Testimony before Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on PreK-12
Testifying: Jeff Cobb, director of government affairs, EdTrust-Midwest and Alice Thompson, co-chair, Michigan Partnership for Equity and Opportunity
Jeff Cobb:
Good morning and thank you for the invitation to testify. My name is Jeff Cobb, and I am the Director of Government Affairs for EdTrust-Midwest, a nonprofit that works to close opportunity gaps for Michigan students. I am joined by Alice Thompson, chair of the education committee of the Detroit branch of the NAACP, and CEO of BFDI Educational Services. We are members of the Michigan Partnership for Equity and Opportunity, which is a statewide coalition with the goal of making Michigan a top ten education state for all groups of students. We share a deep commitment to ensuring that every Michigan student, no matter their zip code or background, can learn in a high-quality public school and receive the support and resources needed to fully realize their unique potential.
To achieve that goal, the state must increase support and targeted funding for our most vulnerable students, including students from low-income backgrounds, students with disabilities, and English Learners. This will require further investment in a weighted funding formula which provides fair and adequate funding for all Michigan students. As you build your budget, we urge you to prioritize funding for these students who have long been underserved by Michigan’s education system.
Alice Thompson:
Good afternoon. Again, my name is Alice Thompson. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.
A strong education system is foundational to the American promise that every child can pursue their own American dream. Yet that is not the reality for many students in communities across Michigan – urban, suburban, and rural.
Unfortunately, Michigan’s K-12 education system is struggling to ensure that all children are truly well-prepared for post-secondary opportunities and success, particularly students from low-income backgrounds, students with disabilities, English learners, and students of color.
Michigan’s standardized assessment for students, the M-STEP, paints a troubling picture. In 2025, only 39 percent of all students demonstrated proficiency in 3rd grade reading. These test results are not a reflection of Michigan children’s ability to learn at high levels. Instead, they reflect the need for greater state investment and support, particularly for those with the greatest needs.
Consider that Michigan ranks in the bottom ten for funding weights among states with similar funding systems in 2025 while in the top ten for foundation allowance.
Why are we so focused on funding students from low-income backgrounds? Last year, over 50 percent of Michigan students were considered economically disadvantaged. Michigan also has some of the highest rates of students living in concentrated poverty in the country. There are pockets of deep poverty across the state. These are students in every school district and in every region of the state. They live in small towns, large urban areas, rural Michigan, and in our suburbs. These are the students that will benefit from additional investment in the Opportunity Index, Michigan’s weighted funding system that drives additional dollars to districts with high concentrations of poverty.
Thanks to your leadership, we have made great strides in the last three budgets by increasing dollars to the public education of students who qualify for “at-risk” funding through the Opportunity Index with an emphasis on districts with high concentrations of poverty.
Unfortunately, the Opportunity Index is only funded up to a third of what was written in state statute. The need is great and the urgency to ensure all students have the support they need to succeed is real. The fate of our state depends on the education of ALL of our students, not some but ALL.
We urge you to put us on the path to fund the Opportunity Index within the next 5 years by including a $400 million increase in funding in next year’s budget proposal. This will ensure that districts are closer to having the resources to provide their students with the support they need.
Jeff Cobb:
Next, I want to focus on a group of students who have been historically underfunded: Students with disabilities. The current funding system has led to poor educational outcomes for too many students. Only 61% of students with disabilities graduate in four years with a traditional diploma ― leaving them at a disadvantage after high school. Michigan’s partial reimbursement system leaves districts, many with varying capacities, to shoulder most of the funding responsibility to cover the costs for students with disabilities. As a result, all students have been shortchanged.
To address this problem, the legislature has increased state investments, which has helped close the gap between what districts are paying for special education and what they receive from the state. Now Michigan must take the next step—moving away from short-term fixes to systemic reform by implementing recommendations in The Michigan Special Education Finance Reform Blueprint. This blueprint was developed over the past year with input from stakeholders across the state. It lays out a comprehensive roadmap for building a more adequate, equitable, and sustainable funding system for students with disabilities.
We urge you to include the following recommendations in your budget proposal:
- Adoption of a state-level four-tier Weighted Student Funding (WSF) formula for special education students based on the intensity of the services needed. We recommend weights from 70 to 300 percent of the foundation allowance.
- Creation of a High-Cost Fund (HCF) to protect districts serving students with extraordinary needs. This fund will provide the necessary resources to local districts which struggle with the high costs to support these students’ needs.
- Require a minimum level of local support based on taxable value coupled with raising the cap on special education millages. This will begin to mitigate disparities in services being provided to students with disabilities.
It is not enough to simply add funding to a system that is fundamentally broken and not serving the needs of students with disabilities. The Michigan Blueprint gives us the opportunity to rethink how we fund special education by shifting from a reimbursement model to a new weighted funding formula.
Another group of students who have been historically underfunded are English Learners. Michigan serves over 100,000 English Learner students, yet our state continues to rank in the bottom 10 for funding English Learners compared to other states with similar funding formulas, leaving them without the resources to reach their full potential.
According to the 2025 M-STEP, only 23 percent of 3rd grade English Learners were proficient in reading and only 12% of 7th grade English Learners were proficient in math. Additionally, they lag their peers in graduating within 4 years. English Learners deserve better and local districts need additional resources to meet their needs.
We know that our educators and school leaders are doing everything they can. But the reality is that for many years our state has drastically underfunded the needs of English Learners.
Thanks to your leadership, the recently passed school aid budget included a 25 percent increase in funding for English Learners and included target weights of 35%, 50% and 75%. Despite the increased funding, the pro-rated weights ranged from 2.6 percent to 23.2 percent, and the state needs to invest an additional $228 million annually to fund the targeted weights in law.
We appreciate the gains that have made over the past three years, but much more needs to be done. With potential threats to federal Title III funding, we urge you to prioritize funding for English Learners in next year’s budget by doubling the current amount up to $125 million.
State and district data consistently show that once English Learners meet the WIDA exit threshold and become Former English Learners, they outperform native English speakers on every standardized assessment. This affirms that English Learners are just as intelligent and capable as their native English-speaking peers.
Alice Thompson:
Investing in students with the greatest needs does make an impact. A study from California examined the impact of increased weighted funding and found the following educational outcomes:
- Improved students’ math and reading achievement
- Reduced the probability of grade repetition
- Increased the likelihood of high school graduation and college readiness
- Decreased suspensions and expulsions
It is important to note that these improvements have occurred over the course of several years. Because of your leadership, we are finally on a path towards closing opportunity gaps. Now is not the time to switch course but rather to double down on investing in these students from low-income backgrounds, students with disabilities and English Learners.
Along with additional investment, we strongly encourage you to consider making changes to increase accountability and transparency. Strong guardrails should be put in place to ensure that the funding is reaching the intended students. We propose requiring at least 75% of the funding to be spent at the building where the student attends. This will help ensure the dollars are getting to the classroom and being used to support the intended students.
I will close by asking one simple question: And how are the children? – this is a traditional greeting used by a tribe in Africa called Masai. The answer to that question helps assess the health and well-being of the community.
How are our children in Michigan? Thanks to the investments you made last year, they are better off today than they were last year. But not all of them are well. Too many are still falling behind, especially our students with the greatest needs. We will not reach where we want to go in this state until we can say that all our children are well.
