Democrats are accusing Governor Snyder of gutting public education, but Governor Snyder says that’s not so. This year’s education budget is a billion dollars more that it was in 2010, the year before he took office.
There is nearly $14 billion in the education budget.
“It’s really a fight over how we want to spend this large sum of money that we are setting aside for schools every year,” said Brian Smith, MLive education reporter.
In the budget, each school district will get a minimum of $50 additional dollars per pupil, while those who have lower funding may receive an extra $175 equity payment.
Critics say this method disproportionately distributes more money to charter and cyber schools.
The budget adds an extra $65 million for the Great Start Readiness Program, making Michigan “no-wait” state for preschool.
The budget also includes a switch back to the MEAP exam instead of the Smarter Balance test.
The issue of how many snow days also came into play in the budget because some schools were not able to make up all the days missed. Smith said the agreement was that as long as the district had scheduled more than 174 days for instruction, they did not have to make up any additional days.
“The number of school days has been increased over the last few years, and parents should be expecting that their kids are going to be going to school longer as time goes on,” Smith said.
*Listen to full interview above.
