by Gongwer News Service
March 6, 2009

Among the platitudes politicians peddle perpetually is the notion that children are our future. In Michigan that warhorse phrase has been modified into the idea that our future economy depends on education.

It has been a primary policy of the administration of Governor Jennifer Granholm and the legislature to slap some sense into the public regarding education and the economy.

The time when one could walk away from high school into a grunt factory job that would pay for a house, several cars, a cottage and a boat has rusted itself into the junkyard. Education and the ability schooling gives one to work with complex concepts, numbers, theories and facts is what will turn the state’s long-term economy around. That is the new mantra of state life.

So those who believe education is truly a key to a better state economy could be excused for scratching their heads trying to decipher the mixed clues state policyholders have signaled of late on the schooling front.

The educational landscape in the last several weeks has seen pending budget cuts (Ms. Granholm has called for 3-percent cuts to the state’s four-year colleges and dented the Holy Grail of education spending by proposing a $59 cut in the per pupil K-12 foundation grants), enhanced arguments over how to handle teacher retirement, the crushing fiscal collapse of the state’s largest school district, and now a new call to dismantle possibly the most significant educational policy change of the last decade: the strict new high school graduation standards.

How could all this be when just a few years ago, getting a college education was the state’s new gold standard?

Ms. Granholm had Lt. Governor John Cherry head a commission that called for significantly increasing the number of college graduates in Michigan. Ms. Granholm took it as her mission to help double the number of graduates over time.

Some critics charged not all good jobs required a four-year degree. Fine, came the riposte, but even those jobs require skills that typically go beyond what can be learned in a K-12 setting.

Ms. Granholm also publicly encouraged school children to make plans to go to college.

And the state took a major step to alter the merit scholarship to help virtually all students attending community college or college pay for their education.

Arguably the most significant change to try to reach these goals was the new high school graduation standards, requiring schools to develop curricula heavy with English, social studies, science and mathematics. With those classes, students would be better prepared to tackle the technical skills required of many jobs and the college classroom.

What happened with these bright ideals? Officially nothing. The state’s goal is still to boost college graduation and still to have students leave high school ready to master the higher skills required of college and technical training.

But even ideals have to meet practicality, and state budgets must be balanced. Despite angry charges that she was abandoning the principles she espoused, there has been no change in Ms. Granholm’s call to cut the universities.

What has particularly grated university officials, though they are generally too politically astute to voice the complaint publicly, is the call by Ms. Granholm to freeze tuition rates. She has argued that during this economic stress, families should not be priced out of sending their children to college. But the universities want to snap back that the price of tuition is not solely their decision.

In fact, there was one very public university complaint. On February 3, the same day that Ms. Granholm gave her State of the State address, Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon gave her State of the University address in which she said if the universities had received the same budget increases as the prisons, then tuition at MSU would be at least $2,000 cheaper.

This past week university officials tried to offset some of the effect of the potential budget in discussions with state leaders. Although, what they propose they are keeping on the QT.

However, on top of the budgetary conflicts comes news by Rep. Brian Calley (R-Portland) that he is introducing legislation to scrap the graduation curriculum. Ever since the curriculum was adopted, students and parents whined about the requirement for algebra II, looking for other math alternatives.

Mr. Calley argued that the curriculum is “wrong-headed” and that schools must be flexible enough to train students for a wide variety of jobs, though he did not provide examples of jobs that would not need the skills the subjects would cover.

Education needs instead to focus on the individual needs of each student, Mr. Calley said.

But there are still certain economic facts that correlate educational attainment and economic advancement. MSU Economist Charles Ballard outlined those in a public lecture he gave during the week, showing that the states with the largest percentages of college graduates — such as Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maryland — have the highest per capita incomes, while the states with the lowest numbers of graduates — such as Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana — have the lowest per capita incomes. Michigan, along with most Great Lakes states, is in the middle of the pack in terms of both graduates and incomes, he said.

Michigan has a potentially bright economic future, but that will depend on the state growing its industrial activity in areas like biotechnology — and that, Mr. Ballard said, will require higher education.

For nearly 50 years in Michigan, Gongwer News Service has provided independent, comprehensive, accurate and timely coverage of issues in and around Michigan’s government and political systems. For subscription information, including a free trial, visit Gongwer online.