LANSING – Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP) Executive Director Beth DeShone today demanded Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Department of Education equip parents with options – and give them answers – after the release of the state’s M-STEP test results showing worsening scores and continued, dramatic learning loss across the state.
The results, which highlight the performance of students who began their school careers during Whitmer’s anti-science COVID related school closures, show those students remain tragically behind on reading and math – and aren’t catching up.
The federal government provided the state $6 billion in COVID relief funding for students, but students and families aren’t getting the aid they need to read and write.
According to test results released today, Michigan’s 3rd graders continue to fall behind, with only 39.6% proficient in English language arts – down from even last year, and down more than 5 percent from the testing period before Governor Gretchen Whitmer locked kids out of the classroom during the COVID pandemic. Whitmer’s decision to shutter schools came against the unequivocal advice of pediatricians, parents and teachers who warned it would devastate students without mitigating the risk of COVID 19.
Students in Detroit fared much worse, where only 11.7% of 3rd graders were proficient readers. Math proficiency was at only 15.1%, lower than before the pandemic.
“Gretchen Whitmer’s unscientific school closures have devastated our kids,” said DeShone. “We don’t do ourselves any favors by refusing to call a spade a spade, or by allowing Whitmer, the state Board of Education, and other lockdown advocates to duck responsibility for the harm they’ve caused our kids. Ignoring their culpability is the surest way to make sure it happens again, and that’s the last thing struggling readers can afford.”
The Great Lakes Education Project is a bi-partisan, non-profit advocacy organization supporting quality choices in public education for all Michigan students. GLEP strongly supports efforts to improve academic achievement, increase accountability and empower parental choice in our schools.
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