An open letter to Congressman John James, from a longtime Republican strategist:
There is a long to-do list of things that need fixing in Michigan – jobs, paychecks, roads, public safety. As they say in the military, it is a target-rich environment. So many areas need improvement, it can be hard to focus on where to start. As you campaign for governor, allow me to offer some friendly advice: Focus on our young people.
It's the right thing to do, and it's the smart thing to do ‒ if you want to convince Michiganders that you should be our state's next governor.
Let’s begin with the youngest, those boys and girls who are just starting out. First things first – get them to show up for school. This sounds simple, but the numbers are shocking – more
than 25%, one in four K-12 school children, are chronically absent statewide. In the city of Detroit, the number of K-12 schoolchildren chronically absent is an astronomical 60% (by the way, that is down from 76.7% in the 2021-22 school year, according to Chalkbeat Detroit).
This is an all-hands-on-deck problem, and it needs to be Priority One for the incoming governor. If kids don’t even show up to school, what hope do they have for their futures?
We're failing our future
Once kids are in school, Michigan needs to do a much better job of teaching our youngest reading and arithmetic. Third-grade reading competence has reached a 12-year low; less than 40% of third graders are proficient. If you cannot learn to read, then you can’t read to learn.
Amazingly, as bad as reading scores are, Detroit students score better there than in math. Barely 20% of third-grade students in Michigan’s largest city scored proficient in mathematics. That means four out of five students are already behind in math by the third grade.
I know education is viewed as a local priority, but this should be a clarion call for state action to help local school districts figure out ways to improve. Local control can’t be an excuse for local student failure. We are all in this together, and if our kids are failing in school, then Michigan is failing its future.
The path to the governor's office runs through our schools
Michigan’s colleges and universities are some of the crown jewels of our state. The University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Michigan Tech are some of the best institutions of higher learning in the country. But sadly, the state of Michigan has shortsightedly reduced investments, putting more burden on parents and students and making college much more unaffordable.
In 1989, Michigan’s universities received more than 60% of their funding from public support, mostly state government. Today, that number has dwindled to just over 20%. As governor, you need to lead the charge and reinvest in public higher education.
And then there is one final task you need to tackle – ensuring good jobs for all those young women and men once they graduate from Michigan colleges and universities. Again, the numbers tell a shocking story. Between 30% and 40% of college graduates leave the state of Michigan after graduating. And among Michigan’s flagship schools, such as the University of Michigan and Michigan Tech, the numbers are even higher – less than half of recent graduates from Ann Arbor and Houghton remain in the state.
This brain drain of our best and brightest is crippling Michigan’s future. Our next governor must make it a priority to keep our students here at home – and start attracting students from other states to work and start families here in Michigan. Job creation, talent recruitment and economic development need to be action items on Day One of your administration.
The kids are the keys to the governor’s office. If you can put forward a plan to help Michigan’s young people, then the votes of parents and grandparents will follow. Put the kids first, John, and that’s where you’ll finish on Election Day.
Contributing columnist Rusty Hills is a past chair of the Michigan Republican Party, and is a lecturer at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters, and we may publish it online and in print.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: If John James wants to be Michigan's governor, kids are the test | Opinion
