Advocacy

A Call to Action: Support Fair Funding for Michigan Schools and Students with the Greatest Needs

Michigan has long had one of the most regressive school funding formulas in the nation. The Education Trust-Midwest joins our many partners in the statewide coalition, Michigan Partnership for Equity and Opportunity, to build knowledge and advocate for proposals to create a more fair and equitable school funding system, especially for the students who are the most underserved in our state.

We support immediate solutions that Michigan leaders can do right now to make an impactful change, especially as Michigan’s Fiscal Year ’24 budget begins to take shape. An important step is establishing an opportunity index – or a weighted school funding system that accounts for concentrations of poverty in a student’s school district. Enshrining an index into law – one that includes evidence-based weights – will make significant progress toward addressing Michigan’s unfair school funding system.

Join the movement! Access the toolkit to see how you can support fair funding for students with the greatest needs!

Early Childhood Transition Report

In this report, The Education Trust-Midwest brings its equity lens and extensive work in K-12 data and teacher effectiveness to spotlight the preschool through third grade (P-3) period of that continuum, emphasizing alignment within the data and workforce development foundational elements. The report details the importance and critical features of a robust data infrastructure and practices as well as current challenges and potential leverage points for cultivating a strong ECE workforce to support that transition phase.