Why Were Michigan School Financial Reform So Much Different Than Many Other States?

Michigan school finance reform has failed our students. While other states approached finance reform with aspirational and legal goals of greater success and equity for all, Michigan’s reform was driven by a desire to fulfill political promises of lower taxes and avoid any future legal challenge. This has led to our poorest students being left behind while negatively impacting the discourse around school financing and the role of money.

Educational reform usually takes place as a result of either political, aspirational, societal, or legal challenges. Political challenges are driven by a political leadership change, bringing with it a new agenda (new governor, control of the senate changes from one party to another, etc.). Aspirational challenges

I would argue that it was not something fundamentally different about Michigan during this time. Rather, I think it was a product of chance that this happened in Michigan, but it could have happened in any state that passed a finance reform. In every state, there existed the underlying influence of power. What I mean by this is that there were individuals in a position to create and pass finance reform due to their influence, both politically and economically, and they had an opportunity to take advantage of it. In Michigan, it was those in power who acted first. Thus, they were able to control and lead the reform with a focus on maintaining the present economic and education structures. Meanwhile, in many instances across the nation, those who were not in power sued to have their position put forth before those in power had a chance to direct the

In short, yes. Most directly, the aforementioned difference in focusing on aspirational v. structural goals drives different results in funding equity. When your primary goal for success is to change the structure reduce property taxes, as compared to aspiring to reduce inequality, your priorities are different and your resulting reform will be different. While it is difficult to analyze the specific tax changes put in place across multiple states, in aggregate, states whose finance reform was driven by a legal challenge had an overall increase in funding for K-12 schools. On the other hand, Michigan has seen a decline in K-12 funding (adjusted for inflation). These results should not be surprising. When the goal is to reduce property taxes, there is a good chance politicians will decrease taxes and school funding overall as adding offsetting taxes would seem at cross-purposes with the reduction in property taxes. However, when the goal is to increase equality and help all students succeed, politicians will seek out additional funds to support schools currently near the bottom. At the least, they won’t reduce overall funding in support of equality. Moreover, almost 25 years after reform, Michigan schools are still funded unequally (and won’t be equal for another 20 years at the current rate). Meanwhile, states which set their primary goal as equalization followed a much quicker path towards equitable