Republicans expressed anger at Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-Michigan) after the Michigan Department of Education released data showing a historic decline in reading scores across the state.
The number of third-graders reading at the required reading level fell below 40% in Michigan for the first time after scores plummeted during the state’s strict COVID-19 lockdowns. In 2015, 50% of third-graders could read at grade level.
Reading scores among the state’s elementary school students suffered greatly when schools across the state were forced to switch to mostly online learning from March 2020 to December 2020. In January 2021, Whitmer began encouraging (though not requiring) schools to resume in-person instruction by March of that year.
Whitmer is widely seen as a rising star for the Democrats. She was once considered the favorite to be Vice President Kamala Harris’s vice presidential nominee, and last week she delivered a well-received speech at the Democratic National Convention. While she won acclaim within her party, Republicans in her home state were quick to blame the Democratic governor for the dismal education news.
Republican Senate Leader Aric Nesbitt said, “That six out of 10 Michigan students are unable to read at their grade level is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE and an indictment of Democrats’ education policies during and since the pandemic.” He added that Whitmer “and the Lansing Democrats have done immeasurable harm to an entire generation of our children.”
Jaime Greene, a Republican state representative and mother of two, told the Washington Examiner the news “truly reflects how long Michigan was closed during the COVID lockdowns.” Over a year ago, a panel of education experts told the House Education and Workforce Committee that the COVID-19 lockdowns had resulted in “the largest negative shock to student learning in the United States.”
Greene is a Marine veteran who homeschooled her children before retiring last year. “I never thought I would be the public school champion, but I feel like I have to do that now because our literacy rate is low,” she said.
Greene added that she was “100 percent” convinced that Whitmer’s plan to create another education program “detracts from the resources the department actually needs” to help children achieve better academic performance.
In July 2023, Whitmer signed an executive order establishing the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential, an initiative to improve learning outcomes from preschool through postsecondary. At the time, Whitmer assured the state that her new program would complement existing education infrastructure and would not take resources away from the State Board of Education, which oversees the Michigan Department of Education.
However, members of the State Board of Education remained concerned that their department had been given the cold shoulder.
“The funding that we are primarily concerned about is the $414 million that the governor is proposing to spend from the Michigan Department of Education for the MiLeap program that she created,” Tom McMillin, a member of the state education board, told CBS in February. “We have questioned the constitutionality of what she is doing on many levels, because the Constitution clearly states that the Michigan Department of Education and the State Board of Education are responsible for all education in Michigan.”
Greene said Whitmer had “split the Department of Education” and “created her own parallel department because she doesn’t believe the current department is doing its job.” Whitmer’s 2025 budget proposal called for 75%, or $414 million, of the Funds from the Ministry of Education for MiLEAP.
Greene, however, is not sure why Whitmer appears unconvinced that her Department of Education is performing as expected. She attributes the debacle to a “confrontation between the State Board of Education and the governor.”
“They didn’t do what she wanted to do or what she thought was a priority,” Greene commented, adding that she was unsure what Whitmer’s priorities were.
Whitmer signed and signed Michigan’s latest education budget into law last month.
Republicans in the Michigan State Senate claimed in a post to X on Wednesday that they failed to “increase per-pupil funding for the first time in over a decade.”
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“Michigan’s 3rd grade reading scores are the lowest in the history of the test. And yet @GovWhitmer and the Democrats have decided now is a good time to pass a budget that includes no increase in per-pupil funding for the first time in over a decade?! They are failing our kids,” the state Senate Republican said.
The Washington Examiner has reached out to Whitmer’s office for comment.
