There’s potential power in transformational investments

A version of this column originally appeared in The Alpena News.

For me, September always brings with it a last camping hurrah with friends up north, the start of apple picking, and the regular trek of the school bus through our neighborhood. This year was no exception, although we are dealing with some big transformations in our house—the first year riding a bus, moving up to middle school, and the first year playing an instrument and choosing elective courses. And all of these changes have added an extra layer of anxiety, on top of all of the issues we’ve experienced over the past several years.

Our teachers and students have been dealing with the trauma of an international pandemic and deadly school shootings-even close to home in Oxford, Michigan—on top of normal school and home related pressures. Although my sixth grader has been back in person for well over a year, the last full year his school wasn’t disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, 2018-19, was second grade. Our ninth graders this year were in fifth grade during that school year. And aside from the impact these traumas have had on academic learning, they’ve also had a significant impact on our students’ social-emotional development and mental health.

The budget passed by the Legislature and signed into law by the governor provides investments that have the power to be transformational for our students, especially if we use this budget as our new baseline and grow from it.

Notably, the budget recognizes that students have different needs in order to access the same quality of education as their peers by providing increased student funding through the so-called “weighted funding formula.” These investments include:

∫ A $450 increase–to $9,150 per student for all schools–in the per-pupil foundation allowance payment;

∫ A $223 million increase–to total $747.5 million–in the school aid budget’s “at-risk” program, which provides funding for students from low-income backgrounds. This program will be fully funded for the first time in about two decades, increasing the per-pupil payment from a prorated $768 to a fully funded $1,051;

∫ A substantial increase in funding for students with disabilities, helping to reduce the gap between the actual costs of providing special education services and the funding provided to pay for those services; and

∫ Smaller increases in funding for students learning English ($1.3 million) and rural and isolated districts ($438,000 total, from which all schools in the Alpena area should benefit).

However, the state could take this one step further in future budgets. Instead of setting a foundation allowance and providing total spending amounts for various “categories” of targeted investments, the state could implement a “set it and forget it” weighted funding formula. Under this, the state sets a base funding amount per pupil and then adds weights to that base payment for kids who are English-language learners or economically disadvantaged or who have disabilities. In years in which school funding is increased and the base payment is increased, funding would then go through the formula and automatically increase total funding for these students.

Outside of traditional school funding, the budget provides significant investments in teacher recruitment, school safety and student mental health. Importantly, the budget includes $150 million in a newly funded program to provide per-pupil payments to districts to improve mental health, including hiring support staff, implementing screening tools, and providing school personnel with consultations with behavioral health clinicians.

Additionally, the budget increases funding for mental health services provided by Intermediate School Districts, and each of the ISDs serving northeast Michigan are estimated to see their funding increase by nearly $400,000, as well as for School-Based Health Centers, prioritizing currently unserved counties. According to information from the School-Community Health Alliance of Michigan, neither Alpena nor Montmorency counties are currently served by a school-based or school-linked health center.

We have disinvested in our kids’ futures for far too long, and while this budget alone cannot make up for all of the lacked resources over the years, it has the power to be transformational. A budget that recognizes the disparate and distinct needs of our students, and directing funds to schools and students based on those needs, can start reversing these trends. But it can continue to do so only if we have the will to continue these investments. We cannot, nor should we, stop now.