This past summer, Michigan adopted a $24 billion budget to fund public schools. The state is trying diligently to reverse the setback to learning after disruptions in education as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The budget reflects a 5 percent per pupil increase in average pupil funding from $9,608 to $9,150.
The additional education funding will stand up the state’s initiative for universal pre-K, support programs to continue funding free breakfast and lunch programs, payments for educators in student loan assistance while helping to ease teacher shortages, and a $205 million increase in spending on programs for at-risk students.
Despite the state’s increase in education spending, Michigan still lags behind nationally in the areas of math and reading. In 2022, the average reading score of fourth-grade students in Michigan was 212 out of a possible 300, ranking in the bottom 20th percentile nationally. This number was lower than the average score of 216 for students across the nation, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Often referred to as the nation’s report card, the same results found the average Michigan fourth-grade student in 2022 scored 232 out of a possible 300 in math, not too much different than the 235 average across the nation. However, Michigan’s math score was lower in 2022 than its pre-pandemic score of 236 in 2019.
While those numbers give most Michigan educators a notion to invest more in math and reading curriculum statewide, others point to deficiencies across the entire education spectrum as reasons why Michigan’s education gap continues to widen. Particularly in Detroit, which has a majority-Black population, Black studies is not a top educational priority as educators grapple with mass absenteeism and the goal to get students proficient in the mandatory math and reading curriculum.
One educator, in particular, says that if the statewide education system were to adopt more Black studies into its educational values, its merits could pay dividends across so many other areas.
“African American History is American History,” says Sherry Gay-Dagnogo, school board member, DPSCD, and former state legislator. “As a former Bill sponsor for African American History, I’m proud of the work that Cass Technical High School has done with an Advance Place Placement of African American Studies and I’m looking forward to a district wide commitment for African American History integrated in classes k-12 across the curriculum.”
As a Michigan State Representative, Gay-Dagnogo introduced several bills, including the sponsorship of a bill that would create a commission charged with the duty of developing grade-appropriate instruction on African-American history.
“Certainly, Michigan can be a leader nationally in making sure we align our curriculum with a population of people of color that we have here.”
The bill called for the study of African American history during the Reconstruction and Civil Rights eras. Gay-Dagnogo still believes it’s important to expand what is taught in today’s classrooms. During her time as a state legislator, she also introduced a resolution commemorating 400 years of African-American heritage.
“Enslaved Africans laid the literal cornerstones of foundational American institutions, but in the centuries since, their contributions continue to be minimalized in our larger conversations about American history,” said Gay-Dagnogo.
“As a nation we need to reflect honestly on our history the triumphs and the atrocities, if we’re truly going to strive to be a more equitable country.”
Now, with a Democrat-controlled government, Gay-Dagnogo is pressing and hoping current legislators will present bills that update the state’s social studies curriculum and ensure African-American history is fully integrated into all public schools.
“The polarization of systemic barriers of race can be overcome by the knowledge and challenges of African American History,” she says.
“The contributions of African Americans in this country have been great, and it is fitting to make those contributions known statewide. I’m thankful to Rep. Helena Scott for taking up components of my previous legislation to ensure that the appropriate benchmarks are evidenced in curriculum statewide.”
These efforts run contrary to some efforts nationally to erase or suspend some aspects of Black history and Black studies in public school sectors across the country.
“Parents don’t want politicians dictating what their children can learn, think, and believe,” said Miguel Cardona, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, according to his opinion column in the Tampa Bay Times. “That’s not how public education is supposed to work in a free country.”
The education secretary’s stance is an outward rebuke to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and other Republican politicians seeking to ban certain books and studies.
DeSantis’ administration has banned Florida’s public schools from teaching advanced placement of African-American studies. A pilot college course the state’s Department of Education says “significantly lacks educational value” and would consider a revised curriculum with “lawful, historically accurate content.” DeSantis has said Black history is required but has publicly called out the course in what he believes was designed to advance a political agenda to “indoctrinate.”
The move to cancel the advanced Black studies course comes after the Governor’s Stop Woke Act, a bill he signed into law in 2022 to fight off diversity and inclusion efforts in schools and businesses.
In a previous interview with the Michigan Chronicle, Cardona hit back at this effort he believes is designed to remove Black history.
“I’m tired of these attacks on DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). I’m tired of politicians who are trying to score points and infusing themselves in our schools,” Secretary Cardona remarked.
He believes a local school board and educators should set the curriculum in schools, while parents should have access and a say in their child’s education as well. The education secretary says what’s happening across the nation is censorship in schools and government overreach.
“It’s not just one state that is doing this,” Cardona said. “My concern is around targeting Black history or books that highlight the Black experience in our country. My concern with that is that it’s very specific, it’s very targeted.”
And while Black history is being targeted, there are heroes ensuring that our place in this country and contributions to it remain alive.
“I think there is always room for improving what public schools and institutions offer in terms of history,” said Ken Coleman, journalist and Detroit historian. “There some school districts that are seeking to better provide civics that offer more inclusion than those school districts did when I was a k-12 student.”
Coleman believes there has to be an intentional effort at the local school district level to ensure that there is sufficient inclusion of the histories of the bodies of people who have been neglected. He presses that it’s incumbent upon voters to elect the right members of a school board who will make policy at the local level.
Despite what some may feel on whether the right kind of Black history is being taught or some who feel not enough of it is a part of the instruction, Coleman has been chronicling Black life and culture in Detroit for decades and delivers that authentic Black history both in and outside the classroom.
“I do tours in front of many groups, and it can be very instructional, very intentional, very important for school-aged children, and adults as well. I did a tour recently with a group that happened to be white and from Colorado. It’s important for them to see Black history. The idea is they will go back and share conversations with their family and friends on our place in this country.”
“It’s another way of what’s important to me and that’s the sharing of the African American experience.”
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