Michigan Students Cannot Afford Proposed School Aid Disinvestment
ROYAL OAK, Mich. (December 12, 2018) – Ensuring that Michigan public schools have the resources needed to provide an excellent and equitable education to every Michigan student is critically important. The great improvements needed to put Michigan on the path toward becoming a top ten education state will require targeted investments in evidence-based strategies. The Education Trust-Midwest oppose proposals to shift money out of the School Aid Fund in the remaining days of this year.
“At a time when Michigan’s education system has seen years of consistent decline in key indicators of student learning such as third-grade reading, we urge state leaders to invest in strategies to make the system more effective for improving teaching and learning for students,” said Amber Arellano, Executive Director of The Education Trust-Midwest. “Now is not the time for disinvestment.”
Recent proposals would move nearly $700 million dollars out of the School Aid Fund to pay for income tax refunds and road construction. At a time of tight school budgets and a public education system struggling to provide the quality of education that Michigan students need and deserve, the impact of this significant funding diversion must be better understood.
Conversations about redistributing funds intended to support public K-12 education in Michigan should take place with the input of education stakeholders and an opportunity to fully examine potential consequences. Unfortunately, that opportunity is not available before the end of the 2018 calendar year.
As a result, The Education Trust-Midwest urges Governor Snyder and legislative leaders to leave the School Aid Budget intact through this lame duck legislative session.
