LANSING, Mich. — Michigan is putting more money into its public schools than it did before the pandemic, even after inflation, but the results students post on state tests keep heading the other way.
Senate Fiscal Agency figures put combined local, state and federal school funding at $21.28 billion for 2025-26, measured in inflation-adjusted dollars, compared with $19.31 billion for the 2018-19 school year. Federal pandemic relief gave the first boost, and spending has stayed at record levels since.
Not every district feels richer. Where enrollment is shrinking, per-pupil dollars shrink with it. Bay City schools, for example, lost 16% of their students between 2018-19 and 2025-26, and the district’s state aid fell from an inflation-adjusted $71.84 million to $62.7 million over that span while it trimmed full-time staff by 6.4%.
Achievement numbers remain weak statewide. Only about one in four high school juniors scores at the college-ready level on the SAT. In grades three through eight, roughly 44% of students are proficient in reading and about 35% in math, and this year’s third graders posted the lowest reading results in the 12 years the M-STEP has been given.
One bright spot is Detroit. The Detroit Public Schools Community District gained in both reading and math while state averages dropped, lifting third-grade reading proficiency to 14.1% and third-grade math to 20.1%.
Attendance is slowly recovering. Chronic absenteeism, which spiked to record highs after the pandemic, has declined four years in a row and now stands at 27.2% statewide. National comparisons are still unkind: one education advocacy group ranked Michigan 44th among the states in fourth-grade reading last year.
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