Early Literacy Legislation a Start; Targeted Investments Needed Last week, the Michigan legislature passed House Bill 4822, (Price – R), aimed at improving early literacy in Michigan. This is an important issue deserving of serious attention, as Michigan is currently among the bottom ten states for elementary reading proficiency, and…

ROYAL OAK, Mich. (Sept. 21, 2016) – Earlier today, the Michigan legislature passed House Bill 4822 (Price – R), a bill aimed at improving third-grade reading proficiency. The legislation passed the Michigan House and Senate, after spending nearly six months in a conference committee. The legislation requires that: schools use…

Grand Rapids ‘Super’ School wins $10 million Grand Rapids Public Museum School was awarded $10 million over five years as part of a national contest intended to promote school redesign. Opened in fall of 2015, the district school is housed at the Grand Rapids Public Museum and is designed to…

MDE: We See M-STEP as a “Triple Success” During a House Education Committee meeting last week, Deputy Superintendent for Educator, Student, and School Supports, Venessa Keesler, presented on the success of the 2016 Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress (M-STEP). Importantly, Keesler characterized the M-STEP as a…

Michigan needs to stay the course with M-STEP Results from the Michigan Student Test for Educational Progress released August 30 should remind us how critical it is for Michigan to provide honest and transparent data on student learning and school performance, according to Amber Arellano, executive director of The…

by Brian Cloyd Despite modest gains, the data from the most recent M-STEP assessment, released by the Michigan Department of Education this week, show that Michigan’s performance is still pretty poor. It’s clear that the vast majority of our students are not getting what they need to…

by The Detroit News The test results released this week by the Michigan Department of Education put into focus how much work is needed to improve student learning in the state. But there is an upside. The test, in its second year, is starting to give a consistent—and honest…

by Kate Wells, Michigan Radio While several grades made progress in certain subject areas, at least half of Michigan students still scored below “proficient” in every single section of the 2016 state standardized test – that’s math, science, English Language Arts, and social studies. This is only the second time…

by Ken Whipple There’s a lot of bad news about Michigan’s educational performance these days, as our students fall further behind kids in nearly every other state. That alone should be an urgent call to action. But here’s some good news: Michigan students and teachers have risen…

ROYAL OAK, Mich. (Aug. 30, 2016) – New results from the Michigan Student Test for Educational Progress (M-STEP) emphasize how critical it is for Michigan to continue providing honest and transparent data on student learning and school performance, according to Amber Arellano, executive director of The Education Trust-Midwest. Continuing…

by Lori Higgins and Kristi Tanner, Detroit Free Press Michigan students showed little improvement in language arts and math on the state's tough new standardized exam, but they saw increases in science and decreases in social studies. The data, from results released today on the Michigan Student Test of…

Please Note: During the summer, The Education Trust-Midwest will email monthly newsletters on the first Tuesday of each month. Weekly newsletters will resume on September 6. Haycock: Achieving Racial Justice Is A Job For All Of Us This excerpt is from a letter from Kati Haycock, CEO of The…

State Study Finds School Funding Inequitable A long-awaited study on the adequacy of school funding in Michigan has been released, highlighting the need for more equitable funding in Michigan. The study reinforces findings of a 2015 report on school funding by The Education Trust. Despite having higher levels of…

Please note: During the summer, The Education Trust-Midwest will email monthly newsletters on the first Tuesday of each month. Our next newsletter will be on Tuesday, July 5. Weekly newsletters will resume on September 6. State budget a good step toward improvement Last week, the Michigan Legislature adopted the…

Budget for Schools Moves Forward On Thursday, June 2, the House and Senate conference committee for school aid reported their budget. Highlights of the compromise budget include: No changes to the current state assessment system. Maintaining consistency in assessments is important for ensuring honest and transparent information for students, parents…

ROYAL OAK, Mich. (June 2, 2016) – The founder and CEO of the national Education Trust Kati Haycock will speak today to Michigan and national business and civic leaders at the Mackinac Policy Conference. Haycock, a nationally renowned advocate for vulnerable students, will speak on the importance of funding equity…

by Amber Arellano and Ken Whipple Michigan is facing a historic moment for the state and its children, a moment when our citizens and leaders must choose whether we will make Michigan a top education state again, or whether we will continue to suffer a dramatic demise. In little more…

by Ingrid Jacques, The Detroit News Business leaders will be getting the hard sell on Mackinac Island this week on their need to engage in the drive to make Michigan a Top 10 education state. School reformers are armed with distressing statistics they hope will shock the state’s corporate…

'Money alone is not the sole answer' to school improvement Improving Michigan’s public schools will be one of the central topics at this week’s Mackinac Policy Conference, where Michigan leaders gather each year to consider some of the state’s most pressing challenges. But in Michigan, and…

by Kati Haycock and Amber Arellano This week at the Mackinac Policy Conference, Michigan leaders will gather to have a serious conversation about some of Michigan’s most pressing collective challenges, including the most important to us: improving public education. In many states like Michigan, that conversation has been stalled…

by Brian Cloyd and Ken Whipple, Bridge Leaders of the business community care about education in Michigan not just because they’re trying to be good corporate citizens. It’s also because business leaders are connecting the dots between investment in education and its impact on the economic future of…

Far from top ten in education, Michigan is falling further behind the rest of the nation Michigan is falling further behind its goal of becoming a top ten education state by 2030, according to a report issued last week by the Education Trust-Midwest. ETM’s analysis shows Michigan is…

by Brian McVicar, MLive Michigan's K-12 students are continuing to fall behind the rest of the nation, putting at risk the state's economic momentum and competitiveness well into the future, according to a new report. The report, by The Education Trust-Midwest, shows that if Michigan…

by Lori Higgins, Detroit Free Press Michigan, already sliding toward the bottom nationally for fourth-grade reading performance on a rigorous national exam, is projected to fall to 48th place by 2030 if the state does nothing to improve education. That finding is included in a report out today…

State's 4th-grade reading ranking falls from 28th to 41st in nation and could fall more, Education Trust-Midwest warns by Crain's Detroit Business Michigan's education quality is falling farther behind the rest of the nation from a perch that was already low, according to a…

Business leaders’ voices are needed to help improve schools ROYAL OAK, Mich. (MAY 19, 2016) – Calling on Michigan’s top business leaders to be a thoughtful voice in solving the state’s educational crisis, today the non-partisan Education Trust-Midwest released new report that shows Michigan is falling…

Michigan is at great crossroads – a historic moment when our citizens and leaders must choose whether we will take advantage of major new opportunities to become a top state economically and educationally once again – or face a continued and dramatic decline that will relegate the state and its citizens…

House Passes Plan for Detroit Schools Last week, the House of Representatives passed their plan for Detroit Public Schools on a party line vote. The House plan creates and funds a new school district that is responsible for educating students, employing teachers and maintaining buildings, while the current school district…

by Beth Hawkins, The Atlantic Three months into her son’s first pass at third grade, Arlyssa Heard had a breakdown. Judah was bright, but had begun calling himself stupid. The chaos of Detroit’s precarious education landscape had forced him to switch schools every few months, leaving him…

Too Few Students Prepared for College or Career New data from the “Nations Report Card” show that high schools have not prepared students – especially low-income students and students of color – to pursue whatever postsecondary path they may choose after high school. Results from the 2015 12th-grade National Assessment…

Anti-Standards Bill Threatens to Move Michigan Backward Earlier today, the State Senate Education Committee passed a bill by a vote of 4-1 that would stall the progress that Michigan has worked so hard to achieve, by eliminating career- and college-ready standards for all students. Instead, Michigan would…

Learning from Leading States: Huge Improvements In Tennessee As highlighted last week, Michigan's students have lost substantial ground in student learning compared to other states over the last decade, particularly in early literacy. This is particularly troubling, as early literacy is a strong indicator of student success in school…

Learning from Leading States: Florida's Upward Trajectory Michigan’s students have lost substantial ground in student learning compared to other states over the last decade, particularly in early literacy. Third-grade literacy is one of the most important early predictors of later student success - not only for high school…

Thank you for giving us the chance to speak to you today about improving early literacy in the state of Michigan. I am Jason Mancini, director of government affairs at The Education Trust-Midwest (ETM). With me today is Sunil Joy, senior policy analyst at ETM. ETM is a…

by Rachel Weick, Grand Rapids Business Journal Michigan’s statewide charter school system’s report card remains low compared to other leading academic performing states. In its latest report, Accountability for All: 2016, The Education Trust-Midwest has proposed implementing the first statewide performance-based accountability system to hold Michigan…

by Amber Arellano Behind the Detroit schools crisis lies a troubling charter school sector. As Detroit Public Schools' teacher sick-outs and mounting debt capture the attention of press around the world, it might be easy to conclude money alone will solve the Motor City's educational woes. The truth…

by Valentina Korkes, Education Post Being from Michigan, generally, is a wonderful thing. Great people, Great Lakes, you get the picture. When it’s not so wonderful, however, is when you have to explain to other Michiganders that, in some other states, people actually like charter schools. There are states…

Detroit Free Press Gov. Snyder and would-be education reformers in both parties talk ad nauseum about holding allMichigan’s schools accountable. But charter schools, which now serve 145,000 K-12 students in Michigan and vacuum up more than $1 billion in taxpayer funds – remain maddeningly insulated from public…

by Rebecca Kruth, Michigan Radio A new report out today from Education Trust-Midwest says some charter school authorizers in Michigan aren't doing their jobs very well. The report says some of the entities that open and oversee charter schools have made marginal improvements overall, but performance remains low…

by Amber Arellano and Sunil Joy With roughly half of Michigan’s charter schools ranking in the bottom quarter of all public schools for academic performance, it’s clear that the state has a serious charter performance problem. The challenge is particularly acute in Detroit, where the issue has wreaked…

by Lori Higgins, Detroit Free Press Charter school authorizers are making better decisions about the opening and closing of schools in Michigan, but it's not enough,  according to a report out today that analyzes and grades the performance of charter authorizers. "Overall, the sector is still deeply troubling," said…

Michigan charter school authorizers’ performance overall has improved marginally over the last year, but remains terribly low compared to leading states’ charter sectors, according to Accountability for All: 2016, The Broken Promise of Michigan's Charter Sector. The report celebrates high-performing authorizers and sheds light on the devastatingly…

ROYAL OAK, Mich. (Feb. 11, 2016) -- Michigan charter school authorizers’ performance overall has improved marginally over the last year, but remains terribly low compared to leading states’ charter sectors, according to a new report released today by the nonpartisan Education Trust-Midwest. The report celebrates high-performing authorizers and…

ROYAL OAK, Mich. (Jan. 19, 2016) – Tonight Governor Rick Snyder detailed the many challenges facing Michigan families. As state leaders rightly focus on finding solutions for the very serious crises facing the communities of Flint and Detroit, they must also fulfill the state's critical leadership role in providing…

Michigan is truly at a crossroads. After years of hard work to recover from the Great Recession, Michigan is beginning to rebuild its economy and many of our fellow Michiganders are getting back to work. While our recovery is fragile, there are economic signs of hope blossoming this spring…