used at nearly 100 historically Black colleges and universities.

“This will change your life,” said La June Montgomery Tabron, CEO of the Kellogg Foundation. (The foundation is a Chalkbeat funder. Click here for a list of our supporters.)

The program is similar to the Kalamazoo Promise, which also covers up to 100% of tuition and fees for district graduates. Since it was announced in 2005, many other “promise” type scholarship programs have been created, including in Detroit, where eligible students can have their tuition costs covered through the Detroit Promise.

“This is our promise to this community,” Tabron said. “It’s our promise to all of you.”

The district and foundation have partnered for years. In 2017, the foundation gave the district a $51 million grant that was aimed at improving academic outcomes in the district. Carter said the grant helped the district create new academic and extracurricular programs for students, including career academies, dual enrollment programs, International Baccalaureate programs, and programs focused on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

“Over the last few years, our goal has been to use every resource, partnership and strategy available to make sure that each and every one of you succeeds,” Carter said. “For us, failure is not an option.”

The most recent data show that for the Class of 2022, the four-year graduation rate of the district was 58%, which is down from the pre-pandemic rate of 72% in 2018-19. For those who graduated in 2021 and enrolled in college, whether it was a four-year college or a community college, nearly 18% had to enroll in a remedial course because they needed an academic boost before taking more challenging college classes.

When the announcement came Wednesday afternoon, Carter was met with a loud round of applause. But Kapree said some students didn’t fully understand the magnitude of what they heard. But the adults knew. You could see many of them standing in ovation. Many were crying. “It was an emotional moment,” district spokesman Nate Hunt said.

“That is a blessing,” said Christina Taylor, who teaches high school geometry. “People should have been dropping to their knees. We are blessed beyond measurement. The only thing these children do is make sure they get to college. The resources are now there. That barrier has been lifted. Go home and let mom and dad know … the ball is in their court.”

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

Michigan Senate lawmakers spar before passing $21 billion school aid budget

2023-05-11T21:16:32+00:00

Lawmakers in the Michigan Senate sparred Thursday over a nearly $21 billion school spending plan that was hailed by Democrats as putting students and teachers first and derided by Republicans as sending too much money to initiatives that won’t improve learning.

The plan ultimately passed in the Senate on a 20-17 vote.

Like a Michigan House plan that was approved a day before, the Senate plan includes increased per-pupil funding, plus major spending to provide school meals to all students, and to increase funding for at-risk students and students with special education needs. The budgets also include significant increases in spending for early childhood education, programs to help students get back on track academically, mental health programs, and career and technical education.

Sen. Darrin Camilleri, a Democrat from Trenton, lauded the proposal’s inclusion of a 6% increase in the per-pupil foundation amount, which would bring it up to $9,700. The plan approved by the House would bring that amount up to $9,516. He also noted that the budget fully funds special education.

“We set out to create a budget with students and teachers at the forefront,” said Camilleri, who chairs the Senate Pre-K12 appropriations subcommittee. “And I am proud to say that we delivered on that promise.”

Sen. Lana Theis, a Republican from Brighton who voted no, said the budget ignored what she called a “crisis” in the education system.

“Student achievement is lacking. Parents are being ignored. Teachers are fleeing the profession. Time-tested solutions to strengthening school security and response are being ignored. Unfortunately, this budget doesn’t do much to address or resolve these problems,” Theis said.

She specifically called out a proposal in the Senate budget for $160 million to provide free breakfasts and lunches to all public school children. Currently, only students from low-income homes receive free school meals. Federal funding during the first two years of the pandemic that covered meals for all students has dried up.

Democrats rejected a Theis amendment that would have extended the universal meal access to private schools. It was one of more than two dozen amendments Republicans suggested to the school aid budget that failed.

“Every student in a public school is going to be eligible for a free lunch, even if mom and dad make millions,” Theis said. “But if mom and dad are scraping by so their children can go to a nonpublic school, well, their kids’ lunches are on them.”

Responding to Theis’ criticism, Camilleri said many wealthy parents send their children to private schools, so he sees no problem with providing meals to all public school students.

The House and Senate budget proposals attempt to move the state closer to a more equitable funding system that acknowledges that some students are more expensive to educate than others. Currently, a district’s per-pupil amount is increased by 11.5% for each at-risk student. Under the Senate plan, schools would continue to receive the additional 11.5%, but for those with the largest concentrations of children from low-income homes, the added payment would be as much as 15.3%. The House proposal would give districts an increase of 35% for at-risk students.

Students are identified as at risk based on a number of factors, including if they come from low-income families, are English language learners, are chronically absent, or are a victim of child abuse or neglect.

A number of studies in recent years have called out Michigan’s school funding system as being inadequate, particularly for the most vulnerable children. Earlier this year, the Education Trust-Midwest, an education research and advocacy organization based in Royal Oak, proposed a system that would provide even bigger increases than the last few budgets have for districts with large concentrations of children from low-income families and children who are English language learners.

Amber Arellano, executive director of the organization, said she supports the historic nature of the Senate proposal, including the way it provides additional funding for the most vulnerable children.

But she said the proposals “should be considered the beginning — not the end — of a conversation on overhauling Michigan’s unfair school funding system so that Michigan moves in the direction of a system that provides opportunity and access for all groups of students to achieve at high levels.”

Among the other Republican proposals that failed Thursday were restoring funding that helps schools hire school resource officers, eliminating funding for electric school buses, and eliminating funding to the Eastpointe school district that would pay for a new swimming pool.

Senate Republicans also pushed to restore funding for cyber charter schools. Cyber charters, where students attend school fully online, receive the same base amount of per-pupil funding as brick-and-mortar schools. But some have objected to that — including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her Republican predecessor, Rick Snyder — because cyber charters don’t have the same building, transportation, and other costs as schools that educate students in person. Charter school advocates have successfully pushed back attempts to reduce their funding — until this year.

The House proposal would keep funding for Michigan’s online charter schools at the current amount of $9,150 per pupil, while the Senate budget would cut their funding to $7,760 per pupil.

Sen. Joseph Bellino, a Republican from Monroe, said cyber charter schools provide an important option for some students.

“They’re children … Some have been bullied, some of them have disabilities, a high percentage come from low-income families, some only feel comfortable with an online setting,” Belllino said. “I urge my members to support all types of learning.”

Senate Democrats and Republicans sparred Thursday over an amendment Theis recommended that would allow schools to use their safety funding to purchase automated external defibrillators and trauma kits. The latter suggestion rankled Dems.

A typical school trauma kit is an advanced first aid kit containing equipment and supplies to treat a person with major injuries.

Sen. Sarah Anthony, a Democrat from Lansing, called the amendment “disingenuous” and said “school safety is a real and serious issue and should not be politicized.”

Both Democrats and Republicans pointed to reports of a third-grader in Grand Rapids bringing a gun to school this week, the fourth child to do so this school year. The latest incident prompted the district to announce it is banning backpacks.

Sen. Ed McBroom, a Republican from Waucedah Township, said he was puzzled by the discussion over safety funding.

“Why are we shouting at each other over defibrillators and the ability to have trauma kits in school?” he asked.

Mallory McMorrow, a Democrat from Royal Oak, noted that Republicans had earlier this year opposed legislation to require the safe storage of firearms. The legislation passed and Whitmer signed it into law.

“Providing trauma kits acknowledges that you accept a reality in which kids have to be prepared to be shot,” McMorrow said.

Because there are considerable differences in the Senate and House plans, a conference committee will have to work on bridging the gaps.

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

Michigan schools would get funding boost under House and Senate budget proposals

2023-05-10T22:08:15+00:00

Michigan school districts would receive funding increases of between $366 and $550 per student, school breakfasts would be free for all, at-risk students would receive record funding, and the state would help cover some school transportation costs.

Those are some of the school funding proposals currently making their way through the Democratic-controlled Michigan Legislature.

The Michigan House on Wednesday approved a spending plan for public schools that would increase the per-pupil foundation amount to $9,516. That’s up 4% from the current amount of $9,150. The vote was 56-52, along party lines.

The Michigan Senate version of the school aid budget, likely to get a vote Thursday, would increase the per-pupil foundation amount to $9,700.

In the House, Democrats lauded its version of the budget, with some calling it “transformational.”

“This budget proposal does amazing things for every student in our state,” said Rep. Matt Koleszar, a Democrat from Plymouth who leads the House Education Committee.

Once both chambers have approved their respective budgets, a conference committee will iron out the differences, which are wide in some cases.

For example, they are far apart on how much to increase spending for students who are considered at risk. Students are identified as at risk based on a number of factors, including if they come from low-income families, are English language learners, are chronically absent, or are a victim of child abuse or neglect.

Currently, a district’s per-pupil amount is increased by 11.5% for each at-risk student.

Under the Senate plan, schools would continue to receive the additional 11.5%, but for those with the largest concentrations of children from low-income homes, the added payment would be as much as 15.3%.

The House proposal would give districts an increase of 35% for at-risk students.

Rep. Regina Weiss, a Democrat from Oak Park, said the House proposal would be the most the state has invested in the state’s neediest students.

Republican Rep. Brad Paquette, from Niles, voted no on the spending plan. He said that while there are some positive spending proposals, such as the foundation amount and increased spending on mental health, he is concerned about the increased spending on at-risk students, among other issues.

“The increase in at risk sounds like a noble increase. Ultimately these dollars become a slush fund for districts, where dollars do not track with the actual student that is in need,” Paquette said. “How can we ensure that these dollars actually follow those students who are deemed at risk?”

Paquette spoke against several other provisions of the budget, but he was cut off by the House member who was presiding over the chamber at the time while detailing his concerns over funding implicit-bias training after being told he was veering too far off the topic of the budget.

Democrats praised a proposal that would have the state spend $160 million to reimburse school districts for the cost of providing free breakfasts and lunches to all students. During the first two years of the pandemic, federal funding helped pay for free meals, but that funding ended.

“No one deserves to go hungry while they are attending school,” Koleszar said. “Students should focus on what they’re learning, not worry about where their next meal will come from.”

The Senate plan also allocates $160 million for meals.

The budget proposals also include $300 million for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s MI Kids Back on Track program, which is aimed at helping students recover academically after pandemic-era declines in achievement; $94.4 million for the Detroit Public Schools Community District for the settlement of a literacy lawsuit; and $75 million to expand the Great Start Readiness Program, Michigan’s free preschool program for 4-year-olds.

Some other features of the budget proposals:

The House proposal includes $150 million in new funding for school transportation.
The House would keep funding for Michigan’s online charter schools to current per-pupil levels, while the Senate would cut their funding to $7,760 per pupil.
The House proposal includes one-time funding of $300 million over two years to provide public schools with per-pupil grants to improve mental health. The Senate plan includes $310 million for public schools and $17.5 million for private schools.

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

Michigan child care providers demand more money to provide a livable wage

2023-05-08T18:37:13+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for Chalkbeat Detroit’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and Michigan education policy.

The child care providers marched up and down Grand Boulevard in Detroit, chanting “No child care, no work” and other messages they hope will reach state officials with the power to address their demands.

“What do we want?” the woman with the megaphone asked the crowd.

“More money!” the crowd shouted.

“When do we want it? the leader asked.

“Now.”

The “Day Without Childcare Rally,” which took place outside the Cadillac Building, where Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has a Detroit office, was held with the hope that state officials would include even more money for child care than has already been proposed in budget negotiations.

More than 100 people showed up for the Detroit protest. Similar demonstrations were happening across the U.S.

The demonstrators — a mix of child care and preschool providers, educators, and parents — say they appreciate Whitmer’s efforts to invest more heavily in child care, but they say it’s not enough. Whitmer’s budget proposal includes a tax credit of $1,000 to $3,000 for early childhood educators who work in child care, preschool, and after-school settings.

Whitmer has also proposed expanding the Great Start Readiness Program, the state’s free preschool program that currently serves mostly children from low-income families. The expansion would give thousands more 4-year-olds access to the program.

Among the demonstrators’ demands is additional funding so they can pay workers a living wage and an end to the state’s rating system for child care programs that assigns a star rating based on quality.

The national effort is pushing for an equitable child care system, thriving wages for providers, and affordable child care for all families.

Protesters advocating for more funding for child care programs in Michigan picket outside the Cadillac Building in Detroit.

Protesters in Detroit say providers struggle to pay their staff and themselves a living wage.

“In this line of work, I have to get paid in hugs and kisses because my families can’t afford to pay me adequate money to sustain myself,” said Makese Taylor, a licensed child care provider who operates Twins Hands with her sister.

“It leaves me part of the working poor,” Taylor said.

Another common message: Michigan’s economy can’t recover from the pandemic if the state’s system for providing care for children while their parents are at work isn’t healthy.

“Without child care, the economy can’t go,” Hodge said. “We should never be an afterthought.”

Bobby Leddy, spokesman for Whitmer, said in a statement that the governor “is using every tool in her toolbox to lower the cost of child care for Michigan families and address decades of disinvestment in child care.”

Leddy said Whitmer has already worked with Republican lawmakers, who controlled the Legislature until this year, to make child care more affordable for working families, stabilize child care businesses, and expand access to child care. In addition, the state is three-quarters of the way toward meeting a Whitmer goal to open 1,000 new child care programs.

“As a mom, the governor knows how important it is for parents to know their kids are safe while they’re at work,” Leddy said.

Michigan’s child care system has struggled to provide quality care for parents who need it, and to recruit and retain staff. A 2022 Muckrock report found that Michigan has far more child care deserts — regions of the state with too few facilities to meet demand — than policymakers estimated.

Earlier this year, a Chalkbeat story noted that Whitmer’s proposal to expand the free preschool program would need to address staffing shortages. Low wages are at the heart of the staffing challenges.

Symone Wilkes, a parent of two boys, came to a demonstration of child care providers because she said she wanted her voice to be heard.

Symone Wilkes, a single mother of two small boys, has experienced the child care desert problem firsthand. She said there are 16 providers in her neighborhood, but none had a slot available for her 1-year-old son. That meant having to travel well outside her neighborhood to find care, which has created its own set of challenges.

Wilkes came to the protest Monday because “our voices need to be heard” and so state officials understand the need for all families to have access to child care.

Many of the providers who participated in the protest shut down their facilities for the day, hoping that action would also send a message.

“We need them to hear us,” Taylor said.

Tichina Sanders, a child care teacher at Hodge’s facility, wants lawmakers to understand how essential her work is.

“We’re not just babysitters to kids,” said Sanders, who makes $13 an hour. “I’m helping them learn.”

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

Metro Detroit teacher turnover concerns aired in Michigan legislative hearing at Mumford H.S.

2023-04-11T19:58:51+00:00

Hezekiah Smith was in third grade when his teacher at Detroit’s Bagley Elementary School of Journalism and Technology left in the middle of the school year.

He and his classmates weren’t given any notice. One day Ms. McConnell was there, and the next day she wasn’t, he told Michigan lawmakers on Monday. But word soon spread about why she decided to leave.

“She left because she wasn’t being paid enough, and the principal wasn’t being nice to the teachers at that time” said Hezekiah, now a high school student at The School at Marygrove.

Another teacher in the building covered McConnell’s classroom. But losing their teacher eroded some of the trust and stability students had established with her.

“It’s important to me and my peers that we can build a relationship with our teachers,” he said.

Hezekiah was joined by over a dozen students, educators, union leaders, and parents at a special hearing Monday organized by the Michigan Senate and House Education committees to discuss teacher recruitment and retention efforts in Metro Detroit. Teacher turnover has been a critical issue for Michigan, particularly in low-income communities where students who most need stable school environments have had to deal with a revolving door at the front of the classroom.

In Detroit, charter schools, which educate nearly half of the city’s public-school students, have higher turnover rates than traditional public schools.

Those who testified Monday largely spoke in favor of increasing school aid, limiting class sizes, and raising teacher salaries to try to reduce teacher turnover.

They also spoke about the personal cost of persistent turnover in a school.

“When teachers are not being paid enough or treated right by (administrators) and leave the school, we’re left without a connection to someone who understands what we’re going through academically or even personally,” Hezekiah said.

Spanish teacher Brian Peck worked for seven years at Detroit’s Osborn High School before switching to University Prep Schools. During those seven years, Osborn went through five principals, a churn that motivated him to leave the Detroit school district.

“I’m only going to go to a place where I know that principal has been there and is going to be there,” Peck said. “I don’t want this continual carnival.”

The hearing was held not in Lansing, but at Detroit’s Mumford High School. Sen. Darrin Camilleri of Trenton, chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on PreK-12, said the point of that was to engage with community members and professionals in the field.

“When we make our decisions up in Lansing it needs to be with your voices in mind,” Camilleri said.

In the Detroit Public Schools Community District, Michigan’s largest school district, officials have worked in recent years to address teacher vacancies, most notably by increasing teacher salaries. Teacher recruitment has been a key piece of Superintendent Nikolai Vitti’s plan to turn the district around after over a decade of emergency management. By the end of emergency management in 2016, teacher vacancies were as high as 250.

But many Detroit educators and parents said attracting and retaining teachers will require more than a salary boost.

“We just want to have more voice in what we do as professionals,” said Jason Posey, vice president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers. A key concern for his union members, Posey said, was annual teacher evaluations, which have often led to educators feeling as though they “don’t have the professional freedom to teach what they believe is best.”

Many educators in recent years have called for certain factors such as students’ standardized test scores, to be removed from evaluations, claiming that those metrics don’t accurately reflect student learning in the classroom.

State Sen. Dayna Polehanki, chair of the Senate Education Committee, said a legislative package intended to address teacher evaluations is currently in the works.

DPSCD officials, who face tough budget decisions heading into the 2023-24 school year, are trying to figure out how to prioritize teacher salary increases, protect classrooms from budget cuts, and ensure the district’s future financial strength. The district is weighing cutting more than 100 jobs, most of them central office employees, as well as school-based administrators and support staff.

Perriel Pace, a junior at Detroit’s Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School, said those looming decisions should prompt the Legislature to respond.

“We will be losing our college advisers, counselors, staff from the community engagement department all around,” Pace said. “This lack of funding affects the students completely. I’m asking that we get more funding for our schools and employees.”

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan schools turn to COVID relief funds to upgrade aging buildings

2023-03-29T23:15:42+00:00

As many as 32 students crowd into classrooms originally meant for 22 to 24 students in the Crestwood School District.

Many of Crestwood’s buildings were built in the 1960s, said Youssef Mosallam, superintendent of the district in Dearborn Heights. But updates have been few and far between for the district’s needs, the superintendent said.

Then came a small fortune from the federal government: $24 million in COVID relief funds for the district of nearly 3,800 students. At least $8 million of the relief money is going to build 12 new classrooms in the district’s elementary schools, to reduce class sizes and to keep students spaced farther apart, he said.

Dozens of school districts across Michigan are also directing relief funds to rehab aging school buildings, some of which lack air conditioning or functioning heating systems. In rural Harrison Community Schools north of Mount Pleasant, Superintendent Judy Walton said that means heat may work in one side of a school building in the morning and the other side in the afternoon. The district hasn’t had the funding to make updates for years, she said.

For school districts in lower-income areas like Harrison, relief funds have covered essential facility upgrades that annual state funding and bond money don’t.

“We’re probably one of the most economically depressed counties in Michigan,” Walton said. “So the availability of those funds to do those HVAC upgrades was really critical for us.”

Michigan’s public schools planned to spend about 18% of relief funds on buildings and facilities needs, according to a May 2022 analysis of approved school district plans by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, around $641 million at that time. Since the analysis, more spending has likely been approved. In all, Michigan schools have nearly $6 billion in COVID relief funds to spend by September 2024.

About this project

$6 billion.

That’s how much Michigan schools are receiving from the federal government to help students and staff recover from the pandemic.

But it isn’t entirely clear how this unprecedented amount of federal cash is being spent and whether it is having an impact.

Chalkbeat Detroit, the Detroit Free Press, and Bridge Michigan have teamed up to find out where the money is going, who is benefiting, and whether the money is helping students get back on track academically, emotionally, and socially.

Please share your thoughts — and tips — with reporters Koby Levin at klevin@chalkbeat.org, Lily Altavena at laltavena@freepress.org, and Isabel Lohman at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

Check out a few of the most recent stories from our series below:

Federal COVID relief aid to schools will dry up soon. Are districts ready?

Michigan school districts are flush with cash, but wary

COVID aid helps Michigan school districts plug deficits

How private schools are spending COVID relief cash

New MI ESSER tutoring programs have room to grow

The largest district in the state, Detroit Public Schools Community District, is also allocating roughly half of its more than $1 billion in relief funds to building needs, a total not included in the Citizens Research Council’s analysis.

Michigan schools might be particularly hard-pressed to find funding to keep buildings from falling apart. Robert McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan and part of a group advocating for stronger school funding measures in the state, said Michigan is one of only a few states in the nation that do not specifically allocate money for facilities on a statewide level. The state in its most recent budget created a fund partially dedicated to infrastructure, with $250 million for buildings. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also recommended $500 million for the next budget to go to infrastructure.

“Michigan probably has a much more rapidly aging school infrastructure than a lot of other states do,” he said, “because Michigan is also one of the handful of states that doesn’t really have any sort of statewide infrastructure spending for schools.”

Schools close because of building problems

Lawmakers in June 2022 assigned $20 million to go to an audit of school facilities in the state. McCann said such a study has never been conducted before.

But anecdotal evidence suggests many Michigan school buildings in low-income areas are in disrepair or facing major problems:

Flint Schools closed for several days in summer 2021 due to a lack of air conditioning in certain buildings.
Dearborn Schools canceled class when temperatures soared in June 2022 because some rooms in the district weren’t cooled.
A Government Accountability Office report in 2020 found that half of the districts it studied across the nation needed multiple systems, such as the HVAC system, replaced. GAO officials visited a school building in Michigan that still relied on a boiler from the 1920s for heat.
The photos in the GAO report included one of water damage in a Michigan school library and another of signage warning of asbestos.
In 2016, a series of protests led by Detroit public schools educators raised, among other issues, crumbling conditions in the district’s school buildings. Teachers described mold issues, leaky ceilings, and pest infestations.

In May 2022, the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s board approved a $700 million facilities plan to address longstanding needs. The plan involves rebuilding five buildings and renovating 64, focusing on roofing, heating and cooling, building exteriors, and lighting.

Construction at Highview Elementary School in the Crestwood School District will add additional classrooms to address crowded classrooms.

The district will use nearly half of its COVID relief money to make the sweeping changes over the next five years.

A national analysis of spending data by the Associated Press found that school districts with the highest numbers of students living in poverty are more likely than wealthier districts to spend the relief funds on building and transportation upgrades.

Phyllis Jordan, associate director at FutureEd, an education think tank based at Georgetown University, said it makes sense that districts in low-income areas are directing funds to facilities after struggling for so long.

“It also reflects that a lot of these poor districts, with years and years of disinvestment, of underinvestment — that they haven’t been able to make these repairs,” she said. “This is an opportunity with a lot of cash and a lot of cash they have to spend quickly.”

In Michigan, that means districts like Walton’s are turning to federal relief funds to address critical building issues. Nearly 54% of students in Harrison Community Schools are economically disadvantaged, defined by eligibility in the free or reduced price lunch program.

The Harrison district is spending $3.15 million to install air conditioning where the district doesn’t have it, and to replace old furnaces and air-handling units. Bond money approved by the community in past elections has helped facilities, Walton said, but ultimately, property values in the area weren’t high enough to cover HVAC repairs and replacements.

“You can only get so much through a bond, and at some point, the balance of the percentage of home value isn’t going to support the numbers you need,” she said.

Michigan’s school funding formula does not allocate specific sustained funding for buildings or facilities, which means schools without bond or other supplemental funding often struggle to find room in the budget to replace failing boilers or fix what’s broken. The most recent state budget did allocate some funds, $250 million, for school facilities, though the money hinges on a statewide facilities audit that has not yet been conducted. It’s also unclear whether the fund is ongoing or one-time.

Building improvements pay off later

Essexville-Hampton Public Schools near Bay City will use $1 million in COVID relief funds to help fund a nearly $5 million energy efficiency project in its buildings, Superintendent Justin Ralston said. The district was able to pay for the rest of the project with bond money, but the COVID relief funds helped bring the project to fruition.

More efficient buildings will save money in the long run.

“Everybody is strapped for cash,” Ralston said. So the energy efficiency project “is looking at adding new heating boilers, new rooftop units, chillers, and then also doing water conservation efforts in all of our buildings.”

In Crestwood, Mosallam, the superintendent, said district leaders focused on areas that most needed improvement, finding class sizes and school security to be priority areas. To lower class sizes, Crestwood needed more classrooms. And to ease security concerns, the district needed to add cameras and door lockdown systems, and upgrade fire systems.

While many districts are focusing on necessities, research indicates that higher quality school facilities help students learn. When they feel safe and in a nurturing environment, they’re more likely to engage with education.

Olivia Graf Doyle, design principal for Architecture for Education, a California-based firm dedicated to learning environments, said funding ideal learning environments in public schools has always been difficult, because schools often struggle to receive funding for even the necessities, such as keeping heating and cooling systems running or fixing bona fide safety hazards like crumbling ceilings.

Features like big glass windows or folding walls that seamlessly connect classrooms or enhanced outdoor spaces end up feeling like luxuries, she said.

“We really need to shift the conversation away from physical security and barriers, to really how we can use the learning environment to create a sense of belonging, which inherently builds safety,” she said.

Jordan said a lot of focus in media coverage around this spending has gone to new athletic fields or other projects that may seem more frivolous. But projects like that are rare, she said, according to her organization’s research. Instead, Jordan said districts nationwide are taking care of the necessities.

One school superintendent from a rural area of the country told Jordan that in an effort to replace a school’s roof, an inspection found the entire school needed to be condemned.

“Now there’s a lot of pushback like, ‘This is money that’s supposed to be emergency money or learning loss. Why is it going to facilities?’ And that’s a legitimate point,” she said. “But at the same token, you can’t really divorce facilities from learning. If kids are too hot or too cold, if there’s mold in the building, you get a lot of absenteeism. It’s harder to learn.”

Editor’s note: This story has been edited to add details around the state’s school consolidation and infrastructure fund.

Lily Altavena is an education reporter for the Detroit Free Press. You can reach Lily at laltavena@freepress.com.

Michigan’s ‘historic’ rise in education budget is tempered by inflation

2023-03-09T22:32:54+00:00

Michigan schools collecting increased state aid and federal COVID relief dollars are finding that those dollars don’t go as far as they used to.

At L’anse Creuse Public Schools, a 9,400-student district in Macomb County, expenses have spiked in virtually every area, said Superintendent Erik Edoff. Bus fuel is twice as expensive today as it was in 2020. Paper costs 24% more. Natural gas is up 80%.

To help employees keep up with rising prices for consumer goods, the district paid them unscheduled raises and bonuses.

So while Edoff is thankful that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is proposing another big funding increase for schools, he and other education leaders in the state caution that schools in Michigan still aren’t funded adequately when you account for inflation and rising student needs.

Inflation “mutes the positive impact” of the budget increases, Edoff said, “and I don’t think that’s being discussed very much.” The increases, he said, are about enough to maintain services, but don’t leave much room for improving them.

To be sure, education funding more than kept pace with inflation last year. Whitmer’s 2022-23 budget, which education leaders hailed as “generational,” provided a 16% increase in state education spending — or 7% in inflation-adjusted terms, as prices reached a 40-year high. Her budget for next year would also outpace prices.

“When Governor Whitmer described her education budget as ‘historic,’ she meant it,” Craig Thiel, research director for the Citizens Research Council, wrote in a recent blog post.

But advocates say the current pace of budget increases still isn’t enough to make up for decades of underfunding.

“The reality is, given the cost of education, there’s not enough money to do the things that we need to do,” said Molly Sweeney, organizing director for 482Forward. “COVID money is going away, we’re not keeping up with inflation, and we’re already underfunding our state as a whole.”

Inflation typically hasn’t factored into debates over Michigan’s annual education budget. For many years inflation rates were so low, that they made little appreciable difference in the impact of year-to-year funding changes.

But the pandemic and recovery period have roiled the economy. Michigan schools are getting much more funding, but part of that is going toward covering new costs for educational programs , and higher prices for basic goods and services, from fuel and food to raw materials for construction projects.

What’s more, schools face another round of fiscal reckoning once federal COVID aid ends next year.

In that context, it’s hard to tell whether school districts are unusually flush with money, or unusually strapped. The truth is a bit of both. Districts have much more money to work with than they have had in a long time, but the unpredictable effects of inflation, combined with other longstanding financial pressures, make it harder to allocate those funds.

Inflation compounds funding challenges

High prices are being felt in districts statewide. Detroit Public Schools Community District recently amended its budget to reflect several million dollars in unexpected, inflation-related costs. In Dearborn, officials ruled out a tentative plan to renovate two schools, pointing to rising building costs.

In rural Michigan, where school buses travel long distances, higher fuel prices are exacerbating already high transportation costs. “We had $100,000 in our diesel budget, and we burned through that in the first third of the year this year,” said Tom McKee, superintendent of Rudyard Area Schools in the Upper Peninsula.

Districts also face funding challenges unrelated to rising prices.

Declining enrollment, a long-running phenomenon exacerbated by the pandemic, will hurt districts financially because they are funded largely on a per pupil basis.

And staffing costs are up, part of the statewide effort to help students recover academically.

Whitmer spokesperson Stacey LaRouche pointed out that the governor’s budget proposal would exceed inflation over the coming year. Whitmer is proposing an increase of 9% for education — or 4% in inflation-adjusted terms.

“Governor Whitmer has worked to reverse decades of disinvestment in our state’s K-12 schools by securing more funding in every aspect of a child’s education to ensure that they have what they need to be successful,” LaRouche said in a statement.

The largest single item in Whitmer’s schools budget, per-pupil funding to schools, would increase 5% to a minimum of $9,608. That’s slightly less than the expected rate of inflation for this year. But it’s buttressed by substantial new proposed investments in tutoring, student loan forgiveness for teachers, and other specific programs. The per pupil increases of the last two years — 5% and 7% — are the largest of the last decade.

Thiel, from the Citizens Research Council, told Chalkbeat that Whitmer’s budget proposal would bring state spending in line with inflation over the last decade.

Sweeney and other education advocates say spending should be accelerated more to make up for a history of underfunding that goes further back.

Inflation effects may linger for some districts

While prices seemingly peaked in 2022 — Michigan economists expect inflation to drop to 5.5% this year and 3% the following year — the effects of the price spike may prove particularly persistent for school districts.

Most school spending goes to educator salaries, which are often set in three-year contracts.

Kentwood Public Schools, for instance, increased salaries for first-year teachers by 5% when its current contract began in 2021. When prices spiked, the district gave another 1% raise to all employees, plus additional scheduled pay increases. Even so, the raises hardly matched inflation.

The district will face the prospect of addressing several years of inflation when the current teachers contract expires this summer.

“The greatest impact of inflation is on our staff,” said Kentwood Superintendent Kevin Polston. “Their take-home increases aren’t keeping up with inflation. We want to increase compensation, but it’s not so easy.”

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Repeal of Michigan’s 3rd grade retention policy ready for Whitmer’s signature

2023-03-07T23:43:24+00:00

LANSING — Michigan’s Democratic-controlled House voted Tuesday to repeal the part of the state’s controversial third-grade reading law that required students who test more than a grade behind in reading to repeat third grade.

The repeal legislation, previously approved by the state Senate, is now headed toward the desk of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for her likely signature.

Reading laws with retention policies have become fairly common in recent decades as states seek to improve literacy early in students’ academic lives and reduce dropout rates. But critics contend the Michigan law is overly punitive, inequitable and ineffective.

In truth, the so-called read-or-flunk law was not so absolute. The GOP-passed measure contained multiple loopholes that allowed most struggling students to proceed to fourth grade — though in practice, Black and low-income students who qualified for retention were far more likely to be held back than more affluent and white students.

“The retention aspect of this law has been a threat hanging over our students’ heads,” state Rep. Nate Shannon, a Sterling Heights Democrat and former teacher, said before the vote. “Holding students back reinforces achievement gaps, racial inequality and disproportionately impacts low-income communities.”

All but one Republican voted against the repeal legislation, arguing that mandatory retention of struggling readers can help improve dismal student test scores and should not be disbanded before its impact can be fully assessed.

The repeal bill “removes tools that a district can utilize in their approach to one of the most important aspects of learning: failure,” said Rep. Brad Paquette, R-Niles. “This legislation is not data driven, yet contributes to a culture that runs away from failure rather than traversing through it and further adds on to a foundation of uncertainty around education policy here in the state of Michigan.”

The retention rule in the 2016 reading law, approved by then-Gov. Rick Snyder and a Republican-led Legislature, was supposed to take effect in 2020 but was delayed a year because the COVID-19 pandemic led to cancellation of the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, or M-STEP.

Michigan schools held back a combined 773 third-grade students because of the law in 2021 and 2022. But administrators used broad exemptions in the law to advance another 9,657 students who would have otherwise qualified for retention, according to researchers at Michigan State University.

Black students and those from low-income families are more than twice as likely to be held back compared with their white and wealthier peers who also were identified for retention because they struggled with reading, researchers found.

The legislation now awaiting Whitmer’s signature would repeal the third-grade retention part of the read-or-flunk law but retain other provisions designed to aid students who are struggling to read, including reading intervention services.

Public education groups have generally supported the repeal effort, and the MSU study found that only 26% of teachers, 9% of principals, and 8% of superintendents believe retention is an effective intervention.

As of last year, Michigan was one of 17 states with a third-grade reading retention law, in addition to eight others that allow for retention but do not require it, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

With Whitmer’s signature, Michigan would join Nevada as the only other state to repeal mandatory retention provisions. Tennessee legislators have been considering changes to a stricter retention policy that takes effect this year.

The Michigan repeal effort comes amid continued academic struggles. The state’s fourth grade students last year recorded their lowest reading scores in three decades, according to results from spring testing of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a nationally representative and ongoing assessment which evaluates students’ knowledge and abilities in a variety of subjects including reading.

Michigan’s fourth grade average scale reading score ranked 40th in the nation. Reading and math scores dropped from 2019 to 2022 in every state. Experts said it was no surprise given the extreme disruptions COVID-19 caused schools.

“There is no one-size-fits-all solution, which is why educators develop individualized reading plans,” said state Rep. Lori Stone, D-Warren, who voted to repeal the retention law.

“Arbitrarily retaining students results in an increased dropout rate and increased rates of incarceration. As such, continuing this policy of retention will continue to be counterproductive.”

The repeal legislation is the latest in a series of relatively quick actions by Democrats who in January took over both chambers of the Michigan Legislature for the first time in 40 years.

The new liberal majority has already repealed a GOP tax on pension income, expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, moved up the state’s presidential primary date, advanced gay rights legislation and begun to take up gun control measures, among other things.

On Wednesday, Democrats will begin another major policy debate as the House Labor Committee takes up union-backed legislation to repeal the state’s right-to-work law and restore worker wage guarantees for government-funded construction projects.

Jonathan Oosting is a reporter for Bridge Michigan. You can reach him at joosting@bridgemi.com.

State board recommends against group’s effort to shield students from ‘rogue sex ed’

2023-02-15T15:00:00+00:00

The State Board of Education is pushing back against a coordinated campaign to shield children from school lessons and conversations about sex, sexuality, gender, and abortion.

Members voted Tuesday along party lines to ask local school boards to require parents to use existing methods if they want to exclude their children from sex education in Michigan public schools.

An opt-out form from Great Schools Initiative, a new Michigan nonprofit, is encouraging parents to have their children excluded from “rogue sex ed.”

But, the board, which has no enforcement authority, can only issue recommendations against the coordinated campaign.

The board recommended that local districts reject any third-party forms as “invalid, irrelevant, and inconsequential.”

Board President Pamela Pugh introduced the resolution in response to the opt-out campaign.

The Great Schools form includes a long list of topics the nonprofit says parents can exclude their children from. Those include information about abortion, “self-pleasure,” gender fluidity, explicit sex acts, family planning, condoms, gender-neutral bathrooms, and more. The form includes opt-outs to ensure teachers don’t display LGBTQ+ flags, provide access to library books about sexuality and gender, or discuss gender-neutral bathrooms.

The group is affiliated with the Thomas More Society, a conservative law firm that uses litigation to try to shape laws around social issues such as abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and prayer in schools.

Its effort appears to be an outgrowth of debates over parents’ rights that dominated school board meetings and political campaigns in Michigan and across the country last year.

The Detroit Free Press reported that some districts have been receiving Great Schools Initiative’s forms and have been redirecting parents to follow opt-out procedures already established locally.

Pugh said the group is trying to confuse parents, to overwhelm school districts with a barrage of opt-out forms, to threaten lawsuits to intimidate teachers, and to advance a discriminatory “Don’t Say Gay” agenda.

“They want to cause so much disruption that it’s going to cause our school districts to just halt everything, and where does that leave our children?” Pugh asked in an interview during a break in Tuesday’s meeting. “It’s a way to pit parents against educators, and to cause fear.”

State law already requires districts to notify parents before offering sex education and includes provisions for children to be excluded without penalty.

Great Schools Initiative did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon.

Its website urges parents to opt out of “rogue sex ed” and “hyper-sexualization occurring in your child’s school today.” It includes a printable opt-out form for parents to submit to schools, an online form for reporting violations to Great Schools Initiative, and instructions for filing complaints against school districts.

“If the degree or quantity of such violations has become unacceptably egregious, legal action may be the remedy,” according to the website.

Republican board member Tom McMillin of Oakland Township, who voted against the resolution, said parents should be able to use any form they want so they can tailor their opt-out requests.

“People have different family values, different family circumstances,” he said during Tuesday’s meeting. He said it “goes against parental rights for government schools to decide what parents are allowed to do and not to do.”

Republican board member Nikki Snyder of Dexter, who also voted against the resolution, said the issue is broader than what form is used to exempt children out of sex education.

Parents “want their kids to go to school to learn the basics of education, and they want the right to opt out of certain topics that were never meant to be taught in school.”

Pugh’s resolution stipulates that “while the decisions of parents or legal guardians to remove their child from sex education classes must be respected, the established processes of school districts for opting out of classes must also be preserved for consistency, continuity, and accountability, solely through the use of a district’s legally drafted and legally binding forms.”

The Michigan Association of School Boards supports the resolution.

“I appreciate what GSI is trying to do but there’s already a process for parents to follow and a form that districts use,” MASB lobbyist Jennifer Smith said in a telephone interview after the board meeting. “The state board is trying to encourage districts to follow the law, and we would encourage the same. The tools are already there for parents that have a concern.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit literacy and transportation programs get big support in Whitmer budget proposal

2023-02-10T19:31:58+00:00

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s education budget proposal includes $103 million in new funding for Detroit education programs, signaling a commitment from state government to invest directly in the city’s education future as Democrats take control in Lansing.

Whitmer is proposing a $1.5 billion increase in state school funding, or 9%, including a 5% increase in per pupil spending that would reach every school in the state. Her budget taps an estimated $4 billion school aid surplus to fund a wide range of new programs.

While Detroit isn’t the only local beneficiary of the proposal — schools in isolated rural areas, for instance, would get extra funding — the city stands out as a big potential winner if Whitmer’s proposal becomes law.

That’s welcome news for a city and school system working to recover from generations of declining enrollment and disinvestment.

The governor’s proposal includes “the kind of investments Detroiters have long championed,” said Angelique Power, president of the Skillman Foundation, in a statement. “This is parents’ and educators’ voices being heard.”

Skillman is a Chalkbeat funder. Click here for a list of our supporters.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District would get $94.4 million to support literacy programs. The GOAL Line, a local after-school and student transportation program, would get a one-time $6 million investment, and the Detroit Parent Network, a nonprofit, would get $3 million to help with outreach about literacy programs.

That’s in addition to proposed funding for tutoring and mental health programs, which will benefit students statewide but are particularly needed in Detroit, given the high rate of COVID deaths and widespread virtual learning.

Whitmer proposed the DPSCD literacy programs as part of a settlement in the 2016 “right to read” lawsuit against the state, in which a group of DPSCD students charged that the state violated their constitutional right to a basic education by failing to teach them to read. Whitmer settled the case, agreeing to pay damages to the students and to propose $94.4 million for literacy programming in DPSCD every year as long as she was in office.

Republicans rejected that expenditure, but with Democrats in control of the state Legislature, there’s a stronger chance that it will happen this year.

“I’m all in for it,” said Helen Moore, an education activist who was a prominent public champion of the lawsuit. “The children are really behind, I think they’re worse off than (district officials) are reporting to the public … We need all the help we can get.”

If the district were to receive the settlement funding, according to DPSCD Superintendent Nikolai Vitti, officials would consider allocating the money toward hiring more academic interventionists for small group and one-on-one sessions, continuing literacy intervention for high school students and for teacher recruitment and retention.

To help with outreach for the new literacy programs, Whitmer is asking lawmakers to send $3 million to the Detroit Parent Network, a nonprofit that helps parents get involved in their children’s education.

The GOAL Line, which launched in 2018, serves children at 11 schools in northwest Detroit. The program is funded by the city, local foundations, and participating schools with the goal of helping working families.

Under Whitmer’s proposal, the GOAL Line would get $6 million in one-time federal COVID aid to supplement its $2.5 million annual budget and help expand its operations.

The GOAL Line currently serves 300 students, according to Adrian Monge, director of the Office of Early Learning for the City of Detroit. The Community Education Commission, which oversees GOAL Line operations, hopes to expand its services to as many as 525 students city-wide next year. The program currently transports students to Northwest Activities Center to participate in after-school activities. In the long term, Monge said, GOAL Line intends to open smaller sites across the city.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Whitmer taps surplus for 9% increase in Michigan school spending

2023-02-08T19:00:19+00:00

LANSING — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s new education budget proposal features a boost in per pupil funding for public schools, a new tutoring program, and a broad expansion of state-funded preschool.

The proposal would draw on $18 billion from the School Aid Fund, $74 million from the state’s general fund and $991 million in supplemental, one-time funding for fiscal year 2023. Altogether, it amounts to a 9% increase in state school aid spending over last year’s budget, which education leaders had hailed as a “generational” investment.

“This budget builds on the Get MI Kids Back on Track plan, which offers every student individual tutoring, after-school support, and other personalized learning supports,” Whitmer told reporters after she presented her budget to lawmakers. “There are resources geared toward improving classroom experiences, increasing compensation for educators, and investing in what kids need,” she added.

The governor’s spending request comes amid a record $9 billion state surplus, including $4 billion in the school aid fund.

It’s Whitmer’s fifth state budget, but the first she presented to a Legislature controlled by her own party.

Republican lawmakers said they generally support Whitmer’s most salient education proposals — tutoring and expanded preschool — but have questions about the details and concerns about whether her proposals would be sustainable in leaner times.

“I am a little surprised at how big the budget is, because it has grown tremendously,” said state Rep. Jaime Greene, Republican vice chair of the House Education Committee.

Per pupil funding would increase

Whitmer is proposing that the state raise the base per pupil funding for public schools to $9,608 from $9,150.

For students who receive special education, schools currently receive 75% of the per pupil allowance in addition to required cost reimbursements. Whitmer’s proposal would increase the rate to 87.5%, while keeping the cost reimbursement portion.

A funding decrease for online charter schools

Amid a general funding increase, Whitmer wants fully online charter schools to receive 20% less funding than brick-and-mortar schools.

Other states have similar policies, and the idea has been repeatedly proposed in Michigan, including by former Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican. GOP lawmakers have nixed the idea each year, but it now has a chance of passing.

Experts have long argued that online charter schools have lower costs, because they generally don’t transport students or maintain school buildings. This is harder to prove in Michigan, because many so-called cyber charters are operated by private, for-profit management companies that don’t have to disclose their spending.

“There is no way in the world that a cyber school should be getting full funding per pupil,” said Mike Addonizio, an emeritus professor of education policy at Wayne State University. “They don’t have brick-and-mortar schools to run.”

Charter school advocates criticized the proposal. Amy Dunlap, chairwoman of Public School Options’ Michigan chapter, said in a statement posted to Twitter that it is confounding that Whitmer’s budget “rightly” prioritizes the needs of students still struggling from the pandemic, but cut funding for cyber charter students.

“For thousands of children and their parents, as well as the public school teachers who teach there, these schools have provided a lifeline before, during, and after the pandemic,” Dunlap said.

State Budget Director Chris Harkins told reporters after the budget presentation that the cyber charter cut is “intended to reflect the lack of some of the infrastructure needs that some of our perhaps more traditional schools have.”

Charter schools have funding needs, too, Greene said.

“Cyber schools still have to pay their teachers, still have to purchase curriculum, still have to pay the administration,” she said in an interview on the House floor. “A lot of cyber schools also offer in-person opportunities for sports, and tutoring. … So why would they be punished when per-pupil funding still funds the same things for cyber schools? They’re essentially punishing them for being a cyber school.”

Budget calls for another preschool expansion

Whitmer wants to offer free preschool to every 4-year-old in Michigan within four years. Her budget takes a step in that direction, asking lawmakers to invest an additional $306 million in the state’s Great Start Readiness Program.

The money would allow thousands more children to enroll, expand the program from four to five days a week, and boost funding by 5%, to $9,608 per student, the same as K-12 funding. GSRP funding drew even with K-12 for the first time last year.

Republican state Rep. Nancy DeBoer of Holland agrees that free preschool should be available to more children but isn’t convinced the state should foot the bill for families who can afford it.

Currently, eligibility is based on family income and other factors such as homelessness and disability.

“I don’t think the state needs to pay for everybody at age 4,” said DeBoer, a former teacher and a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on School Aid. “I can understand if people are in difficult situations and don’t have a healthy place for their children, but otherwise, no.”

Greene said Whitmer’s preschool proposal leaves out parents who want to stay home with their children.

“Not all moms want to send their 4-year-olds to preschool. What about opportunities so they can work and also stay with their kids?” asked Greene, who homeschools her own children in Richmond. She suggested state support for job sharing and additional job security for working parents.

Greene also expressed concerns about the educator shortage, which could make it more difficult to staff preschool for all.

Recent expansions of the Great Start Readiness Program have been slowed by teacher shortages, exacerbated by disparities in pay. The $20,000 pay gap between teachers in Michigan’s state-funded preschool program and K-3 teachers is among the largest in the U.S.

“Right now it’s really hard to find staff,” said Amerra Macki, director of A & W Day Care Center, which operates four GSRP classrooms in Detroit. “I would love to see more money so we can hire more people.”

To draw more educators into early education, Whitmer is asking lawmakers for $50 million to assess the problem, expand training programs, and boost recruitment efforts.

Her preschool proposal also includes grants to help new GSRP classrooms open and to help existing programs expand.

Whitmer wants some of this funding to be approved quickly in a supplemental budget bill, rather than waiting for the state budgeting process, which likely won’t conclude for months. Among those proposals is $18 million to expand a pilot preschool program for 3-year-olds.

Budget offers $100 million for teacher recruitment and retention

Districts continue to struggle with a shortage of educators at all grade levels.

To alleviate that, Whitmer is calling for continued investment in the MI Future Educator program created last year. It provides scholarships of up to $10,000 per year for education majors and stipends of up to $9,600 per semester during student teaching. Whitmer budgeted $100 million for the program, up from the current $75 million.

Don Wotruba, executive director of the Michigan Association of School Boards, said his organization supports the investment in teacher recruitment and retention.

“By ensuring that our schools have the funds and talent necessary for excellent learning environments and experiences, Michigan is investing in its future thought leaders and changemakers — our kids,” Wotruba said in a statement.

Whitmer revives tutoring plan to mitigate learning loss

Whitmer will try again to roll out a comprehensive statewide tutoring program. Last year, Republicans rebuffed her $280 million proposal for individualized tutoring but agreed to $52 million in grants that districts could use for tutoring.

Whitmer is resurrecting that proposal and requesting that the state pass a supplemental spending package before spring break that includes $300 million for tutoring.

She first proposed the program after a media collaborative including Chalkbeat, Bridge Michigan, and the Detroit Free Press reported that Michigan, unlike other states, had not provided funding or a structure for a coordinated tutoring program.

Republicans preferred to provide $1,000 per pupil in grants that parents could use for private tutoring and instruction, but Whitmer vetoed that plan in 2021. A different tutoring proposal led by Republicans did not pass out of the House last year.

Greene hopes there will be flexibility in Get MI Kids Back on Track for private tutoring and online programs from vendors.

“Parents should be able to use the funding toward programs like that when their kids need a little bit of a boost,” Greene said.

Literacy and mental health would get more resources

Whitmer’s budget proposal also includes several other spending items, including:

$42 million for literacy coaches at intermediate school districts
$1.2 million for 10 new regional early literacy hubs
$94 million for the Detroit Public Schools Community District for literacy programs; the dollar amount was part of the settlement of a literacy lawsuit that alleged the state denied Detroit students their right to a basic education.
$4 million to get students books and other literacy materials using the Dolly Parton Imagination Library
$300 million for literacy professional development
$300 million for school mental-health staffing and programming to be spent over two years.

Trina Tocco, executive director of the Michigan Education Justice Coalition, said Whitmer’s budget proposal “recognizes that our leaders in Lansing have chronically underfunded our schools for decades, depriving students of the education they deserve.”

But Tocco said the budget doesn’t fully meet the needs of the education system, and state leaders must dig deeper.

“It’s time that our leaders in Lansing start talking about where additional funds will come from, because our kids deserve the investment,” Tocco said.

Free meals for all

Whitmer also proposed to spend $160 million to provide free meals in school for all students and another $1 million to help districts forgive debts that accumulated because of families who couldn’t afford to pay for breakfast and lunch.

The Whitmer proposal comes after a federal program that guaranteed universal school meals for students during the COVID-19 pandemic expired in July.

“We know that kids struggle to learn when they are also struggling with hunger, and ensuring that not a single student in our state has to go to school and face that reality is one of the best investments we can possibly make,” said Robert McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, which represents 123 school districts in the state.

Currently, families must make below 185% of the federal poverty level to qualify for free and reduced priced meals at school. For example, a family of four must make $51,338 or less to qualify for reduced priced meals, and $36,075 or less a year to qualify for free meals.

In Michigan, 581 of the state’s 889 school districts and charter schools qualified for federal support to provide districtwide free school meals, but only 323 of them — or 55.6% of eligible districts — opted in for the school year 2021-22, The Detroit News reported.

Nancy Lindman, public policy and research director for the Michigan Association of United Ways, applauded the proposal on Wednesday as “a good start” to remove “barriers to learning and kids thriving.”

“That is a great investment across the board,” she said. “It’s been tested, it’s been tried in some communities. To take this next step to make sure that we’ve got this universally in place is going to make our state a better place for kids to get an education.”

The next fiscal year begins Oct. 1, but lawmakers typically try to pass the school aid budget by the end of June, because school district fiscal years begin on July 1.

Bridge Michigan reporter Yue Stella Yu contributed to this report.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Isabel Lohman covers education for Bridge Michigan. Reach her at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Whitmer’s $306 million preschool proposal includes more money to hire teachers

2023-02-08T01:31:26+00:00

LANSING — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is asking lawmakers for $306 million to expand the state’s free preschool program, hire more teachers, and fund student transportation as part of her push for a universal pre-K system.

The plan, which Whitmer will formally pitch Wednesday in her executive budget presentation, calls for $73 million to add up to 5,600 4-year-olds to the Great Start Readiness Program and allow more families to access the free preschool, according to an outline provided to Bridge Michigan by the governor’s office.

Additional spending would help providers address teacher shortages, boost transportation options, and shift to five-day preschool programs, which experts say are hurdles the state must overcome to make the program universal over the next four years, as Whitmer proposed in her recent State of the State address.

Enrollment in Michigan’s state sponsored preschool program is still recovering from pandemic-era declines — about 36,000 of 60,000 slots were filled last year. But Whitmer said last month she wants to ensure all 110,000 Michigan 4-year-olds can enroll by the time she leaves office in 2027.

Under the governor’s new budget proposal, 4-year-olds would qualify for Great Start Readiness if they live in a home with adults who earn 300 percent or less of the federal poverty level or about $79,000 for a family of four.

That would be up from the current 250 percent threshold, and in some instances, families who earn up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level could also qualify, according to Whitmer’s office.

As Bridge Michigan reported last week, experts and educators say universal preschool is good for kids and the economy. A year of childcare now costs nearly $11,000 per year in Michigan, which experts say deters some parents from working.

But building an effective universal program would require hiring teachers to fill classrooms, boosting transportation funding, and expanding offerings to make the program more competitive with day care or developmental kindergarten, Superintendent Michael Rice previously told Bridge Michigan.

Whitmer’s budget proposal begins to address each of those potential hurdles.

It includes $50 million in one-time spending to help school districts hire new teachers and early childhood professionals. The governor also wants $30 million in ongoing funding to create a new tax credit of up to $30,000 for early childhood educators and child care professionals.

“We need to make sure our early educators feel supported to take care of their children and families while they make so many sacrifices for ours,” Whitmer said in a statement, calling them “critical to empowering our youngest Michiganders and helping them get on track for long-term success.”

While Democrats now control both chambers of the Michigan Legislature, their slim majorities mean the governor will seek bipartisan support for her preschool proposals. GOP leaders have supported the Great Start Readiness in the past, but last month questioned the cost and benefits of making it universal.

Whitmer’s plan includes $50 million in one-time funding for startup grants that her office said would help providers open up to 2,000 new classrooms, expanding the availability of preschool across the state.

She is also asking lawmakers for $75 million in one-time funding to help preschool programs shift to a five-day weekly schedule instead of four days.

The plan also includes $18 million in ongoing funding to support transportation of preschool students, along with $10 million in one-time funding for an outreach program to encourage parental enrollment.

Whitmer is set to unveil her full executive budget proposal Wednesday in an 11 a.m. presentation during a joint meeting of the House and Senate appropriations committee.

Return to Bridge Michigan for more coverage.

Jonathan Oosting is a reporter for Bridge Michigan. You can reach him at joosting@bridgemi.com.

Tutoring, literacy, and preschool: Whitmer K-12 budget centers on proposals with bipartisan support

2023-02-07T16:30:00+00:00

Literacy and tutoring are two things that Michigan Republicans and Democrats agree are important. And it’s probably no coincidence that they’re both near the top of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s education agenda.

Emerging details from the school aid budget that Whitmer will present Wednesday show that she is prioritizing areas nearly everyone supports, even if they can’t agree on the details.

That could help her conserve her political capital for partisan fights later.

Republicans are likely to push back hard against some of Whitmer’s non-budgetary priorities, including strengthening gun control, requiring more financial transparency from charter schools, codifying protections for LGBTQ people, and repealing the state’s right-to-work law.

With those fights on the horizon, Whitmer is being more cautious on the school budget, said Sarah Reckhow, associate professor of political science at Michigan State University.

“The proposals that have been coming out are not likely to raise a lot of pushback,” Reckhow said. “They would fall into the bread-and-butter categories. They’re programs that are pretty popular, things for kids that Democrats usually support and Republicans probably support, too.”

Still, Whitmer could face opposition, particularly over her tutoring program. Republicans and conservative education advocates are still angry about her 2021 veto of a GOP bill to provide state-funded scholarships for private tutoring.

State Board of Education President Pamela Pugh, a Democrat, said that she hasn’t yet seen the governor’s budget but that she supports proposals to offer universal preschool, provide one-on-one tutoring, and prepare parents to help children learn to read.

“We need to make sure the necessary budget is there for there to be healthy school learning environments,” she said.

Pugh said she would also like to see teacher retention bonuses like the ones Whitmer proposed last year, but Whitmer’s office said they won’t be part of this year’s budget.

Pugh said she hopes Whitmer’s budget will at least provide enough money for districts to provide their own teacher bonuses if they choose to, as some already do.

“They should be strongly encouraged” to provide bonuses to educators, she said.

The state board has no budgetary authority but can make spending recommendations.

Whitmer’s school funding priorities include the following, according to budget details shared with Chalkbeat Detroit, Bridge Michigan, the Detroit Free Press, and MLive:

Providing $300 million for individualized tutoring for all students.
Expanding the Great Start Readiness Program to offer free preschool to all 4-year-olds.
Creating regional literacy hubs and adopting the Parents as Teachers program so families have the tools to help children learn to read.
Training AmeriCorps volunteers to be literacy tutors.
Providing $160 million for free breakfast and lunch to all students. Children from low-income families already receive free or reduced-price lunch.
Funding college scholarships for education majors and stipends for student teachers.

The full school aid and general fund budgets are scheduled to be released at 11 a.m. Wednesday before the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. The budgets are expected to be posted online at about the same time.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Whitmer wants to extend help for future educators, but drops teacher retention bonus plan

2023-02-06T13:00:00+00:00

During her reelection campaign, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer promised to prioritize teacher recruitment and retention, but the budget she will unveil on Wednesday includes just $100 million for it — a small fraction of what she proposed last year.

Her proposal last February called for spending $1.5 billion on teacher retention bonuses over four years. Republicans wouldn’t support that. This year, Whitmer’s own party is in charge of the Legislature, but the bonuses are no longer a budget priority.

Instead, Whitmer’s education agenda is focused on tutoring and preschool. During her State of the State address last month, Whitmer said she would work to provide free preschool for all 4-year-olds and to provide one-on-one tutoring for all students who need it.

How much she intends to invest in those initiatives will become clear Wednesday during a budget presentation to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.

Those measures are part of the school aid budget that Whitmer will present along with a broader general fund budget proposal to invest in everything from agriculture to workforce development.

The governor’s office provided an early peek at her plan to continue the MI Future Educator incentive program, which was created in last year’s budget to help attract teachers. It provides $50 million in stipends for student teachers and $25 million in scholarships for education majors. Her new budget proposal would maintain those spending levels and add $25 million to “ensure sustainability of the program,” spokesman Bobby Leddy said.

“This is everything on recruitment and retention” in the budget, Leddy added in a text message Sunday. He did not provide details on how the additional money would be spent.

“In the best of years, education is a tough job, but the last few years have been historically challenging,” Whitmer said Sunday in a written statement. “Let’s build on our work last year to establish education fellowships, pay student teachers, boost teacher recruitment, and create more paths to the profession so every classroom has a caring, qualified educator.”

MI Future Educator provides up to $9,600 per semester for student teachers and up to $10,000 per year in tuition for Michigan residents who are enrolled in eligible educator preparation programs and working toward their first certification.

Education advocates including Launch Michigan, which first proposed the MI Future Educator program, are glad Whitmer wants it to continue.

“It clearly indicates that the governor recognizes that the solution to (the teacher shortage) is of a long-term nature,” said Adam Zemke, who was president of Launch Michigan when the program was conceived. “These are recruitment strategies that work.”

The Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals supports the initiatives, too.

“We have a massive educator shortage in the state of Michigan, and we need to address that shortage,” said spokesman Bob Kefgen. “Helping people become teachers will certainly help.”

Leddy did not respond to questions about why retention bonuses aren’t part of Whitmer’s new budget.

Others say that the moment for them may have passed. Last year at this time, COVID cases were spiking, and teachers were struggling to manage student behavior as students readjusted to in-person learning.

When Whitmer proposed the $1.5 billion in bonuses last year, “that felt like a one-time thing,” said Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, which represents school administrators in six counties. “It’s not sustainable, to be honest.”

And, McCann said, bonuses aren’t the only way to support teachers.

“What we should be doing to keep teachers invested in staying in school starts with investing in classrooms,” he said. That means “putting more money into reading coaches, social workers, and things that help teachers to do their jobs and be successful in the classroom. That’s what’s critical in retaining teachers.”

The budget request comes as the state considers what to do with a projected $9 billion budget surplus. Whitmer and fellow Democrats want to use some of that to distribute inflation-relief checks to all taxpayers.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Teacher unions back right-to-work repeal effort, even though it wouldn’t help them

2023-02-02T16:15:00+00:00

Michigan teachers unions are backing a Democratic plan that would help labor groups in the state generate more resources for their collective bargaining efforts, even though the plan wouldn’t involve public school educators or other government employees.

At issue is a 2012 state law that freed workers at unionized workplaces who decline to join the union from having to pay a portion of dues — known as “agency fees” — to support the work that unions do on their behalf, such as negotiating wages and benefits. The law, which supporters refer to as a “right to work” policy, sparked fierce debate and spirited protests that drew national attention when it was passed in a state that has long been a stronghold for organized labor.

Democrats and their allies in the labor movement have long opposed the law. And now that they control the state Legislature and the governor’s office, Democrats have put the issue at the top of their agenda, making repeal bills the first legislation introduced this legislative session: One has been introduced in the House, and another in the Senate.

But neither bill would apply to public school teachers and their labor unions. That’s because of a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says public employees who opt not to join a union cannot be required to pay agency fees.

Still, teachers unions are joining the fight against a law that opponents say strengthens private industry and employers at the expense of organized labor.

“Right to Work is an attack on working folk and all of organized labor,” said David Hecker, president of Michigan’s branch of the American Federation of Teachers.

Union leaders also want to be prepared if the Supreme Court reconsiders its 2018 decision in Janus v. AFSCME, which established the exception for public employees. Reversals are rare but not unprecedented. Just last year, the high court overturned its 1973 decision in the abortion case Roe v. Wade.

“It’s important to us that we already have state laws in place so if the Supreme Court does reconsider Janus down the road we have laws on the books (in Michigan) that allow workers to have their rights,” said Thomas Morgan, spokesman for the Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union.

“People who don’t join a union should still pay their fair share for the cost of representation,” he said. “Negotiating the contract and all the things unions do are not free.”

Conservatives warn that repealing the law would discourage employers from coming to Michigan or staying here.

The right-leaning Mackinac Center for Public Policy supports the right-to-work law and says there’s good reason for keeping the policy in place for government employees in particular.

Labor unions have political arms that influence public policies set by their members’ employers, said Patrick Wright, a labor attorney and vice president of legal affairs for the Mackinac Center, which advocates for free-market principles.

MEA spent $3.8 million on lobbying and political activities last year according to Department of Labor filings. That’s about 4.5% of its $84.2 million in revenue.

Those figures don’t tell the whole story, Wright said. Public-sector unions are intrinsically political, he said, and employees shouldn’t be required to support unions if they don’t want to.

“Maybe you disagree with what the union spends its money on. Maybe you don’t like their abortion stance, their gun stance, their whatever else stance,” he said. “There are so many things that unions get their fingers in.”

Michigan State University researcher Katharine Strunk, who has studied teachers’ unions and collective bargaining for decades, warned in 2018 that the Janus ruling would reduce union membership and revenue, and diminish bargaining power.

“When unions no longer have the ability to require people to pay union dues, it does seem to drastically reduce membership, because why would you pay for something you could free-ride on?” Strunk said in an interview this week. Her labor research is separate from her work as director of the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative.

In the 10 years since the right-to-work law took effect, MEA’s membership decreased from 151,771 to 117,994, according to U.S. Labor Department filings. Its revenue dropped from $122 million to $84.2 million over that period, filings show.

It’s not possible to know how much of that decline resulted directly from the law. MEA attributes some of the decline to declining enrollment and a shortage of teachers that was exacerbated by the pandemic.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Repeal of retention rule in 3rd-grade reading law advances in Michigan Senate

2023-01-31T22:54:36+00:00

The Michigan Senate took a big step toward undoing an unpopular GOP-backed rule requiring districts to flag poor readers in third grade to be held back for a year.

The Senate Education Committee on Tuesday voted 5-1 to advance legislation to repeal the retention rule in Michigan’s Read by Grade Three law. Earlier Tuesday the House Education Committee heard testimony on similar legislation and could vote it out of committee as soon as next week, putting one of Democrats’ top education priorities on the fast track to the House and Senate floors.

The legislation has broad support among Democrats, who control both chambers, but amendments are possible, particularly from lawmakers who might use the bill as a vehicle for bipartisan reforms in the way students are screened for dyslexia.

GOP opponents of the bill say repealing the retention rule would water down Michigan’s academic standards. But even some Republicans back the repeal effort, including state Sen. Ruth Johnson of Holly.

“There’s no skill as vital to success in life as reading but I don’t believe that a student should be held back in third grade just because they’re struggling to read,” Johnson said at Tuesday’s hearing. Instead, she said, they should be given tutoring and other help to succeed.

Sen. Dayna Polehanki, the committee’s chairperson and sponsor of the bill, said that help will be available.

“All of the supports a student would have received repeating the third grade will now be extended to a student in their fourth grade year,” said Polehanki, a Democrat from Livonia and a former teacher.

Those supports include individualized reading improvement plans, progress monitoring, read-at-home plans, and daily small-group instruction. All of those provisions would remain in state law, along with requirements for literacy coaches and professional development for teachers, Polehanki said.

State Superintendent Michael Rice testified before both committees in favor of ending the retention rule.

“Let’s eliminate the punitive, and let’s start building on the more positive to support our children,” Rice told members of the House Education Committee.

Retention is ineffective, unpopular with teachers, and damaging to students’ self-efficacy, said education researcher Katharine Strunk, who testified before both the House and Senate committees. Strunk is executive director of Michigan State University’s Education Policy Innovation Collaborative, a research partner of the Michigan Department of Education.

The retention rule hasn’t had the effect lawmakers envisioned when they passed the reading law in 2016 as a way to identify struggling readers, provide individualized help, and hire literacy coaches. The law took effect gradually, and 2021-22 was the first year third-graders were retained because of it.

Because the law allows broad exemptions, fewer than 1% of students flagged for retention actually repeat third grade. Most of them are exempted from the requirement, because of their status as English language learners or special education students, or simply because their parents and school administrators agreed that it was in the students’ best interest to promote them to fourth grade, Strunk said.

The time spent working out such agreements would be better spent on actually improving students’ reading skills, Rice told the House committee.

The retention rule “is a well-intentioned reform but it does not, in fact, meet its mark,” he said. Repealing it “doesn’t preclude retention in those rare cases where it might be a good circumstance. It simply means that the default is no longer retention.”

Spokespeople for House Speaker Joe Tate of Detroit and Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks of Grand Rapids did not immediately respond to questions about whether and when they might schedule floor votes on the repeal bill.

Johnson, who supports the bill, abstained from Tuesday’s vote, saying she intends to support the legislation if a provision is added to ensure that parents are notified about their children’s reading difficulties.

Republican Sen. John Damoose of Harbor Springs, who cast the lone no vote in the Senate committee, opposes the repeal, saying it would weaken educational standards and limit accountability.

In the House committee, too, Republican opponents of the bill said they see the retention rule as a useful tool.

State Rep. Brad Paquette, a Republican from Berrien Springs and a former teacher, said the threat of retention should remain in the law, because it could motivate students to work harder.

“I know when I was young and I had the specter of ‘Oh, you might get held back,’ that really was a good kick in the pants,” he said during the committee hearing.

Rep. Jaime Greene, vice chairperson of the House committee, said retention helps ensure that children have basic reading skills before they move on to fourth grade.

“We have one of the lowest reading levels in the country, so if we’re not going to retain them, what are we going to do?” asked Greene, a Republican from Richmond. “We’ve got to do something.”

Rice and Strunk said there’s a lot that can be done.

“More time in small groups or one-on-one with a qualified educator who is focused on literacy instruction is what we know to be the most impactful,” Strunk said.

In her State of the State address last week, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer proposed a plan to provide individualized tutoring for students in all grades and all subjects. She is expected to lay out details when she presents her budget on Feb. 8.

She also proposed expanding the Great Start Readiness Program, Michigan’s public preschool, to all 4-year-olds.

“I do think we should weave preschool into the fabric of our public education system far more extensively than it is now,” Rice told the House committee Tuesday. Enrollment shouldn’t be mandatory, but it’s “enormously important” for every 4-year-old in Michigan to have access to preschool, he said.

He also asked lawmakers to provide more education funding that could be used to reduce class sizes in low-achieving districts with high poverty, to offer more professional development in reading instruction, to help students with dyslexia, and to provide programs after school and in the summer.

Democrats’ effort to repeal the retention rule could open the door to other reading reforms, including a renewed emphasis on phonics. That approach teaches children to sound out words and apply rules of spelling and pronunciation.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Whitmer’s fifth State of the State: Expanded preschool, tutoring top education agenda

2023-01-26T02:11:51+00:00

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, working with a friendly majority in the Legislature and a historically large budget surplus, used the first major speech of her second term to explain how she plans to use those advantages to shape Michigan’s education policy.

At the top of the wish list: providing free preschool for all Michigan 4-year-olds over the next four years and expanding one-on-one tutoring for older children.

“When a child gets a great start, and learns to read, and graduates high school … they are on track to land a good-paying job or pursue higher education,” the governor told a joint session of the Michigan Legislature in her State of the State address Wednesday. “Unfortunately, the last few years have disrupted regular learning patterns.”

In-class instruction alone isn’t enough for kids to catch up, Whitmer said.

It was the governor’s fifth State of the State speech, but the first delivered to a majority that shares her political ideology. Her first four were before Republican majorities that resisted her plans. Now the Democrats control both legislative chambers for the first time in 40 years.

That doesn’t mean her proposals will sail through without resistance. Republicans and school choice proponents already are pushing back.

Hours before the speech, the Great Lakes Education Project predicted that Whitmer’s plans would only spend more on an already broken system.

“Doubling down on the systems and bureaucracies that have already failed our kids won’t produce better results,” Executive Director Beth DeShone said in a written statement. GLEP is a nonprofit group founded by Betsy DeVos, a former U.S. education secretary and Michigan’s most vocal proponent of school choice.

DeShone said she prefers policies that give parents more control over their children’s education such as a program allowing tax credits for contributions to scholarships that parents could use for private school tuition, tutoring, or extracurricular activities.

DeShone and other Whitmer critics were quick to point out that test scores have been declining across Michigan, particularly in Detroit and other urban areas hit hardest by the pandemic.

Tutoring plan is broad in scope

Tutoring is at the center of Get MI Kids Back on Track, Whitmer’s plan to help struggling students rebound after two years of pandemic-related disruptions that set back learning.

Even if the Legislature agrees, it won’t be easy to staff the program. Already districts are having trouble finding enough tutors for existing local programs.

Whitmer did not say how much the program would cost. Those details will emerge later as she rolls out her 2024 budget over the coming weeks.

Whitmer proposed a similar tutoring plan last May, saying then that it would cost $280 million. The proposal came three weeks after Chalkbeat Detroit, Bridge Michigan, and the Detroit Free Press reported that Michigan wasn’t making the same kind of investments that other states had in the comprehensive statewide tutoring strategies that researchers say make a difference. Instead, Michigan districts have been left to develop their own tutoring programs to help children catch up after two years of pandemic-related disruptions.

Republicans, who then controlled the Legislature, largely dismissed her proposal but did provide $52 million for tutoring in this year’s school aid budget. Their own plan, a $155 million proposal to provide up to $1,000 per student for parents to hire private reading tutors for elementary children, was vetoed by Whitmer, as public school advocates said it would siphon money away from public schools.

Get MI Kids Back on Track is broader in scope than the GOP plan and would provide tutors for all grades and core subjects.

“Whether you’re a third grader learning about the solar system, a sixth grader focusing on fractions, or a junior sharpening persuasive writing skills, tutoring addresses your specific learning challenges,” Whitmer said in her speech.

Advocates from the K-12 Alliance of Michigan back the education priorities Whitmer outlined Wednesday.

“We know that providing students with one-on-one tutoring support is often one of the most important resources we can make available in our schools,” said Executive Director Bob McCann, whose group represents superintendents from Michigan’s most populous counties.

In his written statement, McCann added that universal pre-kindergarten will ensure that all families have access to programs to prepare their children for long term success in school.

Whitmer’s K-12 proposals aren’t new. She raised them during her reelection campaign against Republican challenger Tudor Dixon, who ran on a school choice and parents’ rights platform.

Still, the education agenda Whitmer put forth Wednesday was meatier than the plan in her 2022 State of the State address, which proposed investing more in education but introduced no specific new school programs.

Whitmer begins her second term with a $9.2 billion state budget surplus, including $4.1 billion in the school aid fund. Some lawmakers will be looking to reinvest that money in state programs, while others — Republicans and Democrats alike — are eyeing tax cuts.

Whitmer has both in mind. In her speech she reintroduced her plans to repeal a 2011 law that taxes retirees on their pensions and to expand the Working Families Tax Credit.

“Data shows boosting the Working Families Tax Credit also closes health and wealth gaps,” she told lawmakers Wednesday. “Children who grow up with this support have better test scores, graduation rates, and earnings as adults.”

Whitmer also used Wednesday’s speech to tout her first-term accomplishments. Those included creating a fellowship program for education majors, paying student teachers, and expanding school mental health programs.

“We made record investments in our children and schools by leading with our shared values,” she said. “We closed the funding gap between schools. We brought student investment to an all-time high four years in a row without raising taxes.”

Preschool plan would be open to all 4-year-olds

Whitmer’s ambitious early childhood proposal, which would be rolled out over four years, would lift current restrictions on eligibility for the Great Start Readiness Program, paving the way for every 4-year-old in the state to enroll.

“This investment will ensure children arrive at kindergarten ready to learn and saves their families upwards of $10,000 a year,” Whitmer said. “It helps parents, especially moms, go back to work. And it will launch hundreds more preschool classrooms across Michigan, supporting thousands of jobs.”

There are an estimated 116,000 4-year-olds in Michigan, and about 35,000 are enrolled in GSRP statewide. To qualify for the program today, a family of four must make less than $70,000 per year or face other barriers such as homelessness.

The proposal would add Michigan to a growing list of about a dozen states with universal preschool eligibility. Those states vary widely in the proportion of eligible 4-year-olds who are actually enrolled.

Some providers celebrated the idea, saying it would allow them to reduce paperwork and enroll more children.

“I would go for that,” said Princess Dobbins, who operates three child care centers with GSRP classrooms in the Detroit area. “The only reason we’ve got so much paperwork is the (enrollment) restrictions.”

Whitmer offered few details about how the program would work or how much it would cost. The GSRP budget is currently $418 million; a spokesman for her office said the expansion would be funded in the short-run using the state’s historic surplus. Advocates said they expect more information when the governor releases her budget recommendations in early February.

Key questions include how expansion plans would address chronic early educator shortages, how they would affect the rest of the early childhood landscape, and how much programming families of preschoolers would receive. GSRP programs offer care four days per week.

Educator shortages have hampered the most recent expansion effort. Whitmer tapped federal COVID aid for a large GSRP expansion in 2021, but the state has struggled to find teachers to staff the new classrooms necessary to reach her enrollment goals.

“We’re already lagging in terms of uptake, and we’ll continue to have that lag if we don’t address the talent issues,” said Denise Smith, implementation director for Hope Starts Here, a nonprofit early childhood initiative in Detroit. She suggested that the state could require GSRP programs to pay teachers a living wage as a condition of receiving the new funds.

Advocates also worry that expansion could cause problems for child care programs that enroll 4-year-olds and younger children. Four-year-olds are less expensive to care for than younger children because they require less supervision; drawing them away from community-based child care could make it harder for those programs to continue serving younger children.

“That’s the elephant in the room,” said Matt Gillard, president of Michigan’s Children, an advocacy group. He said his understanding is that the Whitmer administration plans to put together “a panel of experts to figure out how we can fashion this in a way that mitigates those impacts.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org. Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

State of the State: Whitmer pushing for 1:1 tutoring as Michigan students struggle

2023-01-23T11:00:00+00:00

If Gov. Gretchen Whitmer gets her way, Michigan children could start getting one-on-one tutoring in reading before spring break.

Tutoring is her top education priority as she prepares to deliver her fifth State of the State address Wednesday night in Lansing.

“Unfortunately, the last few years have disrupted learning patterns, and in-class instruction alone is not enough,” Whitmer said in a written statement to Chalkbeat and Bridge Michigan.

She is asking lawmakers to quickly fund her Get MI Kids Back on Track plan, a program she first asked for eight months ago to address learning challenges through tutoring and after-school programs and help the state’s long-term economic growth by better preparing students for the workforce, according to her office.

When Whitmer put forward the idea last May, she found little traction in a legislature controlled by Republicans reluctant to give her any policy wins during an election year.

The next budget year begins July 1, so starting the program before then would require a supplemental appropriation to this year’s budget.

Whitmer’s initial $280 million proposal came three weeks after a report by Chalkbeat Detroit, Bridge Michigan, and the Detroit Free Press found that a lack of state leadership on tutoring resulted in an uneven patchwork of programs.

Michigan has no statewide tutoring strategy, but individual districts including Detroit Public Schools Community District — the state’s largest — have their own programs. Many other states already had comprehensive statewide strategies to recruit teachers and dedicate funds to expand tutoring programs.

Enactment of MI Kids Back on Track is far more likely now that Democrats control the Legislature.

State Rep. Matt Koleszar, chairperson of the House Education Committee, declined to discuss the tutoring program ahead of the governor’s address, but indicated he is on board with her priorities.

“I’m excited to work hand-in-hand with the governor and to continue on our path of record funding for our schools, and provide for our students with proven and innovative methods,” a Democrat from Plymouth, said in a text message Sunday.

State Rep. Jaime Greene, Republican vice chairperson of the House Education Committee, said she supports efforts to compensate for learning loss during the pandemic but hopes there also is room for school choice in Whitmer’s K-12 agenda.

Pandemic-related school closures “have greatly affected students, and as a state we need to improve opportunities in many different areas to help students get back on track,” Greene of Richmond said in an email message Sunday.

“I hope the governor on Wednesday will also address the need for parents to have a greater role in their children’s education. Parents have the inherent right to help choose the manner and content of their child’s curriculum,” she said.

School choice is unlikely to be on Whitmer’s agenda. She has opposed proposals that would divert money from public schools. That includes a $155 million GOP tutoring proposal she vetoed in 2021. That plan would have provided publicly funded scholarships of up to $1,000 for elementary students to get private tutoring or reading instruction.

John Damoose of Harbor Springs, Republican vice chairperson of the Senate Education Committee, declined to comment on Get MI Kids Back on Track until after Whitmer’s speech, when he will know more about her plans.

Typically, State of the State addresses provide the broad framework of governors’ goals. Details such as cost emerge later in budget addresses and spending proposals.

Research shows that tutoring is a highly effective way to increase achievement, especially for students from lower income families. Those are the same families whose communities were hit hardest by the pandemic.

That’s born out in Michigan test scores. They sharply declined during the pandemic, particularly for students from economically disadvantaged families. Fourth graders recorded their lowest reading scores in three decades on the National Assessment of Education Progress.

Academic struggles were more pronounced among children in large urban districts with high poverty rates. Researchers from Harvard and Stanford universities found that students in Detroit, Saginaw, and Lansing lost the equivalent of about a year or more of learning during the pandemic.

“Right now, kids in Michigan need extra support to catch up and get on track for long-term success,” Tracey Troy, chairperson of the Michigan Parents’ Council, said in a written statement forwarded by the governor’s office.

Whitmer’s proposal “will expand tutoring, after-school programs, and other learning supports to get kids one-on-one time with a caring, qualified educator that they need to succeed,” said Troy, who also is past president of the Michigan PTA.

Education advocates have been calling for a concerted effort to bring individualized instruction to students who need it most. In a report this month, the advocacy group Education Trust-Midwest said intensive tutoring is key to post-pandemic academic recovery and called on lawmakers to invest in it.

But finding funding isn’t enough.

Districts also need to find people to staff tutoring programs as districts including DPSCD already are struggling to find enough staff for existing programs.

State Superintendent Michael Rice acknowledged the problem at this month’s State Board of Education meeting. He said he is looking to the Legislature to provide funding to hire and train enough tutors to work with the neediest children at least three times a week, either individually or in pairs.

“They need to be trained tutors, not simply Mikey from the curb who’s come in,” Rice said during the meeting. “Mikey can be trained, but Mikey needs training.”

Whitmer also is expected to address other education issues during her speech, including school funding and efforts to attract and retain teachers.

She also will discuss her broader goals for the state, such as making the state more competitive, bolstering manufacturing, and protecting fundamental rights.

The State of the State address is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday before a joint session of the Michigan Senate and House of Representatives. It is expected to be livestreamed and broadcast live on many local television stations.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Former teachers take the reins of education committees in Michigan Legislature

2023-01-13T21:21:10+00:00

Five years ago, Dayna Polehanki was the only K-12 educator on the state Senate Education Committee. It had been at least 10 years since a career educator served on the committee, Polehanki lamented at the time.

Now Polehanki, a Democrat and former English teacher from Livonia, leads the committee. Three other legislative panels that control education policy and spending also are newly under the leadership of former teachers, giving them unprecedented power in the Democratic-controlled Legislature over what Michigan children learn, how they are taught, and how schools are funded.

Teachers have held leadership posts in the Legislature before, but lawmakers and lobbyists said they can’t remember a time when so many former educators were in such powerful positions.

“To me, it sends a message about the priorities of the majority party,” said Bob Kefgen, lobbyist for the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals. “It means the voices of educators will be driving the conversation in both education policy and budgeting.”

The appointments and committee assignments were announced Thursday by the Legislature’s new Democratic leaders: House Speaker Joe Tate of Detroit and Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks of Grand Rapids.

The committee leaders will help advance a Democratic education agenda that includes more money for school facilities, a new school funding formula, bonuses for teachers, an end to the retention policy in the state’s third-grade reading law, and new financial transparency rules for charter schools. Those are priorities Democrats couldn’t get any traction on last session, when Republicans controlled the agenda.

Republican priorities have been centered around parents’ rights and curriculum transparency. Last session members debated how schools teach about race, whether to allow transgender athletes on school teams, and whether to require teachers to post lesson plans online so parents and activists can monitor what’s taught.

“The most important work of the Legislature happens in the humble committee meeting,” Brinks said in a press release. “It’s where problems are identified and people can participate in shaping policy solutions.”

State Rep. Matt Koleszar was tapped to lead the House Education Committee. He taught English and social studies for 12 years at Airport Community Schools in Monroe County. At least six of the committee’s other 12 members also have classroom experience, Koleszar said.

State Rep. Regina Weiss of Oak Park was named chairperson of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on School Aid and Education. She taught English and social studies in the Detroit Public Schools Community District for five years.

Sen. Darrin Camilleri of Trenton will lead the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on PreK-12. Camilleri taught at Consortium College Preparatory High School in Detroit.

Polehanki taught high school English and is a former district teacher of the year for New Haven Community Schools.

The appointments mean that teachers’ voices will be part of every meaningful discussion about education policy and funding in the Legislature for the next two years.

“These are committees that are going to be making huge influential decisions about the policies we set to make sure our kids are succeeding, to make sure our educators are respected, and that our schools are properly funded,” Weiss said. “This is the first time we’ve had educators completely leading this charge.”

That’s encouraging, said Thomas Morgan, spokesman for the Michigan Education Association, the large teachers union.

“So often you see lawmakers and bureaucrats getting together and deciding what the policies are going to be without bothering to go actually talk to teachers and support staff on the front lines who actually work in the schools,” Morgan said.

Polehanki, Koleszar, Camilleri, and Weiss “understand what it’s like to lead a classroom, they understand what it’s like to deal with all the stressors that educators face on a daily basis, and they are legitimately enthusiastic about helping to address the issues in our schools,” he said.

In separate interviews, the four emphasized their commitment to public schools.

That makes advocates for school choice wary that the former public school teachers will give short shrift to other education alternatives.

“Lawmakers should be working to ensure that students have access to the fullest range of educational opportunities,” said Holly Wetzel, spokesperson for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which has advocated for charter schools, online schools, and private school vouchers.

Several Republicans on the committees did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday, but they are likely to ensure that perspectives like Wetzel’s are heard.

For example, state Rep. Jaime Greene, the House Education Committee’s Republican vice chairperson, campaigned on a parents’ rights platform, saying that she supports families’ rights to choose where and how their children are taught. She promised on her campaign website to “stand up for parents having a vital role in education, no matter what form they choose.”

The previous chair of the House Education Committee was Republican Pamela Hornberger, who had been a teacher in Imlay City Community Schools. Hornberger, who ran unsuccessfully for Senate last year, is no longer in the Legislature. The Senate committee was led by Lana Theiss of Brighton, who does not have a teaching background.

Weiss said she ran for office in 2020 because she felt teachers didn’t have enough of a voice in Lansing.

“It seemed like a disconnect between the policymakers in Lansing and the people who were actually on the ground being affected by the policy changes,” she said. Lawmakers weren’t doing things that mattered — such as ensuring safe and secure school buildings, she said.

“Every district in Michigan is on their own when it comes to school funding so we have immense inequality,” said Weiss, who described teaching in Detroit classrooms that had rats, roaches, and leaky roofs.

She said her committee will prioritize developing a system to fund school infrastructure improvements.

That will be a Senate priority, too, Camilleri said.

“We need to make sure our school systems across the state can modernize their school buildings, whether that means pulling down more federal dollars or thinking about ways to spend our state dollars differently,” he said. “It’s time for us to invest infrastructure dollars.”

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Jaime Greene’s name, to clarify that Dayna Polehanki was the only K-12 educator when she first joined the Senate education committee, and to correct when Regina Weiss was elected to the legislature.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Pamela Pugh elected Michigan school board president

2023-01-11T13:30:00+00:00

Democrat Pamela Pugh, the new voice of the state school board, vowed to work closely with the Michigan Department of Education to accomplish a long list of legislative priorities that includes everything from gun control to free school lunches.

Pugh was elected president of the Board of Education Tuesday in a 6-0 vote, with the two Republicans on the panel voting “present” rather than opposing her. She takes office at a significant moment: Her party now controls the state House, Senate, and executive branch for the first time in nearly four decades.

The state board is responsible for the education of the state’s 1.3 million public school students, but it has little authority, other than to hire and fire the state superintendent and to approve standards that local districts use to set curriculums. In Michigan, most education policy decisions are the purview of the Legislature.

That means the board often exercises its power through the bully pulpit.

“The people who are on our board have mouths big enough and loud enough, and the majority have the right intentions as well as the right skill sets to influence and shape the agenda,” Pugh said in an interview. “I do think we’ll have influence, and we won’t be unaligned” with the Legislature.

Among her priorities are repealing the third-grade reading law’s retention rule, requiring more fiscal transparency from charter schools, adequately staffing schools, and funding schools more equitably.

State Superintendent Michael Rice shares those goals and has many more, which he presented to the board on Tuesday. Among them are:

Making it easier for retired school employees to return to work in schools.
Reducing barriers for counselors and teachers certified in other states to work in Michigan.
Strengthening gun control laws to address school violence.
Ensuring that children in foster care receive credit for courses they take while in congregate care facilities.
Implementing a weighted school funding system that ensures adequate resources for students with special needs.
Reviving a temporary provision that allowed school staff to substitute teach last school year even if they hadn’t been to college. The measure was meant to help alleviate a teacher shortage but few districts used it.
Providing teacher retention bonuses.
Streamlining teacher evaluations.
Accelerating teacher preparation programs to get pre-kindergarten teachers in classrooms faster and reduce the wait list for the state’s Great Start Readiness Program.
Requiring parents to register home-schooled children with the state.
Expanding Great Start Readiness to provide instruction five days per week and 38 weeks per year. Currently, it operates four days per week for 30 weeks.
Training tutors.
Creating family literacy centers throughout the state.
Ensuring funding continues for school mental health services.
Providing more funding for career and technical education programs.
Providing free school lunches to every student.

Many of those proposals were introduced during the last legislative session, when Republicans controlled both chambers, but were not brought to the floor for votes.

“We’ll get some traction this session,” said Marty Ackley, the Michigan Department of Education’s director of public and governmental affairs.

The two Republicans on the board — Tom McMillin of Oakland Township and Nikki Snyder of Dexter — said they oppose some of the agenda items, particularly registration requirements for home-schooled students.

“It might sound innocent at first, but it’s a first step toward control,” McMillin said.

The families who home-school their children exercised their constitutional rights to leave public schools because they weren’t the right choice for them, Snyder said, so it isn’t right to require them to register with the public school system.

Pugh expects the new Legislature will be more likely to advance the Department of Education’s proposals. Legislative leaders already have said they share some of those priorities.

“We really have an aligned vision,” Pugh said. “With the expertise we have (on the state board) and the relationships we have, we believe we can move quickly to support the Legislature to make decisions.”

Pugh, of Saginaw, is a public health expert and an environmental health consultant who works with urban communities. She was first elected to the board in 2014 and most recently served as vice president.

She comes from a family of educators. She said her mother was a paraprofessional, her father was a professor and administrator at Delta College, and her grandfather Millage Pugh built a one-room schoolhouse so Black children in Shubuta, Mississippi, could get an education.

Yvette White, president of the Michigan NAACP and a longtime friend, said Pugh will be a good advocate for children who need help the most.

“She’s always reaching out and speaking up on equity issues,” White said. “It’s important to always have someone at the table, to have a voice at the table, who is focused on the issues that are important to the community as a whole.”

Other officers also were elected Tuesday, all on 6-0 votes with Republicans again voting “present.” They are: co-vice presidents Ellen Cogen Lipton of Huntington Woods and Tiffany Tilley of West Bloomfield; Secretary Judith Pritchett of Washington Township, and Treasurer Marshall Bullock of Detroit. All are Democrats.

Bullock is the newest member of the board, having been appointed last month to fill Democrat Jason Strayhorn’s unexpired term. Strayhorn resigned in July and moved out of state.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan students are struggling. A new report calls for fair funding to reverse slide.

2023-01-10T15:25:15+00:00

A new report on Michigan’s struggling education system says dramatic change is needed to stem academic declines and ensure all students are receiving a quality education.

Among the top recommendations in the report: Michigan should adopt a school funding system that is more fair and equitable than the current one, which distributes state funding on a per-pupil basis but has provisions that still allow for wide disparities in spending between poorer and wealthier districts.

In the report released Tuesday, the Education Trust-Midwest, an education research and advocacy organization, predicts that Michigan’s academic rankings will decline or stagnate by 2030 in some key areas. The rankings are based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, an exam taken by a representative sample of students in each state.

Michigan’s rankings on this exam have slid over the last decade. And there are troubling signs of what could come, after scores on the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress and the NAEP showed sharp declines from pre-pandemic levels. On the NAEP, Michigan’s eighth-grade math scores ranked 26th in the country. By 2030, if current patterns hold, Michigan would fall to 29th. In fourth-grade reading, the state ranks 43rd and is projected to remain there in 2030.

As additional evidence of the need for urgent action, the organization points to an October report from researchers at Harvard University and Stanford University that shows how much learning loss occurred in individual districts across the nation since the pandemic. In Michigan school districts with high concentrations of students from low-income homes (Detroit, Saginaw, and Lansing), students lost the equivalent of about a year or more of learning. By comparison, students in wealthier districts such as Northville and Bloomfield Hills lost the equivalent of less than 10% of a school year.

The Education Trust-Midwest report recommends a big shift in how schools are funded, but that would require a big investment by the state. The organization is suggesting, for instance, that the state adopt a funding system that provides between 35% and 100% more in state funding for students from low-income homes, with the higher amounts going to districts with the most vulnerable students. The state funding system already provides additional money for such students, but not nearly as much as the report recommends.

The proposed system for funding schools would address “profound inequities” in Michigan’s current school funding system, said Jen DeNeal, director of policy and research at the organization.

“We know that the experience of being a low-income student in Okemos and Birmingham is different than the experience in the Upper Peninsula or in Lansing,” the report said.

The report also recommends additional funding for students who are English language learners, and students who receive special education services.

The report doesn’t provide a cost estimate, but officials from the organization point to past estimates that suggest such a system could cost an additional $3 billion.

Hours after the Education Trust-Midwest report was released, members of the State Board of Education heard a report from Michigan Department of Education staff and superintendents about why it’s important to move to a funding system that provides more funding for some students, including those from low-income homes and those who receive special education services.

“Even with the recent historic state investments in public education, Michigan schools continue to be underfunded by $2 billion to $5.5 billion annually,” Kyle Guerrant, a deputy superintendent with the state education department, told board members.

Schools receive state and federal funding for special education students, but it doesn’t fully fund those costs. That leaves schools shifting money out of their general fund budgets to help cover the cost of their special education programs.

Wanda Cook-Robinson, superintendent of the Oakland Schools intermediate school district, which provides a range of educational services to local districts, said schools in communities such as Pontiac and Hazel Park have higher needs.

“If you’re a local district and you happen to have a higher number of students who have challenges, you go to your general education budget and you fill that gap,” she said.

In addition to the funding recommendations, the Education Trust-Midwest researchers are also calling for using federal COVID relief dollars to provide intensive tutoring and extended learning time; strengthening early childhood for the most needy children; prioritizing teacher recruitment and retention; ensuring all students have access to rigorous coursework; and identifying students with dyslexia so they have the support they need.

You can read all of the recommendations and the full report here.

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

DeVos-funded campaign for school voucher-like plan withdraws petitions in a sign of defeat

2023-01-10T00:43:51+00:00

A Betsy DeVos-backed proposal to help Michigan families use taxpayer funds to cover private school tuition and other education-related expenses appears finished after organizers withdrew petitions they’d submitted to the Secretary of State.

The proposal — which critics have likened to private school vouchers — doesn’t have a clear political path after Democrats won full control of the state Legislature in November.

“This is an acknowledgement that it failed,” said Joshua Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University who has been critical of the proposal and of vouchers.

Let MI Kids Learn, the group behind the proposal, gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures and spent $11.4 million on its campaign, most of which was donated by former U.S. Secretary Betsy DeVos and her family.

Proposal would have created a tax credit

The initiative was part of a decades-long effort by the DeVos family to direct taxpayer dollars to private schools, in the face of a provision in the Michigan Constitution that broadly bars using public funds for private schools.

Voters overwhelmingly rejected a 2000 ballot proposal funded by DeVos to create a voucher system that allowed students to use public school funds for private school tuition.

Let MI Kids Learn took a different tack. It would have provided tax credits to individual taxpayers who funded scholarships for private schools or other educational services, such as tutoring. Each dollar contributed to the scholarship accounts would be credited back to donors on their state tax bill.

The proposal would have cost the state an estimated $500 million in the first year, of which roughly $50 million would come directly out of the state school aid fund.

Supporters of the proposal said kids would benefit from being enrolled in private school.

“Michigan students already suffered through two years of unnecessary COVID learning disruption, and as the most recent data show, the results have been devastating,” said Fred Wszolek, spokesman for Let MI Kids Learn.

Recent studies of voucher programs in other states show broadly negative academic results, especially in math. They also show that in many cases, students who benefit from the programs were already enrolled in private school. Some older studies tended to show neutral or modest positive effects of vouchers on academic performance.

Campaign hit snags on the way to November

The November election results weren’t the only bump in the road for Let MI Kids Learn. In May, signature gatherers for the campaign were found to be misleading Detroiters about the proposal. In June 2022, the campaign missed a deadline to submit signatures to the state, precluding the proposal from going before the Republican-controlled Legislature before new lawmakers took power in January.

While ballot initiatives generally go to a vote by the public in a general election, Let MI Kids Learn had aimed to have its proposal enacted directly by the Legislature through a provision in the Michigan Constitution that allows a ballot proposal to become law without the governor’s signature. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, vetoed a similar proposal in 2021.

But after the Let MI Kids Learn campaign missed the June signature filing deadline and Democrats won control of both chambers of the Legislature, the proposal’s prospects dimmed.

“With the new Legislature in place, I’m sure they felt it was going to be an undoable task to move things forward,” said Pamela Pugh, a Democrat on the State Board of Education.

In withdrawing the petitions, organizers of the proposal apparently decided against putting the issue to a statewide vote.

“If they thought voters were going to vote for this, they would have gone that route immediately,” Cowen said.

Wszolek, the Let MI Kids Learn spokesman, said “we’ll continue to join with the hundreds of thousands of Michiganders who signed these petitions to advocate for immediate help for students across the state.”

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

After Oxford, Michigan Democrats see gun control as part of school safety agenda

2023-01-06T13:30:00+00:00

A school safety task force formed in response to the deadly 2021 Oxford High School shooting didn’t include any gun control measures in its final recommendations to the Legislature. But that doesn’t mean they’re off the table.

After sweeping Michigan’s statewide races again and capturing a majority in the state House and Senate, Democrats have control over the legislative agenda that they haven’t had since the 1980s. One of their top priorities is gun control, and they’re looking to move quickly while they’re still in power and while memories of the Oxford shooting are still fresh.

“The political will is here to get (gun control) done, and we will not shy away from this issue,” said state Rep. Abraham Aiyash, the Democratic floor leader from Hamtramck.

“We appreciate the work the task force did in the last term,” Aiyash said. “They highlighted some important and necessary steps, but one of the obvious and necessary pieces that wasn’t addressed is responsible firearm policies.”

The bipartisan House School Safety Task Force issued initial recommendations in April 2022, and released its final report just before Christmas. Gun control measures came up repeatedly during the group’s meetings, but were not a focus, because the members — four Republicans and four Democrats — knew they couldn’t build consensus around them.

“We agreed from the get-go that we would proceed only on the things we could all get on board with, and there were members refusing to deal with guns,” said task force member Kelly Breen, a Democrat from Novi who represents a region south of Oxford. “It was incredibly frustrating.”

Republicans on the panel said they, too, gave up some of their priorities. “Frankly, I would like to see more adults in the schools with firearms, but that was not part of our report either,” said state Rep. Luke Meerman, the Coopersville Republican who led the task force along with state Rep. Scott VanSingel of Grant, who left office in December.

The task force members found agreement, though, around $486 million worth of recommendations that center around improving student mental health and fortifying school buildings against intruders.

Aiyash, who was not a member of the task force, said those steps aren’t enough.

“We can’t address all of those things and then ignore the fact that gun violence is what’s inflicting the deaths, and the murders, and the accidental injuries, and suicides, and homicides that happen,” he said. “Guns are the common denominator.”

Aiyash said he wants to protect the rights of responsible gun owners while restricting access for people who may commit violence with them, such as people who have been convicted of domestic violence. He knows that negotiating over gun control won’t be easy, especially with the Democrats’ slim 56-54 majority over Republicans, who largely oppose any restrictions on firearm ownership.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has said she would prioritize gun control as she begins her second term.

Democrats haven’t introduced any bills yet, but their efforts are likely to revolve around safe storage, expanded background checks, and red-flag laws that permit courts to temporarily confiscate firearms from people believed to be an immediate threat to themselves or others.

Republicans largely oppose those efforts, “but we no longer hold the gavel,” Meerman said.

Then-House Speaker Jason Wentworth established the task force last year in response to the Oxford High School incident, in which a 15-year-old student shot and killed four other students with a gun his parents bought for him, and injured seven other people. Members were asked to identify ways to make schools safer and to improve student mental health.

They based their work around the Michigan State Police 2018 School Safety Task Force. In the preliminary recommendations they issued last April, they came to a consensus around 14 measures, but only a few made it into law — either as standalone bills or measures incorporated into the state budget. Those measures were working their way through the Legislature before the task force’s final report was issued.

One law requires school districts to provide local police accurate floor plans of school buildings, including room names, hallway designations, and locations of keys.

Another legalizes the use of temporary door barricades during school emergencies.

Meanwhile, the 2023 budget invests more than $200 million to increase mental health services in schools, which also was among the task force’s recommendations.

Meerman and Breen said they are disappointed that more of the task force’s April recommendations weren’t enacted, such as:

Establishing a grant program to support paid internships for graduate students working toward certification to become school psychologists, counselors, or social workers.
Requiring districts to update school safety plans every three years.
Requiring the Michigan State Police to help schools develop lockdown guidelines.
Requiring districts to print OK2SAY information on student identification cards. OK2SAY is Michigan’s confidential tip line for reporting threats to school safety.
Requiring additional school safety drills.
Installing cameras in classrooms.
Ensuring all doors have locks.
Providing window ladders for rooms on upper levels.

“I’m frustrated that we didn’t get those across the finish line last year,” Meerman said.

He and Breen expect those measures to be reintroduced this year. They expect the task force to continue its work with new members being appointed to replace the five no longer in office.

“Even if all of them pass, it doesn’t mean our schools are safe,” Meerman said. “It means they’re safer. It means we have to take the next steps. We live in an ever-changing world. For anybody to say, ‘Now we fixed it and let’s move on to the next thing’ is a fallacy, and it’s dangerous.”

Correction: January 9, 2022: This story as been updated to clarify that Rep. Kelly Breen’s district does not include Oxford.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Are Michigan teachers exempt from public records laws? A judge’s ruling raises concerns.

2022-12-21T20:42:58+00:00

A judge ruled last week that public school teachers aren’t subject to Michigan’s public information law even though they are public employees, a ruling some fear could make it easier to shield government records.

Oakland County Circuit Judge Jacob James Cunningham made the ruling in a case that centers on parent Carol Beth Litkouhi’s request for materials related to Rochester Community School District’s history of ethnic and gender studies class.

The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation filed the lawsuit on behalf of Litkouhi and plans to appeal.

In his ruling, Cunningham noted that Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act only includes school districts — not individual employees — in the definition of a “public body,” and that the law considers records public only if they are “prepared, owned, used, in the possession of, or retained by a public body in the performance of an official function.”

Litkouhi’s public records request was one of many filed statewide in recent years by Michigan parents who claimed they were concerned about how classes are taught and wanted more input in textbooks and supplementary materials.

While the Thursday ruling only applies to the Rochester case, the Mackinac Center’s Stephen Delie said it could be used to shield other records produced by lower-level government employees from the public.

The ruling may create a loophole that allows records to be deemed private as long as they are maintained by individual public employees, not the public entity, said Delie, the Midland group’s director of transparency and open government.

That could allow a police department, for instance, to argue that records are private because they are held by an employee, not the overall administration, he said.

“If this is read very, very broadly, it tremendously limits FOIA for all except state executive agencies,” Delie said.

“If other lower courts take a look at this decision and begin following it, I think it’s going to be much more difficult not only for parents like our client, but for journalists and for concerned citizens to be able to gain access to all sorts of records, not just school records.”

The case arose when the district provided Litkouhi a copy of topics taught in the course in 2021 and claimed that was the only responsive record “knowingly in RSCD’s possession,” according to the judge’s order. The district claims teachers are not a member of the administration and are not a public body.

Litkouhi, who won a seat on the Rochester school board last month, told Bridge this fall that she wanted to “restore our district’s focus on academic excellence and transparency and partnerships with parents and accountability.”

School district spokeswoman Lori Grein told Bridge in a statement that the district “values and appreciates” the district’s teachers, administrators, and support staff who work to teach students skills to “contribute to a diverse, interdependent and changing world.”

“Rochester Community Schools continues to focus on the education, growth, safety, and wellness of our students, staff and school community,” she said.

Delie said he is not aware of cases similar to the Mackinac case in other states.

It’s unclear how many states deem school materials public records. New York state law defines a school record as “any information kept, held, filed, produced or reproduced by, or for” the school, which includes reports, books, manuals, pamphlets, and more.

In Ohio, school districts are considered public bodies subject to open records laws. But copyright laws may prohibit the release of textbooks, DVDs and other materials, and districts do not have to produce records if they don’t already exist, according to the Ohio School Boards Association.

In Michigan and some other states, school employees’ personal correspondence is exempt from public disclosure.

In 2007, three Howell Public Schools teachers — who were also members of the Howell Education Association — asked the court to clarify if their personal emails addressing union matters were subject to public records requests.

In January 2010, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled in the teachers’ favor, finding that personal emails do not count as public records just because “they were captured in a public body’s e-mail system’s digital memory.”

Similarly, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that emails sent by the state’s public school teachers are not public records, even if they are sent via work accounts on school-owned computers.

“In determining whether a document is a record under (Wisconsin’s public records law), the focus is on the content of the document,” the court ruled. “To be a record ... the content of the document must have a connection to a government function.”

The nature of personal emails from public school employees is different from textbooks and teaching materials teachers use in a classroom, Delie argued.

“Here, the materials that we were pursuing were curriculum materials,” he said. “That’s, in my mind, fairly clearly connected to the core function of educating children.”

Yue Stella Yu and Isabel Lohman are reporters for Bridge Michigan. You can reach Yu at syu@bridgemi.com; Lohman can be reached at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

Michigan education leaders join push to help youth in foster care graduate on time

2022-12-16T22:01:36+00:00

Christian Randle expected to spend his senior year in a dual enrollment program that allows Michigan students to receive college credit while still in high school.

Instead, he’s working toward just a high school equivalency certificate.

He told the State Board of Education on Tuesday that he’s frustrated and feels like he’s starting high school over at age 17, because he’s been unable to get credit for schoolwork he did over the last five years while living in a series of foster homes and residential facilities.

Christian, who now lives in a group home in Farmington, addressed the board at its December meeting along with several other teenagers and young adults who were removed from their homes because of abuse and neglect. They’re asking the board to help ensure that others like them can graduate on time and with a solid education.

More than 10,000 children are in foster care in Michigan, according to the Children’s Defense Fund. About 40% of Michigan students in foster care graduate high school in four years, compared with 80% of all students.

That has to improve, State Board of Education members said Tuesday after hearing from the students and representatives of the Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services.

“We want systemic change,” said board member Tiffany Tilley, a Democrat, who introduced a resolution asking the Legislature “to amend laws that will guarantee that vulnerable youth receive credit-bearing educational programming that will keep them on target to receive high school diplomas and allow them to access post-secondary opportunities.”

Board members unanimously approved the resolution but did not specify what legislative changes they want to see.

Foster youth and their advocates have a lot of ideas.

Above all, they want a law ensuring that foster children have access to accredited education programs.

Because of a shortage of traditional foster families, abused and neglected children are sometimes placed in group homes or in large residential facilities alongside children with mental health issues, drug addiction, or histories of juvenile delinquency, said Saba Gebrai, director of the Park West Foundation, which advocates for foster children. Students in these settings have restricted freedoms and often aren’t allowed to leave even for school, she said.

Instead, the facilities run classes themselves, and the programs might not be accredited, attorney Judith New of the Michigan Children’s Law Center said in a telephone interview. “These kids could be spending years of time in residential placement and then coming back to a regular school and having that school say, ‘You have no transferable credits at all. You have to start over in ninth grade.’”

Current law requires residential facilities to provide education services but does not require that the programs be accredited, which means their courses may not count toward state graduation requirements.

The Department of Health and Services, which contracts with residential facilities, did not immediately respond to questions about the lack of accreditation requirements.

Consequences for students can be dire

Tilley, the board of education member, learned about the systemic academic struggles of foster youth over the summer when she met a group of teenagers at a meeting convened by the Park West Foundation, which works with young people as they age out of the foster care system. Several believed they were earning high school credits during stays in residential care or juvenile justice facilities but left the programs years behind their peers, she said.

“My heart really went out to them,” Tilley said.

She wanted the rest of the state board to hear what she did, so she invited advocates and clients of Park West Foundation to December’s board meeting and introduced the resolution.

Consequences can be dire for children who are moved from place to place without consideration of their educational progress and continuity, Gebrai said in a telephone interview. Many drop out of school in frustration and live out their lives in poverty, because they don’t qualify for jobs that pay enough to support themselves, she said.

“They’ve already experienced so much trauma in separating from their families and from having experienced abuse, and this is another trauma of the same kind,” Gebrai said. “This is one more thing that’s going to exclude them from society.”

Gebrai wants courts and social workers to think about each child’s education plan before moving them to new foster homes or residential facilities. It’s not just about academics, she said.

“It’s having the same friends,” she said. “There’s dances, activities, sports, building memories and connectedness to a community.”

The Park West Foundation advocates only for foster care children — those removed from their homes for their own protection — but those placed in residential facilities for other reasons also would benefit from the changes advocates are requesting, Gebrai said.

NBC News previously reported on the state’s failure to provide a quality education to children in residential facilities.

How a student scrambled to make up credits

Bryanna Cook, now 21, was never in a residential facility, but she, too, fell behind her peers as she was raised in a series of foster homes starting at the age of 5. During high school alone, she changed schools more than 10 times, sometimes moving in the middle of a semester — too early to take final exams, but too late to receive credit in the new school, she said.

“It’s hard to get a footing anywhere or get the proper help or even know what school is about when you’re constantly moving,” she said in a phone interview Thursday.

As she entered senior year, Cook knew she wouldn’t have enough credits to graduate, so she enrolled in an online program on top of her regular classes at Lincoln High School in Warren. She took eight classes a day in person and five online to make up credits.

“My counselor told me she didn’t think it would be a good idea, that it would be too much, but I decided to do it anyway,” Cook said.

She remembers juggling “The Outsiders” for a 10th-grade English course while reading “Lord of the Flies” for 11th-grade English and practicing persuasive writing techniques for 12th-grade English.

“It was a lot,” she said.

That was three years ago, but the memory of that stressful time was fresh, she said, as she testified before the state school board.

“All foster children and youth in Michigan must have the same access and opportunities as everyone else to prepare for high school graduation, earn post-secondary credentials, and reach their full potential,” testified Cook, now a student at Macomb Community College.

Foster youth advocacy group outlines its proposals

Cook and other current and former foster youth presented a slate of legislative proposals they developed as members of Empowering Foster Youth Through Technology, an advocacy group supported by the Park West Foundation.

Among their proposals are laws that would:

Ensure that youth in residential placement have easy access to accurate transcripts.
Require foster parents to enroll foster children in school within one day of placement. (Current law allows five days.)
Ensure student transportation to school.
Require judicial oversight of student transfers between schools.
Increase stipends for foster parents to promote placement with families instead of residential facilities.
Provide support for children in foster care who are behind academically.

“A lot of that needs to happen,” Tilley said after the presentation.

State Superintendent Michael Rice agreed.

“First thing we need to do is get into the Legislature and make sure there’s no such thing as a non-credit-bearing course in Michigan public education, not for anybody,” he said. “Not acceptable.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan school board votes to seek financial transparency from charter schools

2022-12-14T22:28:58+00:00

Michigan’s 295 charter schools received $1.4 billion in state funding last year. But exactly how that money was spent, and how much of that went to for-profit management companies, remain unclear, because those companies aren’t subject to public disclosure laws.

The State Board of Education has been trying to change that, and members are hoping to get help from the newly elected state Legislature controlled by Democrats, who are less protective of the for-profit companies that operate many of the state’s charter schools.

At a meeting Tuesday, the board voted 5-1, along party lines, to ask the Legislature to require every charter management organization to post audit reports of its use of public funds, including information related to salaries, benefits, and contracts.

“To send this over now … will be really, really important in setting a priority for the new Legislature and the new legislators that will be starting” in January, said board member Ellen Cogen Lipton, a Democrat and former state representative.

Republican Tom McMillin, the lone no vote, called the resolution a partisan attempt to discourage charter school expansion and deprive parents of school choice. Nikki Snyder, the board’s only other Republican, was absent.

Eighty-two percent of Michigan’s charter schools contract with private management companies, according to the Michigan Department of Education. In many cases, the management company provides a full range of services, including curriculum, financial, staffing, and custodial. In other cases, charter schools manage the day-to-day operations, but contract with a company that provides one or more of those services.

Those management companies are not subject to public disclosure laws.

“Our laws are tremendously weak,” said State Board of Education President Casandra Ulbrich, who spearheaded an effort to obtain financial records from charter schools in five counties. She and Department of Education staff members filed Freedom of Information Act requests with 166 charter schools asking for information about leases and contracts for food service, custodial work, and more. Nearly all said they could not provide the information because their management companies hold the contracts.

The Michigan Association of Public School Academies, a charter school advocacy group, says its members meet their legal obligations to provide staff rosters, annual reports, board minutes, budgets, and management agreements to anyone who requests those records under the Freedom of Information Act.

The trouble, Democrats say, is that those management agreements often aggregate all expenditures into a single line item for “purchased services.” That means it’s impossible for taxpayers to know how much teachers are being paid, which company is mowing the lawn, or the price of textbooks, for example.

“What information is available is difficult to break down in any meaningful way,” Ulbrich said Tuesday. “As we learned from our FOIA attempts, it cannot be easily compared to the same information from traditional schools. For these reasons, I think it’s time for taxpayers to know how their tax dollars are being spent.”

She said she wants to ensure tax dollars are being used effectively and efficiently. She also wants to know how much charter management companies are keeping as profit.

McMillin said charter management companies are being singled out for scrutiny because Democrats oppose school choice. “There are plenty of other entities that get huge amounts of money from the state” and are not subject to public disclosure laws, he said.

State Superintendent Michael Rice said the debate is not about whether charter schools should exist, but about the need for transparency.

“We have the right to know what happens to taxpayer dollars,” he said. “They’re our dollars, and in some cases with respect to public school academies (charter schools), we lose oversight over them. That’s wrong. It’s unacceptable.”

In March, Democrats in the House and Senate introduced the School Freedom, Accountability and Transparency Act, which would have required more transparency from charter schools.

The legislation would have made charter management companies subject to the state Freedom of Information Act and would have required them to disclose audited financial statements, post student recruitment costs, and hold monthly public meetings.

Republicans, who then led both chambers, did not allow the bills to advance.

Correction: December 15, 2022: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of board member Nikki Snyder’s name.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan teacher shortage prompts superintendents to propose new certification route

2022-12-06T21:41:47+00:00

After scouring the state’s pipeline to find more certified teachers, a group of Michigan education leaders are now looking to create a pipeline of their own.

Regional superintendents across the state are banding together to develop an alternate route to certification that emphasizes early on-the-job training and income opportunities for prospective teachers.

The initiative, called Talent Together, is just the latest in a series of efforts by stakeholders across the state who are working to mitigate a looming shortage of teachers, especially in areas such as special education, math and science. The efforts include initiatives to provide stipends for student teachers, shorten teacher preparation programs, offer scholarships to education majors, create programs for high school students interested in the profession, and more.

Talent Together’s goal is to provide employment in schools for teacher candidates so they can be paid while fulfilling student teaching requirements.

“The current model is when you go to a university, it’s theory, theory, theory, then practice,” during a concentrated internship period, Eric Hoppstock, superintendent of the Berrien County Regional Educational Service Agency, said during a press conference Tuesday. “We’re really promoting practice, theory, practice, theory, practice, theory” under the supervision of an experienced teacher.

That sort of path allows people to earn a living while working toward certification, said Kevin Oxley, superintendent of Jackson County Intermediate School District.

“We don’t want people to quit their lives and have to go back to school,” Oxley said. “They can’t do that, so we are going to meet people where they are and remove barriers so they can become certified.”

The program would be similar to On the Rise Academy, an alternative route program offered by Detroit Public Schools Community District that pays candidates to work in support staff roles while working toward certification. Nine other alternative route providers are approved in Michigan for teacher certification.

Talent Together expects to start enrolling students next September, but it still needs three things: funding, approval from the Michigan Department of Education, and responses to requests for proposals from universities that would provide the coursework.

Elizabeth Moje, dean of the University of Michigan School of Education, said she has been approached by Talent Together organizers and is still trying to learn more about their plans.

Talent Together could not say how much the program would cost. Organizers plan to apply for a share of $175 million the Legislature budgeted for grow-your-own programs that provide free tuition for school staff members enrolled in teacher preparation programs.

The length of the program would depend on each candidate’s background, said Jack Elsey, founder of the nonprofit Michigan Educator Workforce Initiative, which is helping design the program. It might take a year for someone who already has a bachelor’s degree in another field, for example, or several years for someone who enters without any degree, he said.

The idea for Talent Together came out of a meeting of seven regional superintendents in October. Since then, the consortium has grown to 39 of the state’s 57 regional educational service agencies, and more are expected to join. The agencies, also known as intermediate school districts, provide consolidated support to local districts. For example, they provide teacher training and coordinate early childhood, vocational, and special education programs for the districts they serve.

“Together, we are asking for the opportunity to be utilized differently,” said Kyle Mayer, superintendent of Ottawa Intermediate School District. “Imagine if Michigan, as a state, were to have an ISD hub that works in partnership with higher education and has resources to expedite the certification process for high-quality teachers.”

The group expects its program will produce hundreds of teachers over the next five years.

The Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, is still learning about Talent Together and hopes its members will be asked to shape the program.

“It’s important that any efforts include frontline educators at the table,” said MEA spokesman Thomas Morgan.

“We are willing to work with anyone who is committed to ending the educator shortage,” he added.

At least one local superintendent is grateful for the consortium’s work.

“Ypsilanti Community Schools is facing the teacher shortage crisis,” Superintendent Alena Zachery-Ross said.

“This is real for districts, urban and rural,” she said. “We’ve been creative. We’ve been doing our recruitment and retention strategies. Even though we can try to do this on our own, the solution is bigger than us at the local level.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Under Michigan’s 3rd-grade reading law, Black students are far more likely to be held back

2022-12-06T20:05:07+00:00

Black students and students from low-income homes were more than twice as likely in Michigan to have to repeat the third grade compared with their white and wealthier peers who also were identified for retention because they struggled with reading.

The gap in who gets held back is one of the details contained in the latest research report on Michigan’s Read by Grade 3 law, which requires that schools hold back students who are a grade level or more behind in reading.

The law provides so many ways a student can get an exemption that only 545 students who were third graders in the 2021-22 school year are repeating the grade this year. But the racial and income gaps among those students suggest that there may be variations in how the exemptions are being applied.

Overall, Black students and students from low-income homes are more likely to be flagged for retention based on their reading test scores. But researchers with the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative at Michigan State University found that greater proportions of them are actually repeating third grade. The report shows that 13.6% of the Black students who were flagged were held back, while just 5.7% of white students who were flagged were held back. Similarly, 10.5% of eligible students from low-income families were held back, compared with 4.3% of students who are not from low-income families.

“Those are pretty big disparities,” said Katharine Strunk, EPIC director. “Those suggest to me that retention is being implemented differentially for different kinds of students.”

The gaps are growing, too. During the 2020-21 school year 9.8% of Black students who tested at least a year behind grade level were retained, compared with 4.9% of white students; and 7.3% of eligible students from low-income homes were retained, compared with 3.6% of wealthier students.

Michigan’s Read by Grade 3 law, enacted in 2016, required schools identify struggling readers and provide intervention. The rule requiring that students be held back was part of the law, but didn’t kick in until the 2020-21 school year. Exemptions are available based on many factors, such as a student’s special education or English language learner status, if they’ve previously been held back, and if the parent and superintendent agree that retention isn’t in the child’s best interest.

EPIC has been working with researchers from the University of Michigan, the Michigan Department of Education, and the state Center for Educational Performance and Information to research the impact of the law, according to the report.

Here are a couple of other highlights from the latest report, which was released Tuesday:

While the number of students who were held back rose in the last year, from 228 to 545, that number is a tiny fraction of the students who were flagged for retention — just 0.6% during the 2021-22 school year. Nearly 5,700 of last year’s third-graders scored low enough to be identified for retention. That’s 5.8% of all third-graders, up from 4.8% the previous year.
Teachers and principals in districts that retained at least one student were more likely than their peers in schools that promoted all students to believe retention was an effective intervention. That suggests districts are more likely to retain students if they believe it is effective, the report said. But Strunk cautioned that even though these educators were more likely to be optimistic about retention, overall the majority of them were opposed to retention as a strategy.

The Read by Grade 3 law was controversial from the beginning, with many education groups and Democrats in the Michigan Legislature opposed, particularly to the retention rule. Now, as Democrats prepare to assume control of both houses of the legislature and the governor’s office for the first time in decades, it is likely that parts or all of the law could be on the chopping block.

Strunk said it would be a mistake to kill the law entirely.

“There’s a lot more to the law than just retention,” Strunk said. “We have data from prior to the pandemic that actually shows this seems to be improving student achievement in early literacy. So, it would be a shame to throw the baby out with the bathwater and get rid of the entire law.”

That doesn’t mean the law doesn’t have some parts that need to be amended, Strunk said, but “there are a lot of good things in this law, like a real focus on instructional coaching, like the real focus on professional development, like the focus on training teachers about literacy essentials. … We want those things to continue. As policymakers think about how and where to go next with literacy policy, it’s important to think about this.”

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

Michigan school turnaround program adds more districts

2022-12-01T21:55:29+00:00

Fifty-four school districts with 112 low-performing schools will get extra support through a Michigan turnaround program that has proven to be helpful to many districts. But each district’s share of the resources may be more limited than in the past.

That’s because state funding for the program remains at $6 million, the same as last year, when just 36 districts were in the program. Those districts entered the program between 2017 and 2019 in three separate cohorts. Districts move out of the program as their struggling schools meet performance goals or once they complete the three-year partnership program.

Some districts that completed the program will continue receiving support as other schools in those districts are flagged.

The increase in the number of so-called partnership districts is not a sign schools are performing worse, said Katharine Strunk, who studies the districts as director of the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative at Michigan State University. Rather, she said, it means that the lowest performing schools across the state are less concentrated. For example, the Detroit Public Schools Community District previously had 39 qualifying schools, but now has 21.

Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said his schools have been improving despite disruptions related to the pandemic over the last three years. He said he expects more academic growth now that those challenges have been mitigated.

Michigan created the Partnership District program in 2017 to meet requirements of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which requires states to identify and provide extra support to their lowest performing schools.

Districts become part of the program if any school within them has a four-year graduation rate of 67% or less, or scores in the bottom 5% on the state’s index accountability system, which rates districts on student performance, attendance, graduation rates, availability of career and college preparation courses, and more. (Vitti said he objects to the bottom-5% criterion for identifying low-performing schools, which will “always identify high-poverty schools”; he called for using lack of improvement as a standard instead.)

No districts entered the program in 2020 and 2021 because of pandemic-related disruptions to student testing used to identify districts that need help.

Partnership districts receive extra help from the Michigan Department of Education and from their local or regional educational service agencies. Liaisons from those agencies help districts set improvement goals and access resources to meet them.

Daveda Colbert, superintendent of the Wayne Regional Educational Service Agency, said her staff will help local district administrators use data to identify root causes of academic needs and then will develop plans to address them.

“Working together with the focus on improving student outcomes will help our identified schools make the necessary improvements to achieve success,” Colbert said in an email message to Chalkbeat and Bridge.

But the program’s finite resources and funding pool — the Legislature set aside $6 million — will now be stretched across 50% more districts than last year. That may make it harder for MDE and educational service agencies to help, Strunk said.

“The challenge about 54 districts is that it’s 54 different organizations with which to work,” she said.

Principals in the partnership districts use the extra money to improve technology, staffing, and teacher training, but they’ve said it isn’t enough.

State Superintendent Michael Rice agrees with them.

“What we’re experiencing is the consequence of underfunding Michigan public school students, educators, and education for many years, the resultant teacher shortage, and a once-in-a-century pandemic,” he said in a press release.

Strunk and other researchers at EPIC found that students in partnership districts made academic gains before the pandemic. Later, progress stalled, but students in partnership district schools still tested as well as or better than students in demographically similar schools that were not in the program.

The lowest performing students, in particular, benefited the most from resources provided to partnership districts, Strunk said.

School choice advocates prefer a different solution. They are pressing for passage of the Let MI Kids Learn plan, which would give tax breaks to people who contribute to voucher-like scholarships for students to attend private schools or obtain other private education services.

“Michigan’s public school bureaucracy has failed our kids,” said Beth DeShone, executive director of the Great Lakes Education Project, an advocacy group that supports the scholarship plan.

But the proposal’s prospects are dimming.

Let MI Kids Learn submitted signatures on petitions for a ballot issue earlier this year, but they weren’t in time to make the November ballot, and supporters hoped to have the plan enacted instead through a vote by the GOP-controlled Legislature.

But Republicans will lose control of both houses of the Legislature after the current legislative session, and the Bureau of Elections is unlikely to certify the petitions by then. Democrats largely oppose the scholarship proposal.

Editor’s note: December 6, 2022: This story was updated to add comment from Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti.

Chalkbeat Detroit staff writer Koby Levin contributed. Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

District	Schools	ISD	Charter Authorizer
Academy for Business and Technology (82921)	Academy for Business and Technology High School (08435)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Eastern Michigan University
Academy of Warren (50911)	Academy of Warren (09602)	Macomb ISD (50000)	Bay Mills Community College
American International Academy (82730)	American International Academy - Elementary (00899)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Lake Superior State University
American International Academy (82730)	American International Academy High School/Middle Schooll (03058)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Lake Superior State University
Arts Academy in the Woods (50905)	Arts Academy in the Woods (08884)	Macomb ISD (50000)	Macomb ISD
Barack Obama Leadership Academy (82933)	Barack Obama Leadership Academy (08572)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Detroit Public Schools Community District
Battle Creek Public Schools (13020)	Northwestern Middle School (02776)	Calhoun ISD (13000)	n/a
Beecher Community School District (25240)	Beecher High School (00253)	Genesee ISD (25000)	n/a
Beecher Community School District (25240)	Dailey Elementary School (00862)	Genesee ISD (25000)	n/a
Bellevue Community Schools (23010)	Bellevue Jr/Sr High School (00267)	Calhoun ISD (13000)	n/a
Benton Harbor Area Schools (11010)	Benton Harbor High School (00286)	Berrien RESA (11000)	n/a
Benton Harbor Area Schools (11010)	Career and Alternative Pathways to Education Center (09912)	Berrien RESA (11000)	n/a
Benton Harbor Area Schools (11010)	Fair Plain East Elementary (01629)	Berrien RESA (11000)	n/a
Benton Harbor Area Schools (11010)	Fair Plain Middle School (02068)	Berrien RESA (11000)	n/a
Benton Harbor Area Schools (11010)	Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary (03502)	Berrien RESA (11000)	n/a
Benton Harbor Charter School Academy (11903)	Benton Harbor Charter School Academy (08706)	Berrien RESA (11000)	Ferris State University
Bradford Academy (63917)	Bradford Academy (09292)	Oakland Schools (63000)	Bay Mills Community College
Comstock Public Schools (39030)	Comstock High School (00765)	Kalamazoo RESA (39000)	n/a
Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences (82929)	Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences (08489)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Oakland University
Detroit Community Schools (82925)	Detroit Community Schools - High School (08456)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Bay Mills Community College
Detroit Leadership Academy (82722)	Detroit Leadership Academy High School (02222)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Central Michigan University
Detroit Leadership Academy (82722)	Detroit Leadership Academy K-8 (00334)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Central Michigan University
Detroit Public Safety Academy (82704)	Detroit Public Safety Academy (02015)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Eastern Michigan University
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Brenda Scott Academy for Theatre Arts (09341)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Brewer Academy (09991)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Burns Elementary-Middle School (00456)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Central High School (00617)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Cody High School (00018)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Davis Aerospace Technical High School at Golightly (00029)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Denby High School (00902)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Detroit Lions Academy (08925)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	East English Village Preparatory Academy (01189)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Emerson Elementary-Middle School (01134)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Hamilton Academy (09994)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Henderson Academy (00004)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Henry Ford High School (01634)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	J. E. Clark Preparatory Academy (09992)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Mackenzie Elementary-Middle School (00853)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Mason Academy (02431)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Mumford High School (02644)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Nolan Elementary-Middle School (02708)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Northwestern High School (02778)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Palmer Park Preparatory Academy (01552)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Pershing High School (03015)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Southeastern High School (03540)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Wayne Elementary School (04406)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Public Schools Community District (82015)	Western International High School (04477)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Detroit Service Learning Academy (82953)	Oak Park Service Learning Academy (OPSLA) (03655)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Lake Superior State University
Eagle's Nest Academy (25916)	Eagle's Nest Academy (02434)	Genesee ISD (25000)	Grand Valley State University
Eastpointe Community Schools (50020)	Eastpointe High School (01003)	Macomb ISD (50000)	n/a
Eastpointe Community Schools (50020)	Pleasantview Elementary School (03074)	Macomb ISD (50000)	n/a
Faxon Academy (63926)	Faxon Academy (01364)	Oakland Schools (63000)	Saginaw Valley State University
FlexTech High School (47903)	FlexTech High School (00760)	Livingston ESA (47000)	Central Michigan University
Flint, School District of the City of (25010)	Brownell STEM Academy (01916)	Genesee ISD (25000)	n/a
Flint, School District of the City of (25010)	Eisenhower School (01098)	Genesee ISD (25000)	n/a
Flint, School District of the City of (25010)	Freeman School (01320)	Genesee ISD (25000)	n/a
Flint, School District of the City of (25010)	Neithercut Elementary School (02670)	Genesee ISD (25000)	n/a
Flint, School District of the City of (25010)	Pierce School (03033)	Genesee ISD (25000)	n/a
Flint, School District of the City of (25010)	Potter School (03108)	Genesee ISD (25000)	n/a
George Washington Carver Academy (82963)	George Washington Carver Elementary School (02484)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Bay Mills Community College
Grand Rapids Public Schools (41010)	Alger Middle School (02051)	Kent ISD (41000)	n/a
Grand Rapids Public Schools (41010)	Campus Elementary (02028)	Kent ISD (41000)	n/a
Grand Rapids Public Schools (41010)	Ottawa Hills High School (03197)	Kent ISD (41000)	n/a
Greater Heights Academy (25914)	Greater Heights Academy (01751)	Genesee ISD (25000)	Central Michigan University
Highland Park Public School Academy System (82749)	Barber Elementary School (03228)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Highland Park City Schools
Hope Academy (82942)	Hope Academy (08637)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Eastern Michigan University
Inkster Preparatory Academy (82762)	Inkster Preparatory Academy (03034)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Central Michigan University
International Academy of Saginaw (73912)	International Academy of Saginaw (09784)	Saginaw ISD (73000)	Bay Mills Community College
Jackson Public Schools (38170)	John R. Lewis Elementary (03921)	Jackson ISD (38000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	Attwood School (01273)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	Gardner International School (03382)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	Gier Park School (01400)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	J.W. Sexton High School (01865)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	Lyons School (02290)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	Mt. Hope School (01278)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	North School (06662)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	Reo School (03181)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Lansing Public School District (33020)	Wexford Montessori Magnet School (04650)	Ingham ISD (33000)	n/a
Macomb Montessori Academy (50914)	Macomb Montessori Academy (01738)	Macomb ISD (50000)	Lake Superior State University
Marvin L. Winans Academy of Performing Arts (82924)	Marvin L. Winans Academy - Elementary (09705)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Saginaw Valley State University
Mildred C. Wells Preparatory Academy (11904)	Mildred C. Wells Preparatory Academy (09608)	Berrien RESA (11000)	Bay Mills Community College
Mount Clemens Community School District (50160)	Mount Clemens High School (02624)	Macomb ISD (50000)	n/a
Multicultural Academy (81908)	Multicultural Academy (09446)	Washtenaw ISD (81000)	Bay Mills Community College
Muskegon Heights Public School Academy System (61905)	Dr. Martin Luther King Academy (02546)	Muskegon Area ISD (61000)	Muskegon Heights School District
Muskegon Heights Public School Academy System (61905)	Muskegon Heights Academy (02651)	Muskegon Area ISD (61000)	Muskegon Heights School District
New Paradigm Glazer-Loving Academy (82735)	New Paradigm Loving Academy (03725)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Grand Valley State University
Old Redford Academy (82956)	Old Redford Academy - High (09481)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Central Michigan University
Plymouth Educational Center Charter School (82904)	Plymouth Educational Center (08255)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Central Michigan University
Pontiac City School District (63030)	Herrington School (01652)	Oakland Schools (63000)	n/a
Pontiac City School District (63030)	Pontiac High School (02756)	Oakland Schools (63000)	n/a
Port Huron Area School District (74010)	STEAM Academy at Woodrow Wilson Elementary (04588)	St. Clair County RESA (74000)	n/a
River Rouge, School District of the City of (82120)	River Rouge High School (03208)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Romulus Community Schools (82130)	Romulus Senior High School (03260)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Romulus Community Schools (82130)	Romulus Virtual Learning Center (02874)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Saginaw Academy of Excellence (73901)	Saginaw Academy of Excellence (03407)	Saginaw ISD (73000)	Eastern Michigan University
Saginaw, School District of the City of (73010)	Arthur Eddy Academy (02446)	Saginaw ISD (73000)	n/a
Saginaw, School District of the City of (73010)	Herig School (01645)	Saginaw ISD (73000)	n/a
Saginaw, School District of the City of (73010)	Jessie Loomis School (01929)	Saginaw ISD (73000)	n/a
Saginaw, School District of the City of (73010)	Jessie Rouse School (01930)	Saginaw ISD (73000)	n/a
Saginaw, School District of the City of (73010)	Saginaw High School (03336)	Saginaw ISD (73000)	n/a
South Redford School District (82140)	SOAR Academic Institute (02347)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Taylor School District (82150)	Taylor Virtual Learning Academy (01381)	Wayne RESA (82000)	n/a
Van Dyke Public Schools (50220)	Lincoln High School (02201)	Macomb ISD (50000)	n/a
Washtenaw Technical Middle College (81903)	Washtenaw Technical Middle College (08483)	Washtenaw ISD (81000)	Washtenaw Community College
Westfield Charter Academy (82766)	Westfield Preparatory High School (03608)	Wayne RESA (82000)	Grand Valley State University
Ypsilanti Community Schools (81020)	ACCE (03000)	Washtenaw ISD (81000)	n/a

2022 Michigan partnership districts and schools

Michigan Department of Education

After a bruising Michigan election, what’s next for Betsy DeVos and her education agenda?

2022-11-28T23:00:00+00:00

Over a decade of Republican dominance in Michigan, perhaps no individual shaped school policy as much as Betsy DeVos.

Michigan has some of the nation’s highest concentrations of charter schools run by for-profit companies, and key aspects of their financial operations, such as teacher salaries, are shielded from public scrutiny. In Detroit, schools can open and close anywhere in the city at any time without input from local authorities. Teachers unions in the state are limited by so-called right-to-work laws and limitations on tenure and bargaining.

All of that is thanks, in large part, to DeVos and her billionaire family’s political influence.

Seeking to expand on those wins, DeVos and her family members spent at least $11 million to support various political causes in the 2022 election cycle, including the Let MI Kids Learn ballot proposal to create voucher-like scholarship accounts for private school, and the gubernatorial campaign of Tudor Dixon, who ran on a pro-school-choice platform.

But the November election turned out to be the most striking public repudiation of DeVos’ agenda since 2000, when Michigan voters overwhelmingly rejected a school-voucher proposal she funded. Dixon lost by double digits to Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, who made reproductive freedom the center of her campaign. And the Let MI Kids Learn proposal, which DeVos’ team failed to get on the November ballot, appears to have little chance of becoming law anytime soon.

Democrats won full control of the Legislature for the first time in 38 years and are now in position to undo some of DeVos’ signature education policies of the past decade.

Two of their top priorities are requiring charter schools to disclose more detailed financial records and rolling back a DeVos-backed law requiring third-graders to be held back if they are more than a grade level behind in reading.

So does that mean DeVos’ influence over education in Michigan is waning?

It depends on whom you ask.

The Michigan Education Association would like to think so. MEA is the state’s largest teachers union and a longtime opponent of DeVos’ voucher initiatives.

“The far right don’t like her because she didn’t stand up for Donald Trump” after the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, said MEA spokesman Thomas Morgan. “And the left and middle have never liked her here in Michigan because of her repeated attempts to destroy public education.”

But few others are convinced that the election setbacks will halt the family’s decades long pursuit of a school-choice agenda.

“It’s a loss, and all losses sting,” said Bill Nowling, former spokesman for the Republican Party of Michigan and a longtime campaign consultant. “Are these fatal moments (for DeVos’ agenda)? I don’t think so … . It’s something they believe strongly in, and they’re going to keep trying.”

DeVos was not available to comment for this article, a spokesperson said.

Supporters of her school-choice agenda say the change in control of the Legislature doesn’t diminish the urgency of their cause.

Let MI Kids Learn would provide a path for students to catch up academically, said Beth DeShone, executive director of the Great Lakes Education Project, a nonprofit advocacy group founded by DeVos.

“Doing what’s best for our children shouldn’t be political,” DeShone said.

Debates play out on a field DeVos helped build

Before she was education secretary, DeVos was chairperson of the Michigan GOP, a prominent member of the state’s richest family of political donors, and a driving force behind a wave of reforms that redefined the state’s school landscape.

Many DeVos-backed policies are now deeply embedded in the state’s education system and would be hard to undo.

Consider the cap on the number of charter schools statewide that can be opened statewide, which DeVos and her political allies successfully fought to eliminate in 2011.

Teachers unions and other education groups fiercely opposed that move, but reinstating the previous cap would mean closing schools — never an easy political task, and one that would have the most impact in Detroit and Flint, which have large concentrations of both charter schools and Democratic voters. Any new cap without school closures wouldn’t have much effect on the charter school movement, because charter school growth has slowed.

Even the language that defines debates over teachers unions and vouchers bears DeVos’ influence.

“Vouchers were considered very, very radical in the ’80s and ’90s,” said Ellen Cogen Lipton, a state Board of Education member and former Democratic state representative from Huntington Woods. “Now they call them ‘education scholarships’ or ‘opportunity scholarships,’ and the terms they’re using have enabled them to change the conversation. They talk about rescuing kids from failing schools.”

So-called right-to-work legislation — which unions have blamed in part for declining membership — is another example of the way DeVos and her allies have established the terms of the debate. The phrase is widely used now to describe policies in Michigan and other states that free workers from requirements to pay union dues if they are covered by a union contract. Opponents of the policy say the phrase is implicitly partisan.

Money still counts in politics

Michigan Democrats appear to have enough votes to roll back some of DeVos’ favored policies, no matter how vigorous the opposition. But even slight delays could make a difference: Democrats have a long list of priorities and a narrow majority that they’ll be forced to defend in just two years.

DeVos’ personal wealth allows her to be a forceful advocate of some of the policies that Democrats seek to undo, said Joshua Cowen, a professor of education at Michigan State University.

“She’s still a billionaire,” said Cowen, a fierce critic of DeVos. “She could outspend the public education community for the (equivalent) of what it costs you and me to go to the grocery store.”

DeVos is already a major funder of state advocacy groups that support her agenda, including the Great Lakes Education Project and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. And she could support an additional public campaign against the changes Democrats propose, such as a requirement that charter schools disclose more financial information, including about teacher salaries, Cowen said. Such changes have been fiercely opposed by the charter sector, particularly by large for-profit school operators such as National Heritage Academies.

Meanwhile, spokespeople for Let MI Kids Learn have signaled that they’ll keep fighting for the tax-favored scholarship proposal, even though it likely won’t be certified until next year, when the Democratic-led Legislature would be able to vote it down.

If they succeed in putting the proposal on the 2024 ballot, that would also mark a major milestone for DeVos and her agenda. Michigan voters would be able to weigh in directly on a DeVos-backed education issue for the first time since 2002, while the battle for control of the reconfigured state legislature would determine whether Democrats get more than two years to try to undo her education policy legacy.

And DeVos’ influence is likely to endure in electoral politics. It’s hard to win a Republican primary in Michigan without DeVos’ support, Nowling said. She has been strategic in contributing to PACs and candidates who will advance vouchers and school choice, he said.

The family gave a combined $50,000 directly to Dixon’s campaign. But they gave $6.3 million to Let MI Kids Learn and millions more to other conservative PACs that support private school choice, such as the Great Lakes Education Project.

They also gave $270,000 to the state GOP and contributed to dozens of individual Republican candidates’ campaigns.

Supporters of public school choice say their investment in their cause will pay off in the long run.

“We’re trying to make a groundbreaking change, so it’s certainly not wasted,” said Fred Wszolek, spokesman for Let MI Kids Learn. “We’re not convinced there’s not voters who don’t see this need for alternatives” to the public school system.

Even by DeVos standards, the 2022 contributions in Michigan were a big investment – $11 million this election cycle, not counting contributions that won’t be reported until the Dec. 2 filing deadline. In each of the last two midterm election cycles, they contributed just $3 million to Republican campaigns.

Given that push, the homestate setback has to sting, said Lipton, a longtime critic of DeVos.

“She has funded voucher movements in other states, and I think it’s really been a personal affront that in her home state, she hasn’t been able to get something that is really, really important to her,” Lipton said.

But DeVos has deep enough pockets to keep trying even when voters resist, Lipton said.

“People like the DeVos family, their fortunes are so vast,” Lipton said. “I don’t know that they ever have the self-reflection (to say), ‘Gee, maybe what we want is not what the people want.’”

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: Nov. 29, 2022: A previous version of this story said that Betsy DeVos backed a ballot initiative to create private school vouchers in 2002. The initiative was voted down in 2000.

Little action expected on education issues as Michigan lawmakers wind down term

2022-11-22T14:00:00+00:00

After the last midterm election, Michigan lawmakers voted on 300 bills and ended the term with an exhausting 21-hour day as Republicans looked to push through controversial legislation before Democrat Gretchen Whitmer took office.

Don’t expect the next few weeks to look anything like that.

Lawmakers may gather during the lame-duck period before their terms end Dec. 31, but the departing GOP majority isn’t likely to use its waning days to try passing anything that Whitmer would veto.

“I hear rumors we might not even be doing lame duck,” said state Rep. John Damoose, R-Harbor Springs. “I’m frustrated, because I have some bills I’d like to see passed.”

Currently, the House is scheduled to meet for six days — Dec. 6-8 and 13-15 — but some of those session days could be canceled, and others will likely be filled with departing lawmakers’ farewell speeches rather than legislative deliberations.

House Republican spokesperson Gideon D’Assandro said leaders haven’t yet confirmed a schedule for the lame duck period. Senate GOP spokesperson Matt Sweeney did not respond to questions about lame duck plans.

“Lame duck is likely to be a tame duck,” said state Sen. Jeff Irwin, an Ann Arbor Democrat. “There’s not going to be a flurry of crazed action, as is sometimes the case, which is unsurprising. What happened during the election doesn’t create a ton of incentive for anyone to do that.”

In 2018, Democratic lawmakers accused the Republican majority of overreaching in the weeks before Whitmer took power.

Among the lame-duck laws passed then was an unpopular GOP-backed law requiring the Michigan Department of Education to grade schools on an A to F scale so that parents could better gauge performance.

Starting Jan. 1, Democrats will control both houses of the Legislature. Even so, there would be no reason now for Republicans to ram through something partisan just to have Whitmer veto it, said Ellen Lipton, chairperson of the Michigan State Board of Education Legislative Committee and a former Democratic legislator.

Rather than picking fights, Lipton said, lawmakers will be looking for easy wins on issues where there’s general agreement and on bills that have already passed one of the two chambers.

One package of bills that fits those criteria would provide help for students with dyslexia, a learning disorder that can affect word recognition and reading ability.

The bills would require schools to screen for dyslexia, provide extra support for struggling students, and ensure that all students receive phonics-based reading instruction. They passed the Senate unanimously in May but stalled in the House Education Committee.

The departing committee chairperson, Pamela Hornberger of Chesterfield Township, who lost a tight state Senate race, has not said why the bills haven’t been scheduled for a hearing.

Irwin, who has been shepherding the bills through the Legislature, said there’s still time.

“It’s one of those few (packages) that is completely bipartisan,” he said. “It promotes literacy. It will help thousands and thousands of kids. Employers support it. And it’s gotten a tremendous amount of support.” And, he said, declining reading proficiency underscores the urgency of passing the bills.

“If we pass these bills and bring phonetic awareness back into the classroom we’re going to help thousands of kids learn to read earlier and better,” Irwin said.

A couple of other bills have also passed one chamber and could be taken up by the other during the lame duck session.

Programming could count as a language credit

One bill would allow computer programming courses to replace world language credits required for high school graduation. It passed the House 59-49 in May and is now teed up for a vote in the Senate Committee on Education and Career Readiness.

Committee Chairperson Lana Theis, a Brighton Republican, has not said publicly whether she plans to schedule a vote.

The Republican bill had some crossover support from Democrats in the House. It has the backing of the business community, which says computer programming is a skill relevant to future jobs.

The Michigan Department of Education opposes the bill.

Whitmer has not taken a public position.

WorkKeys test could be optional

The House in July 2021 overwhelmingly passed a bill that would eliminate a requirement for high school juniors to take the WorkKeys career readiness test.

Districts or individual students could still opt in, and the state would cover the cost of the test, under the legislation.

Michigan juniors have been taking the test since 2007, when it became part of the Michigan Merit Exam. The state spends about $4.4 million a year for about 105,000 students to take the test.

Proponents of the legislation say that money could be better spent on Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams most test-takers now pay for themselves.

Opponents say the WorkKeys tests help employers evaluate workers and help students discover career pathways.

The Senate education committee held hearings on the bill earlier this year and recommended passage. It now awaits action on the Senate floor.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan Democrats sweep State Board of Education, university races

2022-11-09T22:24:09+00:00

In a year in which education debate has been dominated by Republican culture war attacks — from LGBTQ inclusivity to the teaching of critical race theory — Democrats swept contested races on Tuesday in a slate of university and K-12 board races in Michigan.

Democrats Pamela Pugh and Mitchell Robinson took two contested seats on the State Board of Education, which sets education standards for Michigan schools. Their victories maintained a Democratic majority on the board, and denied openings to Republican candidates who argued that schools were indoctrinating students on Communist, Marxist, and “perverted” ideologies.

Pugh, an incumbent, took just over 25% of the statewide vote, while Robinson captured just over 24%.

Democrats also took the two contested seats on each of the governing boards for the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University, according to unofficial results from all 83 counties.

Republican activists and parents groups had framed the state’s education debate this election year on “parental rights,” seeking to rid the public schools of so-called “woke” ideology on race, history, and other subjects, while also saying they were frustrated by schools that they felt weren’t transparent about lesson plans and diversity initiatives.

To be sure, a number of parental rights candidates secured positions on local school boards Tuesday. But on board openings put to statewide votes, they were shut out.

The eight-member State Board of Education (SBE) serves staggered, eight-year terms. The board currently tilts 5-2 in favor of Democrats, with two Democratic seats being the ones up for election this year. (There is also a pending vacancy following the departure of another Democrat member in the summer. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is expected to fill that opening, presumably with a Democrat.)

Michigan also elects boards at its three largest universities by statewide vote. The MSU board is receiving extra scrutiny after years of criticism and infighting over the university’s failure to improve policies and protections dealing with sexual misconduct.

Here is who won each of the races.

State Board of Education

Pugh and Robinson won their races Tuesday over Republicans Tamara Carlone and Linda Lee Tarver. Robinson squeezed past Carlone for the second seat by less than a single percentage point.

Pugh, of Saginaw, is the current vice president of the board and previously worked in public health roles. She is the co-founder of Regeneration, LLC, a “catalyst for economic sustainability and healthy urban communities,” according to her biography on the Board of Education website.

Robinson, of East Lansing, defined himself as a “career educator” with more than 40 years of experience. He is currently an associate professor of music education at Michigan State University.

Current SBE President Casandra Ulbrich, also a Democrat, chose not to run for reelection.

Republicans Carlone and Tarver had been vocally critical of the public education system, accusing schools of liberal “indoctrination” and keeping parents out of education decisions.

The state superintendent, Michael Rice, who is hired by the board, had come under fire recently over teacher training videos. One video showed an instructor suggesting that there may be circumstances in which a teacher might not let parents know about how their children identify at school about their gender identity or sexual orientation.

Rice defended the videos, saying that schools want to partner with parents but there may be some instances where revealing a student’s gender identity or sexual orientation to a parent without that student’s consent could put a student’s safety in jeopardy.

Michigan State University Board of Trustees

Three of Michigan’s 15 public universities have governing boards that are elected by statewide vote.

At Michigan State University, incumbent Renee Knake Jefferson won along with newcomer Dennis Denno. Jefferson won 24.9% of the vote while Denno received 24.4% of the vote. The two Democrats edged out Republicans Mike Balow (24.2%) and Travis Menge (23.2%).

The board currently has five Democrats and three Republicans. That will shift to six Democrats and two Republicans once Denno replaces Trustee Melanie Foster at the beginning of 2023.

Michigan State University interim president Teresa Woodruff started in her new role last Friday. She replaced Samuel Stanley Jr., who resigned after citing his lack of confidence in the MSU board, which appeared to share the same sentiment about Stanley, with several members questioning whether he had complied with university safeguards relating to sexual misconduct.

University of Michigan Board of Regents

Democratic incumbents Michael Behm and Kathy White each earned another term. White received 25.2% of the vote while Behm received 24.6%.

They beat Republicans Lena Epstein (23.9%) and Sevag Vartanian (22.3%).

Their reelection means that Democrats’ current 6-2 advantage on the board will not change.

Santa Ono, the new university president, started in mid-October. He has already announced the creation of a new ethics and compliance office in response to U-M’s own faltering response to years of sexual assault and misconduct by faculty and staff. He told Bridge Michigan he is listening to faculty, students, state leaders, and general community members to see what the university’s future should look like.

Wayne State University Board of Governors

Both Democrat incumbent Marilyn Kelly and newcomer Danielle Atkinson earned about 24.9% of the vote Tuesday, with Kelly earning slightly more votes.

Atkinson will replace Democrat Dana Alicia Thompson, who decided not to run for reelection. Democrats will retain a 6-2 majority.

Current Wayne State University President M. Roy Wilson announced he will step down from his role next summer. The board is in the process of finding a new president.

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

Governor’s election: Michigan voters give Gretchen Whitmer a second term

2022-11-09T15:07:54+00:00

Tudor Dixon worked to make the election about parents’ rights and school choice, but in the end, Michigan voters chose Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who ran on her record rather than an ambitious education plan for sweeping change.

The incumbent Democrat touted her accomplishments, including closing the school funding gap and tripling the number of school literacy coaches, but she faced criticism over decisions she made in 2020 around pandemic-related school closures and mask mandates.

When the Associated Press called the race for Whitmer at 1:20 a.m. Wednesday, she was leading with nearly 52% of the vote.

Later in the morning, Whitmer said “Michigan’s future is bright and we are about to step on the accelerator,” during a speech to supporters and media.

Whitmer said that over the next four years, she wants to build a Michigan “where every person is treated with dignity, can enjoy their personal freedoms, and chart their own path toward prosperity. I promise to be a governor for all of Michigan. I promise to work with anyone who wants to get things done and compete and win against anyone. We’re going to move this state forward. And I am excited about the work we will continue to do together.”

Jenna Bednar, professor of political science and public policy at the University of Michigan, said that though there was frustration during the pandemic, “voters appreciated how hard she worked to increase the funding available for public schools.”

“She didn’t run on a major transformation of the education system” like Dixon did, Bednar said. “She didn’t run saying we need to revamp the curriculum, or ban books, or keep certain ideas out of the classroom. Voters responded to that. They said, ‘Yeah, we don’t need to go there.’”

Whitmer’s win is evidence that voters want a more traditional set of education policies and platforms, said Sarah Reckhow, associate professor of political science at Michigan State University.

Throughout the campaign, Whitmer and Dixon offered vastly differing views on school safety, private school choice, curriculum, Michigan’s third-grade reading retention law, and more.

Reckhow said it’s possible that Dixon’s plan for private school choice didn’t resonate with voters because they have been satisfied with their local public schools even through the pandemic.

She also noted that Whitmer’s campaign focused on traditional Democratic educational values such as increasing school funding and providing more early childhood programs.

A second term gives Whitmer, 51, another chance to advance her agenda of paying teachers retention bonuses and piloting a home-based version of the Great Start Readiness preschool program. She included those items in her 2022-23 school aid budget proposal but was unable to get them through the Republican-controlled Legislature.

She now has the ability to push through these priorities, and others, now that Democrats gained control of both the Michigan House and Senate. It’s the first time in 40 years Democrats will control the governor’s office and the Legislature, according to Bridge Michigan. Their successes are due in part to redistricting.

A Democratic Legislature would mean support for even more school funding, particularly for the neediest districts, said Michael Montgomery, a political scientist and consultant who was chief analyst on the 1989-91 Citizens Education Committee to Improve Public Education in Detroit.

“Mostly, I think she’ll stay the course, making more progress if she has a Democratic Legislature and not making progress with a Republican Legislature,” Montgomery said. “She’s going to keep working.”

Tracie Mauriello covers education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

True or false? Checking 5 education claims from Mich. gubernatorial candidates

2022-11-04T18:20:00+00:00

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says her challenger, Republican Tudor Dixon, downplayed the seriousness of children getting COVID and joked about guns around the time of the deadly Oxford school shooting.

Tudor says Whitmer kept children out of school longer than other governors and that Michigan children are failing in reading under her watch.

As Election Day approaches, Chalkbeat Detroit fact-checked these claims and others related to education. Here’s what we found:

Dixon’s claim: “The truth is (Whitmer) changed over to the Department of Health and Human Services and forced them to close down schools … She had all the power in the state to say no, we’re not going to have our schools shut down, we’re going to make sure that our students are back in person learning, just like other states.”

Dixon’s claim is misleading. Whitmer ordered classroom closures early in the pandemic, but the majority of remote learning was ordered by local school boards based on local COVID conditions, parent preferences, and other factors largely outside of Whitmer’s control.

In March 2020, state leaders across the country, including Whitmer, shuttered classrooms in response to COVID — a highly infectious, deadly illness without any treatments at the time. That summer, Whitmer struck a deal with Republican legislators to allow local school boards to choose between in-person and virtual learning in the fall.

In November 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services closed high schools statewide for about a month in response to a surge in new COVID cases, forcing districts to shift to remote instruction.

That was the last time school closures were required by Whitmer or the Department of Health and Human Services. In January of 2021, Whitmer called on districts to return to in-person learning by March.

Districts’ reopening timelines varied widely. Some kept classrooms open through much of 2020-21, while others — notably in urban areas — stuck with remote learning for the whole year or saw most parents opt for remote learning. School boards based their reopening decisions on parent preferences, local COVID conditions, and the stances of teachers unions, among other factors.

By May 2021, roughly half of Michigan students were learning fully in person, and most of the remainder were enrolled in a hybrid model that included some remote instruction. With the exception of a few remote days in some urban districts during COVID surges, the vast majority of Michigan students attended school fully in person throughout the 2021-22 school year.

Dixon has attacked Whitmer for saying that “kids were out for three months” on her watch. Many students learned remotely for much longer than that. Whitmer later said she was referring only to closures mandated by her administration, which did in fact last about three months.

Dixon’s claim: “What are you going to do to get these kids back on track? We got our reading scores back from the spring, nearly 60% of our third graders failed.”

Dixon ignores Whitmer’s record on education, but her reference to Michigan’s test results is roughly correct.

Students who take Michigan’s statewide exam are categorized as advanced, proficient, partially proficient, or not proficient. On state exams given in the spring, 58% of third graders were not deemed at least proficient.

With help from federal COVID funds, Whitmer signed a record school budget this year, including investments in mental health and teacher recruitment that will help students recover from the pandemic. While Whitmer’s administration was slow to prioritize tutoring as a learning recovery tool, she has since for a $280 million tutoring program.

Whitmer’s claim: “In the same month that the Oxford shooting happened (Dixon) posted a picture of herself with a gun with a caption saying, ‘Gun control means using both hands.’”

Dixon did post the photo and caption on Twitter, but the tweet appeared on Nov. 1, 2021, 29 days before the shooting at Oxford High School, where four students were killed, and six others and a teacher were injured.

Whitmer’s claim: Dixon is “bankrolled by Betsy DeVos. She has endorsed Betsy DeVos’s plan to drain half a billion from our public schools.”

Campaign finance reports show no direct contributions to Dixon’s campaign from Betsy DeVos, the former U.S. secretary of education, or her husband, former Amway CEO Dick DeVos.

But the pro-voucher DeVos family has contributed heavily to political action committees that support Dixon and her top education initiatives, making the DeVoses indirectly among her top financial supporters.

The DeVoses contributed $2.6 million to Michigan Families United, a super PAC that has spent most of the $7.6 million it raised on television commercials supporting Dixon.

The DeVos family also contributed $7.9 million to Let MI Kids Learn, the super PAC behind a voucher-like tax credit proposal that has been a centerpiece of Dixon’s education platform.

DeVos was the creator of that plan, which is structured to circumvent the state’s constitutional ban on using tax dollars to fund private schools.

Under the proposal, donors would get tax breaks equal to the amount of their scholarship donations. Private school families who meet income qualifications could receive up to $7,830 per child to offset tuition. Other families could receive up to $500 in scholarships for tutoring, books, speech therapy, or other help to supplement public school education.

The scholarships are estimated to cost $500 million a year in money that would otherwise be collected as tax revenue that goes toward state services including public safety, transportation, corrections, public schools, and health and human services.

It isn’t clear whether all of that $500 million would otherwise go into the school aid budget, but it is likely that public schools would be affected by decreased state revenue.

Whitmer’s claim: “Mrs. Dixon … said kids couldn’t get COVID.”

Dixon has repeatedly denied she said that, but her statements were captured on video.

On America’s Voice Live, a conservative talk show she hosted, Dixon downplayed the risks of children getting and spreading COVID.

On one 2020 episode, she said, “A lot of people would say that there is no evidence that shows that kids can transmit the virus, and so now they’re wondering, should kids have even been taken out of school because they’re not transmitting the virus.”

On another, she said that “this is not a virus that affects the young students.”

In fact, children are susceptible to COVID, although typically their symptoms are less severe. Nearly 14.9 million children are reported to have tested positive, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. That’s 18.3% of all cases.

And researchers found that children can transmit COVID, more likely to adults than to other children.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Tracie Mauriello covers statewide education policy for Bridge Michigan and Chalkbeat Detroit. Contact Tracie at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

New scholarships aim to make college more attainable in Michigan

2022-10-28T12:00:00+00:00

Grace Fawcett is intent on becoming a radiology technician.

She’s been looking into colleges that have radiography programs and recently settled on Jackson College. Now all she needs is $7,080 a year for in-state tuition and fees.

The new Michigan Achievement Scholarship will take care of a third of it if she qualifies, and that’s a big relief to Fawcett, a senior at Niles High School in West Michigan.

The program was introduced by Republican state Sen. Kim LaSata of Hagar Township in Berrien County and was signed into law this month. Income restrictions are low enough that 94% of community college students and more than 75% of students at Michigan’s four-year schools will be eligible.

“This is an absolute game changer for kids who are on the fence because they’re not sure about their financial status in terms of paying for college,” said Stiles Simmons, superintendent of Westwood Community Schools in Dearborn Heights.

Starting with the class of 2023, eligible high school graduates can receive between $2,750 and $5,500 per year.

The funding is guaranteed for students who have lived in the state for at least a year, will attend a Michigan college full time, and whose family contribution to college expenses is expected to be less than $25,000 per year based on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA.

That’s much higher than the threshold for other kinds of aid such as federal Pell Grants, which are available to students whose expected family contribution is less than $5,846.

The higher contribution limit for the new Achievement Scholarship will capture a lot of middle-income students who wouldn’t qualify for other aid, LaSata said.

“This gets up into the middle class, and that was a priority for me to be able to get scholarships into the hands of as many students as possible,” she said. “I want to help as many students as possible in getting a degree.”

The scholarship program is estimated to cost $169 million in the 2023-24 school year and to grow to $562 million in four years.

Students who complete the FAFSA automatically will be considered for the Michigan Achievement Scholarship. Fifty-two percent of Michigan seniors already fill out the FAFSA to be eligible for federal loans and other grants.

“It’s nice that it notifies people without them really having to apply,” said Fawcett, 19. Many of her friends probably don’t know about the new scholarships and wouldn’t know to apply if they had to do it separately from the FAFSA, she said.

She expects to be eligible for $2,750 a year for up to three years, the amount designated for community college students. Students who attend an in-state private college or university can receive $4,000 per year for up to five years, and those attending one of Michigan’s 15 public universities can receive $5,500 for up to five years.

The new law also creates the Michigan Achievement Scholarship Private Training Program to provide up to $2,000 per year for two years for students to attend trade schools or receive other occupational training. To qualify, applicants must have lived in Michigan for a year, apply for all other available aid, and not have previously earned a college degree.

“Is it a cure-all that’s going to fix everything? No,” said Onjila Odeneal, Michigan director of policy and advocacy for the Institute for College Access and Success. “Is it going to encourage some students who otherwise wouldn’t have gone (to college) because of the cost? Yes.”

A state university student going to school for five years could wind up receiving $27,500, noted Dan Hurley, CEO of the Michigan Association for State Universities.

That’s significant, he said.

“This is supplanting monies that would be paid for out of family savings or student loans, and it may reduce the amount of hours that students have to work, whether during the school year or during the summer,” Hurley said.

It could be enough of an incentive for students to spend their post-secondary years in Michigan, and to stay after graduation to join the workforce, Hurley said.

“It’s a remarkably smart investment on the part of state lawmakers,” Hurley said. “It’s synergistic in terms of retaining young, degreed adults in the state as well as sending a strong message to employers and prospective future employers that we are a state that’s serious about building out a more talented workforce.”

Fawcett’s classmate Melody Palafox is considering both in-state and out-of-state schools. The scholarship is one more factor to weigh as she makes her decision. Choosing an out-of-state school would make her ineligible.

“For me personally, any amount of money is helpful,” said Palafox, 17, who will be the first person in her family to attend college.

In-state tuition at the state’s four-year public universities ranges from $10,800 at Saginaw Valley to $17,296 at Michigan Tech. Simmons said a $5,500 scholarship could make a difference, especially when combined with federal aid and other scholarships and grants students may receive.

For some, it could be the last chunk they need to be able to go to school, he said.

“At the center of this is hope,” Simmons said, “especially for low-income students or students who are the first to attend college in their families. This is hope. This reduces the financial barrier to college that so many of our families face.”

Fewer than 50% of Westwood students go on to college or a post-secondary job certification program, Simmons said. Michigan Achievement Scholarships could increase that, he said.

“I’m really over the moon about this because, in my mind, it places my students in a very advantageous situation regarding their post-secondary options,” he said. “It provides meaningful post-secondary opportunities.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Sparks fly over test scores, books, school safety in second Michigan debate

2022-10-26T13:50:53+00:00

Tudor Dixon and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer traded barbs over books, guns, and test scores Tuesday during an acerbic debate at Oakland University.

Dixon, the Republican challenger from Norton Shores, accused the incumbent Democratic governor of driving down test scores by keeping schools closed too long during the pandemic.

Whitmer accused Dixon of promoting a plan that would divert money from public schools to for-profit private ones.

It was the second and last debate before the Nov. 8 election. Whitmer is leading in the polls, but Dixon has begun to close the gap, according to Real Clear Politics.

The hour-long debate came a day after National Assessment of Education Progress test scores showed Michigan students declined in every grade level since the last round of tests in 2019 before the pandemic. Declines in fourth-grade reading were particularly steep.

The National Assessment of Education Progress, or NAEP, was given to a representative sample of students across the country between January and March to test reading and math proficiency. Known as “the nation’s report card,” NAEP allows state-to-state comparisons.

Dixon blamed the decline on school closures Whitmer ordered to prevent the spread of COVID.

“We are not a Top 10 state,” Dixon said. “We’re not even close. We are actually a bottom 10 state.”

Michigan fourth graders ranked 40th nationally in reading and 35th in math on the NAEP exam. Eighth graders were 23rd in reading and 25th in math. But the rankings can be misleading, since scaled scores in 27 other states were very similar to Michigan.

Test scores are horrible, Dixon said, and Michigan has been slower than other states to implement comprehensive tutoring programs that would help. She has proposed hiring back retired teachers to provide every student 25 hours of tutoring next school year.

She said the state needs to help students get back on track after they were forced to learn online during the pandemic.

Whitmer defended school closures.

“The reason kids were out of school during the pandemic was because we were working off of knowledge from 1918, when kids died from the last global pandemic,” she said. “As a mom, I was thinking about saving the lives of our kids.”

She said the closures lasted three months, which Dixon disputed.

“I think I just heard an audible gasp around town” when she said that, Dixon said. “This is shocking to me that she thinks that schools were only closed for three months — or maybe she thinks she can convince you that schools were only closed for three months, but you know better because your students are the ones that are so desperately behind.”

Whitmer ordered schools closed from mid-March 2020 until the end of that school year. In November of that year, the state ordered high schools closed for nearly a month. Some schools in the state were closed for in-person instruction much longer than the state ordered, but those were individual decisions by local elected school boards.

Whitmer said an unprecedented boost in this year’s school aid budget will provide for tutoring, smaller class sizes, mental health counseling, and literacy coaches that will improve education.

Whitmer also said public schools would suffer under Dixon.

“The problem is, if Mrs. Dixon is elected, she and her biggest funder, Betsy DeVos, will be writing the education budget,” Whitmer said. “And their plan is to take half a billion dollars out of our public school system. If you want to get kids to Top 10 in literacy, draining the school aid fund is not going to get us there.”

The candidates also shared vastly different plans for keeping schools safe from violence. The back-and-forth came a day after the teenager accused in last year’s Oxford High School shooting pleaded guilty to killing four and wounding seven.

Whitmer said she supports background checks, secure storage requirements, and red flag laws that would allow police to temporarily seize guns of people believed to be a present danger to themselves or others.

Dixon wants schools to have armed guards, single points of entry, and training to help educators identify children struggling with mental illness.

“I want to make sure that kids are safe, and I don’t want kids in a sitting-duck zone where the only person that has a weapon is the shooter that is going in to take their lives,” Dixon said.

She also wants the state to implement recommendations from a 2018 School Safety Task Force that called for incentives for school counselors, standardized floor plan maps for schools, more thoughtful active-shooter drills, more training for school resources officers, and more.

Whitmer responded pointedly.

“There was a school shooting in Missouri yesterday in a district that had exactly what she just described: one point of entry, armed guards in the school, and people are dead,” Whitmer said.

She circled back to guns later in the debate, accusing Dixon of worrying more about books in schools than weapons in them.

“Do you really think books are more dangerous than guns?” Whitmer asked her. “Do you really think that books pose a greater danger to our kids than gun violence does?”

Dixon has made book banning a campaign issue, calling sexually explicit material in some school libraries pornographic.

“These are books that are describing to children how to have sex, and parents are outraged about it across the state,” she said. “I stand with those parents that want to make sure we go back to the basics of reading, writing, and math in our schools.”

Whitmer said parents have the right to tell teachers they don’t want their children to have access to particular lessons or materials. She said Dixon is using the local issue as a distraction from more important issues.

They also offered differing perspectives on abortion, inflation, tax plans, balanced budgets, energy costs, the opioid epidemic, and state infrastructure.

Whitmer and Dixon’s first debate was Oct. 13 in Grand Rapids. The two also responded separately to questions, but did not debate, last week at the Detroit Economic Club.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

New Michigan law requires school districts to post parents’ rights

2022-10-24T20:00:00+00:00

It’s been 45 years since Michigan lawmakers passed a law guaranteeing parents the right to direct the education of their children.

Now lawmakers want to make sure parents know about it.

A new law enacted last week requires school districts and the Michigan Department of Education to prominently post excerpts of the 1976 law in school offices and rooms where boards of education meet. They also will be required to post an excerpt from the Michigan Constitution affirming the importance of religion and morality as a premise for encouraging education.

“This will serve as a visible and valuable reminder that parents have a fundamental right to direct the education of their children,” said Republican state Rep. Annette Glenn of Midland who sponsored the bill.

The law comes against a backdrop of volatile and politically charged school board meetings in Michigan and around the country, as conservative groups and community members challenge officials over what books are available in schools, how racism is taught, and whether districts should limit transgender girls’ participation in school sports.

The law requires that the following language be posted:

From the Michigan Constitution: “Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”
From the school code: “It is the natural, fundamental right of parents and legal guardians to determine and direct the care, teaching, and education of their children. The public schools of this state serve the needs of the pupils by cooperating with the pupil’s parents and legal guardians to develop the pupil’s intellectual capabilities and vocational skills in a safe and positive environment.”

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed the bill into law last week. Education officials have until Jan. 1 to post the notices in rooms where school boards conduct their meetings, in school offices and administrative buildings, in the principal’s office or chief administrator’s office in every school, in every building operated by the Michigan Department of Education, and in the state board meeting room. in rooms where school boards conduct their meetings, in school offices and administrative buildings, in the principal’s office or chief administrator’s office in every school, in every building operated by the Michigan Department of Education, and in the state board meeting room.

The law doesn’t specify the size or format of the required notice.

The language also must appear in training materials provided to employees of the Michigan Department of Education and state Board of Education.

The House and Senate passed the legislation 84-20 and 28-5, respectively, on Sept. 28, the Legislature’s last scheduled voting day before the general election. In each chamber, all Republicans and some Democrats voted yes.

Sen. Dayna Polehanki voted no.

“I’m not buying into these efforts to elevate falsehoods that schools aren’t cooperating with parents,” said Polehanki, a Livonia Democrat and former Michigan teacher of the year. “To say schools aren’t cooperating with parents and then to insert some blurb from the constitution about religion and morality, that’s just a pure political game.”

She said it’s a distraction from more important issues.

“This doesn’t raise test scores,” she said. “It doesn’t do anything to promote academic achievement. It’s just a purely political thing introduced at the last minute to fire up their base before the election.”

Glenn introduced her bill in February. She renewed her call for passage late last month after a Michigan Department of Education teacher training video surfaced and enraged many conservatives. In the video, a trainer suggests that teachers can talk with parents about a child’s suicidal thoughts without revealing that gender identity may be a source of the student’s distress.

Republicans including gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon criticized the video as suggesting that teachers keep secrets from parents.

State Supt. Michael Rice defended the video, saying it’s ordinarily the preference of schools to work closely with parents. But under longstanding education policy, schools may be cautious about sharing a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity when a “student is concerned about abuse, neglect, or homelessness if parents are told.” Schools, he said, “have a responsibility not to put children in harm’s way, even inadvertently.”

“Regrettably, public schools have become Ground Zero for the culture wars,” said Marshall Grate, a Grand Rapids-based attorney from the firm Clark Hill who represents many Michigan school districts.

Schools already fulfill their obligation to let parents and others have their say at public meetings and to work with parents to meet individual students’ academic needs, Grate said.

“The clients I work with value parental engagement,” he said in a telephone interview. “There needs to be dialogue going back and forth.”

Posting notices in schools board meeting rooms won’t change anything, said Bob McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance for Michigan, which advocates for schools in the state’s five most populous counties.

“We’re acting as if this is some stand we have to take for parental rights,” McCann said. “Everybody agrees that parents need to play an active role in the decisions being made in their schools, so I’m unclear why this bill is necessary.”

In Niles Community Schools, Superintendent Dan Applegate said he’s glad to post the notices in district buildings.

“I think everybody should be informed of the rights they have,” Applegate said in an interview. “Putting that information up on the wall for when parents walk through, I think it’s a good idea. They may see it and say, ‘I didn’t know about my rights.’”

Applegate said teachers and administrators communicate regularly with parents about both district policy and specific opportunities and challenges for their children. Most of the time, he said, a phone call can alleviate concerns that have triggered volatile school board meetings in other places.

For example, he said, parents have raised concerns over how the district plans to teach about reproductive health. Some have said they want their children to opt out of those lessons, which the district allows.

“They’ll come in and say, ‘I hear you guys are teaching this or that,’” Applegate said. “We’ll say, ‘No. Let’s show you the lesson plan.’ Once they see how we’re doing it, they’re like, ‘That’s fine. We understand that.’”

Most of the time, objections to curriculum are based on misinformation, he said.

“There’s a lot of fearmongering,” he said.

Parents just want to know what’s going on in their schools, and they want to feel heard, Applegate said.

He suspects some of their frustration is that the structure of most school board meetings doesn’t allow for a back-and-forth discussion.

The state Board of Education, for example, has a policy of not responding to public speakers other than to thank them for their comment. As a result, Applegate said, “they feel the school board is not listening.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan state school board race features 8 candidates for 2 seats

2022-10-20T13:41:04+00:00

One is a public health expert. Two have taught college. Two work in real estate. Another is an organizational psychologist. One is an accountant. And all of them want to be members of Michigan’s State Board of Education.

Eight candidates are running for two seats on the board, whose most significant duty is hiring and firing the state superintendent. Most education policy decisions in Michigan are the responsibility of the Legislature and local school districts.

Seven of the candidates responded to a Chalkbeat questionnaire ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

Their responses show stark differences in ideologies and priorities. They offered divergent opinions on how students should learn about racism, whether schools should limit access to controversial books, and whether the state should give tax breaks for vouchers that can be used for private school tuition.

Candidates also weighed in on state Superintendent Michael Rice’s performance. Responses ranged from high praise to a call for his resignation. Read more below in Chalkbeat’s voter guide.

The candidates include two Democrats, two Republicans, two Libertarians, one member of the Working Class Party, and one member of the U.S. Taxpayers Party.

The current board comprises two Republicans and five Democrats, including two whose eight-year terms are ending: incumbent Pamela Pugh and Casandra Ulbrich, the board’s president, who is not standing for re-election.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, is expected to soon appoint an eighth member to replace Democrat Jason Strayhorn, who resigned in July with 5½ years left in his term.

Biographical responses were edited for length and clarity.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Tutoring and teacher retention top Whitmer’s education agenda as she seeks second term

2022-10-13T20:10:21+00:00

Tripling the number of school literacy coaches. Closing the school funding gap. Creating a college scholarship program for education majors.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer counts these among her accomplishments in education. But the incumbent Democrat has more she wants to do if she is reelected.

That includes checking things off her first-term to-do list that got derailed by the pandemic or the Republican-controlled Legislature. It also includes dealing with the effects of the pandemic, such as academic and mental-health setbacks from extended periods of online instruction, and teacher burnout that has led to shortages in districts across the state.

In many ways, Whitmer’s record has been defined by her response to the pandemic. In March 2020, within days of the first confirmed COVID case in the state, she ordered all K-12 public schools closed as a health precaution, and went on to exercise broad emergency powers until the courts and the Legislature reined her in.

The following school year, while other governors pushed for schools to reopen classrooms and get back to normal — some went so far as to ban districts from requiring face masks and threaten to withhold funding — Whitmer remained a prominent advocate of keeping COVID prevention steps in place.

That record has drawn attacks from Republican challenger Tudor Dixon, who has accused Whitmer of “robbing students of their education” by ordering schools closed in 2020 and letting local school officials decide whether and when to resume in-person instruction.

Some of those closures persisted well into 2021, dealing a blow to student learning and mental health.

Whitmer says that helping them on both fronts is a priority heading into 2023. And she has taken advantage of Michigan’s strong economic recovery and federal relief funds to spearhead — in tandem with Republican leaders in the Legislature — unprecedented investment in education and mental health resources for children.

“We’ve got to do everything for our kids to ensure that there are better outcomes for our kids academically,” she said.

More money in school aid budget

Whitmer, 51, was a longtime state legislator from East Lansing before she was elected governor in 2018. Her mother and grandmother were teachers. Her grandfather was superintendent of the Pontiac School District. Both she and her children attended Michigan public schools.

“That’s why the work I’ve done has been centered around public education — protecting it and making greater investment,” she said.

On her watch, and following negotiations with the GOP-controlled legislature, the state’s school aid budget has grown from $14.8 billion to $19 billion, with a big boost in the latest budget for special education, mental health services, and teacher retention programs.

Meanwhile, she stymied efforts by conservatives to steer public dollars toward private schools, vetoing a voucher-like program for reading scholarships.

Going forward, Whitmer said she wants to provide a tutor for every child and create individualized learning plans.

Yet Michigan under Whitmer was slower to propose a comprehensive tutoring plan than other states that had big academic losses from the pandemic. While many other states were investing federal COVID relief money in statewide tutoring programs, and Michigan voters identified tutoring as a top priority, Whitmer didn’t make it a key part of her initial plan for the federal money. Months later, she proposed a $280 million tutoring plan, but only $52 million made it into the state school aid budget.

Whitmer’s campaign didn’t explain why she didn’t embrace tutoring sooner.

Spokeswoman Maeve Coyle noted that Whitmer has made historic investments in education resources, including stronger individualized instruction and more reading coaches. Those coaches are specially trained to help classroom teachers improve reading methods. The $24 million Whitmer negotiated into the school aid budget was enough to increase the number of coaches from 92 to 279 across the state.

Whitmer also increased the state’s investment in school-based mental health services to help students recovering from trauma so they are ready to learn. She wants to do more next year if reelected.

Teacher retention is a priority

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer addresses supporters at a campaign event outside the Trenton Cultural Center.

A second term would mean a second chance to persuade the Legislature to provide retention bonuses for teachers and to pilot a home-based version of the Great Start Readiness preschool program — two of her priorities that Republicans shot down in budget negotiations. Democrats are hoping to not only beat Dixon, but also strengthen Whitmer’s hand by winning control of the Legislature.

Whitmer has portrayed Dixon as an agent of Betsy DeVos, the Trump administration education secretary and longtime proponent of private-school vouchers and other initiatives that would steer taxpayer dollars to private schools to promote school choice.

DeVos — who helped bankroll a campaign for a ballot initiative to allow people to claim tax credits for contributions to scholarship accounts for private schools and education services — was a major financial backer of Dixon’s campaign. .

“She and Betsy DeVos are arm-in-arm, and this is DeVos’ agenda to starve public schools of resources, to divert them to for-profit charters or parochial schools,” Whitmer said in a recent interview. “This is a dangerous strategy for Michigan and it will leave a lot of kids behind.”

Education advocates project the plan could reduce tax revenue by as much as $500 million.

“That would be devastating, and that’s why I think that public education is very much on this ballot,” Whitmer said.

Supporters at a recent campaign rally in Trenton, downriver from Detroit, said they appreciate Whitmer’s focus on teacher recruitment and retention at a time of worsening staff shortages and declining interest in teacher preparation programs.

“She’s being very intentional about empowering teachers and getting them what they need,” said Velma Jean Overman, 67, of Inkster, who attended the rally with her 6-year-old granddaughter.

Whitmer’s four-year plan to offer teachers annual retention bonuses of up to $4,000 was another casualty of battles with the Legislature, but it will likely be back on the table if she is reelected.

“If we ask people to go into this critical work, they’ve got to be able to make a good living, and be treated with respect, and have the support to be successful,” Whitmer said.

She said she hopes that in November, voters will elect moderate senators and representatives who will be more receptive to retention bonuses and her other education initiatives.

“We can’t look at one another as the enemy,” she said. “We’ve got to be partners. When we’re successful in public education, it helps every child no matter what household they live in or what the politics of the community are.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Dixon focuses on parents’ rights in final weeks of gubernatorial campaign

2022-10-13T20:00:00+00:00

Tudor Dixon said she is trying to motivate the “silent Republicans” who quietly support her campaign for governor, but it’s the bold and boisterous who have been turning up at her campaign rallies.

Their shouts of “Amen!” and “That’s right!” punctuated her speech to a packed dining room last week at Marlena’s Bistro and Pizzeria in Holland, Michigan.

It was the fourth stop on her “Michigan is Open for Business” tour meant to highlight entrepreneurs who, like restaurant owner Marlena Pavlos-Hackney, were punished for failing to heed emergency closure orders as a public health precaution during the early months of the COVID pandemic.

But Dixon spent nearly a third of her 22-minute speech talking about education policy and the distrust of the public school system that she says sparked her campaign for governor.

Dixon, 45, of Norton Shores, left her family’s steel foundry five years ago to found the right-leaning Lumen Student News to counter what she has called an “anti-American vibe” in schools around the country. That effort led to her role as a conservative media commentator and, now, a candidate for governor.

“The beginning of me moving into the political world was seeing that we need to bring back American pride and make sure kids understand that we need to defend our freedoms,” Dixon said in an interview this week. “It’s about making sure our kids understand our government system, how it is the best form of government, and why.”

Dixon’s primary run was propelled by endorsements and financial contributions from the DeVos family: former Amway CEO and 2006 gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos and former Trump administration Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The billionaire Grand Rapids couple has been a driving force behind initiatives around the country to steer public money to private schools.

Dixon was an early proponent of the latest DeVos-backed proposal to sidestep Michigan’s constitutional ban on using public money for private schools. The voucher-like plan would allow Michiganders to contribute to scholarship accounts that could be used for private school tuition or extra educational support such as tutoring. They would then receive an equivalent tax credit.

“The state should allow educational freedom that would allow parents to not be stuck and not be beholden to a broken system,” she said, noting that Michigan’s test scores are lower than other states and falling. “We need to start funding the students, not funding the system.”

Dixon focuses agenda on parents’ rights

Since securing the GOP nomination in August, Dixon has been talking less about school choice and more about other educational culture-war issues that have flared across the country.

She has backed conservative parents’ mission to restrict students’ access to books with sexual content. She has proposed a bill to prohibit transgender students from playing on girls’ sports teams, and another to bar teachers from talking about gender identity or sexual orientation with students under fourth grade. And she has called for state Superintendent Michael Rice’s resignation over a state training video for teachers dealing with LGBTQ students who may be suicidal.

In the video, which Rice later defended, a trainer tells teachers that they can talk to parents about a student’s suicidal thoughts without revealing that gender identity is a source of their distress if the student is not ready to share that information with family. MDE has said the training acknowledges that coming out to parents may expose some children to more harm.

But to Dixon, it all comes down to parents’ rights.

“Parents want to know exactly what’s happening in the classroom,” she told reporters after a recent campaign event. “When you see the Department of Ed has come out and said we’re going to keep secrets from parents, that’s where the distrust starts.”

Dixon’s four daughters no longer attend public schools. They enrolled in private school in fall 2020 because Dixon said she and her husband wanted them to be in classrooms, not learn remotely. By that time, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s emergency executive order closing public schools was no longer in effect, but many local districts were choosing to stick with teaching remotely as a health precaution. Dixon said her children remain in private school now because of the quality of education, particularly around civics.

She wants public school students to have that kind of instruction, too. That’s why she wants to require an elementary civics curriculum that focuses on the U.S Constitution and the roles and responsibilities of government envisioned by America’s founding fathers.

Michigan law already requires civics classes at the high school level, but it also requires that instruction “shall begin not later than the opening of the eighth grade.” Dixon wants to ensure students receive that instruction in earlier grades.

She has said she wants to prohibit the teaching of critical race theory, a college-level framework that focuses on the enduring effects of systemic racism.

Critical race theory is not typically taught in K-12 schools. But Dixon’s opposition to it still resonates with supporters like Robin Mulder, 61, a grandmother of seven who attended Dixon’s rally at Marlena’s.

“They’re teaching these kids to hate one another,” Mulder said in the parking lot where she waited more than an hour for a glimpse of Dixon. She arrived too late to get inside the restaurant but caught a shortened version of Dixon’s stump speech outside.

Mulder supported Republican Garrett Soldano in the primary but now stands firmly behind Dixon.

“Anyone who is going to protect the rights of classroom children to learn … and protect the rights of parents to be involved in education” has her vote, Mulder said.

Dixon would subject curriculum to parental review

In an interview this week, Dixon said parents’ rights and student achievement are her top education priorities.

That’s why she wants to require teachers to post curricula, assignments, lesson plans, and books online for parents to review before the start of school each year. Many already do. A similar proposal was introduced in the Republican-led state House in February but has not moved through committee.

Dixon also wants to close loopholes in the state’s controversial read-by-grade-three law, which calls for students to be held back from fourth grade if they are more than a grade level behind in reading skills. The law provides for broad exemptions and gives superintendents enough leeway that hardly any students are actually held back. Dixon wants far fewer exceptions, so that children don’t advance to fourth grade unless they are competent readers.

Opponents of the law note that research shows retention has negative long-term effects on mental health, self esteem, and high school graduation rates. In one Harvard study, though, third-graders in Florida who were left back made significant short-term gains in reading and math and were better prepared for high school.

To resolve the state’s literacy problem and to help students recover from learning loss during the pandemic, Dixon proposes to provide 25 hours of tutoring to every student over the course of next school year, even though school districts already are having trouble finding enough tutors for existing programs.

Dixon said she would provide incentives to encourage retired teachers to return as tutors, but has not provided any details.

She also wants to provide merit pay to help retain high-quality classroom teachers.

“At the end of the day, we want more money flowing into teachers’ pocketbooks and classrooms, and less into buildings and bureaucracy,” she said.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan’s ban on public dollars for private schools survives challenge

2022-09-30T22:30:00+00:00

Michigan’s prohibition on public funding for private schools remains intact after a federal judge dismissed a legal challenge to that rule in the Michigan Constitution on Friday.

The case, brought by five families with the support of the free-market Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, argued that Michigan’s constitutional ban on public funding for private education violated the U.S. Constitution. The families want to use their tax-protected Michigan Education Savings Program accounts to pay tuition at private, religious K-12 schools.

The savings accounts were designed for college expenses, but the plaintiffs and the state disagreed as to whether K-12 expenses are eligible after a 2017 change to federal tax law.

“There is nothing of record that shows Michigan approving any tax-advantaged use of MESP funds for any grade or secondary school expense in either private or public education,” wrote U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker in Michigan’s Western District.

The Mackinac Center said in a statement Friday it plans to appeal the ruling.

In 1970, voters approved an amendment to Michigan’s Constitution that prohibits public financial aid to any nonpublic school. The plaintiffs alleged the clause violates their First Amendment religious rights and the equal protection clause in the U.S. Constitution. While the provision in the Michigan Constitution doesn’t single out religious schools, the plaintiffs argued that it was motivated by anti-Catholic sentiment, pointing to rhetoric used during the amendment campaign five decades ago.

But Jonker, nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush, wrote that Michigan’s private school provision is “neutral on parochial education” on its face, and that there was no precedent supporting the use of the plaintiffs’ “narrow political process theory” — that the amendment was motivated by discriminatory sentiment — in a tax law case.

Many state constitutions include some prohibition on public funding for private schools, but most focus on parochial schools alone. Michigan’s focuses on all private schools — making no distinction on whether they are parochial or secular — which is why it was not affected by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down a so-called Blaine Amendment case in Maine. The Maine suit focused on state funds that were sent to private rural schools that were secular, but not to religious-based rural schools.

The Michigan lawsuit is part of a two-pronged effort by school-choice advocates to provide state support to parents who want to send their children to private school.

A ballot initiative backed by former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos would use a system of tax breaks to fund both public and private school scholarships for K-12 students. While backers of the initiative missed a June deadline to file signatures, they are still hoping the Michigan Legislature will vote on the issue this fall or next year.

If the scholarships program is passed into law, opponents plan to file a lawsuit claiming that the policy violates the Michigan Constitution.

Yom Kippur conflicts with student count day in Michigan schools

2022-09-26T12:00:00+00:00

Superintendents will be counting Michigan students Oct. 5, but many children will be out of school observing a major Jewish holiday.

It’s a crucial day for Michigan school districts trying to maximize state funding, but this year it coincides with Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year when the observant fast, pray, and abstain from work and school.

By law, state education funding to Michigan public schools is based largely on student attendance on the first Wednesday of October. At stake is at least $9,150 per student, the base funding provided for in the state school aid budget.

Districts with large Jewish populations including West Bloomfield and Walled Lake close on Yom Kippur. State law allows those districts to apply for waivers, and the Michigan Department of Education has granted five of them, allowing those districts to use Thursday Oct. 6 as count day instead.

But it’s more complicated for schools that are in session that day but have students who observe Yom Kippur.

“There is no provision in current state law that permits the state superintendent to provide a waiver for a local school district that is in session on count day,” state Assistant Superintendent Kyle Guerrant wrote last week in a memo to superintendents.

Those districts can count missing students if their absences are excused and if they return to school within 30 days and attend all scheduled classes. Absences for religious observances are considered excused.

That’s helpful but it isn’t fair, said Jeanice Swift, superintendent of Ann Arbor Public Schools, which will be in session on Yom Kippur. She wants the same flexibility as districts that aren’t in session – to move count day to a date that isn’t a religious holiday.

Having a high-stakes school day on a religious holiday conflicts with her district’s core value of respecting different faiths, Swift said.

More than a decade ago, the district convened a group of community faith leaders to create a calendar of religious holidays and to rank the observances by significance. They designated Yom Kippur a three-star holiday, the highest category. The district prohibits major exams, reviews for major exams, standardized tests, sports and arts tryouts, and major events like proms on three-star days. Other three-star holidays are Ramadan, Rosh Hashanah, Christmas, Epiphany, Passover, Holy Friday, Palm Sunday, Eid al-Fitr, and Eid al-Adha.

“It’s a model that has been emulated across the country because it really is a community coming together to observe and respect each others’ holiest days,” Swift said. “It’s about providing sensitivity to sacred days across the most practiced religions in our community.”

Guerrant said he understands that argument, but state law doesn’t allow waivers for districts that remain in session on the holiday.

“This is a very important day to the Jewish community and having this overlap with count day feels disrespectful,” Guerrant said in a telephone interview. “We understand and appreciate those concerns but we’re in a bind in the sense that we don’t have the ability to provide a waiver because of the way the law is structured right now.”

Swift said she has spoken with lawmakers about amending the law but legislation has not yet been introduced.

For now, MDE will work with districts to ensure every student is counted, Guerrant said.

“We want to make sure a district is not penalized financially,” he said. “We want to make sure they don’t miss a student.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

LGBT training video for Michigan teachers rankles Republicans

2022-09-20T22:40:32+00:00

Bryce was 14 when he came out to his father. He was 12 when he came out to his mother. But he was just 10 when he came out in elementary school.

“In school, being trans is very awful,” said Bryce, now 19. “It is horrible.”

But for him, he said, it would have been worse at home.

When he finally did come out, he said, his parents ridiculed him. His father refused to call him “son,” he said, and his stepmother locked him outside in a rage.

“They were very aggressive and immature and emotionally abusive,” said Bryce, who lives in a rural area in the Lower Peninsula. He asked Chalkbeat to withhold his last name and town out of fear for his safety.

Bryce said being able to be himself at school saved him. He would bind his chest with an Ace bandage every morning in the middle school locker room to hide the shape of his body beneath a loose hoodie.

“I don’t think I’d even be alive now, to be honest,” he said. “I’m very lucky to be here today.”

Now he worries about other trans schoolchildren in light of a controversy that erupted last week over teacher training around the care of LGBTQ+ students. The training, from the Michigan Department of Education, exposed a gap between teachers’ obligation to inform parents about potential mental health issues and their responsibility to shield children from potential harm.

The controversy emerged last Wednesday after conservative activist Christopher Rufo tweeted a 43-second video clip excerpted from a nine-hour professional development series offered by the MDE.

In the clip, which was later criticized by both Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her Republican opponent, Tudor Dixon, a trainer suggests that teachers can talk with parents about a student expressing suicidal thoughts, without having to reveal that gender identity or sexual orientation is a cause of their distress.

Rufo tweeted that the clip proves MDE instructed teachers how to “facilitate” transgender students’ transitions and keep their chosen names and pronouns “secret from parents, even if the child is suicidal.” (Rufo is also one of the activists behind the conservative outcry over the teaching of critical race theory in America’s K-12 schools.)

The video, Rufo told Fox News last week, is an example of a way schools nationwide are radicalizing children, and he warned that parents need to be on guard.

MDE calls those accusations “patently false” and said the training helps schools create inclusive environments for vulnerable students who are more likely than classmates to be bullied and to attempt suicide. State superintendent Michael Rice has defended the training as important for teachers to better understand vulnerable students and help them feel safe and accepted in school.

Dixon, who has staked out conservative positions on a range of LGBTQ issues in schools, seized on the video Tuesday to call for Rice’s resignation. “Someone who has such contempt for parents as to instruct staff to hide information from them about their struggling child is unfit to oversee our education system,” she said at a press conference in Lansing, during which she criticized Whitmer for not taking a stronger stand.

Whitmer’s administration has itself raised concerns about the training. On Friday, the state’s chief operating officer, Tricia Foster, sent Rice a letter saying the training video goes outside the scope of his department’s responsibilities and asked him to ensure that trainings “comply with all applicable regulations, maintain department guidelines, and are reflective of best practices.”

Foster’s letter did not specify which regulations, guidelines, and practices she meant, and the governor’s office did not respond to questions.

The guidance in the video is consistent with MDE policy that has been in place since 2016, when the state board adopted guidance for schools around LGBTQ issues.

“The unique needs and concerns of each student should be addressed on a case-by-case basis, with a student-centered approach that includes the ongoing engagement” of the student, relevant school personnel, and parents “except in situations where educators are aware parental knowledge might threaten the student’s safety and/or welfare,” the policy says.

Whitmer campaign spokeswoman Maeve Coyle said that the governor “knows parents are crucial and should be involved in decisions about their children’s education” and that’s why she created the Michigan Parents Council to advise her.

Along with Dixon, the GOP-controlled Michigan Senate also condemned the professional development program in a resolution that passed on party lines. The resolution reaffirms “the fundamental right of parents to direct the education of their children.”

On Friday, the two Republicans on the eight-member state Board of Education also called for Rice’s resignation. Nikki Snyder of Dexter called the videos a “fundamental betrayal” and Tom McMillin of Oakland Township said they were evidence that “the assault on parents and parental rights has ramped up.”

Josh Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University, said the training could have been better but that conservatives are making political hay out of almost nothing.

“There is a silliness to this outrage by the right,” he said. “Some of this is just about scaring parents into thinking they have no agency or oversight of their children. We don’t live in that world.”

But he said MDE made missteps when it provided this training directly to teachers instead of guiding school districts to set up their own policies, ideally calling for consultations with trained mental health providers.

“My experience with MDE is that professional development they develop isn’t entirely based on evidence or rigor,” he said.

Rufo did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

For Bryce, school was the safest place to come out as transgender, and he wouldn’t have done so if he thought his teachers were obligated to tell his parents he had started using a different name and pronouns at school.

He wants it to be safe for other young people to be themselves at school, too.

“There are reasons why people don’t come out to parents, whether it’s safety or their parents aren’t going to accept them,” Bryce said. “I lost my family. That’s why I waited so long.”

He said he understands the view among conservatives like Rufo and Dixon that parents should direct their children’s education and that they need information to do that.

“We aren’t trying to silence the voices of our parents,” he said. “We just want to be in a safe and loving environment while we learn and grow as human beings.”

Siblings Cloud and Seassun Rosenfeld, who have a supportive family, said they didn’t have those kinds of worries for themselves when they came out — but they have friends who are frightened to tell parents they are struggling with gender identity issues.

“If there’s a policy that teachers have to or should tell parents, then kids who live in fear of their parents knowing wouldn’t tell anyone,” said Cloud, a seventh-grader in Ann Arbor who identifies as gender queer.

Cloud put their concerns bluntly: “If a teacher is obligated to tell that a child’s suicidal thoughts are around gender issues, that could result in the child actually committing suicide.”

Their father, Dave Rosenfeld, shares the concern.

“Not all LGBT kids, trans kids, get the support they need at home. That makes it even more important that they get the support they need at school,” he said. “LGBT kids who are not supported, who do not get the support they need, are at a massive risk of bad outcomes” such as running away, homelessness, drug addiction, suicide, and dropping out of school.

As a father, he understands the need for parents to be informed, but he said schools’ first obligation is to protect children from harm.

It’s a tough line for educators to walk, he acknowledged.

“Schools should work together with parents to educate the child, but if there’s any potential danger to the child, you have to respect the child’s choices,” he said. “Have some faith in the competence of children to know if it’s something they’re ready for their parents to know about.”

The uproar over the training videos demonstrates the need for more training around LGBT issues, not less, he said.

“The backlash against that type of professional development is born out of religious fanaticism,” he said. “I find it disgusting, because what they are advocating for … will really cause harm to kids who haven’t done anything wrong at all. All they want to do is get an education like all the other kids.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan school board hears prayers and explicit passages as book wars flare

2022-09-16T18:27:05+00:00

Part prayer service, part sexually explicit read-aloud.

That’s what Michigan Board of Education meetings sound like lately as they’ve become a battlefield for the latest culture war issue: restricting student access to books with sexual content.

Parents have been bringing their concerns to the board during public comment sessions that sometimes last more than two hours. Their pleas are passionate, but they’re also misplaced.

The state Board of Education has no jurisdiction over local school libraries and no power to legislate. That hasn’t stopped parents and conservative activists from queuing up online and in person to have their say at the board’s monthly meetings in Lansing.

“Local superintendents and local school boards look up to the state board to see what their recommendations are, so if the state Board of Education can just affirm what we feel,” that would be helpful, said Bree Moeggenberg, a mother of three and chair of the Isabella County chapter of Moms for Liberty, a conservative nonprofit that has fought school mask mandates and lessons about LGBT rights and critical race theory.

Activists also have been taking their concerns to local school boards, where they’ve met some success, and to public libraries, seeking to defund them over objections to materials in their collections. Just this week, Dearborn Public Schools responded to parent complaints by removing seven library books that depict homosexuality, abuse, and rape.

Advocates for free expression worry that complaints about sexually explicit material might be just the start for conservatives who may ultimately try to restrict access to other kinds of content that they deem objectionable.

Book banning has a long history. In the 17th century, Puritans were burning copies of William Pynchon’s “The Meritorious Price of our Redemption.” Classics like “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “Catcher in the Rye” often appear on banned-book lists because of racial slurs, foul language, violence, and references to drug use.

But banning activity has surged in recent months amid a growing conservative movement to control students’ exposure to lessons about racism, sexism, sexual orientation, and other sensitive topics in public schools. Data collected by PEN America, a group that advocates for free expression in literature, show that school districts across the country banned 1,145 books just between July 2021 and April 2022 — numbers not seen in decades.

In Michigan, growing numbers of parents and activists are showing up to state Board of Education meetings to advocate for stricter regulation of books. Some pray before their testimony. Others warn board members they will go to hell for not working to ban what they see as objectionable books from school libraries. Many dive right in, reading as quickly as they can from the most sexually explicit passages they’ve found in school library books before their three minutes run out and state board Executive Marilyn Schneider cuts them off.

“Dear Lord, I come to you this afternoon to ask you to protect these parents that speak today and are trying to protect their children against the devil that is hard at work,” one caller from Wayne County began on Tuesday. Twelve seconds later the caller, who identified herself only as Billie from Wayne County, read aloud an explicit passage about oral sex from “On the Bright Side, I’m Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God,” which Publishers Weekly classifies as a children’s book.

Board members listened to her and more than 30 other speakers Tuesday but did not respond. They typically refrain from responding during public comment sessions.

Lately, most public comment sessions have been dominated by callers like Billie, but at Tuesday’s meeting, several people offered an alternative perspective. They said many of the books being challenged help readers see themselves in stories so they feel less alone in the world.

“They contain important messages,” Kat Draeger of Fenton, a fifth-year student at Michigan State University, testified on Tuesday. “They help people look at the world through a different lens.”

Reading about bullying, sexuality, and suicide, for example, can help students cope with circumstances they may find themselves in, she said.

She mentioned “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson and “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe — both among the books conservative activists are targeting because of their depictions of sexual assault and gender dysphoria.

“Young people need to learn social skills to understand the world around them and how they fit into it,” Draeger said. “Developing good citizens and healthy people is the job of both Michigan educators and this board. Taking away the ability of young people to better understand the world and themselves should not be this board’s right or responsibility.”

Parents like Moeggenberg say it’s up to parents, not schools, to decide what books are appropriate for their children.

“Some of these books might benefit some students,” she said in a telephone interview Thursday. “Who am I to say what works for somebody else? I would be a hypocrite if I said you had to do what I want and not what works for you.”

Moeggenberg said she would be satisfied if schools were required to notify parents before their children try to access books with sexually explicit content.

Other activists want to keep objectionable books out of schools entirely, though they still bristle at the word “ban.”

“No one is asking for books to be banned,” Jayme McElvany of Monroe told board members at Tuesday’s meeting. “That’s simply a way for you to ignore the fact that you are pushing sexually explicit material on children,” she said before reading book excerpts about anal sex, rape, and incest.

Lisa Querijero, a parent in Ann Arbor, says she trusts a school’s trained librarians to decide what books are appropriate for students.

“I’m here to counter and call out the small vocal minority that are attempting to compromise the integrity of our public schools and our democracy,” Querijero testified in Lansing on Tuesday. “Singling out and censoring books and curriculum is detrimental to creating critical thinkers. It is detrimental to teacher morale and the morale of the state of our public schools in general.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

State board wants to know how Michigan charter schools spend money

2022-09-14T21:57:00+00:00

Michigan charter schools received $1.4 billion in state funding last year. How they spent most of it is a mystery, even to state officials overseeing the education of children who attend them.

The state Board of Education has been trying to find out, but its efforts have been stymied.

Eighty-one percent of Michigan’s 295 charter schools have contracts with private education management companies that are not subject to public disclosure laws. That allows them to skirt disclosure laws by, for example, saying they don’t have payroll records because they don’t employ teachers directly, but rather through a contractor.

MDE filed Freedom of Information Act requests for financial information from 166 charter schools in Genesee, Kent, Oakland, Saginaw, and Wayne counties. Twelve did not respond or declined to provide information even after three requests for information.

Of those responding, 92% contract with private educational management companies, which then provide or subcontract to other vendors. Because they are private companies, the individual expenditures and contracts are considered proprietary and not subject to public disclosure.

Board member Ellen Cogen Lipton, a Democrat, said the rules allow “a magical conversion of taxpayer dollars to be swept into private hands.” Democrats in the Legislature are pushing for stricter disclosure requirements.

Dan Quisenberry, president of the charter school advocacy group Michigan Association of Public School Academies, says charter school operators provide everything the law requires including budgets, audits, staff rosters, annual reports, board minutes, parent satisfaction survey results, contracts, and more.

State Board of Education members say those documents include so few details that it’s often impossible to know how much tax money is going toward education expenses and how much companies keep as profit.

That’s a problem, said board President Casandra Ulbrich.

“All of these schools that we’re talking about here are public schools. Every one of them is using our tax dollars,” said Ulbrich, a Democrat.

The management agreements and budget often aggregate all of those costs into a single line item for purchased services. Those agreements are known as sweep contracts, because they sweep all costs together.

“What you get is a lump sum,” state Superintendent Michael Rice said at a state board meeting on Tuesday. “What the management company does with that lump is what it thinks it needs to do to provide that range of services. We don’t have access to the individual line items.”

Quisenberry said the structure of management agreements is up to the board of each charter school academy.

Sweep contracts are one arrangement, he said. “Boards can and do make changes in those contracts based on their determination of what’s best for the students in their care.”

And, Quisenberry said, they are doing it well.

Board member Tom McMillan said there’s no reason to think charter schools aren’t using the money wisely.

“If they’re able to contract out for some of their administrative staff in order to put more in the classroom for teaching … it seems to me that would be a good thing,” said McMillan, a Republican. “You couldn’t get to find out how much that company is paying its administrators. Nevertheless, the end result might be that the kids are getting better instruction.”

Most charter school boards, though, were unable to provide information MDE requested, including copies of leases and contracts for food service, custodial service, and lawn and grounds service.

“One of them responded that ‘We aren’t providing this to you because we’re not privy to that contract. We don’t hold that contract,’” Alisande Shrewsbury, a special assistant to the superintendent, told board members on Tuesday. “That’s a legal denial of the FOIA, because they don’t hold the contract.” Rather, the private management companies hold them.

Achieve Charter Academy, for example, provided copies of its management agreement with National Heritage Academies, and its lease — just over $1 million a year for a building also owned by National Heritage Academies. But the school denied the board’s request for food service, custodial, and lawn service contracts. National Heritage is the largest charter school operator in Michigan and one of the largest in the country.

“The academy contracts for the above services through a third-party management company by way of an education management agreement and, thus, the academy is not a party to the service contracts,” National Heritage FOIA officer Shane Wilson wrote in response to the information request.

Other charter schools responded similarly.

The lack of information is concerning, said Gary Miron, a professor at Western Michigan University who has been studying the charter school industry for 25 years. It makes it impossible for the public to know how much taxpayer money is being spent on students and how much is going to private management companies.

“You can get a vague general idea of the budget, but we don’t know if that corresponds with reality, because we don’t see the details,” Miron said in a telephone interview.

State Board of Education members are powerless to change the rules regarding disclosure requirements for private companies. That’s why Ulbrich intends to turn to the Legislature for help.

“The next thing to do is a little bit of a deeper dive into the responses we received and come up with some legislative recommendations,” she said.

Some proposals already are in the pipeline. In the spring, Democrats from both chambers introduced the School Freedom, Accountability, and Transparency Act to require more transparency. Their legislation would subject all educational management organizations to the state Freedom of Information Act, which would require disclosure of most documents related to the operation of public institutions and expenditures of tax dollars.

The proposed law would require audits of charter schools, guard against conflicts of interest, and create a process to suspend charter school authorizers that don’t provide proper oversight.

The bills stand little chance of passing this legislative session while both the state House and Senate are under control of Republicans, who largely support looser charter school regulation. There’s a chance that Democrats could regain control of one or both chambers in the November election, and that could make a difference, Miron said.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

End call: Proposed law could prohibit student cellphone use in school

2022-09-12T13:00:00+00:00

Freshman Jude Mys listens to music in the hallways to clear his head between classes at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor.

Junior Jeffrey James texts throughout the day to check in with his girlfriend, senior Mahli Madrid, and confirm after-school plans.

Senior Aniya Kidd uses her phone during the school day to keep track of assignments her teachers post online.

None of that would be permitted under a Michigan House bill that would require school districts to prohibit the use of personal cellular devices during the school day.

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Gary Eisen, a Republican from St. Clair Township, reflects growing concern among Michigan lawmakers and educators about digital distractions in school. As they confront lingering academic and mental-health crises, some districts have cracked down on cellphone use at school, while others have issued stern warnings to parents about the negative effects social media can have on student learning and socialization.

Those who support restrictions on cellphones and social media say stricter rules are likely to help students get back on track after the pandemic pushed many into distraction-ridden online classrooms.

But the bill raises concerns for parents like Symone Wilkes who want their children to be able to reach them in case of emergency.

“You’ve got to think about what’s going on in the world today,” said Wilkes, who has a kindergartener at MacDowell Preparatory Academy in Detroit and a niece at River Rouge High School whom she helps take care of. “There might be another mass shooting. How is a kid going to be able to call the police? They have to wait until the shooting stops to go to the principal’s office to make the call?”

Students say they rely on their phones for day-to-day tasks such as arranging rides home, texting parents, communicating with teachers, and checking online assignments. Some even take notes on mental health triggers that they later share with a therapist, one Pioneer student said.

They also admit to using phones to play games and scroll through social media when they don’t feel like paying attention in class.

“Sometimes it is a distraction, like when you’re just bored so you’re on it,” said Madrid, 16.

Several Pioneer students waiting at a city bus stop after school — most with phones in hand — said they understood banning phones during class time, but not during free time between periods or at lunch.

Those rules should be up to teachers and principals, not state lawmakers, they said.

“For certain students, phones could be a distraction, and if it becomes an issue, that’s between the teacher and that class,” said Kidd, 17.

Jametta Lilly, CEO of the Detroit Parent Network, said she trusts district leaders and charter school operators to put the right rules in place for the communities they serve.

“I’m comfortable with the state requiring school districts to come up with a policy, but I’m uncomfortable with an automatic, flat prohibition,” said Lilly, whose group advocates for quality education for Detroit children.

The two-sentence bill, which is now before the House Education Committee, does not provide for any exceptions. Eisen, the bill sponsor, could not be reached for comment Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.

Currently, cellphone policies are set by local school officials.

A new policy at MacDonald Middle School in East Lansing, for example, requires students to keep their cellphones off and stored during the school day. It also implores parents to keep their children off social networks such as Snapchat and Instagram, calling the sites a “scourge to their childhood, devastating their mental health, sense of safety, and self worth.”

When conflicts arise among students on social platforms, the policy says, school officials will ask parents to deal with the issue in most cases.

“Gone are the days where a child can escape a difficult situation after the school day,” John Atkinson, assistant principal at the school, said in an email. “Now, students endure unimaginable social or emotional distress because they cannot escape it. It’s not just the mean post or picture, it’s all of the ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ that are equally painful… . Can you imagine how painful that would be for a 12-year-old?”

Rylie McClean, a recent graduate of East Lansing High School, said she understands the thinking behind the policy. “My senior year of high school, I was harassed online and in school,” she said in a text message. “The threats got so intense and my mental health got so bad that I ended up missing school.”

But she added that she would struggle without access to her phone during the day, and that she ultimately views social media as a helpful way to meet new people and talk with her friends.

In Reeths-Puffer schools near Muskegon, students may use phones before and after school, at lunch, and during passing time between classes. They are not allowed during class time unless a teacher allows them for an educational purpose.

In the Forest Hills district near Grand Rapids, though, cellphone use is strictly prohibited during the school day.

In Saline Area Schools near Ann Arbor, students are prohibited from using cellphones during the school day unless they have been authorized to use them for a specific purpose.

Sarah Giddings, whose daughters attend Heritage Elementary and Saline Middle School, says that as a parent, she’s OK with that policy. But as an alternative high school teacher and adviser in another district, she isn’t so sure it would work.

Giddings texts with students daily during the school day at Washtenaw Alliance for Virtual Education, which customizes education plans and class schedules to meet the needs of students who aren’t well served in traditional high schools. Instruction is offered both in person and remotely.

Giddings said students feel safer with cellphones nearby, particularly after the shooting a year ago at Oxford High School in neighboring Oakland County.

“I think a lot of high school students are feeling really raw and want to be able to contact their parents in the middle of the day,” she said. “They want their phones nearby and accessible.”

More than 100 students called police from cellphones at Oxford High School on Nov. 30 as a 15-year-old gunman killed four students and wounded many more. Others called and texted loved ones from behind barricaded classroom doors. At least one recorded the chaos in a cellphone video that later went viral on social media.

Wilkes, the Detroit parent, said her 5-year-old son, Dyson, is too young for a cellphone, but he wears a wristwatch that can be used to make video calls. “If it’s an emergency, he knows how to press my picture and call me,” Wilkes said.

Eisen’s bill wouldn’t prevent students from carrying phones — just using them. But Giddings said a strict policy could contribute to students’ anxiety.

Still, she said, a few rules around cellphone use could be helpful.

“Are teenagers making the smartest decisions about cellphones? No they’re not,” she said. “They’re using it as a distraction device like adults do. The difference is they don’t have the self-control to say, ‘This is affecting my work. I need to put it down,’ like an adult would.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan’s ‘partnership’ school turnaround program eased pandemic’s impact, researchers say

2022-09-07T14:36:00+00:00

Michigan’s lowest performing schools struggled last school year, even as pandemic-related challenges such as quarantines lessened, but their problems might have been worse without the extra resources and support provided under a state turnaround program.

Those were among the findings of Michigan State University researchers studying the efficacy of the partnership model, the state program developed to help improve schools with the lowest test scores, attendance, and graduation rates.

In a report released Wednesday, researchers from MSU’s Education Policy Innovation Collaborative found that the program may have mitigated some of the pandemic’s effects on student learning.

The report comes as the Michigan Department of Education prepares to designate another cohort of partnership schools that qualify for extra support based on a new round of standardized test results that showed widespread declines. Those declines mirrored student performance around the country.

“Because of the pandemic and remote learning, almost all the gains that many of our districts/schools had made were erased or almost erased,” the Michigan Department of Education wrote in its response to the report.

EPIC’s study highlights the disproportionate impact the COVID pandemic had on high-poverty areas and communities of color, where partnership schools are concentrated. Researchers hope policymakers use the data to target resources to schools and students who need them most.

MDE said it plans to intensify efforts to address student and teacher absenteeism and to help partnership districts attract and retain certified educators.

“One of the greatest challenges facing partnership districts is human capital,” MDE wrote.

Program assigns goals and resources to schools

Michigan launched the Partnership District Model in 2017 to help improve the state’s lowest performing schools and to meet requirements of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, an Obama-era law that requires states to identify their lowest performing schools and provide comprehensive support to them.

Progress in partnership districts stalled during the pandemic and hasn’t yet recovered, EPIC found.

Yet, students in partnership schools performed comparably to — and in some cases better than — counterparts in demographically and academically similar districts that are not in the partnership program.

“If my child is enrolled in one of these schools, they’re getting extra support, and so I’d rather my child be in this school than one that barely missed the cutoff” for being designated a partnership school, said Katharine Strunk, director of EPIC.

Partnership districts are assigned liaisons who help them develop goals and access resources from the Michigan Department of Education and other agencies and stakeholders. They also receive a share of about $6 million a year in additional state funding — roughly $61,000 for each of the 978 current partnership schools.

Principals say they use that money to improve access to technology, hire more staff, and offer professional development, but told EPIC it hasn’t been enough.

But the ranks of partnership schools are likely to grow, based on recent standardized test results, Strunk says. That means each school’s share of the funding pool will decrease, unless more money is appropriated.

“These districts are the same districts that have been hit hardest by the pandemic, and what they’re going to need is more funding to support their strategies for improving student outcomes,” Strunk said.

How partnership schools addressed pandemic’s effects

Although tutoring is widely seen as an important strategy to address learning loss caused by the switch to online learning and other disruptions, principals of partnership schools told researchers it hasn’t been a priority in their districts.

That doesn’t surprise Strunk.

Successful tutoring programs are hard to implement, and they rely on being able to hire enough staff. Many districts already have trouble filling vacancies, she said. Enrollment in tutoring programs is another obstacle, Strunk said.

“Not just in Michigan but across the country, parents just did not opt in, especially for programs after school or during vacation time,” she said. “It might be because of transportation problems, or it might be because they think their kids have been through enough.”

Instead, partnership districts continued to use strategies already in place before the pandemic. New programs have largely prioritized students’ mental health and behavioral needs, which also grew during the pandemic.

Educators in partnership districts told EPIC researchers in surveys and interviews that their students continue to struggle with emotional challenges of the pandemic, which disproportionately affected their communities.

Sixty-two percent said they believed mental health was a major challenge for their students, and many pointed to inadequate resources to address them.

“We have a high population of students who have experienced trauma, but no one to help them with it, because the social worker is in a classroom substituting,” one teacher told researchers.

Attendance was another substantial challenge researchers identified in partnership districts. Educators told EPIC that student absenteeism was one of the biggest impediments to academic progress.

Updated report card expected in the fall

The state makes partnership designations based on school-level data, not district data. Districts that have at least one partnership school in them are considered partnership districts.

“The theory is that when a school is identified as really struggling, it often is reflective of district systems that have not supported the school,” Strunk said. “If a middle school is failing or struggling, there’s no way the high school and elementary school are doing just fine.”

The goal of the Partnership Model is to raise achievement, reduce dropout rates, and improve attendance and behavior.

Currently, there are 978 partnership schools in 26 partnership districts. Each of them has worked with the Department of Education on a set of goals that will qualify them to exit the program.

The department is expected to release a report in late fall announcing which have met their goals and which additional schools will enter the partnership model this year.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@gmail.com.

Michigan test scores down sharply from pre-pandemic

2022-09-01T21:59:42+00:00

Student scores on Michigan’s standardized test are sharply down from before the pandemic, underlining the severe academic toll of virtual learning and other COVID-related disruptions and traumas.

Last spring, 41.5% of third-graders statewide scored at least proficient in math on the exam, known as the M-STEP. That’s a decline of 5.2 percentage points from 2019, the last time the test was given before COVID-19 shuttered classrooms.

In English language arts, 41.6% of third-graders scored proficient or higher, a decline of 3.5 points from 2019.

With participation in the test returning to normal this spring, the results are among the strongest evidence available of the academic fallout from the pandemic.

“This year’s results indicate that Michigan students are still performing below pre-pandemic levels — with persistent and troubling opportunity gaps for our most underserved students,” Amber Arellano, executive director of the Education Trust-Midwest, a nonprofit education advocacy group, said in a statement. She noted that Michigan has been “behind our peers across the nation for far too long, and long before the pandemic.”

The scores have high stakes for the lowest-scoring students and schools. About 6% of third-graders will be recommended for retention under Michigan’s Read by Grade Three law based on their English language arts skills, though fewer than half of students targeted for retention have been made to repeat third grade in years past.

The scores also play a major role in teacher evaluations and in the letter grades that the state gives to each school. The most academically troubled districts will be put under increased state scrutiny, known as a partnership agreement, that can lead to a takeover or closure if scores don’t improve.

The results also underscore research showing Michigan students learned less in virtual settings during the pandemic. Though many districts that rarely or never resorted to remote classes saw declines, districts that offered the most remote instruction saw some of the biggest drops in scores.

In districts with at least 50 third graders, 127 districts saw the percentage of students scoring proficient or above in English language arts fall by 10 percentage points or more compared with 2018-19. Of those, 22% — or 28 districts — were fully remote for four months or more during the 2020-21 school year, while 54% were fully remote for just one month or none. Of the 37 districts to record gains of 10 percentage points or more, just two were remote for four months, or 5%. Far more — 70%, or 26 districts — were remote just one month or not at all.

Scores are down in most grades and subject areas across the state. For example:

30% of high schoolers who took the SAT surpassed the benchmark college-readiness score in math, down from 36.3% in 2019.
28.4% of sixth graders scored proficient or better on the math M-STEP exam, down from 35.1% in 2019.
43.4% of fourth graders scored at least proficient on the English language arts test, down from 45.8% in 2019.

Amid growing concerns about students’ well-being, Michigan schools are spending billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief to address the academic and emotional impacts of the pandemic. Many educators say the toll would be much worse if not for that additional federal funding, which expires in 2024. This year, they’ll be further aided by a record state education budget that includes extra funding for low-income students and for teacher recruitment and retention.

Schools were required to give the M-STEP in 2020-21, but parents worried about COVID-19 were allowed to opt out. Many did so, and just 70% of students took the test compared with 95% this year, a figure in line with the historical average. Experts noted that comparing statewide results year-to-year doesn’t work when participation rates differ so widely.

Nationally, students are also suffering significant academic losses. The National Center for Education Statistics released nationwide results Thursday of reading and math scores on the NAEP, a test often referred to as the “the nation’s report card.” Reading scores dropped more than they have in over 30 years, and math scores dropped for the first time since the test first began in the early 1970s.

A call for new investments in proven policies

Students who skipped the test last year typically belonged to groups that faced the greatest challenges during the pandemic, including students who had spent the year learning online, students of color, students from low-income families and English language learners, state Superintendent Michael Rice said. The inclusion of those historically lower-scoring students this year may partly explain why statewide scores fell in most grade and content areas compared with last year.

Responding to the new test data, Rice said new investments are needed in evidence-based policies such as smaller class sizes, in-depth professional development, tutoring, and small-group instruction.

“Each of these things has a disproportionately greater benefit for those who need than for those who don’t,” he told Chalkbeat. “They have a disproportionately favorable impact on at-risk children than middle-class children.”

In the Detroit Public Schools Community District, Michigan’s largest, officials have set aside a portion of COVID dollars for small-group and one-on-one literacy tutoring for students several grades or more below reading level. The district’s scores remain well behind pre-pandemic levels, suggesting a long road ahead. Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti pointed to the various COVID-related disruptions of student learning during the 2021-22 school year as well as chronic absenteeism as significant factors in last spring’s test scores.

The trauma of the pandemic, combined with dark headlines about climate change and school shootings, offer one explanation for falling scores, said Elizabeth Moje, dean of the School of Education at the University of Michigan.

“They’re looking around and going, ‘Gosh, the world is crumbling around us.’ There’s all this violence. How about school shootings? These are young people who are trying to make sense of their place in the world and asking ‘Where do I fit?’ and they’re being asked to learn abstract things that they don’t understand the purpose for learning. That in itself is stress-inducing.”

How to use the testing data

Testing experts cautioned against using the exam scores to draw conclusions about how schools performed during the pandemic given how much classroom time students missed.

“The word I would use is ‘grace,’” said Ed Roeber, assessment director for the Michigan Assessment Consortium, a nonpartisan education group. “There were a whole lot of people putting in 110% effort in getting kids taught.”

He said schools have the tools to accelerate student learning now that children are back at school. They can reduce class sizes, for example, or double check that every student is taught all the key concepts that show up on the test.

“Every child who’s tested can achieve proficiency,” he said. Schools can help them do so “not by practicing the test items but by looking at their instructional program and saying, ‘What kinds of skills do kids need to have?’”

At Westwood Community School District in Dearborn Heights, Superintendent Stiles Simmons said helping students recover includes both academic support and social-emotional support. His district is expanding a mentorship program it started last year for middle school students. He credits pandemic relief money for his being able to hire a districtwide social-emotional learning coordinator, who he said “has been a godsend.”

He said the M-STEP data can serve as a “baseline” and can be a “good exercise for maybe research purposes, but it doesn’t necessarily help us long term.“

“We need to really look at where we are now because that’s where our kids are,” he said.

In the Reeths-Puffer School District near Muskegon, 2021 scores dipped but have now returned to pre-pandemic levels for most grade levels for English language arts and in elementary grades for math. The district enrolls about 3,500 students, more than half of whom are considered economically disadvantaged by the state.

“I would say we’ve stayed relatively consistent through the pandemic,” Superintendent Steve Edwards said. “If you didn’t regress during the pandemic, I guess you can count that as a small win.”

He said he believes two factors contributed to that: the district’s decision to remain in-person for all of 2020-21, and its $500,000 investment in summer acceleration programming over the last two years. That funding came from federal COVID relief money that will run out in September 2024.

The pandemic funds provided “an immediate shot in the arm, but it could be detrimental to build systems and supports that people come to rely on, that then are no longer funded,” he said. “In the short term it’s great, but in the long term it makes me nervous.”

Brooke Brawley, director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment at Niles Community Schools, said the testing information is helpful in determining what extra supports students need. But she said it’s important to remember these scores are only one data point among many that inform teachers on students’ academic levels.

She said one area for growth would be looking at math scores and seeing how to use multi-tier systems to help students improve. A multi-tier system includes curriculum for all students and additional supports for students who need them.

Simmons, of Westwood, agreed. He said his district tends to focus more attention on benchmark tests that are administered three times a year, since they provide more real-time data of where students stand.

He expects to receive a comprehensive report from one of his employees Friday about how the district did. From there, he wants to analyze how the district compares with similar districts in size and demographics.

The district used benchmark scores last school year to determine who should receive high dosage tutoring. Simmons said students who regularly attended tutoring sessions had better grades and better benchmark test scores. He said the district is considering working with companies that have strong after school tutoring programs as well.

Frances Vicioso, a parent of a Kalamazoo Public Schools graduate, said the district’s results are very “concerning” but “absolutely what I expected.”

She wants more equitable school funding, more accessible information for parents about the school district’s budget, and more understanding from others about the limitations of standardized testing.

One-third of Kalamazoo Public Schools third grade students were proficient or higher in English language arts while 30.7% of third grade students were proficient or higher in math.

Kalamazoo’s third grade English language scores remained lower than the state average and had nearly the same size declines as the state from 2018-19 to 2021-22. In third grade math, however, the district’s proficiency rates fell nearly 7 percentage points, from 37.5% to 30.7%, compared with the 5 percentage point drop statewide (from 46.7% to 41.5%).

The district was fully remote for nine months during the 2020-2021 school year.

Vicioso, a former middle school teacher, said students’ achievement can be measured in other ways, including verbal reflections, class participation, and projects.

Vicioso is the co-director of Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Kalamazoo, an initiative that works to provide accurate historical narratives, build strong relationships and advocate for systemic change. She said she is concerned about many local students including students from low-income families and students of color..

“It tracks that the lack of services and lack of support would be reflected in these M-STEP scores,” she said.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Isabel Lohman covers education for Bridge Michigan. You can reach her at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Reading skills gap grows in Michigan

2022-09-01T19:30:16+00:00

Researchers found alarming increases in the proportion of Michigan third graders reading significantly below grade level and widening gaps in performance between Black and white students, and between students from low-income families and peers from wealthier families.

The performance disparities provide more evidence of the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on at-risk children.

“This should be a clarion call to us,” said Katharine Strunk, director of the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative at Michigan State University. “What are we doing to help these particular students?”

EPIC on Thursday released its annual data report on the number of students eligible for retention under a controversial Michigan law that says third graders can be held back if they score at least a year behind grade level on the reading portion of the Michigan Student Test of Education Progress, or M-STEP. The report is based on results of reading tests given this spring.

The results are important because they help policymakers and schools target resources. They’re also a gauge of the effects of the pandemic on young children during crucial years when most children learn to read. Some researchers say reading by third grade is “a make or break benchmark” correlated to later academic success.

Nearly 5,700 of last year’s third-graders scored low enough to be eligible for retention. That’s 5.8% of all third-graders, up from 4.8% the previous year. The Michigan Department of Education hasn’t yet collected data on how many of them are actually repeating third grade this year.

More than half would have been eligible for automatic exemptions based on, for example, their status as English learners or special education students, according to EPIC’s report. In the past, the vast majority of others were exempted too, because administrators and parents agreed that retention was not in the child’s best interest.

It rarely is, said Elizabeth Birr Moje, dean of the University of Michigan School of Education.

“Everything we know from research tells us that retention at a young age has negative consequences across the board,” including on dropout rates, future earning potential, and incarceration rates.

That’s one reason why the Reeths-Puffer School District near Muskegon promoted all third graders to fourth grade, even though 10 of them had reading scores that made them eligible for retention. Instead, those students will get extra help with reading this year, Superintendent Steve Edwards said.

“You’d struggle to find much evidence anywhere of the long-term benefit” of retention, he said.

Academics are more focused on what the M-STEP data reveal about learning disparities between demographic groups than on the retention component of the third-grade reading law.

“The hope with the retention law was not so much that we would actually be retaining children but that it would motivate people — whether families, or teachers, or school leaders — to do early intervention, to engage kids (in reading) very early,” Moje said.

The retention law also provides an accountability benchmark to let parents and community members know how well their schools are educating children in early literacy. And it helps schools focus resources on students who need the most help.

Advocacy groups like Education Trust-Midwest are concerned by the results.

“While it’s not surprising that so many children have fallen so far behind, we are now seeing the evidence of the impact of the pandemic, especially for underserved students,” said Executive Director Amber Arellano.

Michigan’s declines mirror results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress also released Thursday. NAEP scores show sharp declines across the country in math and reading during the pandemic. Among 9-year-olds who took the national test, reading scores dropped more sharply than they have in more than 30 years.

Remote learning and pandemic-related disruptions emerged as clear factors in student performance on the M-STEP.

Of Michigan third graders who spent all or most of second grade learning remotely, 10.6% were eligible for retention, twice the rate for those who learned in person all or most of their second-grade year.

In Reeths-Puffer schools, where students attended in person for all of 2020-21, 34% of students scored at or above the proficient level, down from 38% in the last two test cycles. It might have been worse if Reeths-Puffer schools had closed to in-person learning that year, as 16% of Michigan districts did for at least part of the year. Another 16% used hybrid models, teaching partly online and partly in classrooms.

“Most students learn best in a face-to-face environment,” said Edwards, the superintendent. “From a social-emotional and academic perspective, being face-to-face as much as we were at least mitigated what was a very difficult situation” during the pandemic.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that remote learning alone caused sinking scores, Strunk said.

Black students and those from low-income families, who historically underperform white and wealthier peers, were more likely to be in districts that used remote instruction during the pandemic.

Fifteen percent of Black third-graders scored low enough to be eligible for retention. That’s grown from 13% in 2020-21, and 10.9% in 2018-19, before the retention law took effect. Students were not tested in 2019-20 because of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the percentage of white third-graders eligible for retention grew from 2.3% in 2018-19 to 3.3% last school year.

“That’s a very large gap between Black students and everyone else, so we have to ask what’s happening there,” Strunk said.

The performance of students from low-income families is concerning, too, she said. Nine percent of third-graders from low-income families last year scored low enough to be eligible for retention, compared with 6.3% before the pandemic.

Among more affluent students, 2% were eligible for retention last school year, compared with 1.3% before the pandemic.

The state’s lowest performing schools also saw big declines in third-grade reading scores. Those buildings have been designated by the state as partnership schools based on factors including low graduation rates, attendance, and test scores. Those schools — including many in Detroit — have been in a turnaround program for the last three years and had shown progress before the pandemic.

A quarter of third-graders in partnership schools were eligible for retention based on 2022 scores, up from 22.3% last year, and 19.1% in 2018-19.

“Partnership districts have really been through it over the last couple of years,” Strunk said. “The communities in which partnership districts and schools exist faced the most dire economic and health consequences of the pandemic. We need to be working as hard as we can to support those communities and schools so they can help students recover from an unbelievably challenging time.”

Policymakers, administrators, and teachers need to target resources to districts and students struggling the most, Strunk said.

“I’d be doubling down on training our teachers to help them teach kids who may be very, very far behind grade level,” she said. “I don’t think we can assume they will catch up without targeted intervention and support.”

Schools in Michigan and across the country received federal COVID relief dollars that can be used, in part, to provide tutors to improve reading skills, but districts are having trouble finding enough tutors to meet their needs.

Arellano said those interventions should include specialized support for students with dyslexia. That’s an area the state Senate has begun to prioritize with legislation that advanced in May, although the state House hasn’t yet taken it up.

Schools seem to be working with parents to help struggling readers instead of holding them back from fourth grade, said Mike Testa, a member of the Michigan PTA Advocacy Committee and parent of four Livonia Public Schools students.

“Districts have done a good job working with parents to see what is actually best for that specific student,” he said. “They’re coming up with a course of action and a plan, not just putting a kid in fourth grade with no support but actually doing something to get that child caught up.”

That’s the kind of approach Moje advocates.

“Reading is a very complex endeavor” that requires an understanding of phonics, an ability to understand clues from syntax, an understanding of how sentences are put together, and a comprehension of meaning, she said.

“You have to assess where children are, why they’re there, and then intervene appropriately,” she said. “The sheer volume of children makes that difficult.”

She is hopeful that schools will be able to help struggling readers catch up to their peers.

“The idea that if you can’t read proficiently by third grade you’re doomed is a fallacy,” Moje said. “Somebody has to be intervening to help you make progress, but it’s not actually the case that you stop learning to read at third grade.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Wayne County child care providers battle waitlists, low pay

2022-08-31T20:40:25+00:00

Betty Henderson has spent two decades working in child care in Detroit, starting out of her home, growing to a larger site, and now buying a former church for space to “double-plus” the 30-child enrollment she has.

She knows the need for child care is great.

“Every day is a good four to five calls that want daytime hours for the babies that are either less than 12 months or 1 to 2 years old, and I have totally run out of room for them,” said Henderson, owner of Angels of Essence Day Care on the city’s west side.

But “telling them no and having a waitlist is just not feasible, because parents need care right now.”

In her 20 years in business, she said, “I’ve never had a waiting list.” Now, though, “it’s an outpour. And I’m trying to do what I can to get them in here.”

She had 19 children on her waitlist in May, whom she referred out to a few other child care providers. The first week of July, she had 13 to 14 on the waitlist and nine calls on the answering machine.

Providers say child care faced great struggles before the coronavirus pandemic. But the last two years have brought additional pressures.

Michigan’s child care industry is in crisis, according to “Disappearing Day Care,” a 10-month investigation by MuckRock and a consortium of Michigan newsrooms. And the data and documents show the problem is worse than policymakers thought.

The investigation found the number of child care deserts in Michigan — regions where three children compete for every slot at an in-home or group center — is nearly double previous estimates.

Data show 20 counties have so few child care options, they qualify as deserts. Wayne and Macomb counties are among 23 counties nearly qualifying as deserts, too.

Child care provider closings have outpaced openings during the pandemic; and a cumulative statewide list includes more than 54,000 children waiting for a spot. Oakland and Washtenaw counties are among those with waitlists longer than 5,000.

Treat child care ‘like an industry’

State leaders say they are trying to improve child care in Michigan and have directed $1.4 billion of federal relief money to help stabilize the system. But the cash is a one-time fix to aid providers during the pandemic.

Some of the money has brought additional financial help to bump up already-low hourly wages for child care workers and provide hiring bonuses. But providers fear that these funds will be gone next year, and that the money is still much less than what the staff deserve for the work they do and for the families who entrust their children into their care.

“Right now, today, because of COVID, it’s almost like now they want to listen to us,” Henderson said of legislators and others. “They hear: ‘Oh now there is a need for child care. We want to get these parents back to work. We want to get them off unemployment.’”

But additional child care subsidies to help pay staff “shouldn’t be taken back from us just because they want to say that the pandemic is over or that it’s not as bad as it was,” Henderson said.

Nina Hodge, longtime owner of Above And Beyond Learning Child Care Center on Detroit’s east side, agrees.

“Treat (child care) like an industry. We are essential people just as well,” she said. “We don’t watch TV in there. We get them ready for school, kindergarten, social development … all kinds of stuff.”

Grants help, but what happens when they’re gone?

Hodge said she’s licensed for 60 children and has six full-time and about a half-dozen part-time staff. Her center is open about 12 hours a day Monday through Friday.

The child care stabilization grants have provided some additional money to centers like hers to help with pay, among other expenses.

Hodge said she received a $104,000 stabilization grant in January of this year that she used for payroll, bonuses and mental health awareness for staff, recruiting new staff, supplies for children, and new doors. She received a $106,000 grant in June of this year that she used for payroll, bills, daily operating expenses, and minor repairs and updating.

Staff, including a cook, make about $12 an hour, Hodge said. She would like to pay them more, but she can’t.

She said hourly reimbursement rates from the state for child care providers are set to go down in the future. Hodge is concerned about providers and wonders “how will they be able to survive once these grants are over with?”

Henderson received about $48,000 as a first stabilization grant, which she said helped cover staff raises, and $57,000 in the second round of grants, which provided staff bonuses, other payroll help, and hiring as she went to overnight care.

She also used the money for the lease payment on the building, utilities, and insurance, including workers’ compensation and liability.

Henderson said child care providers deserved the bump before the pandemic — and they’ll deserve it after the pandemic. She said her staff salaries, including lead teachers, range from $12 to $17 per hour. Prior to the changes from the pandemic funds, wages were several dollars less per hour.

Centers’ challenge: Getting what they need

Qualifications for child care employment often aren’t the same as working at a fast-food restaurant or a retail job, despite the pay being the same — if not more — in those other industries.

Child care workers need training, including first aid and CPR; a police background check; a tuberculosis test; education through hours of schooling or day care experience; and an associate’s or college degree or additional credentials if someone wants to be a lead teacher, providers said.

Damon Jones, owner of LoveLee Care centers in Mount Clemens and Clinton Township, said in late May that the demand he saw was for lead teachers and directors.

Because of the child-to-teacher ratios, he said new hires often must be a lead teacher, which requires meeting more criteria, to accommodate additional children wanting to enter a program.

“That’s the challenge — in getting what you need,” he said.

During the pandemic, Jones said, he had “plenty of kids on my waiting list. We just keep a waiting list until we get a teacher … We’ve got pandemic babies that are trying to find service. Because of the high demand, the rates are going up. There’s nowhere for them to go.”

During a Free Press interview in May, he said he received four calls that morning asking if anything had changed regarding the waitlist. He said the Mount Clemens location was licensed in 2018, prior to the pandemic, and staff was already in place. The Clinton Township center was licensed at the end of 2020 for 67 children, but only about 17 were there because of low staff numbers.

The waitlist, he said, was “strenuous.”

India Armstrong, owner of Baby University in St. Clair Shores, said in June that staffing hadn’t been an issue for her center, which opened in 2019. Finding real estate was the problem.

Armstrong couldn’t find a larger location to lease to expand from her 1,800-square-foot space.

She said she tried to work with one location owner, but he backed out three different times, and few buildings zoned for day cares are available for lease in the city. Sites available for sale were costing $750,000 to $1 million, she said.

Armstrong said her center was at its licensed capacity with 30 children enrolled, full-time and part-time, and 10 to 12 staff.

The weekday center catered to children ages 6 weeks up to school-age and offered some Saturday evening care for parents to have a date night or to do whatever they need, especially if the parents don’t have family in the area to babysit or they moved here from another state.

At that time, the waitlist was 75 families. She said the center sent out notes asking if families still need care, and “they’re like ‘yes, yes, keep us on the waitlist.’”

About 70% of the families were private pay, with the average cost of full-time care at $300 a week. Staff was paid between $14 and $16 per hour with the director paid $48,000 a year, she said.

“And what we do is eat our profit to pay our people, essentially. So, if we get money for grants or anything like that, you know, that kind of helps us with supplies and things like that,” she said.

Food also is always an expense for child care centers, and these types of costs now are going up because of inflation.

“That’s all our babies do,” Armstrong said. “They want to eat all day. With their brain development, they have to eat.”

Waitlists abound

Rebekah Michelson said she started getting on waitlists for child care 10 to 12 months before her second son was born just before the pandemic began in 2020.

The Brownstown Township mother of two boys knew she would need child care when returning to work full time from maternity leave that September.

It was about two weeks away from her return to work when she learned her youngest would be “next on the list” at a nearby center that the 2-year-old still was attending this spring.

“It was like a stroke of luck,” Michelson said.

“I do feel like we’re kind of one of the luckier ones, because I know we have a couple of options in my ZIP code and a couple of ZIP codes next to us. But it’s still very limited,” she said.

Compared with looking for child care years before the pandemic for her older son, who was 6 in May, Michelson said there were “definitely more waitlists this time around.” Her older son previously attended a Downriver day care about 15 minutes from their home, starting when he was about 2½ years old.

In her desire to find a center for her youngest, Michelson said she even tried a couple of unlicensed sites.

The center she was using this spring didn’t have enough staff and had recently closed a classroom one day each week. While her youngest could attend four days a week, she had to find child care for him on the fifth day with family or by taking a sick day.

Michelson, who also was taking classes for a master’s degree in social work, said her youngest son’s child care center was offering signing bonuses for workers — money a lot of centers can’t offer.

She said child care worker salaries, in general, are “miserable. It’s horrible, and they deserve so much more, honestly.”

Michelson said she believes communities need to step up to help child care centers thrive by taking steps such as offering space or start-up incentives.

“People need these places,” she said.

Making a difference for every child

To avoid additional staff burnout, Henderson did not take summer kids at her center in Detroit this year, making it the first year where she didn’t have a student over 5 years old.

“It’s heartbreaking, but I think my staff deserve it,” she said, adding that she referred parents to summer camps and other child care centers.

Henderson said her business has continued all these years on referrals and word of mouth, not business cards, websites or social media.

While hers is not a big center, Henderson said she tries to impart to employees and new candidates that they are part of a professional, reliable team and that this is a career. She said she offers incentives to staff — raffles, early days off with pay, gift cards and events outside of work — to let them know they are appreciated.

Unlike some of her colleagues in child care, Henderson said she hasn’t had people get hired for the signing bonus and then quit.

“I try to make it fun to where you want to get up and come to work and educate the little people. And that’s why I’ve had this staff for so long,” she said. “It is hard work. But at the end of the day, the goal is to make a difference in every child that walks through the door.”

Christina Hall is a reporter for the Detroit Free Press. Contact her at chall@freepress.com.

What we learned about Michigan’s child care crisis

2022-08-31T20:10:35+00:00

In May, the nonprofit journalism site MuckRock and several Michigan newsrooms published their initial findings on Michigan’s child care crisis, including the high number of facility closures during the pandemic.

We invited Michiganders to tell us about their experiences on both sides of the child care industry — as a parent trying to find care for their child or as a provider trying to stay in business.

We received more than 170 responses, many of which included detailed policy proposals. Here are eight of those ideas, along with accompanying analysis from experts, lawmakers and state agencies about their potential feasibility:

Allow more families to receive state child care subsidies

Christie Mahl’s day care, Acorn Child Development Center in Lapeer, has a waiting list of more than 100 children. Those long lists are not uncommon in Michigan, particularly with centers like hers, which has a 5-star rating from Great Start to Quality, Michigan’s rating and improvement system for day cares. Hers is the only 5-star center in 90,000-person Lapeer County.

At $46 a day, Mahl’s day care is markedly cheaper than comparable centers in urban areas, which can charge up to $70. Some parents don’t pay anything if their income level is low enough to qualify for a state child care subsidy. But many of her parents make too much to qualify. These “borderline” families pay for child care out of necessity, even if it takes a bite out of their annual budget.

“Imagine making $50,000 and having to pay $1,000 a month,” Mahl said. “It’s a hardship.”

Temporarily increasing the subsidy income brackets was one of the first pandemic relief measures deployed by the state, which pushed the subsidy qualification from 150% to 185% of Michigan’s poverty line.

But the success of that effort has been mixed, according to researchers from the University of Michigan. They have found fewer applications for the subsidy despite more families becoming eligible — likely because of a lack of available spots at day cares statewide.

“There were over 100,000 more families that became eligible for the subsidy as a result of increased funding for the program, but we really didn’t see pickup rates improve to a great extent,” said Karen Kling, strategic projects manager with University of Michigan’s Poverty Solutions program. “They were pushing families toward spots that didn’t exist.”

Mahl also suggested implementing a new tier of center for 18-child facilities. Currently the state licenses six- and 12-child facilities and much larger centers for dozens of children, but nothing in between.

Provide options for flexible at-work child care

Fifteen months into parenthood, Hillary Rose is already on her 10th nanny. When her child was born, the two day cares in her area were full. Nannies and babysitters have cost her about $1,200 a month, she estimates, but she pays it because it gives her precious hours of breathing room to focus at her job.

“I do feel like it’s kind of a requirement if I want to continue to work,” said Rose, who lives in Carleton.

Rose teaches U.S. history at a virtual school, which she can do remotely, but not with a toddler on her lap. The nannying solution isn’t perfect either: She’s often searching through Care.com, a child care networking site, for affordable babysitters. She said the more qualified sitters can charge $25 an hour, which is more than she makes teaching. More realistic options for her have been high school graduates without qualifications, but who occasionally fail to show when she needs them most.

Recently, Rose has toyed with the idea of opening a drop-in care center for remote working parents. She describes it as a kind of child care WeWork, where parents who just need a few hours of time at a desk each day could easily switch between work and care. She thinks parents need more flexible options, given the popularity of working from home. It’s an idea born from the immense challenge of balancing a full-time job and raising a kid.

“I really wasn’t expecting it to be this difficult,” Rose said.

The principal roadblock to Rose’s idea is Michigan’s long history of strict zoning regulations for child care facilities. Legislation passed in June loosened some of those zoning requirements, opening the door for child care facilities in commercial-use zones.

Factor outstanding debts into child care subsidy qualification

Monica Rosen feels like she made all the right choices: She went to college, got a good job at the University of Michigan, bought a house and had a family. But lately, she feels like she’s being crushed, she said, as she stares down the prospect of paying nearly $19,000 a year for a slot at the university’s Towsley Children’s House day care.

“I don’t qualify for the grants they offer, because you have to be in poverty, but they don’t count my student loans and other financial considerations when calculating who gets grant money,” said Rosen, who lives in Mount Pleasant. “I feel like once I pay for preschool, I am now in poverty.”

Red tape around the subsidies often hindered their use, said William Lopez, assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health. Qualifying requires parents to prove that they are working or studying. Parents also must regularly reapply, as well as have their taxes in order — all of which contributes “to a very low proportion of children who are eligible receiving vouchers,” Lopez’s team found, according to forthcoming research they shared.

Provide affordable health care for child care workers

In 2020, Karen Lumsden’s child care center, Children’s Place Montessori in Troy, ate a $110,000 loss. Some of it was recouped by $70,000 in one-time grants from the state, but she’s only just recovering from the pandemic shutdowns. Her Montessori center, which is licensed for 70 kids, is still below its capacity mark by 20 children.

Staffing challenges means she can’t open a third room and be fully operational.

“Had the grant money not come, I would be totally screwed,” Lumsden said. “It was a godsend.”

What would further help Lumsden, she said, is an affordable health care option for her staff. Of eight employees, seven are on their spouses’ health care plans and the eighth pays heavily out of pocket for health care via the Affordable Care Act.

Lumsden said day cares that offer health care have an easier time hiring. But she can’t offer it now because her business would dip into debt.

“That’s just the reality,” Lumsden said. “They’re going into a business that can’t sustain them. If they had an insurance option for child care workers, whoa. Insurance would be such a boon.”

Companies could subsidize tuition to attract workers

On average, Tea Shong’s teachers stay on staff for just 18 months. Some find child care isn’t for them, while others love the work but decide to pursue higher pay in K-12 school systems, which offer benefits as well.

“Some of our best employees move on to the K-12 system,” said Shong, of Lenawee.

Shong thinks the state does enough to support parents and providers. Her teachers should make more, but she thinks that, in today’s economy, employers looking to attract workers should be footing more of the bill — offering child care pay as a benefit.

If that were more common, Shong would be able to charge more knowing that employers are splitting the bill with parents, and then be able to bump wages for her teachers. As it stands, her teachers make $12 to $14 an hour.

“I believe more workplaces should offer child care support, like they offer insurance,” Shong said. “These teachers do some of the most important work, and their pay does not reflect it.”

The Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, which regulates and investigates complaints about child care facilities, has found more than 9,000 child care staff vacancies across the state and is now letting some facilities apply for rule exemptions to hire younger staff who are finishing required coursework and are awaiting final certifications. A survey the agency sent out this spring found that staffing turnover affected a majority of facilities and ranked as the No. 1 factor affecting the number of available child care openings.

And the No. 1 reason why Michigan child care facilities said they couldn’t attract new staff? Low wages and nonexistent benefits.

Help from the private sector is one of the flagship ideas implemented by the Whitmer administration. The program, known as Tri-Share, splits child-care costs among an employer, employee and the state. But it only serves families that make between 200% and 325% of the federal poverty line — $34,840 to $60,970 for a single mother, for example — a population that isn’t served by the subsidy.

In a statement, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office said it is proud of the work of Michigan Tri-Share but, as of now, the program has enrolled just 57 children since its inception more than a year ago in June 2021.

Tri-Share reports cite a number of reasons for the program’s low uptake, including the number of child care deserts in Michigan.

Build a web portal for parents and providers

To keep centers profitable, they need full enrollment. That’s why for years, Louise Stoney has argued that tech could provide answers for child care facilities across the country.

With an app, centers could give real-time enrollment numbers and post to a marketplace for anxious parents shopping for care. Instead of calling every center in their ZIP code, they could quickly see when and where openings come online, saving parents time and keeping providers’ classrooms full.

“We need to create some scale and stability so that they’re not just out there trying to do everything by themselves,” said Stoney, an independent consultant specializing in early care and education. “Technology is a big part of that.”

In Michigan, no such digital platform exists. The closest alternative is Care.com, a website that helps parents shop for caregivers.

Better software would also relieve child care providers of another headache: the amount of paperwork required by state regulators, such as attendance logs. And it would provide better child care data to the state, which currently relies on out-of-date and inaccurate licensing numbers.

Stoney said that real-time systems like these have already been deployed. Pilot programs exist in Colorado, where counties have invested in a platform called BridgeCare. Another platform, LegUp, offers similar real-time data sharing and operates in Wisconsin and several other states.

Create universal pre-K in Michigan

For state Rep. Yousef Rabhi of Ann Arbor, the problem is clear: Child care isn’t funded in the same way as the state’s K-12 public school system.

Rabhi’s solution would be to fold Michigan’s nearly 8,000 child care facilities into a statewide universal pre-kindergarten system. Rabhi thinks universal pre-K would stabilize the child care workforce by adding benefits, such as health care.

It would also remove the cost barrier for hundreds of thousands of Michigan parents with a free public system. Universal pre-K has already been implemented in Florida, Vermont, Oklahoma, and the District of Columbia, as well as in more than 30 cities across the country.

“This isn’t a far-fetched idea. It’s not like we’re doing something completely brand new,” Rabhi said. “It’s just that we arbitrarily cut the system off at kindergarten.”

In 2019, Whitmer said she wanted to achieve such a system by the end of her first term. And a bipartisan mood around child-care reform has put universal pre-K on the table, Rabhi said, even if the price tag would be significant.

Using federal estimates, the annual market cost of a universal pre-K system for Michigan’s 3- and 4-year-olds comes out to $972 million per year — an estimate built using a $6,600 per capita figure used to vet President Biden’s American Families Plan. That’s just for tuition, however.

Modeling experts at the Children’s Funding Project, a policy group that provides cost estimates to government bodies, said that a “true cost” — one that includes infrastructure investments and a living wage for workers — would likely double that estimate. “It would range somewhere from $14,000 or $15,000 to $18,000 to $20,000 for a preschooler,” said Kate Ritter, an adviser with the organization who specializes in finance and cost modeling. Ritter’s estimate puts the cost of universal pre-K closer to $2 billion.

The Children’s Funding Project has actually begun work modeling revenue options for universal pre-K in Michigan. In the past, the group has provided states with memos identifying how states can find cash to pay for broader child care programs, such as by raising corporate income taxes.

Reinvest in in-home centers

For state Rep. Jack O’Malley of Traverse City, state involvement in child care has historically been the problem, rather than the solution. Before a recent changing of the guard at Michigan’s state licensing agency, small in-home providers reported being harangued by licensing consultants.

These consultants would often write up small, mom-and-pop day cares for minor violations, and fed-up providers would call it quits, as O’Malley describes it.

Simply put, safety concerns and a preoccupation with academics have pushed the state to overregulate and ask childcare providers for too much documentation, O’Malley said.

“When you are requiring that employees have certain levels of degrees — do we need that?” O’Malley said. “Are our center-based day cares becoming pre-kindergarten kindergarten? Are we now having them reading the classics?”

Financially, the argument for more in-home centers goes both ways.

In-home centers are more geographically and financially accessible, sometimes charging half as much as larger centers. But they can quickly become losing business propositions for their owners, who need a critical mass of children to be profitable.

A survey sent out to child care providers this spring by the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs found that in-home facilities reported loss of income as the No. 2 impact of staffing shortages, just behind the inability to enroll more children. And in-home providers overwhelmingly supported the idea of reducing staff-to-child ratios, compared with larger child care centers, the survey found.

In June, O’Malley proposed, and helped pass, legislation increasing the ratio of children in-home centers could serve. One employee can now care for up to seven kids, up from six, and a two-employee center can now care for up to 14 kids, up from 12. (Some states, like Washington, allow one employee to care for up to 10 preschoolers, aged 30 months to 5 years old.)

O’Malley said the bill has been met with “hoorays and cheers.”

But child care experts worry that such hands-off policies won’t fix much — and could endanger children. Linda Smith, executive director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Early Childhood Initiative, a think tank in Washington, described the legislation as “looking for a quick fix.”

“The answer is not just put a couple more kids in and that’ll fix anything,” Smith said. “It’ll only make it worse, because it’ll drive more staff out. We should not go down the road where we just relax the regs.”

Reporter Luca Powell did the reporting for this project for Muckrock, a nonprofit investigative journalism newsroom.

Michigan’s child care crisis is worse than policymakers have estimated

2022-08-31T19:02:43+00:00

It was March 27, 2021, and an at-home day care in Grand Rapids was ready for a pool day. The day care’s owner took seven children — five of whom were just 2 and 3 years old — to a nearby Holiday Inn Express. She bought a room to use the hotel’s splash pad and two indoor pools, and charged parents $25 per child.

None of the children had life jackets or arm floaties. The caregiver, Melanie Williams, was the only adult overseeing the seven children. At the time, Michigan law required one adult for every six children at licensed at-home day cares. That rule has since been relaxed by state lawmakers.

At 6:38 p.m., one of the smaller children — identified only as “Child P” in state investigators’ reports — ran away from the kiddie pools and climbed into the larger adult pool.

Four minutes later, the girl’s head was underwater, her lips blue, her eyes open, and she was lying flat on her back, witnesses said.

She wasn’t breathing and had no pulse.

Luckily, an off-duty paramedic and an off-duty nurse on vacation with their own children were nearby, and pulled the child out of the water, surveillance footage shows. Another adult ushered the other children away, later telling investigators that he didn’t want them to watch a child die.

Child P survived, but her brush with drowning underscores the stakes as Michigan’s child care industry deteriorates. Overwhelmed by demand, Michigan’s child care industry is in full-blown crisis, according to Disappearing Day Care, a 10-month-long investigation by MuckRock and a consortium of Michigan newsrooms. Reporters collected years of investigative reports by Michigan’s child care licensing bureau and testimonials from hundreds of parents and providers, and analyzed new state child care data provided as part of federal pandemic relief programs.

The data and documents show the problem is even worse than policymakers thought.

Nearly double the child care deserts

At the beginning of the pandemic, the Michigan League for Public Policy, a Lansing-based nonprofit, created a list of 11 so-called child care deserts. These are regions where three children compete for every available slot at an in-home or group center.

But those deserts were calculated using the capacity of licensed child care facilities located in a particular county. The practice overstates the number of spots available and thus hides the true picture of child care availability in Michigan. Many of these licensed child care slots remain empty for a variety of reasons.

Through state Freedom of Information Act requests and a first-of-its-kind data analysis of child care records, we found the number of child care deserts in Michigan is nearly double previous estimates.

A total of 21 counties have so few child care options that they qualify as deserts, the data shows. Another 23 Michigan counties, including Metro Detroit’s Wayne and Macomb counties, are rounding errors away from qualifying as deserts as well.

In Macomb County, there’s a waiting list of more than 2,300 children, state data shows, and nearly half of providers are under-enrolled.

Key findings about Michigan’s child care crisis

Statewide capacity estimates of 373,000 day care “slots” for Michigan’s children are an illusion. The real figure for 0- to 5-year-olds is closer to 264,000, a gap of more than 100,000 slots that reflects staffing shortages, high costs and temporary closures caused by COVID-19, as well as the exclusion of more than 70,000 children over the age of 5 who are eligible for kindergarten programs. Michigan has more than 559,000 children under the age of 5.
About 23% of centers that received state grants don’t serve newborns up to 3-year-olds, a critical age range for care. Out of a total of 140,000 slots at grant recipient facilities, roughly 11,500 served infants, and another 30,000 served toddlers.
During the pandemic, closures heavily outpaced openings. Compared with February 2020, Michigan has 637 fewer child care providers, a 7% drop, according to state data. Family providers closed at several times the rate of high capacity centers in urban areas, a shift that exacerbates the day care drought for rural parents. In 2018, a pre-COVID year, 1,000 group and family homes closed, while just 486 centers opened to replace them.
A cumulative statewide waiting list includes at least 54,057 children. On a population-adjusted basis, the longest waiting list by far was more than 3,200, in Grand Traverse County, a rural northwest Michigan county that saw more than a third of its child care facilities close over the past three years. In June, Oakland, Kent and Washtenaw counties all had waitlists longer than 5,000.
State aid missed 2,363 providers, a reflection of lack of interest in government help, even as the child care business model becomes increasingly untenable. Providers cited concerns around government intrusion into their curriculum and mistrust that the grants would really be tax-free.

The data for this analysis is publicly available on GitHub.

And in Detroit, 12 ZIP codes are weathering dire capacity shortages. One neighborhood, which includes Hamtramck and borders Highland Park, had as many as nine children for every available child care slot.

The neighborhood, which is one of the poorest in the state, had a ratio more than three times the criterion to qualify as a desert. Outside of Detroit proper, wealthier Wayne County suburbs had less need: While the ratio of children to slots for the city was 2.8, the ratio for Wayne County overall was 2.5.

After seeing the new data, Michigan’s Early Childhood Investment Corp., a public organization that contracts with the state to help run the child care system, said that it didn’t know the original child care desert figure was flawed, and that the original numbers were calculated using the best available data at that time.

Based on the new, larger numbers, “it’s clear that families do not have access to child care to meet their needs,” the ECIC said in a statement.

Advocates, policymakers and experts said that bad data has long dogged efforts to improve the state’s child care industry, and that the findings from “Disappearing Day Care” only underscores the lingering problems.

State Rep. Brenda Carter, an Oakland County Democrat who sits on the Michigan House Families, Children and Seniors Committee, said the findings show “just how urgent” the need for child care reforms has become.

“Seeing your report makes me very concerned for those young, working parents today,” she said. “If they do not have family help and are not able to find professional child care, where are their children to go? Those parents still have to put food on the table.”

Lisa Brewer-Walraven, director of the Michigan Department of Education’s Childcare Division, said she didn’t dispute that more counties than previously known qualify as deserts. “What we’re focused on is the solutions,” Brewer-Walraven said.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a first-term Democrat running for re-election this year, has made expanding child care one of her administration’s key initiatives, noting her “first-hand experience” in trying to find affordable child care and pledging $100 million in state money to open 1,000 more child care facilities by 2024. In a point-by-point response to our findings, her office asserted that “under Gov. Whitmer’s leadership, the state has worked with providers to keep them open and serving kids” and provided testimonials from nearly 900 providers who received grant funding.

But her office also noted the daunting issues facing Michigan’s child care industry — and the net loss of more than 600 providers during the pandemic.

“All families deserve to have child care that meets their needs — regardless of where they live, how much money they make, their race, ethnicity or immigration status,” the governor’s office said in a statement. “In too many Michigan communities, families cannot find the child care they need.”

The real number

Fewer than half of Michigan’s 8,000 active child care facilities give real-time numbers to the state. For these providers, who work with Michigan’s Great Start to Quality program, officials can see each facility’s enrollment numbers.

For the more than 4,000 other facilities, however, the Michigan Department of Education knows only their licensed maximum. That number, known as license capacity, can be significantly different from the actual number of children enrolled at a given time.

Child care finance expert Louise Stoney described license capacity as a useless number for planning purposes. Stoney’s group, Opportunities Exchange, consults with a number of state education departments on the economics of early education reform.

“The real issue is staffed capacity,” Stoney said. “How many classrooms are you staffed to run? That’s the real number.”

But many Michigan providers said they haven’t been able to fully staff in months. Some run as many as 80 children under capacity, even as parents line up at the door for coveted spots.

The most in-demand openings are those for the youngest children, ranging from newborns to 3 years old. They also require the most attention, which means more staff.

At River’s Edge Learning Center in Bay City, the shortage of employees has meant that owner Danaea Trombley has limited how many children she can enroll. “If we don’t get three or four more staff, we can’t open up that toddler room,” Trombley said. In December 2021, Trombley was running under capacity by 30 children.

From an economic perspective, providers say they are crushed between the effort to keep staff and run a profitable business. Emily Myers, owner of Ferndale Montessori in Oakland County, said that after paying utilities, wages and benefits, she puts aside only a 2% to 3% profit. That sum often gets reinvested, however.

“This is for when the furnace goes out, repairs, incidentals,” Myers said. “At this point, I have not added to a nest egg or rainy day fund for this business, until the grant money.”

One of her biggest expenses, a health insurance option for her employees, often threatens to put her business in the red.

But offering health insurance allows her to keep employees, who are often tempted away from private child care into the relative comfort of Michigan’s public school system or other higher-paying industries.

Child care workers in Michigan start at anywhere between $11 and $15 an hour, and rarely receive benefits through their employer.

“Our people can go literally anywhere and make more than they can in child care,” said Linda Smith, executive director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Early Childcare Initiative, a Washington-based think tank. “When it costs more than the consumer can afford to pay, then the business model is failing — hence the issues with staffing. It’s the same problem that we’ve had for decades, only magnified.”

To pay more, providers have to charge more. But parents already pay as much as 35% of their household income for child care, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In response to a public callout from MuckRock, one parent in Mount Pleasant, Monica Rosen, said that paying for her daughter’s preschool pushed her family to the brink of poverty.

“We’d like to have another child, but can’t realistically imagine a scenario where we can afford one,” Rosen said.

The pandemic pulled thousands of Michigan mothers out of the workforce entirely. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics analyzed by RegionTrack — an Oklahoma-based consulting group — found that the participation rate for women with childcare-aged children in Michigan’s workforce declined by 6 points in 2020, from 71% to 65%. Their share recovered somewhat to 68% in 2021. For single mothers with young children, the decline in workforce participation was worse: a 13-percentage-point drop in 2020, with only a 4-point recovery in 2021.

Safety concerns

The Grand Rapids day care owner who took seven children to the Holiday Inn told investigators that Child P had run away to follow some friends into the bigger swirl pool unnoticed. She stood a little over 3 feet tall and wore a polka dot Minnie Mouse bathing suit.

Surveillance footage from the pool showed the entire incident lasted seven minutes, and there were at least 21 children in the pool area.

It all happened, Williams told deputies, “in a blink of an eye.”

An off-duty nurse gave the child mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for more than a minute, and the off-duty paramedic then performed chest compressions for an additional 80 seconds, the footage shows. After three rounds of chest compressions, the little girl “came to,” they said, and vomited water before being taken to a nearby hospital.

[See the documents about the Holiday inn incident here]

A month later, Williams’ day care license was revoked by the state and, in settlement documents, she did not deny the allegations. In hours of bodycam footage obtained for this project, Williams was clearly shaken and crying shortly after the incident, and told deputies that she is normally “so good with my kids.”

A charge of third-degree child abuse was forwarded from the Kent County Sheriff’s Department to the county prosecutor’s office, records show, but the office declined to charge Williams, concluding that it appeared to be an accident, Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker said. After the little girl was taken to the hospital, bodycam footage shows one deputy privately confiding to another:

“It’s tough, man. They can get away from you quick.”

Child P’s guardian also didn’t want to press charges against Williams and, in fact, returned the girl to the same day care before it ultimately closed. Williams hung up the phone when reached for comment for this story.

Meanwhile, investigative reports by state regulators raise concerning flags about children’s safety as workers leave the industry.

In March 2021, a Novi child care worker accidentally let a child fall off a changing table, and didn’t alert others until later in the day because she was “too busy” watching other infants and “did not have time” to report it, at a facility that repeatedly has staffing turnover. The caregiver was ultimately fired.

And in September 2021, a facility in Canton was found to have just two staff members looking after 28 toddlers. Two days later, inspectors found that, at one point, the facility had allowed just one staff member to care for 35 toddlers. The facility still maintains an active license.

Cheyenne Wallace, 27 of Hamtramck, an assistant teacher at Ferndale Montessori, left, works with a group of toddlers Thursday, Aug. 18.

The Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, which regulates and investigates complaints about child care facilities, said it prioritizes the safety of children. But the agency, known as LARA, has found more than 9,000 child care staff vacancies across the state and is now letting some facilities apply for rule exemptions to hire younger staff who are finishing required coursework and are awaiting final certifications.

A survey the agency sent out this spring found that staffing turnover affected a majority of facilities and ranked as the No. 1 factor affecting the number of available child care openings.

Complaint data shared by LARA shows that annual complaints dipped in 2020 and 2021, with numbers from this year on track to return to pre-pandemic levels. In that same period, the agency has seen a more than 200% spike in investigations of Professional Development Requirements, a category that includes health and safety training for new staff members. LARA spokesperson Suzanne Thelen suggested the spike could be linked to new professional requirements added by the agency in December 2019.

“There is a balancing act between the need for care and child care being a silent driver of the economy, but our role is to protect the health, safety and welfare of those kids in care,” said Emily Laidlaw, the director of Michigan’s Childcare Licensing Bureau.

Asked about staffing and safety violations, both MDE and LARA said their focus was on creating a “one stop shop” for providers to resolve questions and come back into compliance with regulators. With a hotline to providers, the agencies hope they can pre-empt more violations.

Legislators know that parents and providers are pleading for help, but have reached little consensus about a solution.

In past legislative sessions, Republican lawmakers advanced and passed bills intended to clear a web of licensing rules that they say are suffocating small providers. Some bills were contentious, like one that expands the number of children in-home providers can look after. The bill, which ultimately passed, was proposed by state Rep. Jack O’Malley, a Republican who represents rural Grand Traverse County, which has the longest waiting list for child care of any county in the state.

“I talked to providers. They told me, ‘If I could have just one more kid, I could probably make enough money to stay in business,” O’Malley said.

Some Democratic legislators are hesitant to relax rules, and instead have pushed for solutions that funnel more state funding — potentially from a $7 billion budget surplus — toward buttressing or reforming the child care business model.

Whitmer has also championed the issue, directing a $1.4 billion pot of federal money toward one-time grants for providers. Some providers received as much as $630,000. The Whitmer administration also expanded eligibility for state-subsidized child care by 100,000 families.

The grants helped providers clear debts, give bonuses to workers and offer scholarships to lower-income parents, according to state data and hundreds of provider testimonials. But experts say the one-time money failed to substantively fix child care.

“It wasn’t long-term money. So programs really didn’t spend it to raise wages permanently, because they were facing this cliff,” said Smith, with the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Early Childcare Initiative. “What they have done is given some type of one-time bonuses. But very few really raised the wages of the workforce, which now is complicating everything because wages have gone up so much elsewhere.”

Brewer-Walraven said she backed the new bills, specifically citing the ratio change “as good for providers.”

In a statement, Whitmer’s spokesperson, Bobby Leddy, said that the governor “is using every tool in her toolbox” to address “decades of disinvestment in child care.”

The Whitmer administration has also introduced a program called TriShare, which splits child care tuition among the employer, the state and parents. Whitmer has also set a goal to open 1,000 new child care facilities, backed with a $100 million commitment. Of that total, $11.4 million is being directed toward recruiting staff.

However, with the exception of a $2.5 million investment in TriShare, all of the child care relief money has come from federal grants. And a $77 billion state budget passed in June allots just $34 million in new money toward early childhood education. The money is destined for Michigan’s Great Start to Readiness Program, a state-funded preschool program for at-risk kids.

Otherwise, the budget identifies leftover dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act for use in further child care relief.

The Children’s Funding Project, a policy group that researches revenue options for child care systems, has tracked how different states used the one-time funds, as well as whether they backed the one-time relief with legislation.

Gaines, CEO of the Children’s Funding Project, said she was surprised that the Whitmer administration — which in 2019 pitched universal pre-K — wasn’t investing state funds in child care reform. “There’s not a lot in there outside the initial (ARPA) investment,” Gaines said.

Matt Gillard, CEO of Michigan’s Children, a policy organization focused on children’s issues, said he’s still waiting to see the state put “skin in the game,” meaning more state money.

“The reality, as we all know it, hasn’t changed,” Gillard said in regard to the flight of workers from the field of child care. “They’re underpaid and leaving for other industries. The state has to get serious about the financial side of this.”

Luca Powell and Derek Kravitz produced this investigative report for MuckRock. You can reach them at derek@muckrock.com.

How we analyzed Michigan child care data

Since 2021, Michigan legislators have publicly quoted a number estimating that 44% of Michiganders live in a child care “desert.” In reality, that number, calculated by the Michigan League for Public Policy, misinterprets the Center for American Progress’ definition of what is a child care desert.

The MLPP’s desert calculation includes 5-year-olds, while the CAP’s analysis includes only children under 5. Our analysis relies on CAP’s narrower age range, as well as more precise enrollment data, to find at least nine more deserts in Michigan than the MLPP originally calculated.

In response to questions, CAP said the narrower age range is preferable because many 5-year-olds are enrolled in kindergarten or public school programs. But the MLPP; Michigan’s Early Childhood Investment Corp. a public organization that contracts with the state to help run the child care system; and the governor’s office defended their methodology. “Trusted child care advocates use the 0-5 age range to analyze various issues affecting child care in our state, and the subsequent data leads to identical calls for expanded resources and support to address this critical shortage,” said Bobby Leddy, a spokesperson for the governor.

Our reporting on Michigan’s child care industry relies on data released by Michigan in response to state Freedom of Information Act requests. In March, we requested data that had been self-reported by providers who applied for two rounds of Child Care Stabilization Grants, as part of a $1.4 billion pot of federal relief funds. The data gave us two glimpses into roughly 5,900 child care providers out of a total pool of roughly 7,900 across the state.

Those providers told the state about their current enrollments, as well as about their waiting lists, staffing needs and expenses. We calculated waitlists by county and the number of providers that didn’t apply for grant monies using these figures. We also used enrollment figures to help calculate day care deserts, which previously had been calculated only using licensed capacity — or the maximum number of children that facilities can legally enroll.

Interviews with providers indicated that enrollment numbers offered a more accurate picture of a particular county’s child care needs. This is often because facilities are short-staffed but also because many parents simply can’t afford child care. In some cases, parents said they were too anxious about COVID-19 to return their children to day care facilities, however it’s not clear if those fears are still a main driver given the availability of a vaccine for children as young as 6 months old.

To calculate deserts, we cross-referenced enrollments from the 5,900 grant recipients with the licensed capacity of the 2,000 non-applicants. In this way, we assumed an enrolled-to-capacity scenario for centers for which we had no information.

As a result, the 20 county deserts we identify are a minimum estimate. If we had actual enrollment numbers for every facility in the state, it’s likely that several additional Michigan counties would qualify as deserts; 23 counties are mere rounding errors away from the 3-to-1 threshold.

The data for this analysis, along with source information and data dictionaries, are publicly available on GitHub.

Michigan to infuse curriculum with Native American history

2022-08-31T12:00:00+00:00

Starting in the 1800s, generations of Native American children across the country were taken from their homes and brought to federally funded boarding schools that banned their native languages, clothing and traditions.

Now Michigan is ensuring public school students learn the history of abuse at those boarding schools that once tried to erase Indigenous culture. They’ll also learn about the 12 federally recognized tribes in Michigan, tribal governance, economies of early civilizations, the Trail of Tears, causes of the Mexican-American War, and more.

Lawmakers infused the 2022-23 school aid budget with $750,000 to update state social studies standards and add modules about Indigenous tribal history for students in grades 8 through 12.

Michigan is among a number of states, including Idaho, North Dakota, and Wisconsin, that are beginning to bolster their curricula to include more lessons about Indigenous history that tribes say have been lacking.

The movement has grown stronger this year after the U.S. Interior Department reported that thousands of children died in the custody of Indian boarding schools that abused them, exploited their labor, and took their families’ land. That report came after the discovery of the remains of 215 children at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, Canada.

In Michigan, the new curriculum will shift away from historical attempts to erase Indigenous histories and to perpetuate the invisibility of tribal communities in the public education system, said Jordan Shananaquet, eniigaangidoong (chairperson) of the Confederation of Michigan Tribal Education Departments.

CMTED, which includes leaders of the education departments of the state’s 12 federally recognized tribes, is partnering with the Michigan Department of Education to develop the curriculum and prepare educators to teach it.

The standards will ensure middle and high school students learn about the history, culture, and contributions of tribal nations, state Superintendent Michael Rice said.

The Michigan Department of Education has been prioritizing Indigenous education by, for example, launching an Indigenous Education Initiative, highlighting the work of Indigenous educators, and offering professional development on teaching about First Peoples.

That’s refreshing to April Lindala, a professor in Northern Michigan University’s Center for Native American Studies, where she teaches a course on the history of Indian boarding schools.

Students are graduating from Michigan high schools knowing surprisingly little about Indigenous history, particularly the boarding schools, five of which were in Michigan, she said.

“There are some who know nothing at all, or what they do know is so limited that they don’t understand the consequence of what was happening at the time or the intergenerational consequences of how that past affects communities today,” Lindala said.

Schools across the country have been moving toward more complete versions of history. In some places, the shift has given rise to pushback from parents and others who argue that “woke” educators are indoctrinating students with anti-American attitudes by, for instance, teaching that racism was baked into the nation’s founding documents, or that Christopher Columbus should be shunned as a colonizer rather than celebrated as a discoverer.

“We’re just talking about what actually happened to people,” said Shananaquet, of the tribal education group. “We have to sit with the not-so-great aspects of our history and understand that, because it influences the present, too. We’re trying to teach the multitude of histories and stop painting a historical narrative that is only happy and good. That’s not real.”

Understanding history also helps people understand the present, she said.

Native Americans “are not trapped in amber,” Shananaquet said. “We are living, breathing, evolving people. This is who we were, this is what happened to us, and this is who we are now. … We are a thriving people who have our own culture, our own languages, our own histories that were tried to be destroyed, and we’re still here.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

We’re your Chalkbeat Detroit team, and we’re ready for the new school year

2022-08-29T11:00:00+00:00

It’s been well over 30 years since I had a first day of school, but I still get excited around this time of year. As an education journalist for ages, I’ve always seen the new year as a time for a reset — a time to develop new goals and set new priorities for the kind of stories I want to write.

Our team at Chalkbeat Detroit has been talking a lot about goals lately. We know schools are still struggling to recover from the pandemic, and our coverage plans are aimed at tracking how educators are tackling these challenges. There are some weighty issues at the forefront, such as chronic absenteeism, enrollment losses, learning difficulties, mental health strains, school funding inequities, and staffing shortages. (Read more about the issues we’ll be watching this school year in Detroit)

But we also want to have fun. We want to write stories that make you smile. We want to track progress and write about promising initiatives that are helping students succeed. We want to visit more classrooms (please invite us!). We want to elevate the voices of students, teachers, and parents — the folks who have the most at stake in policy decisions made at the district and state levels. If you have a story to tell, reach out to us.

In the spirit of having fun, read below for an introduction to the members of our team, with old childhood photos and some fun facts about us.

We want to get to know our Chalkbeat Detroit readers, too, so be sure to save our individual email addresses and reach out to us. You can reach the whole team by emailing us at detroit.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Also, be sure to sign up for our newsletter here.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. She has never gotten over her mother sending her to school on picture day with lopsided ponytails.

Lori Higgins, bureau chief

Where I’ve been: I’m a Chicago native, spent nearly 19 years as an education reporter for the Detroit Free Press, and did stints writing about education in Wisconsin and Kansas. I’ve been at Chalkbeat nearly four years.

What I do: As bureau chief, I lead a group of three reporters, helping them develop and execute story ideas, editing their work for accuracy and proper context. I lead our goal-setting, keep us organized (mostly), and ensure we have a steady pace of stories for our readers, and I manage our relationships in the community.

Fun facts to know about me: In high school, I was a championship typist and a baton twirler (not at the same time). I love to sew bags and other fun items. I know the joys and pains of being a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan. I have a cat, Lucy, who runs my house and my life.

How to reach me: lhiggins@chalkbeat.org

What I’m looking forward to the most about the 22-23 school year: I’m looking forward to giving students, parents, and teachers a voice in a big way in our coverage.

Ethan Bakuli covers the Detroit Public Schools Community District and is an avid Boston Celtics fan.

Ethan Bakuli, reporter

Where I’ve been: I moved to the east side of Detroit in 2021. Before that I worked at a local paper in Burlington, Vermont. I grew up in western Massachusetts.

What I do: I cover Detroit public schools for its students, families, and teachers.

Fun facts to know about me: I’m an avid reader and record collector, alongside being a loyal Boston Celtics and Arsenal F.C. fan.

How to reach me: ebakuli@chalkbeat.org

What I’m looking forward to the most about the 22-23 school year: The chance to visit classrooms and connect with students and families out in the community.

Koby Levin covers early childhood education and K-12 education issues and is looking forward to visiting a lot of classrooms this school year.

Koby Levin, reporter

Where I’ve been: On the east side of Detroit for the last four years. Before that, I worked for a community newspaper in southwest Missouri. I grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Bloomfield Township, Michigan.

What I do: I inform Michiganders about inequities in our education system. I also write about early childhood education and school choice.

Fun facts to know about me: I speak fluent Spanish because I attended a language immersion program at a public school in Maryland. I played soccer in college and still play soccer and hockey whenever I get the chance.

How to reach me: klevin@chalkbeat.org

What I’m looking forward to the most about the 22-23 school year: I’m hoping to visit a lot of classrooms. One of the joys of my job is watching teaching and learning up close.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. She loves to volunteer at a cat cafe.

Tracie Mauriello, state education policy reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan.

Where I’ve been: I came here three years ago for a Knight-Wallace journalism fellowship at the University of Michigan and fell in love with the state. Previously, I worked in Washington, D.C. and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, covering state and federal politics and policy for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where I was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team. Before that I was an education writer for newspapers in Ohio and in my home state of Connecticut.

What I do: I help Chalkbeat readers understand how laws affect them. I spend a lot of time trying to understand the nuances of policies, but what I really like to do is visit schools to see how decisions made in Lansing change what happens in classrooms.

Fun facts to know about me: I volunteer at a cat cafe. I directed a children’s theater company. I have performed on stage in front of three presidents, once in a beaver suit. I can beat you at Ms. Pac-Man.

How to reach me: tmauriello@chalkbeat.org

What I’m looking forward to the most about the 22-23 school year: I’m looking forward to a close-up look at some of the innovative uses that districts find for federal COVID-relief money. I also hope this year to learn more about the particular challenges facing rural districts.

Krishnan Anantharaman never took a drum lesson, but spent four years on the drumline for the very competitive South Brunswick H.S. Viking Marching Band in New Jersey, working his way up from cymbals to snare.

Krishnan Anantharaman, story editor

Where I’ve been: I grew up in New York City and New Jersey, and worked at The Wall Street Journal, Automotive News and PolitiFact. I’ve lived in suburban Detroit for two decades.

What I do: I work with the reporters and bureau chiefs in Detroit and Tennessee to develop and refine story ideas; edit stories for mechanics, clarity and structure; and prepare stories for publication.

Fun facts to know about me: I help administer free and fair elections for the City of Pontiac as a poll inspector and precinct co-chair. And I’m fond of vintage “Sesame Street.”

How to reach me: kanantharaman@chalkbeat.org

What I’m looking forward to the most about the 22-23 school year: Watching the youngest of my three children go through his last year of high school and discover what’s next.

5 policy changes affecting Michigan classrooms, cafeterias, and school buses

2022-08-25T12:30:00+00:00

A new school year comes with education policy changes for Michigan’s 1.4 million schoolchildren.

Those changes affect who’s teaching them, what’s served in their cafeterias, who can step onto their school buses, and more.

Here are five changes taking effect this year.

More retired educators returning to schools

A new state law is making it easier for retirees to return to work at any school in any position while continuing to collect their full pensions. To qualify, they must wait nine months after retirement.

Previously, unless they were filling a critical shortage area, retirees had to wait a full year and had to forfeit pensions and benefits for every month their pay exceeded one-third of their former compensation. Those limitations had been meant to protect the state’s pension liability from people who might retire early with an understanding that their principal would immediately hire them back, allowing them to simultaneously collect pensions and regular compensation.

The new law protects against double dipping by stipulating that retirees must completely sever their employment relationship and must not expect a reemployment offer from any district.

Michigan superintendents pushed for the change because of difficulties hiring enough teachers, substitutes, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and other school personnel. Returning retirees could fill any of those positions.

Education advocacy groups are encouraging retired educators to return to work under the new law.

“They could help fill the gap and help our schools continue to thrive as they do important work, while still earning a full pension and additional paycheck,” said Wendy Zdeb, executive director of the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals.

A return to college-credit requirements for subs

Education requirements are back in effect for substitute teachers.

To alleviate a shortage of subs, lawmakers in December passed a law allowing school support staff to substitute teach as long as they had finished high school or had a graduate equivalency diploma. The temporary measure expired at the end of last school year.

That means substitutes once again have to have an associate degree, 60 college credits, or, in the case of career and technical teachers, subject-matter expertise.

“For students, that’s going to mean you’re going to have a qualified individual stepping in on an emergency basis to make sure there are not gaps in the learning,” said state Rep. Tyrone Carter, D-Detroit.

A return to paying for lunch

This school year marks the end of free lunches for all students regardless of income, a benefit that was in place since 2020.

That could be a big change, particularly for parents of second-graders who have never had to pay for school lunch and who may not know they need to apply for free or reduced-price lunches this year. Most families will have to pay roughly $3 to $5 per meal, depending on prices set by local school boards.

Free and reduced-price lunches will remain available for those who meet income guidelines, but in most districts, parents will have to apply. Income limits vary by family size. Children in a family of four, for example, would qualify for reduced-price meals (30-cent breakfasts and 40-cent lunches) if their family income is no more than $51,338, or for free meals with an income below $36,075.

In some districts, including Detroit Public Schools Community District, meals will remain free for all students, as they were before the pandemic. That’s because those districts qualified for federal community eligibility for free lunches for all students based on overall community participation in other federal programs for needy families.

School lunches might taste a little different this year, too.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued three changes in school nutrition standards. One allows districts to increase the limit on sodium content in school meals. Another allows districts to offer flavored milks with 1% fat content instead of requiring them to be fat-free. The third waives a rule requiring school cafeterias to serve only whole grains. Now 20% of grains served may be refined.

The changes are intended to provide flexibility as school food service programs recover from pandemic-related challenges including unreliable supply chains.

Indeed, one thing that hasn’t changed much is the struggle many school cafeteria managers are having getting enough supplies and labor to meet the demands of serving more than a million meals a year.

“Students will continue to see our cafeterias struggle to get all of the products that they need,” said Diane Golzynski, director of the Office of Health and Nutrition Services for the Michigan Department of Education. “Our supply chain isn’t in its pre-pandemic state yet. We’re still struggling to get bread. We’ve been going to every store we can find, and we can’t find canned pumpkin anywhere.”

Pay for student teachers

A new state law guarantees pay for Michigan’s student teachers, alleviating the financial strain during their mandatory internships.

Student teachers, who teach full-time while paying college tuition, will now be paid $9,600 per semester they teach under a provision in the new state budget. Most Michigan education programs require one semester of student teaching, but some including Michigan State University require a full year.

The provision was prompted by a shrinking teacher pipeline that wasn’t producing enough educators to fill Michigan’s needs.

Supporters of the stipends say the money will make it easier for prospective educators to complete their internship requirements without having to work weekend jobs to pay the bills. That means student teachers will be able to focus more fully on their students, they said.

Safer bus transportation

New laws went into effect over the last year that are meant to keep children safer on school buses.

One law prohibits unauthorized people from getting on a school bus without the driver’s permission and prohibits impeding the operation of a school bus by, for example, blocking its path. Violators could be fined up to $500.

Another new law makes it easier for police to issue tickets to drivers who illegally pass a stopped school bus. The Michigan Vehicle Code requires drivers to stop their cars 20 feet from a stopped school bus that is displaying its flashing red lights and to remain stopped until the bus resumes motion with those lights off.

Previously, an officer had to witness the traffic violation to issue a ticket. The new law allows police to ticket drivers later if the violation is captured on a school bus’s camera system, said Carter, the law’s sponsor and a retired lieutenant in the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office.

“You can’t have a police officer everywhere,” he said, but cameras can help. “My goal is to make sure no child gets hit.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chakbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan governor proposes sales tax break on school supplies

2022-08-16T21:42:14+00:00

Crayons, notebooks, computers, and other back-to-school supplies could be a little more affordable this year under a tax-break proposal from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, but Republicans say it’s too little and too late.

Whitmer’s plan would suspend Michigan’s 6% sales tax on school supplies, and is similar to tax holidays recently enacted by other states including Illinois, Florida, and Virginia,

“Getting this done would lower costs for parents, teachers, and students right now, and ensure that they have the resources needed,” Whitmer said Tuesday, when she announced the proposal.

It’s unlikely to pass before the start of school.

Wednesday is the Legislature’s only scheduled session day this month. No votes are expected, and Republican leaders aren’t motivated to support the incumbent Democrat’s election-year proposals.

Republicans dismissed the proposal as election-year pandering.

House Speaker Jason Wentworth of Farwell called the proposal a publicity stunt. He noted that Whitmer vetoed three Republican bills that would have cut other taxes.

Whitmer’s November opponent, Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon, reacted to the proposal on Twitter.

“School supply lists came out a month ago,” she tweeted. “Shopping is done, many shelves are bare. Too little too late from the most out of touch Governor in the nation!”

Most schools open after Labor Day in accordance with a 2005 state law, but many districts apply for waivers that allow them to start sooner. Detroit Public Schools Community District, the state’s largest, opens Aug. 29. Some, including in Flint and Holt, already are back in session.

Whitmer’s proposal comes amid reports of rising costs for school supplies. Last month, the auditing firm Deloitte estimated that families will spend about $661 per child on back-to-school clothes and supplies this year, 8% more than last year.

A Michigan family spending that much would save about $40 in sales tax under Whitmer’s proposal.

“Families are dealing with a lot of pressures right now,” Whitmer spokesman Bobby Leddy said. “We’re seeing things move in the right direction with gas prices going down and employment going up, but families do need help especially at this stressful time of the school year. Any help we can provide them through a suspension of the sales tax as they’re preparing to send their kids to school will make a big difference.”

Leddy said legislative leaders can add session days to the calendar and pass the tax suspension before most students return to school. The proposal should have wide bipartisan support, he said, because it would help families in every legislative district.

It would be up to the Legislature to specify what items are subject to the sales tax holiday and whether there are caps.

One proposal was introduced in the House in 2019 but never advanced. It would have suspended taxes on clothing priced at less than $100 per item, computers costing less than $1,000, computer accessories costing less than $500, and other school supplies costing less than $20.

Supporters of the idea say they wish Whitmer had proposed it sooner so the Legislature had time to act.

The tax break could be enough to sway parents who are on the fence about buying school supplies like new backpacks and lunchboxes, said state Board of Education member Ellen Cogen Lipton.

“It’s about more than the actual products themselves,” Lipton said. “It’s the whole back-to-school tone that (having new school supplies) sets. It creates such excitement in students.”

Tracie Mauriello covers Michigan education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.