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Michigan has among the nation’s worst resource gaps between wealthy and low-income school districts. The Legislature is proposing historic investments. Here’s how lawmakers can do even better.
There’s a cost to universal free school meals. But there’s a greater cost — to children and to the state — when students go through the school day hungry. A universal meal program raises student achievement and improves discipline.
Shortcomings in one’s formal education need not limit a person’s contributions to society. But some politicians seek to diminish the value of true experts because they don’t share their politics. This sabotages democracy.
Gretchen Whitmer’s Sixty by 30 plan emulates failed efforts by predecessors to raise the number of post-high-school degrees. But the plan only helps a few thousand. Holding colleges accountable to graduate more students would go farther.
State Superintendent Michael Rice urges the Michigan Legislature to quickly fund a full-time state preschool program, more tutors, free lunches and improve school buildings.
‘In a country that idolizes freedom, I need freedom. I need freedom to go to my dining hall without checking over my shoulder for a gunman. I need freedom to tell those close to me I love them without fear it’ll be the last time I say it. I need freedom to get a violence free education.’
What these shootings do when they target young people is also target possibility. The 50,000 different stories on campus last night converged into one shared, terrifying detour. And for them, what was going to be is no longer.
Michigan has the highest percentage of charter schools run by for-profit corporations in the nation. Michigan must pass legislation that increases transparency for charter schools says the former president of the State Board of Education.
Nearly all Michigan districts say they follow the state’s open enrollment policy, which allows students to enroll in other districts with open seats. But in reality, districts can sharply restrict outside students, and that must change.
Michigan is the only state that requires most counselors to get updated training in college and career counseling to maintain their credential. It’s one of many reasons to support their quiet but important work and ensure funding to pay for more of them.
Parents’ rights groups aiming to stop school discussions on diversity and LGTBQ issues generally lost at the ballot box. But they are not going away, leaving schools and vulnerable students still in great need of public support.
Imposing three-to-five-year funding cycles makes school funding more predictable and enables better district forecasting. Currently, districts rely on the whims of politics one year to the next. It makes it harder for districts to budget, which makes it harder to solve the teacher shortage issue or hire more counselors.
We must ask the right questions to those running for offices this November, and those questions start with whether their priorities stand with our students or their own politics.
At a time of statewide and national educator shortages, it is critical we find new ways to encourage our best educators to remain in the field and attract the brightest and best educators of tomorrow.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Republicans deserve plaudits for approving new financial aid funding. But there are broader, less complex tuition-free college programs to bolster the state’s workforce needs.
Michigan will only reach our goal to become a Top Ten state for education if we invest in all of our students and create a system that supports their needs.
Budgets are a reflection of priorities. In Michigan, it is clear our priorities are to support our kids, support our workforce, and use our resources to address current needs with an eye toward the future.
