Ben DeGrow
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Articles by Ben DeGrow
Why states should follow West Virginia's lead on school choice
It’s been nearly five years since West Virginia became the first state in the nation to adopt a universal education savings account, or ESA program. When the application window for the state’s Hope Scholarship program opens in early March, it will be the first year that every student in the state is eligible for a fully funded account they can use to customize their K-12 learning journey.
School choice and homeschool freedom go hand in hand
Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email Click to print (Opens in new window) Print Key points: Supporters of educational freedom want to expand both school choice and homeschooling The U.S. had the blueprint for a high-class education–but abandoned it How satellite connectivity can narrow the digital learning gap...
Scientific American takes aim at homeschoolers
Should parents be required to pass a background check to teach their kids at home? According to the editors of Scientific American, the answer is “yes.” In a recent article, the editors of the celebrated 178-year-old magazine heavily imply that homeschoolers are being left behind. But they provide no evidence that homeschoolers are worse off educationally, socially or physically. And none of their suggestions for improvement make much sense.
Membership plunges again for Michigan and national teachers unions
State and national teachers unions continued to lose members in 2023. The drop comes despite an increase in the number of public school employees in Michigan. The NEA is down to 2.45 million active members in 2023. That’s a loss of more than 12,000 since 2022. The union has lost nearly 215,000 members since 2018, which is the year of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME.
Blaming homeschoolers for foster abuse is a dodge
| Font size: 75% 100% 125% 150% Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and some lawmakers are targeting homeschoolers in response to recent reports of abuse in a foster care home. They seem to want homeschooling families to register with the government, but it is unclear how such a requirement would prevent child abuse. “Michigan is one of only 11 states that doesn’t count or register homeschooled children,” State Rep.
Three years later, Michigan court rules Michigan State illegally withheld information
| Font size: 75% 100% 125% 150% Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act was meant to allow citizens virtually unfettered access to public records so that public officials and institutions would be accountable. But many government entities push the boundaries of the law and fight tooth and nail to keep their records secret. A standard method often used by schools and universities is an exemption to FOIA called the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Whitmer targets online charter schools that serve needy kids
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s budget proposal harms some of the state’s most at-risk students. The executive budget includes a 20% cut in funding for students enrolled in online charter schools. And it creates an additional hurdle for disadvantaged students who need access to high-quality education opportunities. Online charter schools offer critical services to students who often have no other options. They serve a greater percentage of low-income and minority students compared to conventional districts.
Grand Rapids Charter School Makes Engineers and Pilots
| Font size: 75% 100% 125% 150% By Molly Macek The West Michigan Aviation Academy produces results. This happens even though it, like some other charter schools, contracts with a for-profit management organization. Its investment in innovative programming produces impressive student outcomes that counter claims of mediocre performance among charter schools supported by for-profit companies.
School board races have always been political
A rise in contested school board races has led many in the media to start paying attention to these races. The Detroit News reports: The article goes on to report that “political players [are] getting involved.” Actually, political players have always been involved. It’s just that the involvement has happened only on one side – labor unions supporting candidates they believe will deliver for them.
Hybrid Homeschooling Gives Families Across Metro-Detroit More Flexibility
Tanya Armitage-Edgeworth’s daughter struggled with her private elementary school’s pandemic transition to remote instruction. Receiving unhelpful pushback from school administration, the family looked elsewhere. Tanya did not see full-time homeschooling as a viable possibility, given her background and professional responsibilities. Regular schooling options didn’t offer what her daughter needed to get back on track. Then they learned about HighPoint Hybrid Academy.
Case for Education Tax Hike Doesn’t Add Up
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is a nonprofit research and educational institute that advances the principles of free markets and limited government. Through our research and education programs, we challenge government overreach and advocate for a free-market approach to public policy that frees people to realize their potential and dreams. Please consider contributing to our work to advance a freer and more prosperous state.
Tide of School Choice Support Keeps Rising
Michigan’s proponents of expanding the state’s educational options face a new setback, but they should press on, taking heart from their past and some recent developments elsewhere. Robust state laws afford broad access to public charter schools and district schools outside their assigned area. Families also have wide berth to provide education at home. Together, these advantages have given Michigan a top-10 ranking on the Education Freedom Index.
Intermediate School Districts Get Bigger and Richer While Students Languish
Michigan lawmakers this month look to finalize the next school aid budget, wrangling over how much to increase this year’s $17 billion outlay for 2023. Differences on total spending and specific line items remain. Whatever agreement is reached, though, will represent more of the same for the state’s 56 intermediate school districts. The limited amount of attention these regional bureaucratic agencies receive during the state budget process rivals their general awareness among voters at large.
Policymakers should help students achieve, not lower the bar
There’s simply no dispute about the toll the past two years of “COVID education” have taken on students. Michigan State researchers found that each month of remote instruction put another 1 percent of the state’s students “significantly behind” in math, and about half that many in reading. Low-income learners, who could least afford the setback, lost the most ground. The findings of another recent study from around the country mirrored these results on a larger scale.
WSJ Ed Board Supports Mackinac Research on Student Opportunity Scholarships
A recent Wall Street Journal editorial cites a study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in support of Michigan’s stalled proposal for student opportunity scholarships. Michigan’s Legislature last October passed the Student Opportunity Scholarship Program, which would have provided up to $500 million in funding to help students pay for tutoring, private tuition, additional courses, and other education expenses.
Expanding School Choice in Michigan (Commentary)
Expanding school choice in Michigan through Student Opportunity Scholarship accounts funded by tax credits is complicated. There is an understandable challenge in writing about Michigan’s attempt to expand parental choice in education. Until recently, journalists who cover state issues and debates have had little reason to investigate the larger movement, even as Michigan remains surrounded by states that have adopted private education choice programs.
Getting a Fuller Picture of Education Choice
| Font size: 75% 100% 125% 150% By Ben DeGrow There is an understandable challenge in writing about Michigan’s attempt to expand parental choice in education. Until recently, journalists who cover state issues and debates have had little reason to investigate the larger movement, even as Michigan remains surrounded by states that have adopted private education choice programs.
What’s Really Unfair About School Funding?
A new report by the advocacy group Education Trust-Midwest omits important recent information that fails to support its thesis about Michigan’s highly “regressive” school funding system. Ed Trust-Midwest, a Royal Oak-based affiliate of The Education Trust in Washington, D.C., recognizes that literacy among younger Michigan students is stagnating. The group projects that, if trends continue, the state’s fourth graders will fall from 32nd to 39th in reading on national tests by 2030.
Help Families Pay for Their Own Tutors
An abundance of extra COVID cash doesn’t guarantee schools will set the right priorities. Even when they focus on helping students make up for lost time learning, districts may not adopt effective approaches. In 2020 and 2021, the federal government approved a combined total of $6 billion in additional K-12 funding in response to the pandemic. Sizable increases in state aid have ensured record funding to Michigan schools.
NEPC Review: From School Aid to Student Aid: Modernizing K-12 Funding in Michigan (Mackinac Center, March 2022)
A Mackinac Center report recommends changes to the state’s current approach to financing public and charter schools, to move toward a system where more funding follows the student to either public, charter, or private schools—or to other service providers. The report provides some useful, albeit insufficiently researched, guidance on shifting categorical funding into core funding and modifying the state’s approach to financing programs for children with disabilities.
Turn State Universities Into Nonprofit Institutions
Former State Rep. Jon Hoadley was rejected by the Michigan Senate for his appointment to the Western Michigan University Board of Trustees. I have no idea whether Hoadley was a good selection for the school’s board. I don’t know what the people who voted against his appointment thought about him, either. The controversy, however, demonstrates that Michigan’s state universities would be better off as independent nonprofit schools.
Greater transparency is needed between parents, Michigan schools
This article originally appeared in Bridge Michigan March 23 2022. Families should have opportunities to get more information from schools that can help them provide a motivating and effective education. Yet today parents in different parts of the state are hampered in their efforts to see what their children are taught. Forest Hills Public Schools in west Michigan sent a $400,000 bill to parents who formally sought documents that show how racial issues are being presented in the classroom.
Opinion | Let MI Kids Learn would benefit families and students
Michigan families deserve to understand the true promise of a plan to give them greater say over tax credit-funded education dollars. The Let MI Kids Learn plan has the potential to benefit tens of thousands of Michigan students and their families each year. Unfortunately, Michigan State University Professor of education policy Joshua Cowen’s selective account in Bridge Michigan painted a distorted picture of what the best research tells us about private school choice policies.
Biden plans to change the rules for charter schools - and hurt vulnerable students
Getty Images Parents and kids lobby for charter schools in this Oct. 19, 2018, file photo. The Biden administration is poised to take the side of powerful political groups over children and parents — again. Bowing to the American Federation of Teachers’ lobbying in early 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended slowing a return to in-person schooling that many students needed to get back on track.
Michigan Student Opportunity Scholarships: Overview and Fiscal Analysis
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is a nonprofit research and educational institute that advances the principles of free markets and limited government. Through our research and education programs, we challenge government overreach and advocate for a free-market approach to public policy that frees people to realize their potential and dreams. Please consider contributing to our work to advance a freer and more prosperous state.
Michigan 4th-Greatest 'Wage Gap' in US? Hardly
According to a new analysis from the American Community Survey, published by Slate magazine in collaboration with the New America Foundation, in 2010 Michigan had the fourth largest pay disparity between women and men at 62 cents for every dollar, respectively.
Michigan Per-Pupil Revenues Soar Again
During the early months of the pandemic, many worried that lost revenues from restrictive economic policies would break public school budgets. But it turns out the worst fears for Michigan K-12 finances were misplaced. In April 2020, the Mackinac Center responded to projected shortfalls with suggested budget items to cut, including areas of the school aid budget less focused on classrooms and student needs.
Families should have opportunities to get more information from schools that can help them provide a motivating and effective education. Ben DeGrow is director of education policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank based in Midland. (Courtesy photo) Yet today parents in different parts of the state are hampered in their efforts to see what their children are taught.
Give Lower-Income Families True Choices
The evidence is in: Demand for private school enrollment is growing in Michigan, reversing a years-long trend. For those concerned that this trend might worsen educational gaps between rich and poor, voters have a solution right now. A recent Bridge Michigan piece highlights the resurgence of students attending private education options. In the two years since reaction to the pandemic disrupted normal routines, private religious schools have welcomed an extra 3% to 5% of students.
Give High Schoolers More Access to Career Training Options
The effect of lost learning from COVID school policies has impaired many high school students’ abilities to chart a path to productive futures. Though many have struggled in recent years, lawmakers have tools to enlist students directly in support of their own future professional attainment. They should use those tools. A recent article in Bridge Michigan highlights the uneven availability of career training for high school students, based on the county in which they live.
Economic Index Offers Policymakers Red Alerts
Editor’s Note: To read the Spanish-language version of this blog post, click here. Nota del editor: para leer la versión en espanol de este blog, haga clic aquí The economies of most Midwestern states have not performed particularly well over the years, as indicated by many objectively measurable categories.
Families Should be Able to Choose the Best Educational Fit for Their Kids
Editor's Note: This piece first appeared on January 27, 2022, in the Oakland Press. My high school-aged boys were on a non- stop merry-go-round: Hybrid. Virtual. In-person. Quarantine. As our sons headed into the 2020-2021 school year, these were just a few of Michigan’s new public school policies. We were hopeful, because the Michigan Department of Education and our school districts had had five months to figure out a plan for education during a pandemic.
Governor’s Budget Downgrades Charter Schools
Michigan’s governor wants another major infusion of extra tax dollars into the state’s public schools. The predictable approach has been rewarded with approving media headlines. But one troubling aspect of her proposed spending has received little attention: the extent to which it picks winners and losers. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s new school aid budget comes in two parts. First, she wants nearly $2 billion more to spend between now and September 30, primarily on programs designed to fill classrooms.
Flush with Cash, Flint Classrooms Finally Reopen
Flint schools are open at last. The heavily funded but troubled Flint Community Schools reopened classrooms Monday, becoming one of the state’s last holdouts to return to in-person instruction. The district is flush with cash, but its commitment to keeping classes open has been weak. More than 90% of Flint students come from low-income families. While remote instruction typically lowers achievement for all, economically disadvantaged students stand at even greater risk of losing ground.
Michigan Teachers’ Unions’ Desperate ‘Dark Money’ Fearmongering | National Review
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer speaks at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Mich., September 16, 2021. (Rebecca Cook/Reuters) The unions and their allies are running out of options to preserve the public-school monopoly and deny the state’s families educational choice. NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE H ow do you know you’ve won a policy debate? When your opponents attack your funding sources instead of the merits of your argument.
School Choice Week Returns as Demand for Options Soars
The 12th and latest edition of National School Choice Week (January 23-29) arrives in Michigan at a time when demand for education options has reached an all-time high. Out of appreciation for the benefits many students and families already enjoy, state officials should work to further expand access to needed options. Parents are on the lookout for new schools and approaches to educate their children.
Disadvantaged Students Harmed the Most by Remote Schooling
Banner of Asian woman on sofa and team on laptop screen talking and discussion in video conference and dog interruption.Working from home, Working remotely, Pets interruption and Self-isolation. The recent Bridge Michigan headline was hardly startling: “Michigan students forced online by COVID learned less than those in schools.” But given that the headline appeared during a new wave of closed classrooms in some of the state’s more populated areas, it unleashed a greater sense of urgency.
Disadvantaged Students Harmed the Most by Remote Schooling
The recent Bridge Michigan headline was hardly startling: “Michigan students forced online by COVID learned less than those in schools.” But given that the headline appeared during a new wave of closed classrooms in some of the state’s more populated areas, it unleashed a greater sense of urgency. The new Michigan State University report highlights a series of negative effects on student achievement that should unsettle anyone who cares about educating the upcoming generation.
School Districts Shut Down Classrooms Again
These are the times that try the priorities of Michigan’s public schools. As the calendar turned to 2022, some of Michigan’s largest school districts announced a full return to remote instruction. Many parents are understandably beside themselves, even as many teachers would like to do more to help. What’s worse are school districts like Detroit.
The 12 Days of Mackinac Christmas
When the end of the year is in sight, it’s common for people to look back on the outgoing year to reminisce on the memories made and accomplishments earned. This year, we here at the Mackinac Center thought we would take a look at our top highlights from 2021 in the form of a popular Christmas song ‑ the 12 days of Christmas! A Win for School Choice in Michigan For the first time in decades, school choice is on the move in Michigan.
Massive COVID Funding Cries Out for Creative Uses
There are unprecedented piles of federal cash at Michigan school districts’ disposal. What truly creative ideas will they embrace to help as many students as possible? Michigan public schools are collecting an extra $6 billion in combined COVID relief. Most of the money was doled out in a highly uneven fashion, which heavily favored districts that provided little or no in-person instruction last school year.
Who owns public school students?
An ongoing legal case raises the question: Who owns public school students? Earlier this month, the Michigan Court of Appeals weighed in on a longstanding legal tussle between two metro Detroit school districts. The proceedings date back a decade, when Warren Consolidated School District first sued the School District of the City of Hazel Park. Warren argues that Hazel Park was “wrongfully depriving (it) of students.” kAmpE :DDF6 :D w2K6= !2C<’D x?G6DE 2=E6C?2E:G6 65F42E:@?
Detroit’s Students Bear the Brunt of Democrats’ Attack on Charters
Editor's Note: This article first appeared in The Hill on November 6, 2021. New research shows a key part of Democrats’ education agenda would deeply discriminate against thousands of Detroit students. Back in the summer, the Democratic-majority U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed legislation to continue funding the U.S. Department of Education.
Who Owns Public School Students?
An ongoing legal case raises the question: Who owns public school students? Earlier this month, the Michigan Court of Appeals weighed in on a longstanding legal tussle between two metro Detroit school districts. The proceedings date back a decade, when Warren Consolidated School District first sued the School District of the City of Hazel Park.
Break the Barriers to Staffing Michigan’s Classrooms
If the leaders of Michigan school districts have one wish this holiday season, many might ask for more qualified teacher candidates. To the extent this need is real, there are policy changes the state Legislature can adopt to grant their request. Demand for teachers in Michigan public schools has risen, at least relative to the number of students in classrooms.
Flint’s Schools Are a Mess
Flint Community Schools is on its third superintendent in two years. The previous superintendent abruptly resigned and is suing the district, amid in-fighting on the board. In short, the school system is a mess. The district’s enrollment has fallen for decades and is now in a state of collapse. In 2002, about 21,000 students were enrolled, a number which dropped to about 11,500 in 2010.
Can Yellow Buses Still Do It Alone?
Adapt or falter: That may be the choice facing Michigan’s local K-12 public school systems in the wake of prolonged disruptions brought on by COVID. One area where schools and families need more flexibility is transportation. As is the case in so many activities these days, the task of getting children to and from schools is afflicted by a tight labor market. Bus drivers, whether employed in-house or contracted through a private business, are widely reported to be in short supply.
Virginia election highlights opportunity for Michigan parent power
The recent gubernatorial election in Virginia should capturethe attention of Michigan policymakers. A surprising victory by the Republican candidate was “powered by parents,” according to University of Virginia professor Brad Wilcox and American Enterprise Institute researcher Max Eden. Parents here are hoping for someone to champion their cause. kAm|2?J 724E@CD 8@ :?E@ D92A:?8 G@E6CD’ 564:D:@?D :? 2 DE2E6H:56 4@?E6DE] *6E DFC6=J E96 :?D:DE6?46 @7 s6>@4C2E:4 42?5:52E6 %6CCJ |4pF=:776 E92E A2C6?ED :?
Virginia Election Result Highlights Opportunity for Michigan Parent Power
The recent gubernatorial election in Virginia should capture the attention of Michigan policymakers. A surprising victory by the Republican candidate was “powered by parents,” according to University of Virginia professor Brad Wilcox and American Enterprise Institute researcher Max Eden. Parents here are hoping for someone to champion their cause. Many factors go into shaping voters’ decisions in a statewide contest.
Detroit's students bear the brunt of Democrats' attack on charters
New research shows a key part of Democrats’ education agenda would deeply discriminate against thousands of Detroit students. Back in the summer, the Democratic-majority U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed legislation to continue funding the U.S. Department of Education. As approved, House Resolution 4502 would deny all federal funding to any charter school that “contracts with a for-profit entity to operate, oversee or manage” its activities.
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