Concerns over school quality and funding dominate Michigan Board of Education election

BY ANNA LIZ NICHOLS, MICHIGAN ADVANCE

MICHIGAN—Two seats are up for grabs in November on the Michigan Board of Education, which provides leadership and supervision over education in the state.

Democrats and Republicans nominated candidates for the statewide panel at their respective conventions in August.

Educational quality remains a large concern for leadership in the state as Michigan ranks near the bottom of the nation as reading scores and overall child well-being have slipped lower and lower in recent years.

Candidates for the Board of Education spoke with the Michigan Advance about what students, educators and parents need from the state and what they plan to do to shift the trajectory of the state’s educational system.

Incumbents Tom McMillin, a former House member, and Nikki Snyder are defending their seats as the only two Republicans on the board, which is currently split 6-2. They’re running against Democratic challengers Theodore Jones and Adam Zemke, who’s also a former state representative.

Theodore Jones, Democrat

The Michigan constitution outlines that it is valuable and necessary to maintain “free public elementary and secondary schools,” but Jones told the Michigan Advance that the Board of Education and the state should be held to a higher standard than that.

“I want to build a coalition, go across the state, and make sure that we’re putting a ballot initiative forward that will amend our constitution to say that our state owes each and every one of our students a high-quality education,” Jones said.

Having worked in the past as a teacher, school social worker and school administrator, Jones said he’s ready to offer an encompassing perspective to the board to work on solutions in education.

Chronic underinvestment poses the largest threat to improving the education students across the state are receiving, Jones said,  so day one e said he wants to be a forceful advocate for increasing education funding to schools as they grapple with helping students recover learning losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic disruptions to education.

Jones said as he was doing research as a student at Michigan State University, he found that students in schools where the buildings themselves were in differing degrees of disrepair, corresponded with how well students were able to learn and focus on social development with their peers.

And whereas some might say the investment should come from local municipalities, Jones said the Legislature should be advised by the board to invest state dollars into schools, so that the economic wellness of a surrounding area doesn’t dictate if a school can have repairs.

“I really do want to make sure that from a student level, the only thing that they need to do when they enter a school building is they need to just concentrate on the academics and concentrate on the social aspects of school, and not have to concentrate on whether the school building is too hot or too cold or broken lockers, or bathrooms in disrepair.”

It costs more money to effectively educate a student who lives in poverty, is an English language learner or who lives in a rural school district, Jones said. But if the state wants to improve education, it needs to get serious and respond to the differing reasons students don’t make it to the high school graduation stage.

And teachers need to be invested in too, Jones said, through teacher preparation programs, and mandating teachers be paid a living wage and given professional development opportunities.

Education is meant to be a key to opportunity, Jones said, one where anyone has the opportunity to work towards the things they want out of life. He recounted the story of his grandfather who grew up during the Great Depression loading and unloading trains in exchange for food, describing the experience later on to Jones as “grueling, backbreaking work.”

“He made the commitment to himself that he would find a profession where he would not have to lift anything heavier than a pencil, so started his lifelong journey to get his education,” Jones said. “He graduated from high school, he worked his way through college to afford an education. He was able to get his master’s degree, and he got his doctorate in education like I did. In one single generation, our family was able to go from poverty to the middle class because of the power of education.”

The United Auto Workers Union, American Federation of Teachers Michigan and the Michigan Education Association have endorsed Jones.

Tom McMillin, Republican

Tom McMillin is seeking reelection for a second term on the board, having previously served as a state legislator representing Oakland County. He’s also been on various local governance boards, served as mayor of Auburn Hills and been president of the board of Prevail Academy, a charter school in Mt. Clemens.

McMillin is a staunch social conservative and has clashed with Democratic members of the board, particularly during the COVID pandemic. He introduced a resolution in 2021 that encouraged schools not to impose mask mandates to stop the spread of the disease, which didn’t pass. 

“This is child abuse, what’s being done to their children,” McMillin said, regarding mask mandates in schools.

McMillin has also criticized the teaching of Critical Race Theory, a college-level concept that examines how racism is embedded in the legal system and other American institutions that isn’t taught in most Michigan K-12 schools.

“It was condescending to suggest that those of us who oppose little white children being told that they’re oppressors in CRT … means that we oppose the Constitution being taught. It’s ridiculous,” said McMillin during a 2022 debate.

And later that year, McMillin put up an unsuccessful resolution to remove Michael Rice as state school superintendent over teacher training videos that talked about how to help LGBTQ+ students without outing them to their parents. That issue became a big issue in the 2022 election for Republicans, including GOP gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon.

A government deceiving parents about important matters involving their child is evil,” McMillin said.

McMillin did not return the Michigan Advance’s request for an interview.

Control of the state’s educational system needs to be returned to parents and local school boards, McMillin says on his campaign website, railing against the centralization of education.

“Tom recognizes that students are ill served by layer upon layer of bureaucracy dictating from above how every school should teach every child, irrespective of children’s diverse talents, interests and needs. Schools should serve the interests of children and parents. A school’s allegiance needs to be to the parents in the community, not to the Feds…and not to the state,” McMillin’s website says. “Additionally, Tom is tired of public schools fighting parents and working against them.  He wants to return control back to parents and the teachers in classrooms.”

McMillin’s campaign website says he is endorsed by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and has the support of several current and former elected leaders such as state Sen. James Runestad (R-White Lake), former Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus, and former Michigan House Speaker Tom Leonard.

Nikki Snyder, Republican

Trying to do the right thing by students, parents and teachers can feel like an uphill battle on the Democratic-dominated Board of Education, Snyder said, but the stakes are too high to back down now.

“I didn’t realize it when I ran that just being able to stand up and speak up is extremely important,” Snyder said. “I think one of the most important things is to just keep showing up, no matter how hard it is. Because if you stop, that’s not going to make things better. I think you keep showing up until you can’t.”

Snyder, who was first elected in 2016, has also launched several unsuccessful bids for Congress. In 2020, she tried to challenge U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly) in the 8th Congressional District, but she failed to collect enough signatures to make the ballot. In 2022, she campaigned with Dixon at a right-wing Moms for Liberty forum.

For this election cycle, Snyder announced she was running for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat, saying at a January 2024 candidate debate in Traverse City that it’s time to send a “pissed-off mom” who’s willing to “fight tooth and painted nail” to the Senate.

She dropped out in March 2024 to seek the open 8th Congressional District seat. However, her petitions were deemed invalid and she didn’t appear on the August GOP primary ballot.

As a former nurse, Snyder said she’s a big believer in accountability, citing the high-profile story of RaDonda Vaught, a former Vanderbilt nurse who was found guilty of negligent homicide in 2022 after making a fatal drug error.

And lack of accountability for schools is a top issue, for Snyder, especially in the case of Oxford High School. Following the 2021 shooting at Oxford High School that killed four students and injured several others at the school there have been rallying cries from members of the school community, including the parents of the children killed, to investigate everything that led up to the killings. In June the board passed a resolution calling for an independent review of the shooting at Oxford, both on the day of the shooting and examining emergency operation plans at the school and in the responding areas.

Snyder had previously put forth multiple school safety proposals to set safety standards for emergency responses at school and remove protections from liability for school employees that fail to meet those standards that were shot down by the Democratic majority. She lamented to the Michigan Advance that it takes the board entirely too long to do entirely too little.

“Four kids have lost their lives, and these parents are begging our system to not protect itself,” Snyder said.

Michigan is likely one of the worst states at providing quality services for students utilizing special education, Snyder said, reflecting on the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ assessment that the state failed to inform families of their rights to educational services during the COVID-19 pandemic, where students using special services saw significant restrictions on access.

“I’ve been very proud of using my voice for special education students. I’m a mom that has experienced that with my own kids, so I know what the process is like for parents, and so I’ve appreciated using that platform for that purpose,” Snyder said.

Snyder worries that if either she or the only other Republican on the board, McMillin, don’t get reelected in November, the hands-off approach Democratic members tend to favor will damage kids’ access to education.

“This is where I very much do value the concept of diversity, and we’ve lost the true definition of it. If we do not have a diversity of thought, if we do not have a diversity of ideology, if we do not have a diversity of values, of identities, what ends up happening is … you end up with a far more corrupt government system,” Snyder said.

It’s easy for Democrats, which in recent years secured an all-out majority on the Board of Education, to point the finger at Michigan’s historically Republican-led Legislature as the reason why education in Michigan is in the state it is. But there are problems with Michigan’s educational system, and the board needs to be honest with itself and work on the path forward.

There should be healthy debate on curriculum and conversations ought to involve parents, Snyder said.

She is endorsed by Citizens for Traditional Values and Right to Life Michigan.

Adam Zemke, Democrat

One of the things that Michigan has struggled with in the past is defining a vision for education that stakeholders can work back from to ensure that every student has opportunities that prepare them to meet that vision, said former state Rep. Adam Zemke (D-Ann Arbor).

Looking at Michigan’s dropping test scores and state rankings for education can be distressing, he said. But without a clear outlined vision for what a better educational system looks like, the board won’t be set up for success to achieve a better system.

“I believe the vision needs to be one that puts us on the map…essentially one that puts our high school graduates at a level that they can effectively compete with students from anywhere in the world and get into the best universities, some of which are in Michigan and some of which are elsewhere, but effectively puts them on the same playing field,” Zemke said. “[Then] we can say as a state that we are honestly making that commitment to them and ensuring those opportunities exist in every school district.”

Reflecting on his time on education-related committees in the Legislature as well as other education-focused groups like the MiSTEM Advisory Council and Launch Michigan where he formally served as the president, Zemke said he’s hoping to spearhead efforts for the board to exercise more of its abilities and obligations mandated under the state constitution.

The Michigan Board of Education has policy-making powers on top of its advisory role to the legislature, Zemke noted, adding that not only should the board have a more active relationship with lawmakers, but that communication should extend to the board then, when appropriate, creating policy that helps implement new legislative action.

“ [The board can’t contradict state or federal law, but they can pass policy to improve the implementation of those laws, they can pass policy independent of the laws and to guide districts,” Zemke said. “The best public policy doesn’t mean much if the implementation goes poorly and so the board has the ability to impact that.”

In every educational coalition Zemke has participated in he said concerns about equity in special education have come up. That’s a top of line priority, and one the board can learn from when looking at the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights’ assessment of Michigan’s handling of special education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I have not found one person who is satisfied with the quality and the impact of special education in Michigan — teachers, administrators, certainly parents, nobody is satisfied,” Zemke said.

Schools need better support and tools to help students and teachers, Zemke said, praising some decisions by the current Democrat-led legislature including utilizing an “opportunity index” in the state budget to determine areas in the state in need of more funding to achieve equitable education outcomes.

Things like greater opportunities for students to dua enroll in college-level classes and other avenues students take to achieve post-high school success need to be encouraged and funded, Zemke said. And educators need to be empowered by the state to have the opportunity to grow their careers and be paid a living wage in an educational system that values them.

“The definition of global competitiveness requires that multiple pathways exist and those pathways be high quality and so I think what my vision would be for Michigan is that every student have the opportunity to experience those things, and it becomes a cultural norm that we’re thinking about them, not tracking kids into one area or another,” Zemke said.

The American Federation of Teachers Michigan, Michigan Education Association and United Auto Workers Union have all endorsed Zemke.

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This coverage was republished from Michigan Advance pursuant to a Creative Commons license.