Whitmer wants to throw more bureaucrats at Michigan’s education problems
Zachary Faria
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Michigan has been wrestling with the effects of government-imposed school closures since the pandemic. Luckily, the governor has a bright idea: How about a redundant, bloated bureaucracy to funnel taxpayer money to?
That is the mindset of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), whose July 12 executive order would create a second education department focused on “lifelong learning.” This new “Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential,” as it is called, will exist separately from Michigan’s existing Department of Education.
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“For too long, we have thought of education as K-12, but we know that’s not good enough,” Whitmer said. “MiLEAP will help our learning ecosystem take the jump to the next level as we grow our economy and build a brighter future for Michigan.” The state’s largest teachers union is also on board, because a redundant department full of education bureaucrats is right up its alley. How government bureaucrats in Lansing will help children learn in classrooms across Michigan is anyone’s guess.
If Whitmer truly wanted to help Michigan students learn, perhaps she could fire everyone involved in the decision to shutter Michigan schools throughout the pandemic. Even after the initial closure of schools during the spring 2020 semester, Whitmer closed schools in November 2020 and asked schools to close again in April 2021. Many school districts obliged, banning in-person learning for the entire spring 2021 semester. Ann Arbor was one of the school districts to begin the fall 2022 semester remotely.
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As a result, Michigan was one of the biggest losers in public school enrollment. Test scores also cratered, with Michigan’s fourth grade reading scores dropping from 32nd best in the country in 2019 to 43rd in 2022. Michigan fourth graders were below average in math and reading compared to the rest of the country. This is all despite the fact that Michigan is 21st in education spending per student.
Another department of bureaucrats isn’t going to fix all that, especially when the bureaucracy Whitmer is forming is an unnecessary duplicate of one that already exists. The damage done to students by lockdowns that Whitmer imposed and allowed school districts to impose isn’t going to be fixed by throwing more money or more unelected pencil pushers at them. It starts with accountability for anti-science lockdowns, and Whitmer is the first one who needs to be answering for them.