A Request for Proposal has been issued by the Oakland Schools Education Foundation and is titled “Determining the Cost for Funding Educational Achievement for all Michigan Students (PK-12).” This RFP is posted at http://www.mitn.info and www.buy4michigan.com.
Lansing, MICH. — Top business and education experts today launched a comprehensive effort to reexamine how Michigan’s schools are funded. The School Finance Research Collaborative is bringing together top industry experts to reexamine the state’s approach to funding K-12 schools to ensure all students are fully prepared for jobs and success, from the inner cities to the suburbs, to rural areas and the U.P.
The recently released school finance “adequacy study” commissioned by the Michigan Legislature is a credible and overdue effort to frame a critically important public policy discussion. Citizens and lawmakers should embrace this opportunity to think about our collective financial commitment to educating Michigan’s kids.
Prepared by an experienced Colorado consulting firm, Augenblick, Palaich and Associates, the study estimates the cost of providing an adequate education for the typical student, as well as the additional cost of educating students who confront disadvantages over which they have little control.
A Bridge Magazine analysis concludes that Michigan would need to pony up at least $1.4 billion more for its public schools annually to meet recommendations made in a recently released study.
And even that may not notably improve learning.
Those are among the new revelations in a watershed report that attempts to quantify the minimum amount the state must spend to provide an adequate education to Michigan students. The study had long been sought by school reform advocates and Democratic legislators, who hailed its June 29 release as lending empirical proof of what’s needed, financially at least, to boost the state’s struggling schools.
Is the state’s budget setting kids up for failure in Michigan schools? A new report obtained by 7 Action News suggests that is the case.
The Michigan Education Finance Study is a non-partisan study that was paid for by the state. Lawmakers called for it because they wanted to know what to do for the sake of kids.
The researchers made disturbing findings. They found Michigan doesn’t come close to adequately funding education.