Five minutes after 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley began opening fire on his classmates at Oxford High School, a school safety officer rushed to confront him. Crumbley had already shot 11 people, killing four and injuring seven others. But the officer’s quick action saved many more—Crumbley still had 18 rounds of ammunition when the officer disarmed him.
The jobs of safety officers like this hero might now be on the line because of Michigan’s new budget, passed by Democratic state lawmakers and signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, which cuts more than $300 million from safety and mental health funding for schools.
For comparison, the 2024 budget included $328 million for these resources, which allow schools to invest in counselors and security officers (both of which are much more important than the DEI administrators that the state has encouraged public schools to hire), security technology, and mental health programming. One need only reflect on the 2021 Oxford High School shooting to realize how important to students’ safety these resources are.
The 2025 budget passed by Democrats in Lansing this summer allocates just $26.5 million for these efforts.
Even the Michigan Education Association, which donates primarily to state Democrats, was aghast at this betrayal, demanding that state legislators return to work to restore this funding—or else. This isn’t an idle threat. The MEA is a branch of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, which spent more than $1 million to re-elect Whitmer.
Her office defended the cuts, arguing the budget includes “an additional $600 million in funding for districts” that schools can use to “improve school safety, mental health, before- and after-school programs, and more.”
A spokesperson for House Speaker Joe Tate also justified the new budget, arguing the previous school safety funding was only possible because of the additional Covid resources granted to the states by the federal government to boost their recovery efforts. Apparently that money is now gone.
These arguments would be more persuasive if Whitmer & Co. had demonstrated even the slightest bit of fiscal restraint in the past. But alas, these are not limited-government politicians worried about the state’s bottom line. In fact, it turns out Michigan Democrats just wanted to use the school funding for themselves.
The 2025 budget includes so much money for legislators’ random pet projects that D.C. cronies should be green with jealousy. For example, the budget includes $1 million in funding for a “free music festival” in Detroit, gained with the support of state Rep. Jamie Churches. Meanwhile, the public schools in her district just lost $3.7 million in funding for safety and mental health.
Lest her critics accuse her of being self-aware, Churches insisted in a statement, “Prior to serving in government, I spent over a decade as a fifth-grade teacher in the Downriver community. During my teaching tenure, I encountered the challenges of working with limited resources. We’re allocating funds to directly benefit classrooms, increasing per-student funding, and enhancing mental health resources in schools to support students’ well-being.”
Actually, Michigan Democrats did none of those things—the new budget technically amounts to a $280 decrease in funding per student.
And that’s just the start. Michigan Democrats also made sure to give the Global African Business Association $1 million to build a center that will distribute various “African/Caribbean products” to businesses “located within a 350-mile radius of Detroit,” because why not?
Perhaps most insulting is Democrats’ generous hand-outs to organizations that prioritize illegal immigrants. For example, Voces, a self-described “Latinx” nonprofit that helps migrants “navigate the legal landscape” from a “safe space,” received $300,000 to build a kitchen in their community center. State Rep. Jim Haadsma touted this project as one that “puts our residents’ economic health and well-being first.” Meanwhile, schools in his district just lost $2.7 million in safety and mental-health funding.
The National Association of Yemeni Americans, another nonprofit that provides migrants with legal help, likewise received $500,000 from Michigan Democrats.
This miscellaneous spending comes at the expense of Michigan’s students and families who are already struggling in a post-Covid learning environment. Just last week, for example, a report revealed more than 60% of third-graders couldn’t read at grade level. The significant cuts will no doubt make progress even more difficult.
The unions and education organizations might have been shocked to learn that Michigan Democrats don’t actually care about progress, but one group hasn’t found this surprising: parents. This is the same party, after all, that insisted it, not parents, should have the final say over every aspect of education, from funding to curricular requirements.
“The purpose of public education in public schools is not to teach kids only what parents want them to be taught,” the Michigan Democratic Party wrote in 2022. “It is to teach them what society needs them to know. The client of the public school is not the parent, but the entire community, the public.”
Apparently, the public is better served by a free music festival in Detroit than by dedicated school-safety personnel. Who knew?
Kaylee McGhee White is the Restoring America editor for the Washington Examiner, a Tony Blankley fellow for the Steamboat Institute, and a senior fellow for the Independent Women’s Forum. She grew up in Detroit and graduated from Hillsdale College. Follow her on X @KayleeDMcGhee.
