The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is concerned that low-income students in Michigan may not benefit as much from the federal COVID-19 relief funding. | Stock Photo
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is concerned that low-income students in Michigan may not benefit as much from the federal COVID-19 relief funding. | Stock Photo
As federal relief reaches Michigan school districts, some are raising concerns over whether the formulas used will ultimately lead to low-income students being left in the lurch, and funding proposals from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer may only make the situation worse.
Ben DeGrow, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, recently addressed some of the perceived inequities created by formulas that are being used to distribute funding among the state’s schools.
Particularly in the case of charter schools, which serve some of the state’s most disadvantaged communities, DeGrow said that the differences in funding are glaring.
“The Detroit Public Schools Community District compounded its major funding advantage over the city’s charters after the CARES Act by taking in an even larger disbursement in the latest federal relief package,” DeGrow said, according to the Mackinac Center. “When the two packages are combined, DPSCD receives $9,372 for each student, compared with $2,761 for the average Detroit charter school, even though they serve similarly disadvantaged demographics.”
Most of the funding that came as part of the two COVID-19 relief packages are tied to federally designated formulas, which the state can do nothing about, DeGrow said. However, some of the funding is available to distribute at the state’s discretion, but Whitmer’s proposed approach does anything but correct the problems in the federal formula.
“Whitmer’s proposal to disburse them, along with state dollars from extra unanticipated tax revenues, would exacerbate some of the COVID funding gaps,” DeGrow wrote in the Mackinac Center blog. “Districts already favored by federal relief funding are also likelier to benefit more from Whitmer’s proposal. For example, Detroit charters would get $307 per pupil less than the city’s school district, which is bringing in disproportionately large revenues from COVID relief. That disparity is greater than the 2019 veto that aroused pushback from Detroit charter parents.”
Ultimately, if the funding disparities are not addressed, the educational gap already present between economic groups in Michigan will only increase, according to DeGrow.
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