State Board of Education (SBE) Pushes for Education Reforms, Consolidation of Services, and Revenues

The State Board of Education (SBE) recently approved on a bipartisan 8-0 vote a Resolution calling for Michigan school districts to continue to ReImagine the pre-K-12 educational system and consolidate services, as well as to encourage the state legislature and Governor Jennifer M. Granholm to immediately find the revenues necessary to reduce the funding cuts to schools.

“We have to keep the schools functioning and the students learning,” said SBE President Kathleen Straus. “The reality is that the funding for schools has dropped. We have to restructure the system to make it sustainable.”

The recently-enacted state School Aid budget saw a cut of $165 per pupil in school funding, followed by a projected $127 per pupil pro-rata cut in school funding due to a decline in revenues into the state’s School Aid Fund.

“We’re looking at the new three Rs,” said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan, who chairs the SBE meetings. “The solution will be a mix of revenues, reforms, and reductions. We need all three.”

The SBE moved to continue the work of Project ReImagine, the Michigan Department of Education’s initiative to work with school districts with bold, innovative ideas to affect district-wide reforms aimed at establishing an education system for the 21st Century global economy.

The SBE also assigned a long-term focus on addressing the structural issues facing Michigan’s education system. It resolved to join the Governor, state legislature, school districts, and other stakeholders to develop, in the coming months, a long-term structural remedy to enable the state’s investment in education and its people.

“This train wreck of a budget situation does a service to no one,” said SBE Vice President John Austin. “We have to put the train back on the track and get back to the serious discussion of what is the longer-term fix for schools.”

“There’s got to be a fiscal process for the long term, to examine the K-12 budget and the delivery of services,” said SBE member Reginald Turner. “We will set a timetable for us to come up with solutions and the outcome won’t be pleasing to every corner. We need an efficient and effective system that is properly funded.”