There is some disagreement in Michigan about how best to spend the federal COVID-19 educational funding. | Pixabay
There is some disagreement in Michigan about how best to spend the federal COVID-19 educational funding. | Pixabay
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy recently questioned Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s approach for distributing COVID-19 relief funding to Michigan schools and criticized her proposed policies for favoring school districts that are already heavily benefiting from federal relief funding.
In her recent State of the State address, delivered on Jan. 27, Whitmer said that “COVID exposed deep inequities in our education system,” and expressed the desire to provide more funding for disadvantaged schools and students. The Mackinac Center points out that her statement is at odds with her actions.
In 2019, the Mackinac Center reported that Whitmer vetoed a $240 per-pupil funding increase for charter schools, even though public charter schools are more likely to serve low-income students than the average school district. She later reached a compromise with the Legislature and supported a budget deal restoring the charter's formula funding, according to MLive.
Her latest proposal for a weighted funding formula heavily favors certain school districts and would shortchange charter school students even more so than her earlier veto. The disparity is huge across the board, with federal COVID-19 relief varying by more than 100-fold on a per-student basis, according to a Bridge Michigan analysis.
Both the Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) and Detroit charter schools serve similarly disadvantaged students. Despite this, the DPSCD was heavily favored for funding from the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act and will receive an even larger share in the new federal relief package, bringing the total of relief funding per student to $9,372 for each student, compared with $2,761 for the average Detroit charter school.
The Michigan Legislature cannot alter these payouts because they were determined by Congress, but they do have control over the distribution of the remaining portion of federal relief funds. Whitmer’s proposal would further exacerbate these economic gaps, providing Detroit charters $307 less per student than the city’s public school district.
The Mackinac Center praised the Republican response of offering a $250 reimbursement to parents who pay for tutoring, but said that they should go further, according to the Great Lakes Education Project.
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