As your next governor, I will work to make our educational system world class. As an entrepreneur, I know that businesses invest in communities where people have the education and skills they need to be successful. As a husband and parent, I believe that communities thrive when the local public schools are strong. And as a Michigander, I won’t rest until every child has equal access to a quality public education as guaranteed by our state’s constitution.

Our educational system has shown a steady decline in recent years because Lansing politicians have cut funding. Meanwhile, charter schools have seen a dramatic expansion, siphoning funds from public schools without improving education quality. I understand how important it will be to make public education funding a priority again.

On K-12 education, I believe we must:

• Boost Michigan’s investment in k-12 education, especially for districts with higher percentages of at-risk students, allocating resources by the way students learn, not just by where they live.
• Cut state administered M-STEP testing, switching to a three times per 4-year NWEA administered assessment system that measures growth, not achievement.
• Pay educators as professionals while treating them with respect by: 
  1. Streamlining professional development and licensing requirements;
  2. Ensuring teachers do not pay for classroom supplies out of their own pockets;
  3. Creating a statewide marketing effort – similar to Pure Michigan – to attract, recruit, and retain educators statewide, with a specific emphasis on urban and rural areas and incentivizing entrance into the profession with ideas including college loan forgiveness and credits for volunteerism;
  4. Establishing a real-time study on teacher wages to ensure educators are paid accordingly and in line with similar states.
• Implement universal Pre-K programming statewide through the state’s ISDs.
• Protect and preserve the state’s teacher pension system to ensure it is stable for retired and retiring educators while addressing legacy costs.
• Ban for-profit charter school operators statewide. While choice will still be an option, charter schools will play by the same rules as traditional public schools.
• Establish year-round school options statewide, eliminating long gaps in the school year where no instruction occurs. In Michigan, students spend a required 180 days in the classroom, while in places like Japan and Europe, that number is closer to 250. By increasing the number of days students are in the classroom, curriculums grow more in-depth and students perform better on standardized tests and more importantly are prepared for the next step in their educational journey, whether it be college or vocational programming.
• Bring trade and career technical education in middle school and high school so that not everyone has to go to four year college.
• Invest $500 million of new revenue into career and technical education and job training programs – community colleges and intermediate schools districts would serve as conduits for these resources.

On higher education, I will fight for:

• Accelerated debt forgiveness if after graduation, they stay and work in Michigan, at a level equal to their state tax bill.
• Super accelerated debt forgiveness if they start a business in Michigan and create jobs.
• Free 4-year college for families below the $120,000 annual income threshold by working with colleges and universities on fiscal challenges.