If you care about Michigan, please support our work.
Donate TodayTalent & Education
To prosper, Michigan must be a more educated place. Bridge will explore the challenges in education and identify policies and initiatives that address them.
Articles
Shooter drills. Anxious teachers. Flying staplers. Michigan schools prepare.
It’s been 20 years since two students killed 13 people at Columbine High School. Today, Michigan schools use hockey pucks, hornet spray and gun sensors to train for the unthinkable. Are they ready? And at what cost?
Michigan doesn’t track school security – or fund safety office it created
Most Michigan schools visited take active shooter security seriously. Just don’t ask the state what each school is doing – it doesn’t keep track. And the Office of School Safety the Legislature created? It remains unfunded.
Five finalists named to be Michigan’s next state school superintendent
Three finalists are long-time superintendents from Michigan, and two others would bring an outside perspective to the state’s chief of schools
Gay rights and climate change are back in Michigan social studies standards
A public outcry followed conservative efforts last year to revise ‒ and in some cases, limit ‒ what is taught classrooms. Those changes were largely reversed in a new draft to the state education board.
Michigan teachers: Standardized tests are useless and classes are too big
Those inside Michigan’s classrooms have some very different views on what works and what doesn’t work to improve education, according to a massive survey of educators across the state.
Rich-poor achievement gap won’t budge. Is investing in teachers an answer?
Students from poor families are, on average, more than two years behind their wealthier classmates. Poverty plays a huge role in student scores, but can boosting teacher quality also help?
Whitmer budget would triple literacy coaches to help Michigan students read
The $24 million budget increase for literacy coaches wasn’t the biggest headline out of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s budget proposal, but it could have a huge impact on Michigan schools, particularly for third grade.
Gov. Whitmer: Boost Michigan schools by $507 million, with more for neediest students
Michigan’s governor’s first budget offers a fairly radical change in how the state spends money on public school students, with questions still on where the money would come from.
Whitmer pushes college aid. But success rates vary wildly at Michigan schools
A new scholarship proposal could get more students into Michigan colleges. But which campus they go to plays a big role in whether they graduate and how much they - and the state - will benefit.
Seven things to know about Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s debt-free college plan
The governor’s ambitious revamp of college aid could be a game-changer for Michigan, but the state’s poor won’t benefit much. Here’s why.
In Tennessee, a model for Michigan’s plan for debt-free community college
If you want to know the impact Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s proposed college aid expansion, look 500 miles south to Tennessee, where a nearly identical program has been up and running since 2014.
A $18B debt is coming due, and it’s haunting small town Michigan
See how your town compares as a new state law tracking public pension and health care debt lays bare the financial woes of rural Michigan.
Birmingham superintendent apologizes for African American history class
In response to a column in Bridge Magazine, superintendent sends parents letter saying district “failed in its obligation” to provide “appropriate” lessons.
More Michigan residents get college degrees, but state still trails diploma race
More than four in 10 Michigan adults have an associate’s degree or higher, the highest rate on record but still far short of what the state needs.
Opinion | The miseducation of Michigan: How state fails kids in black history
My kids are in one of Michigan’s best districts. Their African-American history class included ‘Boyz n the Hood’ and a documentary about gangs. We can do better as we celebrate Black History Month.
The real state of Michigan education: Improving outcomes costs money
Whitmer campaigned on improving Michigan schools. Education leaders across the state offer suggestions to accomplish that goal.
CEOs, Republicans add voices to Michigan’s child care ‘crisis’
Michigan needs workers. Workers need child care. But the cost is out of reach for many Michigan families. Will the weight of CEO’s and, increasingly, Republican lawmakers prompt the state to open its wallet?
Four people, four reasons child care costs are a growing crisis in Michigan
Few people are happy with the affordability of child care in Michigan. Bridge profiles a parent, a child care worker, the owner of a child care center, and a CEO whose workers can’t find suitable care.