Education

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos says she hopes Michigan will allow public money to be spent on tuition for private schools in the “foreseeable future.”

DeVos and her family have supported school voucher programs in the state for years. But voters rejected the idea in 2000.

DeVos raised the issue Monday while speaking at the Education Writers Association conference in Baltimore.

The Michigan Board of Education is expected to pick a new state schools superintendent Tuesday.

The first class of Michigan State University students trained to help combat veterans will graduate this week. It’s called the Combat Veterans Certificate Program.

There are no textbooks or lectures. Instead, seven veterans instruct social work graduate students through videos.

A new study finds Michigan is doing well in educating very young children. 

But the report’s authors are concerned about the future.

The State Board of Education will vote Tuesday on a new set of social studies standards, after months of contention. 

In spring 2018, Republican State Sen. Patrick Colbeck and other conservative lawmakers stripped the proposed standards of references to climate change, Roe v. Wade, and LGBT rights, and reduced the number of references to the KKK and the NAACP. 

A Southgate school has made changes after the American Civil Liberties Union-Michigan warned it may be breaking the law in its student application process.

The ACLU sent a letter to the Creative Montessori Academy this week demanding that it revise its online enrollment process. The civil rights group says the school was potentially violating the constitutional rights of undocumented school-age children.

Stories about the Larry Nassar scandal have been published in a magazine for Michigan State University alumni, months after campus officials spiked the content.

Wayne State University will offer free tuition to its employees’ children. The program is called "Born to Be a Warrior".

It's a pilot scholarship program for freshmen and transfer students who do not have a bachelor’s degree.

Michigan's eighth graders will face a change in mandatory state tests starting this April. They will  take the College Board's PSAT 8/9 in math and English Language Arts.

The new test will replace the M-STEP test previously required of eighth graders for these subjects.

Tuesday, state lawmakers plan to consider legislation to help school districts that have to make up snow days.

Severe weather and bitter cold forced many Michigan schools to exceed the number of allowable snow days this year. 

Samiya Buxton, a fourteen-year old freshman at Innovation Central High School in Grand Rapids, admits she doesn't always like going to school. 

But in 7th grade at Gerald R. Ford Academic Center., Buxton caught the attention of a teacher named Ms. Kelly Sleighter.

“She saw how good I was with the children and that she could trust me,” Buxton says. As Buxton began to regularly help in Ms. Sleighter's classroom, Buxton decided that education was a good career path.

Michigan's state demographer is projecting a large drop in the number of school-aged children in the state.

Eric Guthrie says the number of 5 to 17 year olds in Michigan could fall by more than 100,000 children over the next five years.

More Michiganders are getting post-high school degrees and professional certificates.     

But it’s still not enough.

U.S. District Judge George Steeh has ordered Eastern Michigan University to reinstate its women's varsity softball and tennis teams by fall of 2019.

In his February 12th ruling, Steeh ordered EMU to allocate funds for recruitment, scholarships, and support staff equivalent to what it had budgeted for the two teams before they were eliminated.

School closures across Michigan are on the rise because of the extreme winter weather of the last few weeks. Lots of people are worrying about the possibility of make-up days at the end of the year.

State Representative Ben Frederick (R-Owosso) is one of the lawmakers proposing plans to help school districts that exceed the annual nine day limit on  snow days.

"The legislation I'm introducing this week would exempt snow days which occur during a state of emergency from the allowance that's given to schools every year," said Frederick.

There’s a bill in the Michigan legislature which could lead to teachers getting special mental health training.

State Sen. Sylvia Santana’s bill directs the Departments of Education & Health and Human Services to develop a professional development course for teachers on “mental health first aid.”

The Michigan Board of Education is launching the search for a new state School Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The board has hired the executive search firm Ray & Associates to conduct the search.

The job of Michigan’s top educator has been in limbo since the death last Spring of former state school superintendent Brian Whiston. 

The ACLU of Michigan claims Paw Paw Public Schools is maintaining a hostile environment that is hurting minority students. The group has filed a discrimination complaint against the district with the U.S. Department of Education.

Grand Valley State University has named its next president. Philomena Mantella will be the fifth president to serve the university in its nearly 60-year history. And she’ll be the first woman in that role.

Mantella comes to GVSU from Northeastern University in Boston, where she’s the senior vice president and chief executive officer of the Lifelong Learning Network.