Michigan lags in education, ranking in bottom ten states, reveals Kids Count data

FLINT, Mich. - Michigan continues to trend in the wrong direction in various areas of education, that’s according to the latest data from the Michigan League for Public Policy.

The Kids Count data looks at the well-being of children and offers solutions to the problems identified.

Michigan ranks in the bottom ten states when it comes to education.

Anne Kuhnen is the Kids Count policy director at the Michigan League for Public Policy, she says the reason Michigan ranks so low in education compared to other states is many factors.

“Fewer than half of three and four-year-olds are enrolled in preschool. Just about one in 4/4 graders is proficient in reading. About one in four 8th graders is proficient in math," says Kuhnen.

Graduation rates are also not trending up for the state.

"We actually saw a slight worsening of our on-time high school graduation rate following you know, about a decade of improvements in that area," says Kuhnen.

Not graduating on time leads to other problems for the state, Kuhnen tells me the economy relies on a workforce that is educated.

"That has the reading and math skills that has a high school degree and even, you know, a bachelor's or an associate's degree in some cases. So not having students be prepared for college or for the workforce is definitely going to have some long term consequences for Michigan," she says.

Kids not showing up to school and not graduating can be traced back to their home life.

"The share of children living in poverty at 18% is higher than the national average. It's been stubbornly higher for a few years now. And you know, not having your essential needs met at home not having a safe way to get to school or enough food to eat is absolutely affecting our educational outcomes," says Kuhnen.

We asked Kuhnen, given all the data where do we go from here?

"Well, some of it is going to be about investing more in education. We had a historic education budget last year in Michigan, you might recall the opportunity index is a new source of funding for schools in order to help schools that have large numbers of at-risk student population," she says.

Michigan has significantly invested in schools in last year’s budget but Kuhnen says the commitment needs to continue.

Here are some additional data points:

• 63 counties saw a decline in the share of students proficient in third-grade reading during the pandemic
• 19% of students are not graduating on time
• 203,392 students are in special education (ages 0-26)
• 130,000 three- and four-year-olds in Michigan are not in school