In a week marked by a good bit of attention on Saline Area Schools, Representative Donna Lasinski talks Michigan priorities

Yesterday, Saline Journal started a new series on collaboration between our local Michigan District Court and middle school in teaching civics. Last week, we caught glimpses of the high school Drama Club rehearsing “Shrek the Musical” while ourselves tracking Saline Singularity progress toward competition. [1-4]

The annual Foundation for Saline Area Schools SnowBlast fundraiser tomorrow night at Travis Pointe Country Club has been sold out for quite some time now. [5,6]

Education is a top priority for our own Michigan House Member Donna Lasinski, representing District 52 here. During a one-on-one conversation with her after the January 11 coffee hour hosted by Mayor Brian Marl three weeks ago, support for local schools stood out among topics of concern. [7,8]

Today, Representative Lasinski provided a written statement to Saline Journal in followup to that, included here in its entirety.

Regardless of political party or personal ideology, we can all agree on one important fact: Our children are our future. They are the thinkers, entrepreneurs, builders and leaders of tomorrow, so Michigan’s success hinges on the opportunities provided to them in the classroom today.

Yet for the past decade, our children have taken a backseat to the demands of powerful special interests to the detriment of us all.

Last month, a study from Michigan State University highlighted a troubling epidemic that anyone who has worked in a public school has known for years: Michigan is facing an education crisis. [9]

Between 2002 and 2015, after adjusting for inflation, spending on K-12 public schools fell a staggering 30 percent, with per-pupil funding dropping 22 percent. Meanwhile, for at-risk students that face the greatest odds and need additional support to succeed, funding fell 60 percent since 2001.

While they are certainly shocking, for many of us these statistics tell us nothing new.

Before I came to the Legislature, I spent my life dedicated to educational advocacy. As the Treasurer for the Ann Arbor School Board and the leader of the Education Millage Team, I witnessed in real-time the decline in school funding from the state. I know how difficult it can be to stretch what few dollars you are given to help the thousands of students counting on you to succeed. And despite how challenging it could be at times for us in Ann Arbor, I recognize we were relatively privileged when it came to how many dollars our schools received compared to our neighbors throughout the state. [10]

Strong communities are built by strong schools. But when Michigan’s leaders fail to prioritize the needs of our public schools, where does that leave us as a state? Between 2003 and 2015, Michigan ranked dead last in the country for improvement in fourth-grade math and reading proficiency. This is unacceptable. [11,12]

I ran for office for a lot of reasons. But chief among them was the need for a renewed commitment to the success of our public schools — and by extension, our state’s workforce — by Michigan’s leaders. We cannot continue doing what we have done and expect different results; that is the definition of insanity. [13]

We need bold and robust solutions to turn Michigan around. Once upon a time the country looked to us as a leader in education policy and sought to mirror our success. Today, we find ourselves having lost sight of the ultimate goal of our education system: Preparing our young people for success in a 21st Century economy and driving our state forward. [14,15]

During my first term in the Legislature, I introduced and supported legislation that would make the kind of changes necessary to improve Michigan’s dismal education outcomes, like increased per-pupil funding, smaller classroom sizes and equipping classrooms with the latest technology. I am committed to continuing this work in my second term and look forward to the partnership we will have with Governor Gretchen Whitmer leading Michigan to a brighter future. [16,17]

Michigan’s students are counting on us to do better by them, and the nation’s eyes are on us. We cannot let them down.

References

1. “SMS students prosecute, defend, and judge criminal case in mock trials held in District 14A-4 Courthouse, Part 1” Dell Deaton (January 31, 2019) Saline Journal.
2. “Saline High School” Saline Area Schools.
3. “The Saline drama club will be putting on Shreck the Musical this winter!” Saline Drama Club (September 11, 2018) Twitter.
4. “Saline Singularity robotics team met today, and week 3 focused on its ‘business’ as much as anything else” Dell Deaton (January 26, 2019) Saline Journal.
5. Foundation for Saline Area Schools (home page).
6. “SnowBlast 2019” Foundation for Saline Area Schools.
7. “Donna Lasinski: District 52” Michigan House Democrats.
8. “Michigan House Representative Donna Lasinski set another high bar in constituent accountability with Saline Q&A today” Dell Deaton (January 11, 2019) Saline Journal.
9. “Michigan Schools Face Nation’s Worst Decline in State Education Funding” David Arsen and Nicole Geary (January 23, 2019) MSU Today.
10. “Board of Education” Ann Arbor Public Schools.
11. Pennsylvania’s Best Investment: The Social and Economic Benefits of Public Education Dana Mitra PhD (2011) Pennsylvania State University.
12. “It Wasn’t the Internet That Drove Plans for a New Hardware Store in Saline” Dell Deaton (May 9, 2018) Saline Journal.
13. “Education a top issue in Michigan House race featuring 2 school board treasurers” Ryan Stanton (October 12, 2016) mLive.
14. “Report: Fourteen economic facts on education and economic opportunity” Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, David Boddy, Megan Mumford, and Greg Nantz (March 24, 2016) Brookings Institution.
15. “The Impact of Local Public Education on Economic Development” Curtis Cobert (2013) Virginia Commonwealth University.
16. Legislation sponsored by Donna Lasinski during 2017-2018 Legislative Session, Michigan Legislature.
17. “Budget” Michigan Association of Superintendents & Administrators.