Another bottom ten ranking for Michigan
Education Week has just released its 2015 Quality Counts state report card. Overall Michigan ranks 32nd with a grade of C-. On K-12 education attainment Michigan ranks 42nd with a grade of D. Massachusetts is ranked first overall and in K-12 education. (For more on the differences between Michigan and Massachusetts see my previous post “Needed: New state education policy”.) Minnesota is the top ranked state on both metrics in the Great Lakes. Michigan is the Great Lakes states worst in both categories.
The only states ranked lower than Michigan on k-12 attainment: Alabama, Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Carolina,South Dakota, West Virginia.
The EdWeeek rankings are consistent with other state ranking on education attainment. (See this previous post.)
- The United States Chamber of Commerce Foundation Leaders & Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Effectiveness gives Michigan an overall grade of D. For academic achievement a D and for academic achievement low income/minority an F. The report gives Michigan an F in both categories for progress since 2007.
- The 2014 Kids Count report from the Anne E.Casey Foundation which ranked Michigan 38th in education.
Low education achievement is a recipe for being one of the nation’s poorest states. In an increasingly knowledge-based economy, education attainment is the main driver of economic well being for individuals, communities and states. Michigan has already fallen to the bottom fifteen in per capita income after being in the top twenty for most of the 20th Century. Its almost certain we will not be a prosperous state again without being a high education achievement state.
It truly ironic that our K-12 programs are so poor, while at the same time U of M and to a lesser extent Michigan State and even Wayne State are highly rated research universities. We also have some pretty good regional state universities and and private colleges. It seems like having a better pipeline of K-12 schools would also help out good public and private universities by supplying
better students who need less remedial work when they get to college. Also, you have written in other postings about how our community college students often never complete school and often do not go on for a 4 year degree. I thing having better prepared students from our K-12 programs would improve this situation as well.
No question that students leaving high school college ready would substantially improve both community college and university completion. We need to make k-12 student outcomes a priority.