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Lawmakers have less than a month left to pass education reform legislation or we risk losing hundreds of millions of dollars of federal money that is up for grabs.
The money – $4 billion total – is available through President Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative as an incentive for states to make changes that will raise student performance and accelerate efforts to improve failing school districts. Only five or six states will be chosen to receive grants, so competition is fierce.
Unfortunately Michigan’s efforts lag far behind.
It’s not as if we don’t need the money. After the Legislature cut funding for K-12 education by 2.9 percent to help balance the budget, the governor cut schools by another $100 million, so you would think lawmakers would be jumping all over one another to get this done. But that isn’t happening. As with everything else in Lansing, politics gets in the way.
The problem is that the reforms, while supported by Republicans, are opposed by some in Lansing who do not want to make any changes to the way Michigan schools are traditionally run.
For example, one of the reforms requires the state to allow non-teachers to get certified without having to go through a four-year degree program, so that people with certain valuable skills such as math and science can teach in areas that do not have enough highly-qualified teachers. Without alternative teacher certification, a retired auto engineer cannot teach math; a doctor cannot teach biology.
The state must also set up a system to track student performance, fix failing schools and allow more charter schools.
As the state superintendent recently testified in committee, these are all positive reforms that Michigan will likely have to make sooner or later anyway, so we should make them now, when doing so will make us eligible to compete for millions of dollars to invest in education.
I look forward to hearing your comments on these important issues. Please feel free to contact me by calling (888) 373-0078 or e-mailing sharontyler@house.mi. gov.
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