Why Michigan Kids Can’t Read
Lockdowns and the repeal of the third-grade reading requirement have resulted in disaster
Elementary students who don’t know how to read by fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school. They have a significantly higher chance of going to jail, of living in poverty, and of never marrying.
Unfortunately, that’s the future 60% of Michigan’s fourth graders now face, thanks to state leaders who deprived them of classroom learning for nearly a year during the pandemic and then passed a law removing standards that required young students to be able to read proficiently before moving on to the next grade.
The results for this year’s Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress (MSTEP) are the worst in the test’s history. Just 40% of third graders statewide passed the state’s English language arts (ELA) test last spring. The numbers are even worse for minority and low-income students: 86% of black fourth-grade students in the state don’t know how to read, according to a state Senate Education Committee hearing earlier this year.
Michigan state Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet was shocked by this number, asking, “Did I hear you say that 86% of African American students in Michigan in the fourth grade are not proficient in reading? Did you say 86%?”
Flashback to Lansing Democrats like @McdonaldRivet being *SHOCKED* at how bad Michigan's reading scores were…and then voting to water down reading standards. 🤦♀️
Last week, we learned 3 in 5 Michigan third graders aren't able to read proficiently. pic.twitter.com/cGF9q5lPen
— MI Senate Republicans (@MISenate) September 5, 2024
But she shouldn’t have been. It was her party, after all, that made these numbers possible.
The third and fourth graders failing the MSTEP this year were kindergartners and first graders when Gov. Whitmer shut them out of their schools and forced them to “learn” online. These children were deprived of an in-person education at the age when kids need it most. Ages 5-7 are considered by the vast majority of education experts as critical for building reading skills.
Even state Superintendent Michael Rice admitted Whitmer’s school closures were to blame. “This year’s scores… show that, on average, being educated remotely during the 2020-21 school year rather than in-person during the pandemic affected progress. Being in the learning-to-read window—in preschool or early elementary grades—when COVID-19 hit also affected assessment results on average,” he said.
That’s the understatement of the year.
Adding insult to injury, in 2021, Whitmer vetoed $155 million in proposed spending for reading scholarships geared toward low-income students struggling with learning loss—spending that would have been entirely funded by federal COVID-19 aid already assigned to the state.
