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Opinion | Education in Michigan requires transformation, not reform
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In 1976, Johnny Cash released the song “One Piece at a Time” about a factory worker who built an automobile after spending decades sneaking parts off the assembly line. The result was a car with a ’53 transmission, a ’73 motor, three headlights, and a single fin on the back end.
The song was funny. Michigan’s “one piece at a time” approach to fixing its education system is not.
The results speak for themselves. Around the year 2000, Michigan’s student achievement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress was well above the national average. Fifteen years later, the state had slipped into the middle tier. More recently, Michigan ranked 44th in the nation in fourth-grade reading, and student achievement has yet to rebound to pre-pandemic levels.
By any measure, this is a striking downward slide, and alarm bells should be ringing. Instead, Michigan has responded with a hodgepodge of incoherent tweaks and sudden, short-term initiatives that lack consistency and staying power. There is little acknowledgment that it took years to get here or that meaningful improvement will require sustained effort over time. Long-term planning and follow-through have been in short supply.
To change course, Michigan must recognize that public education does not need reform, it needs transformation. Reform focuses on improving an existing system. Transformation requires rethinking the system itself: its goals, structures, and incentives. It means recognizing that models designed for a different era may no longer be sufficient for the challenges students face today. So what stands in the way?
It doesn’t take a root cause analysis to show that a persistent focus on the short term has bottlenecked the system. Term limits and election cycles naturally encourage governors and legislators to prioritize what can be accomplished quickly rather than what will matter most over the long haul. It allows partisan bickering and bureaucratic infighting to absorb precious time that could be spent far more productively. When initiatives do finally emerge, layers of administration, overlapping agencies and unclear accountability stall momentum.
The result is wasted energy, fragmented efforts, and a constant return to the drawing board in a search for new ideas. The system ends up beholden to any education alchemist who shows up with the latest philosopher’s stone, slick marketing, and a good lobbyist.
To avoid the shortsightedness that brought us here, the governor and Legislature should work together to empanel a nonpartisan blue-ribbon commission with broad representation and a clear mandate: develop a 10-year educational transformation plan for Michigan, implemented legislatively and reviewed in five-year cycles.
The resources already exist. Michigan is home to world-class colleges of education. Our schools are staffed by educators who want students to succeed. The business community understands that a strong economy depends on strong schools. Parents want their children prepared for what comes next. Let’s bring these people together and unite them in the common goal of taking Michigan education back to the top for good.
The value of this approach lies not only in the collaboration it fosters, but in the long-term perspective it establishes. Instead of haphazard attempts at improvement with each legislative session, state leaders could focus on accountability and progress toward shared goals. Schools could focus on implementation and improvement rather than constant adjustment. Parents and employers could have greater confidence that students will graduate ready for the future.
Make no mistake, the need for action is urgent. Reversing Michigan’s decline in student achievement will take more than randomly adjusting the system one piece at a time. It will require clarity, commitment, and a serious plan. The time to act is now.
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