Trustworthy, nonpartisan local news like ours spurs growth, fosters relationships, and helps to ensure that everyone is informed. This is essential to a healthy democracy. Will you support the nonprofit, nonpartisan news that makes Michigan a better place this election year?
To prosper, Michigan must be a more educated place. Bridge will explore the challenges in education and identify policies and initiatives that address them.
Grace’s story, first published by ProPublica Illinois, prompted outrage and debate across the country. Though a judge refused to set the girl free, the Michigan Court of Appeals ordered her immediate release from a juvenile detention facility in Detroit.
Some schools say classrooms aren’t safe, and others are hanging up the welcome sign (albeit with plenty of face masks). It’s confusing even for epidemiologists.
Michigan’s newly crowned Teacher of the Year is passionate about helping children, and he thinks it would help them to stay home this fall to lower the risks of the coronavirus.
Michigan districts are up against it to decide fall plans, and officials are worried that some will poach neighboring students. Superintendent Mike Rice wants to avoid that by freezing enrollment counts that are used to determine funding.
Michigan schools are likely to get less money in the coming state budget due to the economic crisis caused by coronavirus. One group urges lawmakers to make those cuts with a scalpel rather than an ax.
Grand Rapids joins Ann Arbor, Lansing and other large districts in planning to begin this fall with remote learning in all grades. A Republican bill, if passed, would threaten those districts with loss of state funds.
Depending on who you ask, standardized tests are either more important than ever as students return to school after almost six months at home, or are the last thing students and teachers need during a pandemic.
Michigan’s low-income high school grads will have an extra year to sign up for financial aid that provides free tuition to the state’s community colleges.
Detroit Public Schools Community District’s school board and superintendent doubled down on a reopening plan amid complaints from teachers, students and community members who said it’s too early to return to in-classroom instruction. Now it’s up to the Legislature to make administrative changes that would support public school districts in online learning.
In what could be a precursor to battles this fall over school attendance during the pandemic, a parent group won a court battle to require coronavirus testing of summer school students in Detroit.
Students in Lansing will start the school year online. Will other Michigan school districts do the same? Most districts expect to make their plans public in the coming weeks.
Students may wear face masks and may eat lunch at their desks, but the majority of Michigan schools that have announced plans for the fall are planning to offer families the option of full-time, face-to-face instruction.
Protestors blocked buses from picking up children in Detroit Monday, in a tense scene that captured the struggle between education and safety amidst a pandemic.
High school students can’t find sites to take high-stakes tests, or are seeing sites cancelling exams due to COVID-19. With more colleges already going test-optional, could these entrance exams be on the wane?
Michigan’s attorney general joined AGs in several states in suing U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over CARES Act dollars going to private schools. A DeVos spokesperson said the funding is intended for all students.
Desks won’t be six feet apart at your child’s elementary school in September, even if that’s the rule in restaurants. School officials say bringing students back full time would make social distancing nearly impossible.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s school reopening plan has one surprising takeaway: Schools can choose whether or not to bring all students back to class at the same time, with no state requirement that forces schools to run classes in shifts.
Whether it’s fatalism, naiveté or both, college students appear to be less concerned about catching the potentially deadly virus than school officials, even after more than 100 people were infected at one East Lansing college bar.