For more than a quarter century, Michigan public schools have been financed under a structure commonly known as Proposal A. This funding system's greater dependence on using state revenue to finance an enrollment-based funding formula has led to greater parity among districts over time and fueled more publicly supported schooling options for…

Governor Whitmer's April 2020 decision to extend the shutdown of school buildings through the remainder of the academic year came with a guarantee to preserve districts' 2019-2020 funding levels, provided they met a few basic conditions. One condition was to continue paying all district employees, even if staff members needed to be redeployed to…

This paper offers a critical review of a report published in March by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan titled "Improving Oversight of Michigan Charter Schools and Their Authorizers." The report argues that charter schools and charter school authorizers need more oversight. Making the case for this position might include…

This publication marks the fourth edition of the Context and Performance (CAP) Report Card for Michigan elementary and middle schools, published every two years since 2013. The goal is to compare Michigan schools' relative performance by factoring in the role student poverty plays in affecting academic achievement. The CAP Report Card uses…

The 2018 Michigan Public High School Context and Performance Report Card is the fourth edition in a series of analyses designed to measure high school performance. The first report was published in 2012 (ED541512) and was followed by analyses in 2014 (ED560065) and 2016 (ED588530). This report is a school-level assessment of academic performance…

Seven years ago, Highland Park Schools went through a highly publicized period of turmoil and organizational upheaval. The troubled time for that Detroit-area district was brought on by a steep drop in enrollment and the deep financial crisis that followed. By contrast, the district's newest upheaval is rooted less in obvious signs of distress…

Public school districts use private contractors to provide support services in an effort to save money, improve services and better prioritize district resources. The Mackinac Center has surveyed school districts about their use of contractors since 2001. This year's survey revealed that 69.7% of schools contract out for food, custodial or…

This report represents the third in a series designed to measure the academic performance of Michigan elementary and middle schools, and the first of the series to use results from the M-STEP assessment. Similar report cards were published in 2013 (ED560064) and 2015 (ED568656), based on different but overlapping years of scores on the defunct…

Michigan's public school districts are government entities that occasionally use private contractors to provide them with support services. The 2018 privatization survey found that 70.5 percent of Michigan's school districts -- 380 of the 539 districts in the state -- contract out for food, custodial or transportation services. This is a slight…

Nearly one in four Michigan public school students attended a different public school than the one assigned to them based on their home address, according to a 2016 MLive analysis of state data. Specifically, 13 percent attended a conventional school district outside their home boundaries through Michigan's Schools of Choice program and another 10…

The 2016 Michigan Public High School Context and Performance Report Card is the third edition in a series of analyses designed to measure high school performance. The first report was published in 2012 (ED541512) and was followed by a 2014 analysis (ED560065). This report is a school-level assessment of academic performance based on a four-year…

In 2001, contracting out for school support services by Michigan school districts was a rare practice. Less than one in three districts used private providers for food, custodial or transportation services. Today, 16 years later, the tables have completely turned: it is more unusual to find a district that does not outsource at least one of these…

Public school districts are government entities, but they rely on the private sector to support their function of delivering educational services to students. Private contractors, for example, construct district buildings, write textbooks and manufacture the supplies necessary to keep the district operational, among other things. And over the past…

According to data collected by the state, Michigan has 601 private schools that enroll about 113,000 students--about 7 percent of all students in the state. All but 14 of Michigan's 84 counties have at least one private school operating within their boundaries. Despite the fact that private schools in Michigan are widespread, there is very little…

What is the relationship between school spending and student achievement in Michigan? That is the question this paper attempts to answer. The bulk of the research on this question has typically shown that there is little correlation between spending and achievement, but it is possible that Michigan's public schools are an exception to this…