Imagine a child standing in the cafeteria line with nothing on their tray because they couldn’t afford lunch. Not because their family didn’t care—but because the system decided their hunger wasn’t worth funding. Michigan lawmakers are once again inching toward a version of that reality with a new education spending plan that puts increased per-pupil funding ahead of targeted support services, including free school meals.
On Wednesday, the Michigan House advanced a $21.9 billion K-12 budget plan that includes a $2,400 increase in per-student funding. But that increase comes with a cost. The plan cuts direct spending for programs like free school lunches, mental health support, and career and technical education. House Appropriations Chair Ann Bollin (R-Brighton) defended the shift as one that gives school districts more control.
“We’ve had a lot of dictates from Lansing, right? What to do, how to do it, when to do it, and this allows up money to go back to the school districts where the locals can decide,” Bollin said.
But decision-making without direction is not the same as empowerment. It’s deregulation dressed up as freedom. And in communities already navigating systemic gaps—where free lunch might be the only consistent meal a child gets—that cutback is felt immediately and viscerally.
For decades, Michigan has used targeted state and federal funds to ensure children could eat at school without stigma or financial strain. In Detroit, a majority-Black city where nearly 80% of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, the importance of school lunch programs stretches beyond the cafeteria. It speaks to survival. It speaks to justice. The National School Lunch Program has been active in Michigan since 1947, but it wasn’t until the Community Eligibility Provision under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 that many schools—especially urban districts like Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD)—began offering free breakfast and lunch to all students, regardless of income. That meant a shift from means testing to universal access, removing shame and bureaucracy from feeding children.
To scale that back now, under the pretense of local control, is not only regressive—it’s dangerous.
Representative Alabas Farhat (D-Dearborn), the Democratic vice chair of the House Appropriations Committee, made that clear. “If I get you x money for breakfast and lunch to make sure kids are fed, I expect y number of students to be fed,” he said. His words were not about micromanagement. They were about accountability—because when funding is specific, outcomes are measurable. When it’s vague, needs fall through the cracks.
The Republican-backed plan also freezes funding for at-risk students, reduces support for transportation services, and threatens early childhood initiatives like the Great Start Readiness Program. And while it increases some special education funding, the broader message remains: systemic supports that serve vulnerable children are negotiable.
Representative Tim Kelly (R-Saginaw Twp), who chairs the budget subcommittee that shaped this proposal, referred to the bill as “our opening bid,” acknowledging that the legislation is expected to evolve. “Whatever passes off the floor in the House today, ain’t going to be what we vote on in the final budget,” Kelly said.
But opening bids have values baked into them. And this one chooses to defund food programs before revisiting the state’s $20 billion in corporate tax expenditures. It sets a tone.
Even more telling is the bill’s move to penalize districts that engage in inclusion efforts. Under the current draft, school districts using state funds for diversity, equity, and inclusion programming—or for graduation ceremonies that honor students of color or marginalized identities—could face a 20% cut in their funding. Kelly pointed to culturally specific graduation ceremonies as examples of what lawmakers want to avoid, though he couldn’t provide clear parameters for what constitutes “race or gender stereotyping.”
It’s no secret that this proposal undercuts the dignity of Black and Brown students while framing their recognition as divisive.
“These are boogeymen put in to distract from the fact that their budget ends school lunch programs, their budget ends transportation,” Farhat said. And for many families across Michigan, especially in Detroit, these “distractions” mask the core issue: will their children be fed, seen, and supported at school?
Michigan Senate Appropriations Chair Senator Sarah Anthony criticized the House budget, saying, “The House budget doesn’t close opportunity gaps; it widens them. It cuts key investments Michigan families rely on while attempting to use short-term fixes that put the long-term stability of our state’s budget and the wellbeing of our residents at risk.”
The proposed changes come as the state grapples with a larger education overhaul. Separate budget talks are underway that could gut higher education funding for two of Michigan’s largest universities. The University of Michigan could lose around 65% of its state funding. Michigan State University could lose around 19%, according to the nonpartisan House Fiscal Agency. The proposal would instead divert funding to increase in-state scholarships, a shift Republicans claim would benefit smaller public universities and expand access.
“We have done is place them in a position to compete for our Michigan students,” Bollin said. She framed the change not as a cut, but as a redistribution—a move to make big universities work harder to retain local students. But even that assumes all schools are starting from the same place, with equal resources and outreach. That has never been true—especially not for historically marginalized communities.
Bollin further argued that schools like U-M and MSU have large endowments and alternative funding sources that should cushion the impact. But public investment has never been about what institutions can do without. It’s about what they’re expected to guarantee with public support: affordability, accessibility, and equity.
Meanwhile, the Michigan Department of Education faces its own version of trimming, as another proposal aims to cut costs by eliminating some vacant positions entirely. These roles, though unfilled, often reflect needed capacity to implement state-level education policies, monitor school performance, and support districts in meeting requirements.
So what does all of this mean for the families sitting around the dinner table—or not?
For parents struggling to cover housing and utilities, school lunches aren’t an extra. They are a necessity. Cutting them means that parents must either take on another financial burden or send their children to school without food. And for many Black families in Detroit, where poverty rates are nearly three times the state average, this is not theory. It’s Tuesday morning.
This proposal isn’t about flexibility. It’s about what—and who—gets deprioritized. It says that inclusion, nourishment, and early education are line items, not rights.
Michigan’s public schools didn’t just stumble into inequality. They’ve been systematically underfunded, reshaped by decades of policies that abandoned Detroit and similar districts under the banner of “efficiency.” Now, even when the state has the opportunity to restore and expand, some lawmakers are choosing to restrict.
To pretend that “local control” will fill the void left by this budget is to ignore the reality that not every district has the same capacity, funding infrastructure, or political will to reimplement these programs. Some will. Many won’t. And children—our children—will pay for it.
The House Republicans say they will revisit this budget, pending changes. But as negotiations continue, the values embedded in this version must not be ignored. Because every budget is a blueprint. And this one is building barriers instead of bridges.
So as this debate plays out in Lansing, the question is simple: who are we choosing to feed? Who are we willing to leave hungry?
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