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Editorial

Tough assignment: Lift schools while cutting

   
Gov. Rick Snyder has set the bar pretty high for himself with regard to education.

   The governor says he’ll outline his plans to make Michigan’s schools more competitive and efficient in a major address this April. But in his budget plan released last week, he proposed deep cuts to both K-12 and higher education. And the state Department of Education released a report this week that suggests the vast majority of students graduating from Michigan’s schools are not college-ready. It is a dramatic indication of how poorly Michigan has kept pace with educational excellence.

   So the governor starts from a premise that Michigan’s schools must do more with less — a theme that has emerged in his approach to many other areas, but that may not translate as cleanly in education.

   Snyder is surely right when he asserts, as he did during the campaign, that something about Michigan’s’ schools just doesn’t add up. The state ranks 18th in per-pupil spending and fourth in average teacher salaries, but it has been sliding in overall performance rankings and is 49th in ACT scores — a key measure of college readiness.

   Snyder has talked about applying his value-for-money approach to Michigan schools, trying to set guidelines and benchmarks for evaluating how wisely schools allocate their resources, instead of just how much they spend.

   A business approach may finesse some of the funding issues Michigan’s schools face. But as the Department of Education report makes clear, the state’s schools need something close to a comprehensive rebuild — of teaching methods, standards and the accountability to make sure they all work to prepare kids for higher learning.

   Teachers need to have their evaluations — and at least some of their pay — tied to student performance, and they need access to training and other professional development resources that will help them do better in the classroom.

   And the state’s standards — for student learning as well as teacher quality — need to be consistent with the highest in other states.

   Snyder will also have to lead on those fronts, even as he cuts funding and insists on efficiencies on other fronts. His business background will not be sufficient for that task; he will need dynamic educational leaders to take the helm and pull the state through a serious period of reform.

   Snyder’s rhetoric has set the bar high. He’ll need to match it with action to get Michigan’s schools back among the best.