The end of public higher education in Michigan?
At Governor Rick Snyder’s recent Higher Education Summit, George L. Mehaffy, Vice President for Academic Leadership and Change for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, offered a dire prediction that made me gasp out loud: Based on the trends since 1980, average state fiscal support for higher education will reach zero by 2059. […]
Employers can fix labor shortages
Terrific Dustin Walsh column in Crain’s Detroit Business entitled Businesses have key to labor shortage — higher wages. This is a position we have laid out many times before (see here) that markets solve supply and demand imbalances through price. In the case of labor markets price is wages and benefits. If there is more demand than […]
Turning on Kids’ “Lightbulbs:” Conversations with Educators
Michigan Future Schools, an initiative of Michigan Future, Inc. that Lou, Pat, Kim and I (your regular bloggers here at MFI) all worked on, wound up its direct work with schools in large part by last summer. This year our funders asked us to think about how we could ensure that the things we learned […]
Schools moving away from standardized tests and online learning
Summit charter schools in California and Washington state are often included on the list of charter networks that are getting big urban student achievement gains. A common characteristic of these networks is their commitment that their students will graduate from college. Another increasingly common characteristic is because they are committed to college success––not just […]
Education for a forty-year career
The centerpiece of our education policy agenda is that our education system should prepare students not for a first job, but for a forty-year career. The dominant narrative today seems to be the opposite – that we need to tie education far more with immediate workforce needs, preparing more young people for occupations like welders […]
Low unemployment doesn’t mean a prosperous Michigan
The most important recommendation in our new state policy agenda is that we change the mission of state economic policy to a rising household income for all. A Michigan with a broad middle class where wages and benefits allows one to pay the bills, save for retirement and the kids’ education and pass on […]
Incentivizing Detroit homeownership for teachers could boost student, community outcomes
Recently, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan announced a new program that offers homes in the city’s 30,000-property land bank to employees of Detroit schools – both traditional and charter – at a 50 percent discount. The idea is to attract educators back to the city and its schools and help solve Detroit’s teacher shortage. As recently […]
Student loans and home ownership
The story that taking out student loans is a path to pauperdom rather than prosperity dominates the public conversation. One problem: its wrong. As we have covered repeatedly (see here and here) getting a four-year degree, even with student loans, is the best investment one can make. One part of the story about the negative […]
Find the Michigan Future blogs that interest you most
If you read our blog you know that we frequently write about topics from our latest report “A Path to Good-paying Careers for all Michiganders: A 21st Century state policy agenda.” Now you can search for the topics that interest you most on our blog! See our updated categories below and click on the icons. […]
Could Michigan See a New Historic Preservation Tax Credit? (Please?)
Our recent report, “A Path to Good-paying Careers for all Michiganders: A 21st Century state policy agenda,” lays out the importance of placemaking to a prosperous Michigan, especially in our biggest cities. Some states have powerful economic development tools especially tailored to creating the cities that attract and retain talented residents, including historic preservation tax […]