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Michigan’s struggling economy has clearly exposed the inadequacy of the state’s existing formula for funding schools, leaving school districts with difficult choices regarding programs, personnel, professional development, and options for students. Michigan’s Association for the Supervision and Curriculum Development (Michigan ASCD), an educational leadership organization dedicated to advancing best practices and policies for the success of each learner, fully endorses the work of Michigan SOS (Save our Students, Schools, and State) in replacing the existing funding formula with a more equitable and stable solution. The intent of this paper is to lay out Michigan ASCD’s purpose in supporting SOS.

As members of Michigan ASCD, we are unwilling to accept the fate of declining revenues for schools. There is too much at risk for educators to sit idly by as decisions are made about the future of our children. We know that for every $1.00 invested in quality preschool, we receive $16.00 in return ; that Michigan invests about $7,100 per child in school funding and about $32,000 per year for prisoners ; that a college graduate earns approximately $26,000 more per year than a high school drop-out ; and that the quality of a person’s life increases exponentially according to the level of education achieved.

In each case, the citizens of Michigan have two options: pay now or pay later. By investing now in effective schools, we receive returns later in a more highly educated, competitive citizenry; lower costs for health care and incarceration; reduced welfare and poverty; and increased tax revenue through decreased unemployment. Should we choose the alternative, we will realize opposite and equal returns in the form of increased drop-out and truancy rates; higher costs for healthcare and prisons; and less tax revenue for schools, public programs, and roads.

As educated, American consumers, we understand basic economic principles:

• wants exceed resources necessary to obtain them
• therefore we must make choices
• every choice leads to a cost

Further, as Michiganders with a stake in education, we personally and professionally understand the economic conditions facing Michigan’s schools :

As of June 30, 2009 there are 41 Michigan school districts in deficit, or bankruptcy, which is the largest number in modern history. With the enacted minimum of $165 per pupil reduction for the current year, there will be many more over the financial edge in 2010-11. Economists say that Michigan's economy is likely to continue in negative numbers for 2010-11. That's the bad news for the students, the schools and the state.

With these understandings in mind, we posit that Michigan’s current funding formula for schools is broken and cannot sustain the myriad wants:

• We want school funding to increase commensurate with annual expenditures. We want to continuously improve teaching, learning, and leading. We want to use data to inform instruction. We want to maintain effective programs and a variety of course offerings. We want to individualize and differentiate instruction. We want to provide teachers with the supplies and materials they need to deeply engage their students. We want to provide every child with a high quality education that will prepare him/her to compete on a global scale.
• With decreased resources, we must make tough choices in Michigan’s school districts as to what is most important. Each choice we make with regard to the allocation of reduced funding leads to a consequence of fewer resources, decreased options for students, and dwindling professional development.

In support of these wants, choices, and costs, a group of people across Michigan formed SOS (Save Our Students, Schools, and State) with the following mission:

1. Fix the broken school funding system and replace it with one that’s equitable and stable;
2. Help districts individually and collectively become more efficient and effective ... help transform education; and
3. Assist districts in working with their communities and creating a statewide grassroots network of supporters who can help facilitate change.

Michigan ASCD fully supports the mission of SOS. It makes sense for us, as an affiliate of the national ASCD, to do so. It is Michigan ASCD’s purpose to:

• Build a more engaged and diverse community to improve learning and teaching for each student.
• Advocate policies and practices that positively influence learning, teaching and leadership in education.
• To distribute research-based programs, products, and services that will lead educators to use best practices in learning, teaching, and leadership.

As we, the members of Michigan ASCD, collectively pursue our purposes, contemplate the funding difficulties facing Michigan’s schools, and consider the basic economic principles of want, choice, and cost, a simple conclusion comes to mind: we must keep our focus on the child; the whole child.

In fact, we believe strongly that every child—regardless of where he or she resides in Michigan, the level of education or income of his or her parents, the current per-pupil funding allowance of his or her school district, or any other circumstances beyond the control of the child—possesses certain unalienable rights. Entitled the Children’s Bill of Rights, Michigan ASCD puts forth its beliefs in the rights of every child as follows:

Our Children’s Bill of Rights

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all children are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are the rights to be Healthy, Safe, Supported, Challenged, and Engaged in Living and Learning toward the pursuit of Unlimited Possibilities.

We the people of Michigan ASCD seek to:

• Build a more engaged and diverse community to improve learning and teaching for each student.
• Advocate policies and practices that positively influence learning, teaching and leadership in education.
• To distribute research-based programs, products, and services that will lead educators to use best practices in learning, teaching, and leadership.

Hence, we put forth the following Children’s Bill of Rights:

1. Each child requires access to a nutritious diet and high-quality health care. (H, Sa)
2. Each child requires knowledgeable, informed, and effective parents and neighbors who nurture his/her emotional, social, and cognitive development through rich experiences. (Sa, Su, C)
3. Each child and his/her parents require unlimited access to an integrated, interconnected network of services that in real-time communicates, collaborates, and responds to his/her unique and evolving needs. (H, Sa, Su)
4. Each child requires access to high-quality preschool programming. (Sa, Su, C, E)
5. Each child requires access to excellent teachers who continuously learn with colleagues to effectively and efficiently utilize proven practices, technology, and data to deeply engage him/her in learning. (Su, C, E)
6. Each child requires daily opportunities to explore generative ideas with classmates in pursuit of the capacity to think and learn beyond the classroom. (Su, C, E)
7. Each child requires equal access to technology which he/she uses with classmates to both pursue understanding and to contribute to knowledge networks. (C, E)
8. Each child requires early and ongoing access to career training and college credit. (Su, C, E)
9. Each child requires the capacity to nimbly navigate whatever eventuality the globalization of our planet eventuates. (Su, C, E)
10. Each child’s future depends upon the full and complete development of his/her mind. Nothing less will do. (H, Sa, Su, C, E)

(Healthy, Safe, Supported, Challenged, Engaged; The Whole Child, ASCD, Alexandria, Virginia)

Logically, the funding of schools in Michigan has garnered the focus of all political and educational discussions. The concern of Michigan ASCD, given our advocacy for children, is that we will find ourselves irrevocably caught in the mode of short-term reactions, thus missing the opportunity—or more pointedly the moral imperative—to focus squarely on the essential development of the Whole Child . We know well that developing the whole child means health, safety, support, challenge, and engagement for every child. We also know as middle-class parents that these are not just fleeting hopes but quintessential imperatives. In fact, we simply will not, when it comes to our own children, stand for anything less. We will move mountains, file lawsuits, appeal to school boards, fire Little League coaches, and pull our children from circumstances that do not operate according to these ideals. The very idea of our children experiencing something less is simply impermissible.

So, why isn’t this the case for every parent’s child? In 2010, given all of the resources, technology, wherewithal, research, knowledge, and privilege of Americans, why do values of health, safety, support, challenge, and engagement for every child remain as variables? Why is it that the luck-of-the-draw, happenstance, and inaccessibility remain constant?

Taken together, these circumstances—revenue shortfalls, the return on investment for quality education—constitute a necessary revolution . Is education in Michigan, behind the vision of SOS, ripe for “a collective awakening to new possibilities that changes everything over time—how people see the world, what they value, how society defines progress and organizes itself, and how institutions operate?” If so, those of us who leap forward to lead this revolution will want to collectively consider these questions: How will history remember our response to this set of circumstances? What opportunities will emerge? How will we right these wrongs?

Collectively, we know what to do, we clearly and dramatically understand things as they are, we possess the means and knowledge to make a difference, and we are willing to take risks (or rather unwilling to stand for the status quo) to fundamentally and forever change these sets of circumstances. Michigan ASCD stands ready to assist SOS in moving Michigan forward. We advocate paying now rather than later. Nothing less will do.

i James Heckman, University of Chicago, http://experts.uchicago.edu/experts.php?id=60
ii http://staff.lib.msu.edu/harris23/crimjust/stats.htm#cost
iii http://www.house.gov/jec/educ.htm
iv http://cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com/2005/09/educated-vs-non-educated-society-and.html
v Basic Economics, http://www.basiceconomics.info/
vi Save our Students, Schools, and State, http://www.sosmichigan.org/
vii Save our Students, Schools, and State, http://www.sosmichigan.org/
viii Michigan ASCD, http://michiganascd.org/AboutMichiganASCD/AboutUs/tabid/175/Default.aspx
ix ASCD, http://www.wholechildeducation.org/
x Senge, P., Smith, B., Druschwitz, N., Laur, J., & Schley, S. (2008). The necessary revolution: How individuals and organizations are working together to create a sustainable world. New York, DoubleDay.
xi ibid, p. 5.