- Michigan’s next governor will inherit an education system in which students are struggling compared to peers in other states
- How will they fix it? Bridge asked nine leading candidates to weigh in on a variety of education issues
- Readers say addressing K-12 school struggles is one of the most pressing issues this election year, according to Bridge Listens survey
From dismal literacy and college readiness rates to a growing teacher shortage, Michigan’s next governor will have major education issues to tackle — and substantial decisions to make.
Readers have identified K-12 education as one of the top issues in Bridge Listens, our informal election-year issues.
So we asked nine leading gubernatorial candidates — Republican, Democrat and independent — the same six questions, touching on some of the most pressing or contentious issues facing Michigan schools today.
The candidates, in alphabetical order:
- Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat
- Former Attorney General Mike Cox, a Republican
- Former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, an independent
- US Rep. John James, a Republican
- Businessman Perry Johnson, a Republican
- Former state House Speaker Tom Leonard, a Republican
- State Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, a Republican
- Pastor Ralph Rebandt, a Republican
- Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson, a Democrat
Bridge also asked the candidates to note how they’d try to implement their proposals — through executive, legislative or constitutional changes — but most did not. James said he’d take a mix of legislative and executive action.
Click here to read full, unedited responses by the candidates and their campaign. Or read on to find summaries of their responses.
Childhood Literacy
The question: Michigan ranked 44th in fourth-grade reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. What does Michigan need to do to improve? Are there current policies you would keep, change or eliminate?
All candidates acknowledged Michigan is falling behind in childhood literacy and said more needs to be done. Most, aside from Swanson and Johnson, specifically proposed hiring more literacy coaches or tutors to work with struggling students.
Republicans James, Cox, Johnson, Rebandt and Leonard said the state should focus on teaching phonics.
A 2024 law will require districts to ensure teachers have been trained in the science of reading by the 2027-28 school year. Rebandt and Benson, a Democrat, specifically mentioned one option: LETRS, which would become mandatory under a bipartisan bill currently moving in the Legislature.
Johnson was less specific, and said, “it is difficult to impose one rigid policy that works everywhere, from rural communities to large urban systems. The state should focus on results, not micromanagement.”
Swanson, a Democrat, suggested working with local school districts to expand early childhood education opportunities like preschool and Young 5s is one of the best means of improving literacy.
Republicans Leonard and Nesbitt explicitly called for restoring a third-grade reading retention law that Democrats repealed in 2023. The 2016 law had required districts to hold back third-grade students who struggled to read, but the pandemic and wide use of exemptions meant few students had been held back.
Choice and Charters
The question: Michigan offers public school choice and charter schools, which are publicly funded. Would you push to change anything about the system, including signing up Michigan for the national tax credit scholarship program?
Republican candidates have a refrain: Parents know what’s best for their children and should get to choose the type of schooling their child receives and where taxpayer funding goes to support it. The Democratic candidates, by contrast, want to support public schools before privately-run alternatives.
A new “Education Freedom Tax Credit” from President Donald Trump’s signature tax-and-spend legislation will allow parents to essentially be refunded up to $1,700 in donations they make to scholarship-granting nonprofits that help to pay for private school tuition or students’ educational expenses. Public school advocates have sharply criticized the policy as a “school voucher scheme.”
Twenty-three states have opted into the program so far. Michigan has not.
All Republican candidates said they support the tax credit program, aside from Johnson, who didn’t address that part of the question. He instead said the state’s charter school system “is best when it encourages flexibility, real parental choice, and a diversity of educational approaches” and said he supports “maintaining strong charter and school choice options while ensuring parents have clear information about school performance.”
James said he’d opt in to the federal choice program on “day one” if elected. “Competition and choice make every school better,” he said.
Duggan, an independent who left the Democratic Party, said his campaign needs to “review the final details before making a decision,” but is interested in seeing if the scholarships can be used for funding public schools.
Duggan and Benson, a Democrat, both suggested charter schools should be held to the same standards as public schools, but Benson and Swanson, both Democrats who count public school teachers unions among their supporters, said no resources would be diverted away from public districts if elected.
“What Michigan does not need is policies that further drain resources from the neighborhood public schools where the vast majority of our children learn,” Benson said. “Michigan’s charter schools can and should be part of a thriving educational landscape — but that means holding them to the same rigorous standards we expect of all public schools.”
College readiness
The question: Statewide, only about 27% of high schoolers are college-ready, as determined by student performance on the SAT. How would your administration ensure students are college and career ready when they graduate Michigan high schools?
Michigan’s gubernatorial candidates all agreed the state should do more to expand opportunities after high school beyond college, particularly in the skilled trades.
Duggan, the independent, has proposed a major expansion: promising his administration would ensure “every district has access to a full (career and technical education) pathway by dramatically expanding funding and access,” with a five-fold spending increase on CTE programs over five years.
“We will provide grants to help districts launch programs, purchase equipment, allow intermediate school districts to partner with neighboring districts to expand access, and modernize graduation requirements so students can better combine academic coursework with career training,” Duggan said.
Benson, a Democrat, wants to tie high school graduation to a “globally-competitive college and career education standard,” which should include skills from “academics and career preparation to digital literacy and financial health.”
On the Republican side, Leonard looked to Tennessee’s Promise and Reconnect programs and Colorado’s CareerWise apprenticeships as programs Michigan should emulate. Tennessee’s Reconnect program is more expansive than Michigan Reconnect, which offers tuition-free college for adults.
Leonard and Cox both said college readiness starts with literacy, and if those scores can’t be improved “nothing else matters.” Johnson said low college readiness is a sign Michigan “needs to refocus on fundamentals” — reading, writing, math and critical thinking.
Military service and expanded opportunities for formerly incarcerated Michiganders reentering society should be expanded, said Swanson, a Democrat. He said career exploration opportunities in middle and high schools should also be expanded so students have a better sense of the futures available to them.
Staff challenges
The question: The teacher shortage remains a challenge in schools, even as the state has worked to lower the cost of getting a teaching credential. What would you do to ensure Michigan's schools have the staff they need?
To boost the number of Michigan teachers, candidates coalesced around two main concepts: making it easier to become a teacher and boosting pay or other benefits for those that enter the profession.
Benson would raise teacher starting salaries to a floor of $60,000 and “meaningfully increase compensation for experienced teachers and school support staff,” but it appears this would require legislative action to accomplish. Swanson made a similar proposal, but didn’t name a salary amount.
Duggan advocated for teaching apprenticeships and argued universities have a big role to play, saying “colleges of education should be central to the mission of higher education in this state.”
To surge more staff into classrooms, Duggan would push for using temporary teaching certificates and allowing teachers with certificates from other states to be automatically certified in Michigan.
Leonard likewise said there should be “alternative certification pathways,” and mentioned Texas and Tennessee as models for how to implement that. James said his administration would reduce “overly restrictive licensing barriers blocking talented professionals, engineers, tradespeople and experienced retirees” from teaching.
Nebitt said he’d like to bring skilled trades back into every high school but argued “we must reward our best educators, not lower the bar for credentialing,” as did Johnson.
Nesbitt also said he’d work to implement merit-based pay and retention bonuses for highly effective teachers and give tuition assistance to teachers who commit to working in rural areas. Leonard also wants merit-based pay, but would have bad teachers fired, too. James said he would fund a similar proposal for boosting teacher pay by cutting administrative education spending.
Johnson also believes a return to “strong classroom discipline” would “make teaching more rewarding day-to-day,” alongside a reduction in bureaucracy.
Cox focused on what he called “structural mismanagement” in Michigan schools. He said districts have hired too many administrators and not enough teachers in recent years, and “that disconnect must end.”
Changing school metrics
The question: Michigan has repeatedly changed how it measures school performance over the past decade. Is Michigan’s approach to school accountability effective? Would you propose a different method?
Michigan has gone from top-to-bottom school grading, to an A-through-F grading system under Republicans and now a “school index system” to measure school performance, as approved by a Democratic trifecta in 2023.
Republicans Nesbitt, Rebandt and Cox all said they support restoring the A-F grading, which was ushered in by Republicans in 2018.
Rebandt proposed that “teacher evaluations should also take student improvement into account.”
Other candidates proposed creating new systems.
Among Democrats, Swanson said he would create a bipartisan task force to create another new grading system.
As for Republicans, Leonard proposed grading schools on student growth, reading and math proficiency, their physical safety and graduation readiness.
“Accountability only works if it’s clear, stable and useful. Right now, it’s none of those things,” he said. Leonard said every school should have to disclose its level of third-grade reading proficiency online.
James said he would create “a system built on transparency, consistency, and continuous improvement so parents always know exactly where their child’s school stands,” promising more details at a later date.
Duggan, the independent, has previously proposed creating an office of school accountability that the governor would directly supervise. He would give more funding to struggling schools and three years to improve. After three years, though, Duggan has suggested school administrators could be fired.
“Persistent failure will result in leadership changes under a fair and clearly-defined process,” Duggan said.
The same “globally-competitive” college and career readiness standard Benson has proposed establishing should be schools’ “north star,” the Democrat told Bridge, adding that she thinks there should be “meaningful intervention and support when schools struggle to meet those goals.”
Republicans James and Leonard have also proposed allowing parents to closely scrutinize classrooms by requiring all schools to post their curricula online. James would open up teachers’ instruction materials to Freedom of Information Act requests and require parents to opt their kids into learning on unspecified “controversial subjects,” while Leonard would want to see staff training and detailed spending also posted online.
School funding and equity
The question: Michigan has increased per-pupil funding in recent years but some districts are unable to pass bonds or sinking funds to pay for school infrastructure. Are Michigan schools adequately funded, and would you like to change how Michigan doles out money? If so, please describe how. Additionally, would you seek to alter funding for free pre-K and school meals?
Michigan’s schools are funded by the state on a per-pupil basis, with every school receiving the same “foundation grant” for each student, then additional funding for students who need extra support, like special education.
Benson, a Democrat, was the lone candidate who said she’d like to overhaul that system. She called the current funding approach “antiquated” and it should be replaced with a “transparent equitable funding model that meets the unique needs of every school and every student.”
Republican candidates, by contrast, noted Michigan has some of the highest per-pupil funding amounts in the country, and argued more money wouldn’t solve Michigan’s education problems.
“Before talking about new funding formulas, we need to focus on results,” Leonard said. Cox added, “We must stop rewarding chronic failure.”
Candidates across the political spectrum, including Swanson, Duggan and Rebandt, vowed to stop annual budget diversions from Michigan’s School Aid Fund, which will top $1 billion this year under Whitmer and the Legislature.
No candidate said they would seek to roll back access to free pre-kindergarten that expanded significantly during Whitmer’s tenure.
As for student meals, Nesbitt and Leonard said they’d like to cut off access to free meals above a certain income level. Cox did not address that part of the question but previously said the state should not give free meals to the children of “rich people.”
Promising more details at a later date, James said he would “find efficiencies across our nearly 600 school districts and conduct a full audit of school meal spending to ensure that no needy child goes hungry, no dollar is wasted, and savings are directed to the classroom.”
