Redrawing the lines

Education policy in Michigan has undergone a major shift over the past two years. Much of the credit for that must be given to the state’s voters, who in November 2020 approved a constitutional amendment creating an independent, non-partisan, redistricting commission. Newly drawn legislative districts changed the look of Michigan government as Democratic lawmakers narrowly took control of both houses for the first time since 1981. That alone has brought important changes to Michigan’s public schools. But more importantly, we hope, the long term impact of the new districts will be to shift education policy from extremism to compromise and stability.

Michigan was unusual, especially among Northern states, in that the political struggle over public education was sharply partisan. Elsewhere, the proponents and opponents of what is often called “corporate reform” hailed from the same political parties. Test-based accountability was embraced by many Republicans and Democrats alike, as were moves toward restructuring and privatization. In Michigan, by contrast, votes on education legislation nearly always fell along party lines.

Political control of the redistricting process meant that those in the majority could almost guarantee much larger majorities in the House and Senate than the overall statewide vote would predict. (See the chart below, which compares legislative control with statewide votes for president and governor.) With large and sometimes “super” majorities, the dominant party could often pass legislation without any need to compromise, even within their own ranks. Dissenters, and lawmakers from competitive districts, could be allowed to go their own way and still leave a solid majority to pass bills.

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Many important state Republicans, not least the Grand Rapids power couple Dick and Betsy DeVos, made reshaping public education in line with their ideas a top priority. So it was no surprise that when the Michigan GOP took control of the Legislature in 2010, enabling them to draw the lines for the 2012 elections, the priorities of the DeVos family and their allies became the priorities of the legislative majority, and a veritable blizzard of education “reform” legislation was the result:

• Charter schools were freed from numerical caps and other regulations;
• Draconian test-based accountability rules threatened low-scoring schools with forced restructuring or closure regardless of the challenges they faced;
• The misnamed Education Achievement Authority in Detroit was nearly made the statewide “reform district” with the power to take over local schools and close or convert them to charters without consulting the local community;
• State school aid was squeezed to help pay for a huge business tax cut, creating a funding cliff that took years to recover from;
• Appropriations bills were used to bully school districts into following dubious “best practices” and punish any challenge to the changes;
• A crude “all thumbs, no fingers” test-based evaluation system was mandated for school teachers and building administrators in bills passed with zero public discussion;
• The challenge of literacy was tackled by decreeing that students with sub-par test scores be held back (flunked) starting in third grade;

and many, many more.

In the 2022-24 legislative session, the narrow Democratic majority started reversing some of the most damaging of these policies. Unfortunately, the votes were still nearly all along party lines and the measures sometimes rushed through just like the laws they replaced. (See the accompanying post on “Major public education measures” in the last session.)

• Provisions requiring that students with low reading test score be held back were removed, though other provisions requiring regular screening and support systems remain.
• Dyslexia screening and intervention requirements were added, filling a gap left by the original “third grade flunking” legislation.
• Teacher and administrator evaluation systems were shifted to rely less on standardized test scores; regular training of evaluators was required; regular feedback to evaluated educators was mandated; and local districts were given more scope in shaping the evaluation systems (though the criteria and methods must now be set forth transparently and used with fidelity).
• School aid budgets continued the shift to more formula-based funding, with added resources for districts with high levels of poverty, dispersed districts with high transportation costs, and districts with declining enrollments (which can set off a downward spiral).

The start of the new 2025-26 session has not been auspicious. The new Republican House majority began their focus on education with proposals to have the State Board of Education elected from districts rather than state-wide (HB 4148, hoping that would change the partisan composition of the board) and a constitutional amendment to have the state superintendent named by the governor rather than the State Board (H. Joint Res. E). These proposals speak more to who controls education than they do to improving the quality of K-12 education.

House leaders also led off the budget negotiations by passing bare-bones appropriations bills which funded only a fraction of normal government services and cut education spending by a third. (See “Playing chicken with our kids” here.) House members argue that these bills were only a backstop against a possible government shutdown, but it is disheartening that the first proposals are political stances rather than honest attempts to build a workable budget. Facing a Senate and Governor of the opposite party, House leaders know that these appropriations bills will never become law, but it does send the message that nearly all government spending programs will have to be negotiated from the ground up. The talk of a possible shutdown means that lawmakers are thinking budget negotiations may be unresolved when the new fiscal year starts on October 1st. Meanwhile, school districts must finalize their budgets by June 30th and wait with bated breath for the final outcome in Lansing.