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New Education Budget Makes Highest Per-Student Investment in State’s History

Governor Gretchen Whitmer has signed a bipartisan education budget that will make the highest state per-student investment in Michigan history, invest half a billion dollars in school infrastructure, fund teacher recruitment, bolster school safety, expand mental health resources and more.

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A group of students working in a classroom

Governor Gretchen Whitmer has signed a bipartisan education budget that will make the highest state per-student investment in Michigan history, invest half a billion dollars in school infrastructure, fund teacher recruitment, bolster school safety, expand mental health resources and more.

The education budget can be divided into six key sections: students, mental health, learning supports, student safety, school infrastructure and teacher recruitment.

Students:

  • The highest state per-pupil funding in Michigan history—$9,150 for students in every district.
  • Providing additional support for the nearly 200,000 special education students and 710,000 students in the state who are considered “at-risk.”
  • Expanding of free preschool under the Great Start Readiness Program to 1,300 more kids.
  • Increasing funding for career and technical education programs by 27%.

Mental Health:

  • $214 per-pupil mental health and school safety funding for every kid, in every public school district.
  • Increasing funding for teen centers, district mental health grants and TRAILS, which offers training to school mental health professionals so they can better serve students with evidence-based services. As CMF reported, TRAILS is supported by several CMF members and over the past four years, TRAILS has trained nearly 10,000 educators and school support staff, such as school counselors and social workers, to provide evidence-based mental health programming to an estimated 90,000 students.

Learning Supports:

  • Expanding before and after-school programs to keep kids engaged.
  • Funding for the MI Kids Back on Track, Whitmer’s proposal to offer every kid in Michigan tutoring to help with long-term success.
  • Providing resources for districts to develop learning pods for students struggling academically and students with low-income backgrounds.

Student Safety:

  • Dedicating school safety dollars for every student in every school.
  • Providing funds to hire more on-campus school resources officers, create an intervention system for at-risk students that brings together law enforcement, schools, and mental health professionals and establish a school safety commission.

School Infrastructure:

  • $250 million for school infrastructure.
  • Providing resources to help schools build or refurbish classrooms, labs and libraries.
  • Funding to assess the current state of school infrastructure and determine further funding.

Teacher Recruitment:

  • Funding MI Future Educator Fellowships which provide up to $10,000 in tuition for 2,500 future Michigan educators every year. Launch Michigan has been working with state policy educators to fund the fellowships and recommended this program in its recent framework.
  •  $9,600 stipends a semester for student teachers and Grow-Your-Own programs that help districts put support staff on no-cost paths to become educators.
  • Additional funding for career and technical education educators and the Troops-to-Teachers program that connects veterans with mentor teachers as they work to become certified educators.
  • Investing to guarantee retired teachers have a stable, secure retirement.

Want more?

Read the full press release.

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