Governor Gretchen Whitmer said Monday that improving student literacy will be the top priority of her final year in office.
“Our mission is as big as it is simple: Every child reads,” she said. “Not some, not most. Every child reads.”
Michigan ranks in the bottom half of the U.S. in a number of key education markers, including high school graduation rates and 4th and 8th grade math and reading proficiency scores.
Whitmer told the Michigan Literacy Summit in Detroit that student test scores last year display the need for urgent action.
“Today, we’re 44th in the country in fourth grade reading,” she said. “Just 4 in 10 fourth graders in Michigan read at grade level, and almost one in three Michigan students tests below average, and that’s what I would call a crisis and the vast majority of the people of our state would agree.”
Although Whitmer said literacy would “remain” her top priority, Lou Glazer of the nonpartisan think tank Michigan Future argued the state has veered from its commitment to resources for education in favor of financial incentives to lure businesses. Glazer, who attended the speech, welcomed the message.
“The anchor of education attainment is reading and writing, so making that a priority is terrific and, it really is, and if that’s the No. 1 priority, that really is a huge shift in the right direction for the state,” he said.
Whitmer defended the work her administration has already done, including expanding help for kids with dyslexia, free school meals for all students and the growing availability of universal preschool. She said the problem has been building for a long time and work to reach the lofty goal of 100% student reading proficiency would have to continue even after her administration wraps up a little more than a year from now.
Whitmer outlined some actions to help improve literacy rates during the remainder of her term. That includes narrowing the high number of strategies districts use to build proficiency to phonics and similar methods.
Whitmer said more details will be forthcoming next year when she delivers her final State of the State address and budget proposal.
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