Governor Granholm Says Education Reform Must be Addressed with Sense of Urgency

Press Release

Governor Jennifer M. Granholm today said Michigan has an unprecedented opportunity to reform public education in Michigan as the nation prepares to move forward on Phase Two of Race to the Top and a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act commonly referred to as No Child Left Behind.

"This is our moment to be aggressive and bold," Granholm told educators at the Governor's Education Summit in East Lansing. "We don't need to spend energy reinventing the wheel. There are successful models across the country, and the Obama administration has put in place Race to the Top that outlines a specific roadmap of best practices to achieve success."

Granholm said the state is beginning to experience the benefit of reforms, having implemented some of nation's most rigorous graduation requirements. Programs designed to help students meet the new requirements are impacting dropout rates, further illustrating why the status quo is unacceptable.

Granholm cited preliminary reports indicating a three percent improvement in the four-year dropout rate for the graduating class of 2009 compared to 2008, but over 16,000 students dropped out of school between 9th and 12th grades. Statewide, graduation rates remain stagnant at 75 percent, which the governor called "unacceptable."

The governor also noted that with the rigorous graduation requirements came other reforms in testing entrance readiness of high school juniors in English, math, reading and science.

This year, Michigan Merit Exam scores increased in math, writing and social studies, stayed the same in English, and fell just slightly in reading and science. When comparing 2007 to 2009, students gained or maintained scores in five of six subjects with the exception of a slight decrease in social studies.

Economically disadvantaged students made significant gains over the past two years; Hispanics made progress in all six subjects this year; and African American students made gains in five of six subject areas.

"Michigan is committed to elevating the quality of K-12 schooling not just so our students can compete with kids in Indiana and Kansas but so they can compete with kids in India and Korea," Granholm said. "It is an urgent economic and global imperative. As President Obama has said, education is no longer just a pathway to success. It's a prerequisite to success."

Granholm restated the administration's commitment to be successful in Phase Two of Race to the Top, which she said can be achieved only with support from all stakeholders. Applications for the funds are due June 1.

Also unacceptable, Granholm said, is the ongoing dispute over governance in the Detroit Public School District. The governor said Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb needs to be allowed to assert his authority over both the district's finances and academics, given the two are inextricably bound.

Granholm's remarks came on the eve of the fourth anniversary of having signed legislation putting in place some of the nation's most rigorous high school graduation requirements, which were one of the positive aspects of the state's initial Race to the Top legislation.

Members of the Class of 2011 will be the first to graduate having completed the tougher college-prep curriculum that includes at least four years of math, four years of English, three years of science, three years of social studies, two years of a foreign language, and one year of the arts. Rounding out the requirements are an online learning experience and one year of physical education and health.

In addition to the reforms in high school graduation requirements, Granholm has pushed for and signed into law significant reforms making it clear that improving student achievement will be the driving force in Michigan's education system and a factor in how we evaluate teachers, principals and schools.

Those reforms include allowing the state to intervene in the lowest-performing schools; permitting new high-quality charter schools to open if they meet certain standards, and permitting the closure of low-performing charter schools; requiring administrators to be certified; requiring an annual evaluation of teachers and administrators using data on student growth; creating alternative routes to teacher certification to help bring the best and brightest into our classrooms; and raising the dropout age from 16 to 18, effective for the high school class of 2016.

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