2023 PRIORITIES FOR LAWMAKERS

The issue: Disruptions from the pandemic have resulted in declines in student test scores, which already were a concern before COVID-19 hit.

Where Michigan stands: Michigan fourth-graders rank among the bottom 10 states in reading, a key predictor for student success. ey fell to 43rd in 2022, from 32nd in 2019, in the National Assessment for Education Progress, known as the “Nation’s Report Card.” While reading scores for many states improved between 2003 and 2019, Michigan’s dropped during that period. en they decreased more than twice as much as the national average over the last three years. Declines were steeper among Black and low-income kids.

What is next: Advocacy groups want to change the K-12 funding model to better re ect that it costs more to educate disadvantaged students. A decadeslong gap in base aid among districts was nally eliminated in 2021. And, in 2022, the state met its commitment to provide 11.5 percent more for each at-risk kid, which rarely happened previously.

Critics say it is not nearly enough. A projected $4.1 billion school aid fund surplus, they say, means Michigan can act with urgency to address the crisis.

ey favor an “opportunity index,” so poor students in higher-poverty areas get more per pupil than poor kids in better-o areas. e scale would start at an extra 35 percent for low-income children, three times the current

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weight, in the wealthiest areas and an additional 100 percent, or more than eight times the weight, for poor kids in the most impoverished areas.

“Money matters in education. Money matters particularly for low-income students,” said Jen DeNeal, director of policy and research for e Education Trust-Midwest. “What the research has shown us is that if you’re a low-income student in a high-poverty district, it actually really does take more dollars to educate you and to get you where you need to be than it does if you’re a low-income student in a very wealthy place.” e group also supports sizable funding weights for students whose rst language is not English and those with disabilities. Launch Michigan, a coalition of business, education and labor leaders, also backs higher weights than are in place now.

Michigan is one of 15 states providing less state and local funding to its highest-poverty districts than to its lowest-poverty districts, according to Education Trust-Midwest.

How Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and legislators will proceed is unknown. She told Crain’s that while funding strides have been made under her watch, “we’ve got to take that to the next level and make sure that these investments are smart and getting us better outcomes for our students.”

Other ideas:

A host of other education issues could be on the front burner, too. Charter school transparency is one, given Democrats’ newfound legislative majorities. So is tutoring, which is designed to reverse learning loss from the pandemic.