The future of children’s literacy in Michigan could depend on what support schools get from the state in its next budget.
That’s among the messages state officials shared Friday while speaking at an elementary school in Waterford Township, a metro-Detroit suburb bordering Pontiac.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer has said literacy will be a top priority in her last year as governor. Michigan fourth-graders recently scored among the lowest in the nation on reading tests.
The governor is calling for $625 million to support literacy efforts in her budget proposal. That money is meant for buying new learning materials, hiring more tutors, and training teachers on a course known as Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling, or LETRS.
Beverly Walker-Griffea leads the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential. She said getting kids reading is everyone’s duty.
“If we don’t work together to have this continuum, this playbook, where are we going to be economically, in our communities, in our families, as well as the state?” Walker-Griffea said during Friday’s press conference.
Waterford School District leadership said the district’s teachers had all been trained on LETRS, leading to better classroom results. But it took a lot of resources to do so.
State Superintendent Glenn Maleyko said he wants to support efforts to get everyone trained up across the state. He said doing so will be key to student success.
“We’re not talking about an unfunded mandate here. We’re talking about a mandate with funding the governor has put in her executive budget to make this happen,” he said.
The governor’s plan sets aside $50 million across five years for districts to get their staff trained on LETRS.
To get it, she’ll need buy-in from lawmakers like Representative Tim Kelly (R-Saginaw Twp). He oversees the education budget process in the state House of Representatives.
Kelly said he supports the new teacher training. But he has doubts about some of the other spending proposals.
“There’s no reason to throw more adults without the training at kids. I think high impact tutoring is necessary but not just by the people who already failed in their mission to teach kids to read,” Kelly said in an interview.
He said more money alone won’t fix issues with Michigan’s education, instead preferring more accountability measures for teachers and a return to holding students behind if they’re not reading at grade-level by third grade.
Lawmakers and the governor are also discussing policies that would require teacher certification programs to include certain literacy training. Kelly said to expect a bill on that to come up in committee in the coming weeks.
Later this spring, both legislative chambers could release their own budget proposals for Fiscal Year 2027. A final product is due under state law by 2026.
